When I was a sophomore in college, I had a little bit of a come-apart over Homecoming.

And listen. In hindsight, I absolutely know that it wasn’t a big deal at all. But there was a boy (of course) (almost every college come-apart was because of a boy) who I really hoped would ask me to be his date to the Homecoming football game and the parties that followed, and he asked someone else. I found out late one morning when I got back to my dorm room after class, and even though I played it cool and brushed it off and basically went through all the happy motions short of saying, “Look, everyone, at how unaffected I am,” I knew by about 3 o’clock that afternoon that I was gonna have to get the heck out of Starkville before the emotional dam gave way.

So without telling a soul what I was doing or where I was going, I very discreetly grabbed my laundry bag, my purse, and my keys before I mustered every bit of my eighteen-year-old resolve and hurried down three flights of stairs to the basement parking lot. After I remembered where I’d parked, I threw my laundry bag on the passenger side, settled myself in the driver’s seat, and cranked the car. I probably had to pull forward out of my parking space because I’m almost positive that was a time when my transmission was messed up and the whole “reverse” option wasn’t being entirely cooperative, but that’s really neither here nor there.

As soon as I turned onto the main road, I started to sob.

By that point, I think, the sobbing was 10 percent related to Homecoming, and 90 percent related to all my many, very deep feelings. It bummed me out that my nineteenth birthday was right around the corner because, like, MY TEENAGE YEARS ARE ALMOST OVER, Y’ALL. I felt sad that everybody seemed to have a boyfriend (or a prospective one) except for me. I was ticked that my major required me to take Early English Literature which, shockingly, listed exactly zero Flannery O’Connor or Eudora Welty or William Faulkner short stories on the syllabus because BEOWULF, for crying out loud. I lived in a perpetual state of dreading my botany class and inevitably gagged when I’d have to watch a movie in lab about a moth leaving its cocoon or a turtle laying eggs in the sand. And more than anything, I think, I missed being with Sister and my cousin Paige after spending the previous summer with them in Atlanta.

So, in summary, I was a hot mess: dateless, stressed, and headed home. I had a full-ish tank of gas, the Stealing Home soundtrack in the cassette player, and my laundry bag-riding shotgun.

(I mean, I was no fool.)

(If I was going to drive ninety emotionally charged miles to my parents’ house, then I was going to at least get some clean clothes out of the deal.)

It was late afternoon when I finally turned down Mama and Daddy’s driveway. I knew that Daddy was out of town, but Mama was home—and after I let myself in the back door, she met me coming around the corner by the laundry room.

“Sophie? What in the world? It’s the middle of the week! What are you doing . . .”

And then she stopped—because within seconds of seeing my face, she somehow understood. In that way that is often unique to women, she intuitively knew that I was on the verge of falling apart. I didn’t have to say a single word.

Mama hugged me, and I’ll have you know that I didn’t even cry; I’d left all my tears along that ninety-mile stretch of Highway 45. And for the rest of the evening, it was business as usual. Mama made us some supper, she asked what I thought about the way she’d rearranged the living room, and she told me all about a party her friend Edna had recently hosted. After an hour or so I decided to call my roommate, Daphne, to let her know where I was, and in the breeziest way imaginable, I told her I’d spontaneously decided that it would be fun to spend a night at home.

There’s not a doubt in my mind that Daph knew what was up. But she let me have my version of things, and I hung up the phone knowing that I’d probably overreacted but feeling secretly relieved that my pride was mostly intact.

Through every single bit of whatever internal drama I had going on, Mama never pressed for information. She asked one question—“Are you okay?”—and when she was satisfied that I really was, that was it. While I’m sure she would have listened if I had filled her in on the details, getting the lowdown really wasn’t her primary concern. I was.

Mama has always been super-intuitive and discerning, so I bet if someone had asked her the specifics of what was wrong with me, she would have come up with a pretty accurate assessment. In fact, she would have figured out which boy started the emotional tidal wave within three guesses (if she didn’t already know the second she saw my face). But for those few hours I hung out at my childhood home on that fine September night, she set aside her maternal need-to-know (which I now recognize was NO SMALL FEAT), and she encouraged, she affirmed, she tended, and she blessed.

