Heaven’s Most Wanted Woman

Who, from God’s point of view, is the biblical model for women today?

Who is heaven’s most wanted woman? Many women have been commissioned by God through the ages. A wanted woman can be a mother or wife. Or a single female. A wanted woman can become a simple servant or the founder of a great movement. God gives women great tasks to do. He commissioned Mary to mother His Son. He invaded her body and life in a shocking, unparalleled way.

Such a pity, Mary,

you lived 2,000 years too soon.

Barefoot, hearth-chained,

and (how dare I say it?)

renowned by association to your men.

But who would God choose to use today to mother His son?

Mary, heaven’s most wanted woman, is a surprise candidate, perhaps even a strange choice. But through that decision we catch a glimpse into God’s heart.

How does a woman today find favor with God? How do we know we’re pleasing to Him? By looking at a wanted woman like Mary. Blessed, favored, and well-pleasing to God. A woman entrusted with the most sacred duty ever appointed to any human: to bear God’s being in her womb. To nurture His humanity from baby to child to adult.

Mary is heaven’s most wanted woman. But she’s also very human, a woman we can relate to. Children and a husband bring complexity into life. Mary raised a child who other people found hard to understand and she sometimes found difficult to comprehend. Mary struggled like every woman struggles.

Dealing With Jesus

When Jesus is twelve, Mary gets upset. Jesus disappeared. “Why have you done this to us?” she asks when he is found. A perfectly behaved child suddenly shows independence, a mind of His own.

At the wedding at Cana, Mary assumes she knows what Jesus needs to do. The wine’s gone early. She’s aware he has certain powers. She’s ambitious for her son and receives a mild rebuke. “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.”

She calls him away from the crowds as rumors spread. She’s alarmed. Things are out of control. She wants him to regain perspective and bring him home. Things aren’t going like she expected. Unfulfilled promise in a child is often painful for a mother. But he refuses to come with her. In fact, he puts her in her place: “Who is my mother and who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Truth and prophecy meanings blurred after she left the light of the angel Gabriel. She didn’t always understand. But she had four main qualities that made her heaven’s most wanted woman.

The Divine Yes

What did God see in Mary? He saw quick faith. Mary was a woman of the divine Yes. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary replied to the angel Gabriel, “May it be to me as you have said.” (Luke 1:38)

Astounding words of truth. Death to personal plans. Awkward circumstances. Incredible story to fulfill with many risks, much unpleasantness, rejection and social stigma. This virgin teen and her honorable fiance faced misunderstanding and reproach.

But she only asked, “How will it happen?”

Curiosity, not doubt, filled her. She didn’t ask for proof or signs.

God asked, “Will you do this for me?”

She replied, “Yes, Lord, I will.”

We live in a land that has been the richest and most educated in the world. We’re also the biggest whiners who don’t like to be inconvenienced or crimped in any way. Hard to conceive that any of us would ever be heaven’s most wanted woman. Unless we become women of the Divine Yes.

I suspect Mary already had a habit of saying “Yes” to God in numerous small ways. In a moment of crisis, of critical decision, she did what she’d been doing all along.

Janet Chester Bly

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