Jeremy L. Berg

Fourth Week of Advent

This concludes my series of imaginative explorations of contemplative themes in the lives of Mary, Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth. This is my favorite one and most autobiographical. I teared up as my friend Karen performed it aloud at our gathering Sunday. Enjoy! (Look for Karen’s reading of this on the Anchor Podcast this week.)

You know me as the one in whom new life leapt for joy at the approach of Mary and the Savior in her womb. The historical account remembers me, Elizabeth, on my very best day. A day of inner leaping. A day when the fruit of my womb did cartwheels. Christmas pageants portray me all aglow with joy, carrying the fullness of life inside my belly. But that day was long in the making, and my life before that was anything but full of joy.  

You see, I always felt like there was something missing inside me. A kind of void waiting to be filled but not knowing where or how to fill it. This feeling was only compounded when Zechariah and I married, and then tried in vain to have a child. Now my sense of interior emptiness had another dimension and a name—a cruel and forsaken name: Barren. 

But nature abhors a vacuum, and so my soul—my inner sanctuary—soon found all kinds of unwanted visitors taking up residence where a baby refused to grow. These thoughts and negative feelings came and went over the years, like in-laws overstaying their welcome during the holidays. And I all too often nurtured them and fed them like children, allowing them to grow and put down roots inside my being. Toxic roots, a poisonous presence. They have common names and you no doubt have hosted them as well. 

Shame was the first to move in and she painted my interior black with ugly red splotches. She chirped non-stop, pointing out my every flaw, making me feel dirty and unworthy of having a child. Despair came and went over the years, staying several weeks at a time, whispering in the quiet hours that I would never find joy and never escape this feeling of incompleteness. She insisted that, “The missing piece would always remain hidden and just out of reach.” Then in my mid-30s the twins, Melancholy and Mopey, moved in to my soul  and would be my most consistent companions through the decades as my hair turned gray and my child-bearing years passed me by. 

Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t distraught. My life wasn’t bad. I had a good husband. I had other family and friends. I found plenty of small fountains of joy to sip from in the middle of my inner wilderness. But the Holy Scriptures promised more than a life of parched lips and occasional sips from wells that evaporated just as quickly as they appeared. 

However, one sabbath my soul perked up when Isaiah’s scroll was read in synagogue.  In it God declared, 

“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? …For I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people.”  (Isaiah 43:19-20)

Then there was the prophet Ezekiel who spoke of the day when the River of God would flow out from His temple, meandering through the barren desert all the way to the Dead Sea. What Ezekiel said next never left me. In fact, the first time I heard it read in synagogue, I felt something I had never felt before in my entire life: an indescribable, palpable surge of joy filling and flooding the dried and cracked landscape of my innermost being. Ezekiel declares:

“When the River of God empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. … so where the river flows everything will live… Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing” (Ezekiel 47:6-12).

Hearing about this River that flows to barren places and produces fruitful trees in its wake, brought a flood of hope that flushed all the unwanted occupants out of my soul. Shame and Despair, Melancholy and Mopey all fled together, leaving my heart basking in a rare glow of a strange, warm Light. But the warm inner glow was fleeting, and soon vanished into night. But that surge of inner joy was unforgettable and I longed to bask in it again someday.

Those pesky inner residents soon returned and my soul remained embattled, gloomy, discontent, depressed and dry over the coming years. As much as I despised these inner voices, these nagging feelings, these ever present nuisances in times of trouble, I also found strange comfort in their familiarity. I learned to live with them, and now I could hardly imagine a life without them running amuck and filling my soul’s courtyard with 24/7 parties of gloom. I figured it was better to feel something “living” inside my soul, than to feel nothing at all. And so I embraced an inner life full of brooding thoughts, bubbling resentment, and emotional turmoil. 

All the while I looked content on the outside. I played the respectable priest’s wife with a pleasant smile. I mastered the art of small talk with the women of the village, but never felt like I belonged. I always felt inadequate. Incomplete. An outsider. I never could shake the feeling that I wore around an invisible scarlet letter “B” marking me out as forever Barren. 

So I lived for years in the tug and pull of Psalm 43:5, playing therapist to my own soul, regularly asking: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God!” I pondered the Proverb that said, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Prov. 17:22). I would have walked across hot coals to find that good medicine, but a cheerful heart seemed always just out of reach. 

But I kept holding on to the vision of Isaiah and Ezekiel and that Living Water flooding the barren places and bringing life where there was only dry bones. Then I would remember the psalmist’s prayer and say defiantly, “I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” … IF … if His river ever found its way to my dried up womb and my parched soul. 

Then one day the River of Life arrived in my desert. The damn of despair cracked, and soon my life was swept up in the flow of amazing grace.

The angel appearing to Zechariah in the temple. 

My husband’s disbelief. 

Weeks of muted silence. 

Then a flutter in my womb. 

Then the flutter became a kick. 

Emptiness was replaced by fullness of joy. Shame moved out, and sweet Grace took her place. Despair died a sudden death,  and after being given a decent burial, Hope soon took over her room. Melancholy and Mopey, well, they still came around every now and then for a few days, but a new set of twins—Joy and Gladness—now slept in the bunk beds of my soul. 

I share my story with you today to underscore that we all have an interior castle, as St. Theresa would call it, where all kinds of visitors and boarders—welcome and unwelcome—try to take up lodging. They barge in and without taking off their shoes, they walk all over our heart and rearrange the furniture of our mind. They paint our interior walls every hue of blue and leave cracks in the ceiling of our soul. They raid the fridge, feeding on our discontent and doubts, and steal away our joy and peace. 

The contemplative life invites us to join the psalmist in doing a regular inspection of our inner life. We learn how to confront the inner voices, sort through the junk drawer of messy feelings, and get the courage to hand eviction notices to all the false beliefs and destructive lies that are living rent free in our inner sanctuary. 

Christmas is the season when we sing, “Let every heart prepare Him room.” That means we may need to toss certain unwanted occupants out, in order to make room for Christ and the good company he travels with. When Christ takes up residence in us, he brings along Love, Joy and Peace. Not far behind them come Patience, Kindness, Self-control and the rest of the gang. So, let every heart prepare them room! 

Finally, Jesus himself ended up being the fulfillment of Ezekiel and Isaiah’s vision of God’s River of Life. He promised that all who come to him will find a new spring of Living Water flowing through their inner being (John 4). So, don’t wait until you are old and gray like me to make Christ the Landlord of your inner life. When you do, you’ll find the dry places becoming fertile, life replacing death, and a joyful spirit leaping for joy as the fruit of the Spirit grows ever larger in your inner sanctuary. Amen.

Reflection Questions: 

1. Take some time to do a soul inventory this New Year. Describe the terrain of your inner life. What adjectives best describe the landscape? Dry? Prickly? Mountainous? 

2. Which feelings or emotions are taking up too much space in your soul? Name them. Confront them. Issue an eviction notice.

3. The Psalmist gives a pep talk to his soul asking, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God!” What do you need to say to your soul these days? Be gentle but firm.