Highly favored

“Highly favored.”

The words ring with such beauty. Such promise. When I hear them, I want them to mean ease. To mean blessing without burden. To mean that my days will be laced with light and laughter, untouched by sorrow or loss. If I am favored, surely that means I will be spared the wilderness, the heartbreak, the nights of wrestling in the dark.

But then I look at Mary.

The angel’s declaration over her life wasn’t followed by a throne, but by whispers behind closed doors. Nine months of sideways glances, of raised brows, of slanderous gossip that stained her name. “Highly favored,” yet she carried the weight of shame she didn’t deserve. She followed Joseph into obscurity, into poverty, into exile. She gave birth not in the comfort of a home but in the filth of a stable, with only the sound of animals breathing nearby.

“Highly favored,” yet she watched her Son grow up despised and rejected, mocked and misunderstood. She saw the miracles, yes—but she also heard the curses spat against Him. She stood at the foot of the cross, her heart shattered as the One she had carried in her womb was nailed to a tree before her eyes. She laid Him in a borrowed grave.

Tell me—does that look like favor?

And yet…it was. Every step, every sorrow, every tear shed beneath the weight of the promise was wrapped in heaven’s seal: Highly favored. Not because it felt like favor, but because God Himself had chosen her vessel as the place to reveal His glory.

So maybe I need to redefine what it means to be “highly favored.” Maybe it doesn’t mean my path will be smooth or my heart will be spared from breaking. Maybe it means the exact opposite—that I will be trusted with holy assignments that cut deep, assignments that cost more than I think I can give. That I will bear His image in places that ache with rejection, grief, betrayal, and loneliness. That I will walk through shadows and still carry light.

To be “highly favored” is not to be shielded from sorrow but to be chosen for glory. To host the presence of the Almighty. To live a life so yielded that He writes His story through my wounds, through my yes, through my willingness to endure what others cannot understand.

And maybe, like Mary, there will be days I do not feel favored at all. Days when the weight feels heavier than the promise. But the title remains true even when my feelings don’t agree.

I am highly favored—not because of what I escape, but because of Who has chosen to dwell in me.