Mary Visits Elizabeth

CC photo courtesy of seetheholyland.net

I wonder where I would go. If my own family rejected me, as Mary’s family might have rejected her, if they wouldn’t or couldn’t believe me when I said I had encountered God, to whom would I run?

If my experience of the divine was too unbelievable. If my encounter with love too fantastical.  If my heart and soul were too hot, inflamed.  If what I had seen was impossible.  If what I had heard was nonsense.  If God had troubled me with promises too great for me to comprehend, and yet I believed them. If my spiritual experience was not acceptable within my community, where would I go?

If I weren't sure what had happened.  If there weren't a simple test I could take, a plus or a minus.  If it would be three months before I could say anything with certainty.  If it was a season only for waiting.  If I couldn’t expect them to believe it because I could still hardly believe it myself.  Where would I go?

Over the mountains to Hebron. 90 miles.  At least 10 days, stony paths, the early nausea and exhaustion of pregnancy setting in.  She went to see someone else who had experienced a miracle. She went for confirmation, for someone who would reassure her: “Yes, this is God, and God-in-you.”

Because Elizabeth had experienced the miracle of Love giving life, she was full of grace to receive the improbable, full of faith to believe the impossible, full of the Spirit to recognize Love’s approach. (Haven’t I experienced that miracle, too?)

(Luke 1)