Trust and the Woman Spiritual Leader – A Way to Maximize Your Christmas Experience
How are you going to make it through what is considered to be one of the top stress filled times of the year? How many times have you thought about how the “holidays” used to be? Do you long for a simpler way of celebrating what scholars tell us was one of the most phenomenal events in history, the birth of Jesus? Please join me, women who are spiritual and leaders, as we look at trust and how it may relate to maximizing your Christmas experience.
I woke one morning recently with these same questions on my mind. As I spent time in contemplation, I was prompted to go again to the beautiful passage from the first chapter of the gospel of Luke. You may recall it recounts the interaction between the angel, Gabriel, and the woman from Nazareth, the virgin, Mary.
Gabriel announces to Mary that she will birth the baby Jesus. When Mary responds, with what I imagine would have been absolute alarm, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man”? Gabriel assures her, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee…”
What trust! Whether or not we subscribe to the story of the virgin birth, is not the issue. What is the issue, I think, is the way Mary conducts herself with obvious trust through the pregnancy and birth.
First, she runs to tell her cousin, Elizabeth, who herself is pregnant with who will be “John the Baptist”. I imagine the two of them embracing, and Mary speaks what has become known as the “Magnificat” or “Song of Mary” which is sung in Christian churches, usually around Christmas. It begins, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior…” What trust!
Mary stays with Elizabeth for three months and then returns to her home where she remains until she and her husband, Joseph, set out from Nazareth in Galilee into the province of Judea to Bethlehem to register for taxes. At this time, Mary is “great with child”. The rudimentary means of travel had to be a physical and emotional ordeal of enormous proportions for any woman about to give birth. What trust!
The story unfolds, now all too familiar, where door upon door of the inns and hostels were closed when Joseph inquired about lodging. I would have been “high anxiety” at that point, but, again, we are reminded of Mary’s trust.
When finally, the couple is given access to a simple manger, Mary births the baby Jesus in the final act of trusting. “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior…”
When we, as women spiritual leaders, experienced our first inkling of our “calling”, or “awakening”, by and large, we ventured forth in trust that we would be led in every aspect of our lives. Perhaps we didn’t have a “Gabriel” experience, or an “epiphany”, but somehow the feeling of trust in God, Spirit, Allah, our Guides, or our True Self was exactly what we needed to show us the way.
For those of us who need to rekindle that trust, I suggest that it is the way to maximize our Christmas experience. When we are stressed or nostalgic this holiday season, I suggest we turn to our Source for the guidance and the wisdom that we know is readily available, and then… trust .
This article was written by Reverend Ruth Reiner, interfaith minister, spiritual counselor, coach, nurse, former wife, mother, and grandmother.
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Tags: Calling, Christmas, Trust, Women Spiritual Leaders