In sports there is always a losing team which usually is not in the limelight after the game. The losers exit only to try try again some other time. Some would say they leave in disgrace. Yet, someone has to lose and that someone may be you or your team. Great Coaches teach that there are still things to be thankful for-- no one got hurt and it was fun.
Elizabeth, Zechariah's wife, experiences disgrace in a different way. In her old age God gives her a pregnancy and she says, “This is what the Lord has done for me when He looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” (Luke 1:25) Her community disgraced her for not having children. Shamed her. Her Church told her God didn't want her to live the abundant life if she was childless.
Indeed God does look favorably on her and gives her baby John, Jesus' cousin and the forerunner for Jesus. So while she has longed for years to have a baby, now she is overjoyed. She will pray for those who shamed her, disgraced her, and tried to pull her away from faith in God. For Zephaniah 3:19 reminds her that One is coming who will change other's shame into Praise. And her babe will leap within her womb when He is near, when Mary visits Elizabeth.
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