Morning Moments

WHAT A WOMAN!

Did you ever have an aunt that you were especially close to?  My mother had no brothers, but she had eight sisters and when I moved as a teenage boy to Meridian, Mississippi, I became very close to one in particular.  I lived with my grandmother, but my Aunt Teeny was such a help.  She helped me get a summer job at a local radio station and did many other things to make my time there so important to me.

Sometimes in our youth, our friends and parents and teachers do not always know or understand just what we are going through and God has a way of bringing a parent of another child, an aunt, uncle, or someone else to the rescue.  We may not even realize He is doing it at the time, but looking back on life we can see where it happened.  Once in awhile, it may even save a child's life.

Now let's consider a text and glean from it some times regarding out subject, What A Woman!

Mary’s Visit to Elizabeth

39 In those days Mary set out and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah 40 where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her,w and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.x 42 Then she exclaimed with a loud cry:

“You are the most blessed of women,and your child will be blessed!y

43 How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me!z 45 She who has believed is blessed because what was spoken to her by the Lord will be fulfilled!”

I can not even imagine what young Mary had been going through.  I understand her faith, but I cannot fathom what this young girl felt, and you can't either.  After all, it was not so much that she was too young to marry in those days, nor was it that she might be too hong to be pregnant, but she was pregnant with GOD!  Now that would blow anybody's mind, much less a young girl in a culture where a young girl pregnant out of wedlock was to be stoned for her assumed unfaithfulness.  But that is another story yet to come.

The grace and goodness of God, took her on a 70 mile journey to Aunt Elizabeth's house.  I am sure she, being filled with the Spirit, was led there for several reasons, one of which was certainly that of encouragement.  Elizabeth was of the priestly line as was her husband, Zechariah of whom we have already written.  And perhaps Elizabeth might have been a bit suspicious also had it not been for her own miraculous experience.  JUST THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT!  Put yourself where they were at the time.  A woman cannot get pregnant without sexual intercourse, but here was Mary who had never had sex and she was PREGNANT!  If God had not prepared this godly aunt, allowed her to be impregnated in her old age with John the Baptist, do you honestly think she would have understood, much less believe this child's story?

So, for now, let me just say that we all need an Aunt Elizabeth for the time avoid does such wonderful and mysterious things in our lives that our parents, spouses, and it seems no one else understands.  But let me end today's thought with a question;  Would you be someone's Aunt Elizabeth?  Would you ask God today to man you the kind of man or woman, elderly as you may be, that some young girl or boy could honestly and openly share with you their greatest fears as well as victories?  Think about it!  We could all use an Aunt Elizabeth in our lives.