Mary, Mother & Disciple of Jesus

Sharifa >> Hello, everyone, and welcome to Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. I am your host, Sharifa Stevens, and today I have the pleasure of talking to Kelley Mathews. Kelley Mathews has ministered to the church through writing and editing for over 25 years, though it does not look like it! Kelley has co-authored eight books, including 40 Questions About Women in Ministry. She is a freelance writer and editor, a former women’s ministry director and Bible study teacher.

She has been married to John, a school administrator, for 27 years. They are parents to four active, mostly grown children. Kelley earned her Master of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary in the year 2000 and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry in New Testament from Houston Theological Seminary. Welcome, Kelley.

Kelley >> Hello. Hello. It’s kind of fun being on this end of the screen, right?

Sharifa >> I’m glad.

Kelley >> Right. Yeah. I’m usually one of the interviewers.

Sharifa >> But today I’m interviewing you because we are going to be talking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now we’re talking about her perhaps in a different light than the audience might usually be used to her. We usually don’t hear about Mary unless it’s Christmas time. Right?

Kelley >> Right. Right. Seems a little weird to be talking about her now because it’s nowhere near Christmas when we’re recording. And you should be listening to this after the New Year for sure.

Sharifa >> Exactly. But when we only hear from Mary about Mary at Christmas time, there is so much depth and wisdom that we miss. She is a part of our cloud of witnesses, so to speak.

Kelley >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> Someone to glean wisdom from and to learn from and to take inspiration from. Well, you’re studying about Mary in part for your dissertation.

Kelley >> Yes.

Sharifa >> I want to get into it with you. One of the ways that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is identified in the larger church and traditionally in the Roman Catholic Church is as Mary of the Seven Sorrows. Is that correct?

Kelley >> Yes.

Sharifa >> What is. . .

Kelley >> Mary has a lot of titles.

Sharifa >> A lot of Titles.

Kelley >> That’s yeah, that’s definitely one thing I think Protestants don’t understand or may not even be aware of is the fact that the larger church and we could say the Catholic Church with this started way before there was any division of church when we were all united in the Patristic Era and then through the Medieval Time and all that.

Mary was very much honored and she came by all these different names to emphasize different parts of her character and role within the church. Typically, as someone that would be an intercessor, there’s a large belief held by some, but not all, that just as if I were to say, “Hey, Sharifa, would you pray for me for X, Y, Z,” that we can go to the saints who have passed and say the same thing that they are our cloud of witnesses and they are aware of our needs.

So not everybody thinks that, but if you do, then Mary is definitely one of those. She’s almost the preeminent person people think that they should pray to so that she could then intercede for them.

So, Mary of Sorrows— the Seven Sorrows is the traditional representation of the different instances in the life of Mary that we see in the Gospels. So this comes straight from Scripture, but it originates with the Nativity.

Okay, so when we see our nativity scenes, we typically have things like— we might even get the journey to Bethlehem, or we maybe we start at the Annunciation when Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her everything. And then they go. They have the baby in Bethlehem. Shepherds come.

And then we jump to the Wise Men. (Well, a little out of whack there.) But like children in traditional — Have you ever seen a nativity scene where they’re in the temple with Baby Jesus?

Sharifa >> I have yet to see one. No.

Kelley >> I feel like we totally skip out on this chronological—like it was a month later after he was born was like 30 to 40 days, they make a five mile trek. I don’t even want to know if she did it by donkey or walked, but they go to the temple to present baby Jesus as part of what the Torah, the law, required of them.

And so that’s where she meets Simeon. And this is where the whole story of the Seven Sorrows comes in.

Okay, So in Luke 2, which Luke 1 and 2 is, of course, all of the Nativity content that we, you know, the birth. And Mary is a major character in those two chapters.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Kelley >> So we get to Luke 2:25. And this is when they’re in the temple presenting him, being dedicated. And this old man walks up to Joseph and Mary and he starts prophesying and praising the Lord and saying, “Now mine eyes have seen what you have promised. The consolation of Israel is here.”

Okay, so there’s this prophecy. Mary’s like “What’s going on,” and he then turns to her and he says, “And a sword will pierce your soul.”

This is not the kind of prayer I want said over me when I’m dedicating my baby, right?

Sharifa >> No, absolutely not.

