Excerpt: Hail, Favored One! The Lord is with you! were the words announced to Mary by the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:28). After regrouping from the shock of it, and after receiving support from her cousin, Elizabeth, Mary exclaimed, My soul magnifies (and amplifies) the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior! (vv. 46-47) What if young Mary would have said Nd\u27 to God\u27s plan to use her in His unfolding plan of salvation? Or, what if Joseph or Elizabeth would have discouraged her from following the Lord\u27s leading in her life? Heaven and earth would be all the less for it, and the divine mission of Jesus himself would have been altered. Few ministries are absolutely gender-specific, but this was certainly one of them