I Need Some Me Time

Soon afterward his wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant and went into seclusion for the next five months. She said with joy, “See how kind it is of God to gaze upon me and take away the disgrace of my barrenness!” Luke 1:24-25 TPT

 

 Years ago, I was watching my niece and youngest nephew, when catastrophe struck. All I could hear was, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! She tripped!” And then the wailing began. 

Leila had hit her face on the corner of my mother’s indestructible coffee table, and was sitting in Jonathan’s lap holding her hand over her eye. I convinced her to remove it so I could see the injury, and blood began to pour from her eyebrow. 

“She’s gonna die!”, he screamed, as he pushed her away.

Leila wailed louder. 

“She is not gonna die!”, I snapped, and rushed her off to the bathroom. Though my first aid skills were mediocre at best, we managed to stop the bleeding and get her all cleaned up with minimal further hysterics. What made this possible? Removing the voice of doubt from the equation. 

When it comes to the story of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, we tend to skip right to her proclamation to Mary in verse 42. 

Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! Luke 1:42 NKJV

This is a great blessing for sure, but as I read her story this time, something else caught my eye. In verse 24 we find out a small detail that I never noticed before. Once Elizabeth realized she was pregnant, she went into seclusion for 5 months. Why would she do that? 

As a pregnant lady myself, I can understand why you would isolate for the first 3 months, when nausea and exhaustion threaten your very existence. I can also see why someone her age would want to be very careful early on as the pregnancy would be high risk, for her and the baby. 

Then it occurred to me. This woman is old, or advanced in years as Luke puts it. Can you imagine if a 70 or 80 year old woman claimed to be pregnant? No one would believe her! It was common in that time to believe that a woman unable to bear children was cursed, and as we can see in v. 25 this was the case for Elizabeth as well. 

While she would be ecstatic, there were bound to be people all around her reminding her of her past inability to carry life. Voices like these can get in your head and make you doubt and worry, which isn’t good for you or the baby, and can create a self-fulfilling cycle of its own. She stayed hidden until she would have started to appear as pregnant to others as she already knew she was. 

God made her a promise, and instead of allowing the voices of doubters to creep in, she shut herself off. Has God promised you something that hasn’t been realized? Have you failed at that very thing over and over? Don’t doubt Him now. Nothing has changed. Shut out the doomsayers, guard your ‘baby’, rest in his promise, and remember what Gabriel said to Mary: 

For with God nothing [is or ever] shall be impossible. Luke 1:37 AMP