She knew from her earlier encounter with the angel Gabriel what would occur. And later with her cousin Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, Mary sang a magnificent testimony to what she had learned. She treasured those things in her heart, as she, Joseph and the babe trudged along.

Today, as we hear of so many troublesome things, I find great solace in Mary's grace in the face of odds that must have seemed equally daunting.

My birthday occurs around the beginning of Advent. That's a blessing, for it seems to encourage reflections that parallel what God's Word tells us about history's trajectory. I have friends, for example, who are unchurched. They complain about life's unfairness and failure to enrich, enlighten, or entertain them. I have such thoughts as well sometimes. But they wither in the face of the message of Advent.

Here I learn that I have much hope, that my "guilt is taken away," and one day I will be clothed anew in "festal apparel," which sounds to me like I will be made new -- not a bad thing at all.

But first I must "do" life. Mary shows the way as she travels through a tough world too.

And my unchurched friends?

One of them once asked me how I could be upbeat in difficult times and how could he get to a place like that, too.

I said there are some seven billion humans on earth. Two-point-two billion are Christians, and we always have room for one more. Come and see for yourself.