Mary
by: Rachel Tan
“Ok, now I want you to give me more surprised, like you’ve just seen a spider!”
The director’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie resting on my lap.
I emotionally reset and looked up into the black abyss of the camera lens pointed towards my face. A gaggle of onlooking crew members quieted down and assumed their positions.
“Action!”
As I started envisioning how to tone down what would be my real-life, the-sky-is-falling reaction to a spider in order to make my performance palatable for daytime television, a check-in with reality floated into my mind.
Up until the beginning of 2020, I was the sole director of my life. I became a teacher, started my own business, got married, and began the process of building my first home from the ground up.
These were all ticked off my list.
How then, did I end up doing the farthest, most unexpected thing from any of my life’s goals in the midst of the pandemic as the rest of the world stood still? Here I was, starring in my first ever globally recognized car commercial, feeling giddy from solely eating from the candy station and having little to no idea of how to conduct myself on set.
I was loving every second of it.
Rewind to a few months prior to booking my first acting gig and I could be found staring at the fridge door in the middle of the day, aimless, waffling on whether to sell my non-existent business, and feeling selfishly angry at my husband for going to bed accomplished and fulfilled after a day’s work. Many of these days were sealed with a deafening silence and with lost and confused tears.
Making unpunctuated space and time to grieve what was and could’ve been, was where I encountered Jesus.
I’m reminded of this past Easter Monday, where the first physical glimpse of the risen Jesus occurred. It didn’t happen within a crowd, with blaring trumpets and rejoicing, but in a calm and intimate space with a grieving friend. A bleary-eyed Mary Magdalene visits the tomb looking for Jesus and is greeted by two angels:
They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him. Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?” She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Sir, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”
Jesus said, “Mary.”
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”
John 20:13-16
Consumed by grief, Mary pauses to make time and space for her tears. It’s within this space that she has an amazing encounter with the risen Jesus. His presence shocks her. She finally recognizes him, and Jesus sees her in her loss.
In 2017 I received a beautiful word from a friend who said she had a vision of me looking in the mirror at myself. She heard God tell her that I was meant to be seen. I had forgotten about this until I received a call on my birthday last year, in the midst of a global wide pandemic, while I was stewing in grief, that I had booked my first commercial after my first ever audition.
As I was downcast, looking at my feet, registering yet again how they hadn’t moved from that same spot in a very long time, He tilted my chin up and reminded me that he was there.
You are seen and you are called to an abundant, exciting life.
While the world churns in an onslaught of unpredictable tides, Jesus is with you in that quiet, still place. He sees you, and if you sit with him long enough, he’ll even surprise you.
Former teacher, now business woman (with a dab of acting on the side), Rachel currently runs an education-based program with the aim of seeing women rise up in the STEM field. She can be found walking her chiweenie, playing multisport, or reading a book, coffee in hand, with her husband.