A Christmas Nightmare

Last night, I had a nightmare. Not one of those vague anxiety dreams about too many papers to write and an endless drive-thru at McDonalds, where I work. No, last night was truly horrible: I am-- in the dream-- pregnant. I am a Truman student as I am in real life, with no husband, without even a boyfriend. I am panicking as I have never panicked before; how could this possibly be happening to me? My friends' reactions range from disappointment to embarrassment to anger. My body aches and my belly feels as though it will burst. I tell my professors I am dropping out of college to raise my baby, and they look back with shock and sorrow. I quit my church out of shame, unable to look anybody in the eye, my dreams of ordained ministry shot. I am on the floor in front of my father, groaning, "Daddy, Daddy, can you believe that I'm a virgin?" My father laughs mirthlessly, shakes his head silently, seemingly unable to speak. I run throughout Truman's campus in desperation, begging God to take this baby away from me...
And then I woke up. For one horrifying moment I felt my stomach, full of Christmas sugar cookies my mother had baked, and thought it was true. Reality set in and I knew I had a lot of plates to spin, but a pregnancy was not one of them. But the dread, the physical terror, remained vivid. I love babies. But being pregnant now, at twenty one, would be devastating. Psychologically, relationally, educationally, physically, vocationally... I would be devastated. 
(I don't mean to offend people who became parents young. I know things happen, and I applaud anyone who can shoulder that sort of responsibility at such a young age. I am simply saying for me, and for many of my fellow Truman students, a pregnancy now would be terrible.)
As I lay in that twilight between sleep and wakefulness, it hit me: Two thousand years ago, give or take, for a teenager named Mary, my nightmare was reality. 
What did Mary's friends say? What about the people at synagogue? The neighbors? How did she tell her grandparents, her parents? How did she tell Joseph? One day, she was daydreaming about their wedding, plotting their new life together. Then, she had to bear a dangerous secret and the scorn of everyone she knew and loved.
But Mary had a choice. God always gives people choices. She could have told Gabriel to go fly away. She could have asked God to pick some well-off, married lady instead who could better provide for this little bundle of joy, whose life would not be marred by scandal. 
Instead, Mary said, "Here am I, the maidservant of the Lord."
Being the Lord's servant can lead to a lot of heartache. Mary could have been stoned, as she surely knew when the angel approached her. She nearly lost Joseph. Christmas tell us plainly that sometimes God asks us to risk everything.
We so often sentimentalize Christmas, whitewash a rather harrowing story. God used my nightmare to make me think about the shame and fear and desperation Mary must have gone through. But Christmas doesn't stop there, of course. 
Christmas promises that God asks ordinary people to do extraordinary things for his kingdom, even though it might involve extraordinary danger. 
Christmas promises that God wants to partner with people to accomplish God's tasks.
Christmas promises that God rewards radical faith like Mary's.
I don't want to have a baby like Mary did now. Or ever, really-- the giving birth video in sixth grade health class achieved its goal of scarring me for life, thank you very much. But I pray for the faith like Mary's to keep saying, Here am I, Lord, even when the going gets tough. 
(And P.S., in case anybody reading this takes my dream seriously-- I am in absolutely no danger of getting pregnant now or in the foreseeable future!)