This Christmas season I have taken some time to reflect on Mary. Having just arrived at the beginning of the third trimester of my first pregnancy, I guess it’s only natural that I would consider her situation more so than ever before.

As I’ve shared on this blog in the past, I’m one of those lucky gals who has had an extremely easy pregnancy thus far. No morning sickness. No cramping. No swelling. No weird cravings. No nothing really! Honestly, if it weren’t for the growing size of my belly and the kicks that I’ve started to feel, I might not even know I was pregnant!

It’s amazing to me how this little life can be taking shape inside of me, and I barely feel or notice it happening. Yet I am the vessel for this life, and it’s humbling. I imagine how Mary must have felt knowing that the Christ-child was taking shape within her. The one who would heal every hurt, break every chain and remove the curse of sin and shame. That’s like humbling times one-hundred!

I love what the angel tells Mary in Luke 1:35. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. . .”

Did Mary feel the moment of Christ’s conception in a powerful way? I doubt it. Like me, I’m guessing that she believed the angel and gradually begin to see and feel the effects of her pregnancy as the child began to grow. (Perhaps more than anything the ‘overshadowing’ was evident to her in the peace and strength that God gave her for her difficult task!)

This makes me pause to think about the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Certainly the Holy Spirit can come in fire and wind and storm. But more often than not, the Spirit works behind the scenes, in quiet ways. His movements are barely perceptible to us. But as the Spirit grows and develops in our life, we begin to feel Him more and more. We become more and more aware of how He is moving; how He is impacting our life — just as the further along I get in my pregnancy, the more I feel my child moving and feel the impact that he is making on my life.

One thing I have noticed is that if I want to feel my baby moving, I need to be still. I feel him most when I am sitting at my desk, driving along in the car or else lying down in bed. The more activity I am engaged in throughout the day, the less I feel him. Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

I have also discovered that I cannot predict his movements or make him move when I want to. My mother has experienced great disappointment over this as she is desperate to feel baby’s movements! And yet, I can be at her house and baby doesn’t move at all, but as soon as I’m in the car on my way home, baby is kicking up a storm. So it is with the Spirit, we cannot control him any more than we can control the wind. (John 3:8)

I like to think about the Holy Spirit working and growing our lives. Sometimes it’s so gradual as to be unnoticeable until finally his work comes to fruition and we see what he has been doing all along. As believers, we can have the confidence that the Holy Spirit is always at work within us, even when we don’t notice it. And just as a pregnant woman waits in eager expectation for the day of her child’s birth, so we can wait with eager expectation knowing that the Holy Spirit is birthing something beautiful and wonderful in us.