When I drove back to school early the next morning, my perspective was radically different. More than I needed someone to fix everything for me, I needed a safe place. And Mama’s wisdom and care met me right in the center of that need.

I’ve never forgotten it.

Also, you’ll be relieved to know that after I got a hold of myself and drove back to Starkville, someone did in fact ask me to Homecoming.

Just wanted to bring that around full circle for y’all.

There are only a few times in my life (including Homecoming-gate, of course) when I remember going somewhere “with haste”—you know, like when Mary travels to Elizabeth’s house in Luke 1.

But I’ll go ahead and admit that at least one of those probably involved some Popeye’s fried chicken.

I’m not trying to say that the fried chicken is super-spiritual or anything. I am merely pointing out that there has been a time or eight in my life when I have experienced a fried chicken craving so strong that it might be better described as a yearning.

Normally, though, if I’ve gone somewhere “with haste”—if I’ve felt a sense of legitimate urgency—it was because of a relational connection. Sometimes it was because a loved one was hurting. Other times it was because I needed advice from a trusted friend. Or maybe it was because I just wanted to be with my mama.

So I think it’s interesting that after Gabriel left her, Mary “arose and went with haste.” That’s the first thing she did. She got up, and she got going.

Specifically, she got going about seventy miles to the south, to her cousin Elizabeth’s house in Judea. And since Mary didn’t own a burgundy Buick Regal that had lost its ability to operate in reverse, she did what most women would have done at the time: she walked.

By most accounts the journey took her three or four days. And while I understand that it would be unfair to impose today’s mentality about travel on Mary and her particular set of circumstances, I would just like to point out that if you ever hear that I walked seventy miles to see a cousin, you can be assured of this: I MUST HAVE BEEN DESPERATE FOR SOME COMPANY.

Nonetheless, walking long distances would have been fairly common for Mary, though I do think the fact that she embarked on such a long journey “with haste” gives us some insight into Mary’s state of mind.

Let me see if I can break this down.

Mary was in a little bit of a cultural pickle. She was fourteen, she was unmarried, and she had just found out that she was going to give birth to, you know, the Savior of the world. But Gabriel made a point to relay the info that Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, was also pregnant, and Mary no doubt knew what an unexpected pregnancy that was since Elizabeth was about thirty years older than the average woman who signs up for the baby registry at Target.

From that perspective, the fact that Mary set out to see Elizabeth “with haste” makes perfect sense. If she had stayed in Nazareth, Mary would have been signing up for self-imposed isolation at best and social ostracism at worst. She knew the reality of life in her hometown, and she no doubt craved the companionship of her pregnant cousin in Judea.

There must have been something in Mary that didn’t want to be alone.

There must have been some pondering about Elizabeth and Zechariah’s situation.

And my guess is that after comparing options in Nazareth to options in Judea, there must have been a point when Mary thought, I WANT TO GO TO THERE.

So that’s exactly what she did.

She walked seventy-plus miles over the course of three-plus days, which leads me to think she was a living, breathing heap of vulnerability when she finally “entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth” (Luke 1:40).

One more hunch: That fifty-year age difference between her and Elizabeth? I’d be willing to bet that it was probably the very last thing on her mind.

When I think about all of that, here’s what occurs to me.

It’s so easy for people to feel like an inconvenience.

And don’t get me wrong. I love me some people. But life gets busy and our schedules get packed and, if you’re like I am, you can start to crave pajama time. Maybe even a little reality TV time. Because heaven knows that when real life is swirling all around, few things can get my mind off of a to-do list like the antics of a bunch of grown women who have opted to broadcast their lives to the masses via Bravo.

But when Mary showed up at Elizabeth’s house, Elizabeth didn’t treat her like an interruption. She didn’t hide in a back room or roll her eyes or say that she would normally be so glad to talk but, um, she was SUPER busy watching the season finale of The Real Housewives of Hebron.

Instead Elizabeth was instantly and completely available to her young cousin. Scripture states that “when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41).

