Christmas is my favorite holiday by far. I love decorating my house, baking, and singing my heart out to all my favorite Christmas carols that my husband hates to hear me sing any other time of the year.

But there is one song that always makes it into nearly every Christmas playlist that is my absolute favorite of all of them. It is the song by Mark Lowry, “Mary Did You Know.”

It doesn’t matter who sings it. It always gives me chills. But I have a friend who never really liked the song, and I could never understand why. She didn’t just not like the song, it really drove her crazy, until her mother-in-law changed her mind.

The song talks about Mary’s son walking on water and healing a blind man, and asks Mary if she knew. My friend’s reason for hating the song is that Mary did know these things.

She knew that her son was sent by god to “save our sons and daughters.” But my friend said it was something that her mother-in-law said that changed the way she viewed the song and it was as if a light came on in her mind.

Her mother-in-law explained that she always thought of the song as Gabriel telling Mary all of the incredible things that Mary’s son would do some day. She says it was at that moment that she finally heard it the way that apparently every one else always had.

She says that the moment was like God had just reached down and softened her heart so she could truly understand and appreciate the miracle of Jesus’ birth. How could someone so tiny have so much Love?

So for the first time, my friend and I listened to the song and appreciated it in the same light. We saw it as what it really was meant to be – a reminder of the gift that Mary, and all of us, were given when God gave us Jesus.

Listen to the video below and be sure to share it with your family and friends. I hope that you will enjoy this song the way that my friend and I now do.