I bet God was sweating that one out....
You obviously do not feel that love is true love only if it is free. You would rather believe that God somehow put a "spell" on HVM to make sure she would consent.
I am beginning to believe that there is a "Protestant" personality type.
Harley: "I bet God was sweating that one out...."
Exactly right, Harley! Our God does seem to be the luckiest God that ever was, doesn't He? In this example, what were the chances that God would luck out and Mary (God's first pick) would agree from her free will to bear the Son of God? I suppose that had Mary used her free will to refuse God He would have simply moved on to another candidate. But wait a minute. Didn't the family of Mary and Joseph have to meet specific lineage requirements in order to fulfill prophecy? Maybe it wouldn't have been so easy to find another candidate. Our God is truly a lucky God indeed.
One more example: What a break God caught that Judas did not repent before his betrayal of Jesus. Judas could have ruined everything, but God got lucky. God wanted Judas to be saved and Judas had free will, right? But, lucky for God, and of course all of us, Judas did not repent. Of course, perhaps if Judas had repented, then God would have chosen another? This is problematic because Jesus already limited his possible betrayer to among the disciples before it happened. Any new betrayer would have also had to agree to the betrayal for exactly 30 pieces of silver, not 29 or 31. But, thank luck, this was not needed as Judas seemed to freely choose to cooperate.