Kelley >> So, but, you know, commentators have taken that and said, “Okay, where does this happen in her life? When does this come true?”

And they’ve come up with these seven things, one of which was that moment. So that’s the first sorrow, to hear this prophesy, right?

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kelley >> So the other six would be the flight into Egypt when they had to run as refugees.

And then when he’s twelve and she freaks out, as does Joseph, because they’ve lost him in the temple and it took a few days to find him. And then it jumps all the way to his crucifixion because there’s only a few instances during his ministry that we see Mary. But they don’t have anything to do with pain or sorrow until there’s a tradition that she was one of the women who met him on his way to Calvary as he carried his cross through Jerusalem.

Then, of course, the actual crucifixion, which we see in John. 19.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kelley >> And then they have a separate moment after he has died and she is there to help cradle his body at the base of the cross before they bury him. And then the burial itself would be the seventh. So a lot of them are bunched around the crucifixion, which makes sense to me.

Sharifa >> Absolutely.

Kelley >> There’s a lot of grief and trauma going on there.

So, yeah, the scene at the base of the cross has been recreated in art for centuries. And you know well that one of our favorite guys way back made a bunch of sculptures, right?

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Kelley >> And what do we call them?

Sharifa >> The Pieta.

Kelley >> Oh, yeah. We’re going to show a picture. If you’re watching this on video, then we’ll have a picture of the Vatican Pieta. That was Michelangelo’s first sculpture. He was a very young, 20-something-year- old when he made that.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Kelley >> It’s massive. It’s ornate. You can stand in front of it for hours. And we did not have that much time. But I was able to visit it a couple of years ago when I went to Italy, and it’s impressive, okay?

But he also has three others that he made during over the course of his life. And they’re all a little bit different. But you see different people in them, but Mary is always in it, and in every one she’s always behind him cradling him.

Sharifa >> Yes. The Pieta is absolutely a masterpiece on so many levels. And it also is a really accessible way to identify the humanity of Christ and the grief of Mary.

I think that there—and maybe you could speak to this—but I think that there is such a respect for Mary and care for Mary that we can sometimes miss how her humanity plays out in the biblical story and both for her grief, but also her faithfulness as yes, a mother, but also as a disciple.

Kelley >> Yes. And so that’s actually one of my passions is to help people, especially Protestants, not be afraid of looking at Mary. There’s just this sense that she’s kind of belongs to the other group. Right? Like something a little bit scary about talking about the mother of Jesus too much.

And I think we don’t talk about her enough. I think we haven’t looked at her life and what she can teach us enough.

Yes. She gets brought out every advent we see a lot of her. We hear a lot about her at Christmas time, as we should. Like, that’s appropriate. But then she’s like shuffled back off with a nativity scene and put back in the attic for the rest of the year. And I think we’re going to miss out if we do that.

So Passion Week at Easter time is also a great time to focus a little bit more on her There are lots of other times, of course, in the year that we can look at her—the same way we might do a character study of David or Peter or Paul.

Why not Mary? She is the fourth-most mentioned person in the New Testament after Jesus, Peter and Paul. Right?

Sharifa >> Wow.

Kelley >> Right. So let’s look at that. We like to talk about when we see things repeated or emphasized, we need to pay attention.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kelley >> Well, we should pay more attention to Mary.

Sharifa >> So getting to the relatability of Mary as a person and as a follower, not just her relate ability, but what lessons she has to teach us.

Kelley >> Mm hmm.

Sharifa >> What do you observe of Mary as a disciple of Jesus also? Was she an apostle?

Kelley >> It depends on how you define apostles. But in the broader sense, yes. She was not one of the Twelve, but apostle means messenger— like evangelist type. And so we know that there were other apostles named like Junia—we find her in Romans 16.

So in that sense, yes, Mary was a witness and she saw him when he was alive of course. And so there are a few criteria for apostles.

And even if you’re not comfortable with that, she’s definitely a disciple, which is the word for the broader group of followers who were aligned with Jesus and loyal to him.

So whatever. I mean, I don’t think that particular there’s no greater sense of apostle versus disciple at this point.

I don’t think we’re not denigrating her. We don’t say she’s an apostle.

Sharifa >> Okay.

