When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
Not only had Joseph and Mary not lived together, yet, but they also must not have engaged in some of that “heavy making out” without actual intercourse. There was no physical way Mary could have become pregnant–at least by Joseph.
So Joseph’s first reaction was disbelief. The only possible thing that could have happened was illegal, immoral, unethical.
Imagine she comes to him. “I got pregnant. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but God said it was through the Holy Spirit.”
“Riiiggghhhhttt” he said.
But then he’s visited in a dream. It’s OK, go ahead and marry her.
So, in a normal marriage, how often would the wife remind her husband about that initial distrust? Weekly? Daily?
But there is no indication of any further marriage problems. We hear almost nothing about Joseph. Couple of mentions. We have a lot of useless speculations. But when we don’t know, we don’t know.
But I thought how great it is to be open to new revelations. We never know when we’ll hear a whisper, have a dream, get slapped up against the side of the head to get our attention by the Spirit?
If we are open even though it forces us to reconsider our opinions and prejudices, we listen.
Yesterday I talked about mindfulness. Being present in mind when we’re present in body. This is part of it. If we slow down and are present to the possible whispers of the Spirit, the whole trajectory of our life can change.
Faith Venture 
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