Mary and Elizabeth...

So I got into work today and was spending a few minutes going through the headlines as I do several times throughout the day and I just had this urge. I felt like I should spend some time in the Word. Kate and I have been talking and praying a lot about what it is that we're supposed to be doing with our lives and have felt... well helpless. We have big dreams and desires but haven't really felt like we've been doing anything. Yeah, we have a lot going on and just got married and have been planning but we just don't feel like we've been effectively serving to the best of our abilities. Needless to say, if you know either of us at all, this is a problem. We THRIVE on serving and giving on being involved with things that impact peoples' lives. It doesn't have to be huge and earth shattering, it could just be having a deep conversation with someone whom we challenge to think and they return the favor. This problem was beginning to hurt our relationship, not in a dramatic way or anything, but we were just arguing a little more and there was a little more tension. We spent some time Saturday night celebrating making the best decision of our lives a month before, and came to a dramatic conclusion. Maybe God wasn't being silent; maybe we were living in a world that was too loud! We were surrounded by so much... STUFF! It was no wonder that we were feeling confused about what we were supposed to be doing, we weren't actually seeking after Him through our devotions separately or together. So we decided to really pursue Him, to really get back to the root of what all this is about. To spend time in the Word on a daily basis together and apart...

Anyways, back to the ladies, I went onto an online Bible and read through the first chapter of John. Now, I've read this chapter many times, I even had the first few verses memorized at one point. But this time something different came to my mind and I just couldn't stop thinking about it. What about John and Jesus? Why were their parents, Zecheriah, Elizabeth, and Mary, why were they chosen? Why were they the people that God chose to bring in the forerunner and the Messiah? And something hit me, something amazingly simple and beautiful that I had never in all of my years of reading through the Gospels had picked up on, Elizabeth and Zecheriah were old. I heard a pastor translate the word that they use for old, as old as dirt. Now I don't care who you are

that.

is.

OLD.

It was such an absurd idea that when Zecheriah was told by the angel, he all but laughed at him, he was kindly rewarded with the gift of silence. (I'm so glad that God doesn't do that anymore, I definitely didn't anticipate being married a year ago and wouldn't have enjoyed spending months unable to speak. what can I say, I like to talk!). And at the same time, an angel is appearing to Mary, the future mother of Jesus and telling her, "You're going to have a Son, even though you've never been with a man." Now yes, we can focus on the miracle of the virgin birth, but there's something else there. She's young... She's not young like I am, she's young like I was 9 or 10 years ago young. Though it would be easy to get caught up on the miracle of the birth (which is breathtaking in a way that I can't ever describe) there's something, in a very subtle way, that's amazingly beautiful about this. Even in the details, God chose two people older then dirt to bring in the forerunner to the Messiah, the man that would pave the way and begin the process that He would finish, and He chose the youngest a girl could be to have her mother His Son, the Messiah. There's a sort of vibe their an ebb and flow, a sense of yin and yang if you will. The two are opposites in a way that they completely beautify one another. I desperately pray that God will continue to help me to see THAT type of beauty in the text. To not get caught up with all of the big and lose track of the subtle little things that God threw in there to make an already beautiful story simply stunning.

God is found...

in the beauty.

He takes the dirt and brings life.

From the dirt, flowers come up.