Kelley >> As far as why I think she’s beneficial to study and to reflect on we as followers of Christ and as we’re teaching women or leading women in our churches to be disciples, I think we can learn from at least three things from her, her faithfulness, her knowledge of Scripture and her humility. So those are three big themes that I’m developing in my own studies about her.

Faithfulness: She was there from before the beginning to the end of his life. She said yes to this amazing and costly call on her life to bear, to be the Mother of God. That’s a legit title for her Mother of God. Yes. That was kind of officially given to her at one of the councils in the first few centuries.

And everybody from Catholics to the Eastern Orthodox to the Protestants affirm that that is her title, Mother of God, because it has to do with who Jesus is, not because she’s extraordinarily special. But right, so it’s all about Jesus.

And all the attention that we pay her in studies are all because of Jesus and her relationship to him, not because they were like, we need to talk about Mary. No, we need to talk about Jesus. And then as we do that, she becomes an important part of how we see him.

So there’s lots we can go into that we don’t need to.

Sharifa >> Well, I would like to go into it a little bit because there’s an interplay because, of course, Jesus is our focal point, the author and finisher of our faith. And there is something about Mary that God chose her. And I think we see a glimpse of this in the Magnificat, for example.

So can you talk about what kind of student she was and how the Magnificat is an indicator of that?

Kelley >> Oh, yeah. That’s where the that’s what the knowledge of Scripture, that second point comes in.

So the big question is, is Mary full of grace because God chose her or did God choose her because she’s full of grace? This there’s that whole debate. Yes.

But I think we can agree that Scripture shows us that she was very devout. She was humble. She was willing to take on whatever God gave her. And she was super young. So we’re talking 14, 15 years old. Which is nuts.

Sharifa >> The parents of . . .

Kelley >> A 15 year old.

Sharifa >> And 15 year old kid. Yeah. Can you even?

Kelley >> I mentioned that to my son the other day and his eyes got a little bit excited. Okay. Yeah. So. So. Okay, so think about that age and how we are discipling our children. Okay.

Now, Mary, as we see in Magnificat, which is at the end of Chapter One, Luke 1. And there’s this—I don’t know what is it six, ten, eleven verses that her prophecy/poetry/song (call it all of those things) where she is either quoting or alluding to what we call the Old Testament, her Scriptures, the whole time.

Yeah, so she knows her Scriptures. And that’s something that as parents that I know should inspire us to continue to build into our children. And let the Scriptures to know who God is, not just to memorize the verses, but to know the God who gave us that revelation of himself.

So she knew God really well at that point.

The Magnificat is revolutionary. It would have gotten her in trouble if Herod had heard it.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Kelley >> It was talking about casting down the mighty and lifting up the lowly. You take these words literally, she’s talking about a social revolution that the Messiah is going to bring.

So, yes, he’s here to rescue us from our sin. He’s also coming to rescue us from this world of hatred, domination and oppression and things like that.

So she’s like throwing out this amazing song when she meets up with Elizabeth. They’re both prophetesses at that point.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kelley >> And so, yeah. Anyway, Mary is a great example and inspiration for those of us who love Scripture and want to know our God better through it.

Sharifa >> And I always, in my imaginings, this is the through line is not explicit, but I see a continuum between Mary’s Magnificat and the message of freedom and reversal that comes with God’s kingdom and the announcement of Jesus’s ministry in Luke 4 where he quotes Isaiah 61, I believe, and talks about what it means when the Spirit of God is upon him. And that means freedom for prisoners and sight for the blind.

Kelley >> And where did he learn that from who?

Sharifa >> Where did he learn that? Right, right. I like to think that the baby boy Jesus, was sung over by his mother Mary with songs like the Magnificat.

And that both his parents. (But I don’t know what Joseph’s saying.) But possibly both his parents were teaching him about the Torah, which I mean, this is a rabbit trail, but it’s just amazing that the God man has both an intimate knowledge of the father and is also teachable.

Kelley >> Right. Still having to learn and develop and grow.

Sharifa >> Yes. But I like one other thing. The line between really…

Kelley >> That…

Sharifa >> And Luke 4.

Kelley >> I think you’re absolutely right.

When you take the Gospels individually, like, what is Luke doing with his gospel? He’s telling the story his way. He includes things on purpose. He excludes other things on purpose.

Sharifa >> That’s right.

Kelley >> He can create a narrative with themes and his whole theme is the outsider is the insider, and the insiders are outsiders. So his whole gospel is about the upside-down kingdom of God.

