When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Calling and identity are dialectical. We are called by God and we are also called by others. Before we see ourselves, others point out our gifts, skill sets, and leadership potential. First comes the calling; then comes the naming. Calling is not without community. And calling comes with vulnerability.
Elizabeth heard Mary’s voice come across the threshold of her house and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. Her womb instinct was to call back in benediction and declaration at what the Spirit revealed to her about her cousin! The woman and the womb had been blessed by God.
Elizabeth’s womb was telling her so! Not only that, the baby in that womb was her Lord. What a salvific confession! I love how Elizabeth calls out what she sees the Lord has deposited in Mary.
Calling and identity are dialectical. We are called by God and we are also called by others. Before we see ourselves, others point out our gifts, skill sets, and leadership potential. First comes the calling; then comes the naming. Calling is not without community. And calling comes with vulnerability. Think about the vulnerability of these two women. Societally, Elizabeth had probably endured much-deferred hope and waiting to have a child. Now, God had remembered and heard her long prayers at her older age. Think about Mary being pregnant with a child and not yet wed to Joseph. The plans of God are high risk! Yet, God sends us messengers to confirm and affirm the calling in us, the invisible hope before there is a visible manifestation of that calling.
How about you? Who were those mentors, teachers, coaches, friends, parents, or siblings that helped speak into your life? How did they speak to you? I often find that it is not so much a clean one-time event that calls us, but a consistent whisper that awakens us to calling and vocation. Rather than ask, “What do you want to do with your life?”, instead what is it that you do, that when you do it you feel beyond yourself and it makes you soar?” It was a different question. It hit a different nerve. It awakened my imagination. It even resisted societal or familial expectations.
May you lean into the Elizabeths in your life that calls out the calling of God on your life in every season, from vulnerability to vulnerability.
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