“How Can This Be?”: The Courage to Be Honest with God
Trisha Taylor | Sunday, December 14, 2025
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A reading from holy gospel according to Luke 1:29-38
Mary was confused by the angel's words and wondered what they meant. Then the angel told Mary,“Don't be afraid! God is pleased with you, and you will have a son. His name will be Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of God Most High. The Lord God will make him king, as his ancestor David was. He will rule the people of Israel forever, and his kingdom will never end.” Mary asked the angel, “How can this happen? I am not even married!” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come down to you, and God's power will come over you. So your child will be called the holy Son of God. Your relative Elizabeth is also going to have a son, even though she is old. No one thought she could ever have a baby, but in three months she will have a son. Nothing is impossible for God!”Mary said, “I am the Lord's servant! Let it happen as you have said.” And the angel left her. This is the word of the Lord.
Mental health is not about character – not about being a good person or a bad person or a strong person or a weak person. Mental health is very complicated and it starts with our brains. It is as much about your brain as diabetes is about your pancreas or pneumonia is about your lungs.
Your brain is the organ that makes you who you are. And . . . it is an organ just like any other organ that can malfunction just like any other organ can.
But it’s complicated –
One problem is that these things don’t feel like they’re in our brains; it feels like they’re in our selves. My pancreas feels like something I have but my brain feels like someone I am.
Another problem is that as humans, when things get complicated, we try to make them simple. We say simplistic things like, “You wouldn’t be so anxious if you had more faith.” “Just trust God.” “Take this supplement, watch this video, pray this prayer.” Or, “If I were a better, stronger person, this wouldn’t be happening.”
We do better when we hold the complexity – we can think more than one thing at a time.
What if we get curious instead? Let’s look at how Mary responded when her world turned upside down.
Mary shows up as her whole self. The angel says to her what he would say to us: “You’re special to God and God is with you.”
Then she feels all the normal feelings anyone would feel. It says that she is confused and disturbed and wondered what all this might mean. It’s normal to feel afraid when things are scary and to feel confused when things are confusing. The angel reassures Mary not to be afraid; he cares about her feelings.
She brings herself to the conversation – she asks, “How can this happen?” It takes some guts to be honest with an angel.
She said yes to God and accepted reality. “I am the Lord’s servant. I will figure this out with him.” We exhaust ourselves trying to live in a world that doesn’t exist, to have options we don’t have. First we experience grief, then acceptance.
Grief is the God given way we adjust to the losses in our lives. Grief is healthy – it clears things out for what is next. Then acceptance says, “I am the Lord’s servant . . . now what?”
She reached out. It is normal for us to isolate when we are struggling. But Mary reaches out to older, wiser people to help her.
She pondered everything in her heart. (Luke 2:19) This is one of the most crucial parts of our emotional wellness: to find the time and the courage to look at our lives and wonder what it means. We know the things that happened to us but the story we tell ourselves about it is often an untrue story. Our brains can actually lie to us about ourselves, our lives and even God. This is where a counselor can be so valuable, to help us see the truth that we can’t see.