And Mary’s Magnificat is definitely through-line because the next thing you know, when Jesus eventually starts, he starts with an upside-down message. Right?

Sharifa >> Right.

Kelley >> And then he shows it through the way he chooses his women disciples and sends about to write it on all of these things. He shows what he’s teaching. But we see it in the beginning with his mother.

Yeah. It’s really fun.

Sharifa >> It is really fun.

Kelley >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> So you mentioned already that Mary, the mother of Jesus as a disciple, could be described for her knowledge, for her faithfulness and for her humility. And we touched a little bit on knowledge and also her faithfulness being there at the beginning in the end here.

Speak a little bit more about Mary’s humility and how that is a good example for us in our walk.

Kelley >> It’s one of the reasons that the church through the ages has really honored her so greatly is because of her willingness to obey the call that God gave her to what they call a fiat, Latin for “yes.” Like that was the yes that changed the world. Right.

For a young girl to all of a sudden see a vision, an angel, like something dramatic happens and instead of acting like Zachariah and questioning the possibility of how this is going to work.
It was more like, could you explain a little bit more for me? As I say, yes. Just give me give me a little guidance here on how it’s going to work. Not doubt that God could do it.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Kelley >> So her humility was in accepting this very heavy call on her life. Of course, I’m unique—like there’s no other Mother of God.

Right. So a unique call. A heavy call. She didn’t necessarily know it yet that it would be that heavy, but she had to know it was going to be different.

And, you know, there’s always the idea of showing up pregnant when you’re not supposed to be—that whole thing. Right? In her culture, that was a big deal. So running off to Elizabeth for some comfort and guidance and commiseration and encouragement was a great move.

Right? But yeah, so she had from the beginning, she was willing to put up with whatever the world threw at her in order to say yes to God. And that feels like a real good word for all of us.

Sharifa >> Yes. And I think what I love about Mary’s testimony is that— it’s not like it was perfect, but she was always striving for faithfulness.

You know, I had to giggle. You know, there is a part in the Gospels (and I wish I could remember chapter and verse right now) where Jesus was speaking in a house, and she was just like, “Hey, tell Jesus I’m out here.”

Kelley >> Oh, that one. Okay. Right.

Sharifa >> “Tell Jesus I’m out here so he can come and meet us, okay?”

Kelley >> That’s right. Yeah.

Sharifa >> And that was not a moment of humility.

Kelley >> Well, we don’t really know. I don’t know that we know that. It’s possible…

Sharifa >> Okay, well, listen, I mean, let’s talk about that.

Well, I feel like Jesus’ response became an object lesson for the audience because his response was, “You know who my mother and brothers and sisters are—people who hear the word of God and obey it.”

Kelley >> Okay. But that was all believers. Right? Like she wasn’t excluded from that group.

Sharifa >> She wasn’t.

Kelley >> But he was he was expanding the idea of family.

Sharifa >> Exactly.

Kelley >> Yes, he certainly was. But he wasn’t saying, “No, not you, Mama.” He was like—let me use this moment to teach what my family is.

Sharifa >> I’m glad we’re talking about it, because I’ve always read it as an ummm!

Kelley >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> “No, I’m, not going outside right now.”

Kelley >> Exactly. It’s in Luke 8 that says, “His mother and brothers came to him, but they couldn’t reach him. And he was told, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside desiring to see you.’ But he answered them. ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it.’”

So is he rebuking his mother? I don’t think it’s that. I don’t see that tone. I think he’s saying it’s not just them. Like, yes, they’re not my only mother and brothers. We are all together in this.

And so, yeah, it was probably—“Hold Please.” Yeah, that kind of thing.

So there were moments when she didn’t understand everything that he was doing.

There was another time when they came looking for him and they thought, “You are overdoing it. You need to come home and rest. Let us take you home.”

And he was like, “I’m busy. I got things to do.” So he does say no to that, but it doesn’t feel like he’s rejecting them. He’s just like, “I have a mission, and you guys don’t understand.”

Sharifa >> Which I feel like that is an example of the contrast between Mary as mother and Mary as disciple, where the boundary lines that Jesus set to say, I love you and this is the reason why.

Kelley >> Mm hmm.

