Did Mary Ever Go On a Picnic?

       I can't believe our mothers allowed us to have a picnic when we are always so busy." Rebecca swished out the blue and white blanket and flung herself on it.
  "Well, you had better believe it,"twelve-year-old Shoshanna retorted in a hoity-toity voice. "Next year by this time we will probably be all married, so we better enjoy it while we can!"
     She reached into the picnic basket for a handful of grapes and offered some to her friends.
Abigail languidly took one then rolled over on her back to look at the sky. "Just look at the sky," she murmured. "Aren't those wonderful cloud formations?"
   "They sure are," Mary'am agreed. She too, had flung herself down on the blanket, but now she sat up and wrapped her arms arounds her legs. "And these flowers! Have they ever been this beautiful before? There must be a million poppies and other flowers that I don't even know the names of on this hillside." Her voice grew softer. " The I- AM made such a wonderful world."
     Shoshanna rolled her eyes towards Rebecca. She always has to bring God into the conversation, but Rebecca wasn't watching her. She saw that Mary'am was gathering armsful of the colorful blossoms.
   "What are you going to do with them?" Rebecca, always the practical one, asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Put them in a big vessel, I guess, filled with water."
  "Your imma will think it strange that you didn't leave them where they are,"
   Mary'am shrugged her shoulders, then buried her head into the mighty bouquet. How she loved flowers. How she loved all of God's creation.
   "They are pretty," Abigail, the quiet one, whispered.

    The others nodded in agreement, and each privately thought Mary'am looked very lovely with the flowers cradled in her arms.
    "I wonder who the Messiah's mother will be." Abigail continued, still looking at her lovely, dark-haired friend.
        Shoshonna's eyes widened.
        "Now where did that thought come from?"
         Abigail hung her head in a futile effort to hide her blush. "I guess because of Mary'am's comment about--Him."
   "We're all thinking about that a lot." Rebecca said loyally. "Especially now that we are getting to be marriageable age. Someone's got to be the mother. It says so in the Torah. Anyone want some flatbread? It's still warm." The girls each accepted a piece and dipped it in a delightfully fresh honeycomb someone had provided.
    Mary'am nibbled at her bread while her arm was still wrapped around the flowers.
    "Everyone calls me tall and elegant," Shoshonna declared daintily nibbling on a grape. (Everyone meaning one cousin who had been teasing.)"Wouldn't I make a lovely queen mother? "
  Rebecca laughed derisively, and even Abigail wrinkled her nose, but Mary'am remained quiet and pensive. The others snuck glances at her once while they hungrily dug into the picnic basket.
    "I think Mary'am would make a lovely mother for the Messiah," Abigail offered sweetly.
  Mary'am's eyes widened.
  "Me! Why would you ever say that?"
  "She's always so religious...." Shoshanna said scornfully.
  Rebecca's eyebrows lowered.
   "I don't think you are any more worthy than the rest of us."
   "Forget it," Abigail stammered. "Forget it that I ever said anything."
   " I'm the least likely choice of all of you," Mary'am hurriedly 'gathered up the fragments so that none would be lost." She anxiously changed the subject lest the girls mood change would spoil a perfectly lovely day. "Let's go down to the brook and take a little walk before we have to go home," she suggested.