Getting into trouble with her Mum

They sat outside the ice-cream shop, two girls and a boy, wearing the blue plaid skirts and tie that denoted the local Catholic private school. They looked about 12 years old, waiting for their respective parents to come and pick them up. I barged into their conversation, understand I am overweight, gray haired and very plain, here I was talking to these diminutive not yet adult people and they didn't even look shocked. Thing was, I couldn't stand the understatement that came from one of the girls, I just had to update the conversation a little. "..and besides," she was saying, "how did they know Mary was a virgin?" Mm, I'd never heard it put that way before. I waited to hear how her friends answered her. "Maybe," said the other girl, "she just got pregnant and went home and told her Mom that God did it, because she was afraid she would get into trouble." It was the 'getting into trouble' bit that did it. Mary, growing up in a strict Jewish community in the pre common era, getting into trouble with her Mum was such culture confusion, that I couldn't resist butting in. I stopped in the doorway of the ice-cream shop and went back to their table. "It wouldn't have just been getting into trouble with her Mum, I said." and was relieved to see that the three faces looked as though they were interested, in those days if a girl got pregnant without being married, they took her into the street and threw stones at her till she died, they still do it today in some countries."
Then I grinned and left, but I was surprised and delighted to hear one of the three call out after me. "Thank you." I don't think I helped convince them about the virginity of Mary, but at least they were just a little bit more aware of what it cost a teen-age girl long ago to say to the angel Gabriel, "Let it happen as you say, I am the maid-servant of the Lord."

Luke chapter 1 verses 26 - 38