Sharifa >> And I think it takes humility to learn that lesson, especially as the person who changed the diapers and nursed and all of those things. Yeah. So I see it as an implicit example of Mary’s humility.

Kelley >> Mm hmm. Because she didn’t just leave him. Right?

Sharifa >> No!

Kelley >> She didn’t get her feelings hurt and huff off and go home.

I forget if it’s John, I can’t remember which gospel where it says that when Jesus left Nazareth and he made his home in Capernaum, his mother did, too. Like, if she moved to be with him, as his center of operations.

She’s one of those characters that is behind the scenes in a lot of the scenes. Like, if we think through logically how certain scenes would work, she’s back there. They’re not talking about her to see them to whatever the specific story is trying to teach us. Yeah, but she’s there and we see it as she pops up periodically.

You know, there’s the wedding at the beginning of his ministry, and then there’s these different she’s following along with him. Obviously, if he’s teaching and she wants to see him—maybe he’s close by Capernaum and she’s like, “Oh, maybe we go see Jesus.”

And then she’s there when he’s in trouble in Jerusalem. Right? And she’s among all of his close followers.

And she’s at the cross when all the men except for John ran away. You know, she’s there. And I think she’s probably, what? 45 years old, like, younger than I am now going through this. Right? But, yeah, so she’s there.

And I feel like I haven’t, like, developed the whole idea of her courage, but it takes guts to stand at the foot of a condemned criminal and next to the jailers and the ones who tortured him and who are mocking him and just to be there so that he could see her as he died.

Like, there’s a lot of guts that have to be a part of you to be able to withstand that kind of grief as you’re experiencing it. And then to help bury him, you know, the whole process of that day.

Mm hmm. That’s a lot.

Sharifa >> Yeah. There is such a profound grief especially in the face of violence against your child. And it feels visceral. You know, as a mother. But not just a human being who…

Kelley >> Right.

Sharifa >> Doesn’t want to see loved ones suffering. There’s a profound grief that is in that story, as well as danger, like you mentioned, because, Mary, the other women—they’re vulnerable to violence as well. They’re vulnerable to guilt by association as well.

Kelley >> Right. All that.

Sharifa >> And Peter and the other examples of the disciples are telling us the story of what’s at stake with being associated with Jesus in his hour of condemnation, scourging and crucifixion.

Kelley >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> But Mary, the follower, was willing to pay the cost.

Kelley >> She did, and she stuck with his followers. She was with his followers as one of them through the next week, the resurrection, those showing when Jesus would show up, she was in and out of those.

And we know this because when his 40 days were up and he ascended, they all went back to Jerusalem to pray like he told them. And there were 120 followers. We see this in Acts 1.

And Mary, the mother of Jesus, was with them. We know that she was there at Pentecost.

Speaking of art, I don’t think we’re going to show this picture, but it’s easy to find online.

When we were in Venice on this same trip that we took a couple of years ago, we were in a church looking for something else, a totally different icon,(you know, image of Mary) of Mary was the black Madonna.

But as we’re going in a circle, it was around the Rotunda and we’re looking for the piece. And we have another art piece that is this massive painting of Pentecost. And you see the 12 apostles with all the tongues of fire coming down, and Mary is centered.

The light is on her she’s in her trademark blue and they’re all looking up. And we one-by-one as we all wander like, “Oh, why are you here? Oh!” and we all just were captivated by it, seeing how artists saw that scene. Right? So every piece of art comes from the mind of the person as well as the content they’re working from.

So but there are lots of art creations where Mary is the center. But we, we really love that one. Just to remember, she was there. She was there. Like, if you call Pentecost the birthday of the church, right? Well, she was there as the birth of Jesus the body of Christ. And she was at the birth of the body of Christ, the church and the bookends.

Right?

Sharifa >> I love that. Yes!

Kelley >> But yes. So and that’s where I look at her faithfulness. She stuck it out basically.

Sharifa >> This is part of her ability to endure these seven sorrows and more. And then there’s also iconography about that, too.

Kelley >> Yes. There are many, many pictures that there is one specific to call her Our Lady of Sorrows or Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. Yeah. We’ll show a picture of that as well. And they depicted as seven arrows going through her. So that’s fun. But it’s a beautiful image if you can get past the whole idea of arrows crisscrossing.

But yeah, I mean, it’s a visual of what it must have felt like.

