Seeking Motherhood
Selections from Luke 1
There was a priest of Abijah's division named Zachariah. His wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both were righteous in God's sight.... But they had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive, and both of them were well along in years.... After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and kept herself in seclusion for five months. She said, The Lord has done this for me. He has looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace among the people.... Then her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her His great mercy.
Wonder why God chose this well-along-in-years woman to amaze with a miracle baby? We don't know if she had given up hope, or if perhaps she still prayed every day for the impossible. But we do know this God can do anything with someone who seeks him.
There are some very human reasons for wanting a child. They draw attention like a magnet. Their little fingers and toes look like the dolls you always played with. And they're so cute in their costumes at the school play. But Elizabeth seems like a woman who had gotten beyond these kinds of desires. Her lifetime of faithfulness to the Lord indicates that her longing for a child came from a yearning to impart God's Word to a little one. And she certainly must have. John the Baptist's life was proof of powerful parenting.
Look At It This Way
When parents receive a child from the hand of God, their job, in the words of Janet Erskine Stuart, is to give a saint to God. Who is sufficient for these things? This small package of living flesh, with their blood coursing through its tiny veins, their features alarmingly recognizable on the wizened face; real, workable fingers, capable of a damp, hot, strong grip on one of theirs; lungs which can produce the most heartbreakingly soft coos and unbearably harsh cries; skin so smooth, so silky, so tender you want to weep when you touch it. And they are responsible for this? Solely responsible to give a saint back to God! A talented woman was asked by a friend, Why have you never written a book? I am writing two, was the quiet reply. I have been engaged in one for ten years, the other five. It doth yet appear what they shall be, said the woman, but when he makes up my jewels, my great ambition is to find them there. Your children? Yes, my two children. They are my life's work. Elisabeth Elliot
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