And lest we glance right over it, it’s good to remember that “filled with the Holy Spirit” business. It was a whole new deal. In fact, Mary Elizabeth Baxter, who wrote Bible commentary in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, pointed out that Elizabeth was the “very first person of whom such is mentioned.”5

And it wasn’t just that Elizabeth was the first person Scripture mentioned as being filled with the Holy Spirit; she also reacted and responded to Mary based on the knowledge the Holy Spirit gave her. In Luke 1:42, Elizabeth “exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’”

In that moment Elizabeth knew a whole lot of information that no person shared with her, and she wasn’t timid about it, either. Elizabeth’s boldness—her “loud cry”—lets us know that she spoke with conviction and authority over her young cousin. She blessed Mary, she blessed the baby that Mary was carrying, and the only possible way she could have known to do either was because the Holy Spirit told her.

So Mary, after her long, arduous journey, was met with instant understanding. What a relief that must have been! According to Matthew Henry, “It does not appear that Elisabeth had been told any thing of her cousin Mary’s being designed for the mother of the Messiah; and therefore what knowledge she appears to have had of it must have come by a revelation, which would be a great encouragement to Mary” (commentary, Luke 1:39–56).6

And I love this observation: “Mary had held no communication with Elizabeth. There was no penny post in those days. But the Spirit of God in one woman [recognized] the Spirit of God in the other, and it was a message from on high to Mary when Elizabeth [recognized] her as the Messiah’s mother.”7

Isn’t that the neatest thing? When the Holy Spirit in me recognizes the Holy Spirit in you?

When we “get” what’s going on without anyone telling us?

We need to pay attention to that. We need to tend to that. There is comfort and understanding in that place, and if I am ever tempted to discount it, all I have to do is think back on what a difference my very own mama made when she understood the High Drama of Homecoming without me having to give her a long-winded explanation.

That’s such a tiny example, I know. Nowhere close to the mother of John the Baptist confirming the pregnancy of the mother of Jesus. But sometimes what we consider intuition is really wisdom and discernment given to us by the Holy Spirit. And whether we’re talking about minor news or a major development, here’s what has occurred to me over the course of studying this particular part of Mary and Elizabeth’s story:

When the Holy Spirit in one woman recognizes and responds to the Holy Spirit in another woman, safe places become sacred spaces.

And to be clear, I’m not talking about some big, touchy-feely moment where women get together and surf a wave of manufactured emotion.

But when we know we’re in a sacred space, there’s freedom to share our real lives and our real circumstances. To sincerely pray for one another. To bless each other. To listen with our hearts as well as our ears.

And that kind of freedom?

Oh my goodness. You’d better believe it can (and will) change some things. All too often in our relationships, however, we content ourselves with the superficial and miss the significant.

And we’re selling ourselves short.

So, nobody asked me, but I’m going to tell you one of my very favorite things about God.

Ready?

One of my very favorite things about God is how He faithfully appoints people to walk with us at every single stage of our journey here on earth. And I don’t mean that in any sort of Bachelor-y way, either. I just mean that people need other people, and throughout Scripture we see a model of God providing people with friends and champions and mentors who support them and challenge them and spur them on.

He does the very same thing for us.

But let’s be clear: It may not look like we think it should.

For example.

When I was a senior in high school, if you had asked me who I thought would be the very best person to walk with me on the road of my teenage life, I would have looked you straight in the eyes and maybe even yelled my answer.

Amy Grant.

AMY LEE GRANT.

Oh, yes ma’am.

Amy was everything wondrous to me when I was seventeen years old. In addition to the fact that she was a brilliant singer-songwriter, she seemed like she’d be that friend who was a little bit older but infinitely wiser, like she’d be able to quote a verse of Scripture for any situation, like she’d know all the best ways to tight-roll acid-washed jeans so that they looked their very best with Tretorns.

(Remember, it was the late ’80s.)

(Acid-washed jeans wisdom was no small thing, my friends.)

And come to think of it, I would still like for Amy Grant to walk with me through some things. The years have done nothing to diminish my affection for her, and now that I’m a little older I might even be able to resist the urge to touch her face while humming “El Shaddai.”

So far, though, the Lord has not seen fit to connect Amy and me even though I am borderline certain that it is His will for my life. He has, however, provided me with other wonderful people to walk alongside me, and it really is perfectly fine that not a single one of them has ever written and performed the beloved ’90s classic “Baby Baby.” They bring other things to the relational table.