Sharifa >> Yeah. A lot of times. I mean, just the idea, the ideology of iconography is to make visual and make plain, no matter whether you’re illiterate or not, you can look at an icon and understand a little bit about what happened to the person being featured.

Kelley >> yeah.

Sharifa >> It can it kind of is taboo for us Protestants to talk about iconography.

Kelley >> Icons.

Sharifa >> Our lady of anything or seven sorrows, so I just want to name that just how it can be awkward and we could be wondering, hey, should we be, you know, tip-toeing over to this?

Kelley >> Yeah, I would say there’s always a line if we lose sight of our center who is Jesus. Sure. We can always cross a line. It doesn’t matter if you’re Protestant and all you have in your church are flags. Right. If you have no stained glass.

Sharifa >> Which are also icons,

Kelley >> Exactly, which are also icons. Exactly. Like we can cross our lines no matter who we are. But if you’re properly looking at whether it’s an image in a painting or an icon, or our stained glass, like pictures of people in the Bible and the stories of faith, they’re there for reminders and they’re there to help us focus . . .

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kelley >> On Scripture and on Jesus. So yeah, always a chance of misusing them because we’re human and we love our idols. But they’re not meant to be that way. Absolutely.

Sharifa >> Right. Right. At the end of the day, we know about Mary, mother of Jesus, because the biblical witness is paying attention to Mary, the mother of Jesus. So it’s not taboo. And we don’t have to be reactionary against the Roman Catholic tradition in paying attention to Mary the way the Bible pays attention. And right there’s Mary the way Jesus, her son honors Mary, even at the point of his death, he was thinking about his mother, taking care of her.

Yes. And the biblical witness shows how present Mary was throughout the Gospels. And honestly, we owe her a debt of gratitude just for only…

Kelley >> Don’t we? Right.

Sharifa >> giving us the story. Parts of the story of the gospel narrative just wouldn’t be there. Unless Mary had talked to people.

Kelley >> That actually she is one of the eyewitnesses that gives us the gospel story. Absolutely. Luke had to get it from somebody. And he was a you know, his whole Prologue is how I’ve gathered information so that I could present an accurate depiction. And then he immediately starts with Zachariah, Elizabeth and Mary, and you’re like, Oh, well, who’s going to tell him that?

Except so yeah, she was definitely there’s too many details in there that are personal, right? So yes. Yeah. So I love that Mary is behind the scenes in some of these things. If you’re looking for that sort of where is Mary here?

Like obviously one example, if she showed up at one of his preaching events, she must have been keeping tabs on him, right? She must have been aware and ready to love on him and see him. And well, we don’t get that written, but that’s the inference that we can make and there are people like that throughout scripture.

And because women aren’t mentioned as regularly as the men are, there’s just more men that are talked about. But women are in the story.

And I know that Dr. Sandra Glahn has done another interview like this, and it’s on the site as a resource to women. I forget the title, but in a story. Right. Part of the thing.

Sharifa >> It’s Women in the Story of Scripture.

Kelley >> I don’t know.

Sharifa >> But we’ll link to it in our. Yeah.

Kelley >> Yeah. There you go. That’s the best way to do it. Yeah. You can browse the whole library here at Beyond Ordinary Women, and find a variety of sources that will help you as you’re teaching or leading women in studies to notice and understand what women are doing and how they participate in the Ministry of the Gospel.

And Mary’s right there with them.

Sharifa >> Yes, she is. You’ve basically concluded this. Well, you, like, put a bow on this time.

So I just want to say thank you, Kelley. Thank you for taking time to share with us more about Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is not only a mother, but also a faithful follower of Christ, a knowledgeable follower, a humble follower and a great example of the cloud of witnesses for us.

A great example of what it means to follow Jesus, no matter the cost.

Kelley >> Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for giving me the chance to, you know, just emote about the topic of my studies and my excitement that I’m working through all this this year.

Sharifa >> Can’t wait to read it. We’ll have to have you back after the dissertation.

Kelley >> Oh, yeah. It’s going to be a little while. Okay, yeah. By the time this gets out, I will be real close to the end.

Sharifa >> So thanks so much.

Kelley>> Yeah. Love it.

Sharifa >> Everyone. Thank you for tuning in to Beyond Ordinary Women. And if you are interested in more resources, you can go to our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org.