if you want to change the world, be a blessing

“Blessed is she who believed what was spoken by the Lord!” It all begins with women. Have you noticed how the Bible’s two cornerstone stories, the Exodus and The Incarnation, begin with women? Exodus begins as Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, refuse to uphold Pharaoh’s diabolical plans. Then Moses’s mother and his sister, Miriam, hatch […]

Choosing Awe

When the time had come. Elizabeth spent five months in seclusion sometimes feeling judged, she spent 9 months of pregnancy, she spent hours breathing and pushing John into the world.  Zechariah spent 10 months in silence. When the time has come to raise a child, begin school, start a career, end a relationship, retire, move, […]

Elizabeth risks a blessing

Earlier in chapter one, Luke tells us that Elizabeth “was righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord,” but she and Zechariah were unable to have children and were getting on in years. Each year, Zechariah went to Herod’s temple to serve as a lay priest for several […]