“At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” Luke 1: 39-41

The lesson many people learn from their bad experiences on betrayal, jealousy or envies is that we should not share our vision with people. At first sight, that sounds amazingly true and without surprise a convention most people broadly adhere to. The strange reality though is that I am not sure if someone can achieve God’s vision for his/her life alone because, in one way or another, we need someone to help or prepare the way for us. We just need to find the right person. Mary, Jesus’ mother, met with the right person (Elizabeth) while Jesus met with the right helper (John the Baptist).

In Luke 1:39 the Bible said that Mary went to visit Elizabeth after she had received the news from the angel and Elizabeth blessed her. Apart from the 3 months Mary spent with Elizabeth, the Bible hardly provided details about her stay. But I am convinced from the passage that Elizabeth was mentoring Mary and preparing her psychologically because, Mary did not go there for pleasure or for a physical checkup.

In the context they were living in, that news was probably not easy for Mary to handle because, she had never had a relationship with a man and her pregnancy could easily look like a scandal since she was not officially married to Joseph. By the way, how many people would have believed her? Even her own husband-to-be, Joseph, was thinking about the best way of avoiding that scandal by putting her away privily (Matthew 1:19). Fortunately, Elizabeth had been able to reassure Mary and prepared her during these moments and the best news is that she did so without envy and jealousy even though Mary’s child was meant to be greater than hers. What an exploit from Elisabeth!

Many of us have visions that require advice or mentoring from other people; but, we have become hesitant because of our previous experiences or what people around us went through. Elizabeth’s story provides you and me the assurance that the world is not full of only traitors and jealous people. Even if you are Jesus, you need John the Baptist to prepare you the way.

May God help us to recognize our Elizabeth in the name of Jesus.