Based on that, I’m guessing that if we had the ability to ask Mary who she wanted to walk with her through the whole immaculate conception / pregnant-with-Jesus situation, she probably wouldn’t have listed her sixty-something cousin Elizabeth as her first choice. But just look how the Lord lined up their circumstances:

Elizabeth	>Mary
Elizabeth was unexpectedly, miraculously pregnant.	Mary was unexpectedly, miraculously pregnant.
Elizabeth’s husband was visited by an angel.	Mary was visited by that same angel.
Elizabeth’s baby was supposed to be very special, “filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb.”	Mary’s baby was going to be, like, the Special-est baby in the history of the world.

Both women were in situations they never could have imagined.

And both women were on the verge of the callings of their lives.

Mary Elizabeth Baxter wrote, “What the communion of spirit between these two women was, and what the intense nearness to God, in the impossibility of explaining their position to man, it would be impossible to imagine. All unworthy in themselves, but wondrously privileged by God, the mother of the Messiah and the mother of His forerunner understood Him, and understood one another.”8

I mean, can we all agree at this point that the Lord intended for the two of them to walk through their pregnancies together? Can we accept that if the Lord had wanted for Mary’s same-age friends to be the ones to bless and confirm her pregnancy, He’d have found a way to get Mary to, I don’t know, the Nazareth Mall?

Mary and Elizabeth were close to fifty years apart, but they didn’t seem to get hung up on their differences. Mary didn’t roll her eyes and say, OHMYGAH, I can’t go to Elizabeth’s house; she’s old enough to be my grandmother. By the same token, Elizabeth didn’t say, No way am I hanging out with Mary; people under forty sort of get on my nerves.

They trusted what they saw. They trusted what they knew.

And it makes me wonder: are our spiritual eyes wide open as we look for our people?

Or are we so programmed with a “same age, same stage” mentality that we’re missing the women who are ahead of us and behind us?

And let me be clear: it’s great to have friends who are about the same age. It’s flat-out therapeutic to be able to discuss the day-to-day with people who are walking through the same stuff. To my way of thinking, this is not an either/or deal. It’s a both/and.

We need people of all ages in our lives who will listen, encourage, and pray. We need people we can call and say, “Well, I think I’ve decided to quit church forever,” or “Did you ever think that the only thing standing between you and certain divorce was a kitchen remodel?” or “Hey—when your kids were in junior high, did you ever worry that they were going to grow a third eyeball and literally turn green before they climbed back into the spaceship with the rest of the hormonal aliens?”

That last example is purely hypothetical.

We need each other so much, y’all.

And we are fools—FOOLS, I TELL YOU—if we think our same-age silos are getting the relational job done.

I think Mary would probably agree.

Okay. Before we close out this chapter, we are going to have a quiz.

I know. I didn’t warn you. But it’s just a pop quiz, and if it affects your overall average in a negative way, then you will probably be able to talk me into some extra credit work because I am kind of a pushover. Deal?

All righty.

Do you remember that sentence from earlier in the chapter about safe places becoming sacred spaces?

Maybe?

Kinda?

No?

Well, since this is only a pop quiz, I will be so happy to remind you because PUSHOVER.

Here it is.

When the Holy Spirit in one woman recognizes and responds to the Holy Spirit in another woman, safe places become sacred spaces.

And now that we’ve established a cross-generational component by digging a little deeper into Mary and Elizabeth’s story, I want to take that idea one step further. Because apparently I have really strong feelings about this next thing:

In our current church culture, younger women and older women are desperate to walk through sacred spaces together.

I see it all the time when I go into churches to speak: younger women on one side of the room, older women on the other, both groups trying to figure each other out. I hear it, too. Younger women mention offhandedly that they don’t have any family in town and they’d really like to have an older woman in their life. Older women tell me that they wish they knew how to connect with the younger girls—that it would be so fun to go to lunch or go shopping together—but it’s like they’re speaking different languages.

So there’s definitely a desire to walk together, but unfortunately, for a whole host of reasons, we’re (mostly) missing each other along the way. The good news, though, is that we can do this thing differently.

Mary and Elizabeth give us so much hope in that regard.