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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks about the Babe of Bethlehem (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 3. Chapter 3: Elizabeth The Kinswoman
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Chapter 3: Elizabeth The Kinswoman
And Mary is left alone. She glances up perhaps. Yes, quite alone. Is it a dream? Will she be awaking? Ah! no, it is too real a thing ever to be questioned. No one who ever had a message direct from God doubts it.
That was a holy day to Mary. She rises to go about her usual common task. But there’s a touch of sacredness in the day.
It has been made holy to her by God’s choice of her for the simple bit of service she could give. It had been made holy by this visit of the messenger of God.
It was made yet more holy by her own action, her simple full consent to God’s plan for her life. Nothing human can make holy like that.
That evening in the twilight she sat on the hill looking out over plain and mountain and sea in holy wordless communion. Perhaps if she had access to an old Scripture roll in the home she turned to that Psalm of Asaph’s, the Seventy-seventh.
And her slender finger traced anew the line: “I will remember thy wonders of old” And she paused and mused. Then, with a holy hush coming anew over her spirit, her finger dropped down and traced the yet more wondrous line: “Thou art the God that doest wonders” (Psa_77:11; Psa_77:14).
That night she knelt by her couch in sacred renewal of her solemn dedication of herself to such a wondrous God. And she cares for her personal needs with a new sense of the sacredness of things that can be touched and cared for.
And now Mary’s thought turns naturally to her kinswoman in the southland, Elizabeth. She was much Mary’s senior. It is not improbable that there was a kinship of spirit between them. On some previous visit they may have had simple fellowship and understanding in the deep things of the spirit.
Elizabeth may have been to her as a wise mother in spiritual things. And now Elizabeth was having unusual experience these days of the wonder-working power of God. If she might have some fellowship of spirit with Elizabeth now. There would be no one with whom she could commune of what had been told her.
No one could understand. And it was a very holy thing to her, that interview. She could tell only words. She could never tell the sense of reality and power that had come.
And one shrinks from letting out the inner sacred things to those who do not understand. If she might commune with Elizabeth. And as she thinks it over it comes strongly to her that this is the Spirit’s suggestion and plan.
And so speedily the visit is arranged. And the journey south is made. And no one suspects how much this quiet young traveller knows in her own spirit of God’s plan.
Just so is God ever at work, while the busy crowd hurries on its important small way utterly oblivious of the great things being done.
And now as she enters the home of Elizabeth, perhaps unannounced, the unusual salutation of Elizabeth strikes her ear. It comes as a gracious assurance that she had indeed understood aright what had come to her.
If there had been any questionings; if any wonderings had come; if indeed it could be true that one so simple as she, so unworthy, was in the plan of God so intimately; if any touch of dreamy unreality had come in; any thing of this sort is now quite removed.
And as she listens to the words from her kinswoman’s lips her whole being responds afresh to God’s call. And the touch of the Holy Spirit comes anew upon her.
And she breaks out in the simple rapturous song of worship and praise. That song is Mary’s spirit photograph. Her whole inner heart and life are laid bare in its simple, reverent, joyous words.
Wondrous communion that was between the two kinswomen. And for three months they have sweetest fellowship together. And Mary is immeasurably strengthened by this sweet intercourse of spirit.
And now she returns to her northern home, and picks up again the thread of her daily task. And none know of her sacred secret. And evermore that lingering brooding mood grows upon her as she goes about the home and village on her common round.
Do questionings arise in her mind to harass and tease as the days go on? If so she simply leans harder in spirit on Him whose bondmaid she is.
This is His matter. He will look after it. Her part is simple obedience, as she goes on her natural, accustomed way.