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Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
Finding Hope in Connection
What if the essence of companionship and faith holds the key to overcoming life's most daunting challenges? This episode is an invitation through the Advent season, where we draw parallels between the biblical bond of Mary and Elizabeth and our personal battles with unwanted sexual behavior or betrayal trauma. Joined by Kyle (spiritual coach), we unravel how these stories illuminate our struggles, urging us to embrace community support and faith as vital lifelines during times of uncertainty.
ReMember: a night full of worship, art, dessert, stories of God’s goodness, and an opportunity to partner with Regeneration. We invite you to join us for our annual dessert Regeneration fundraiser. We’d love for you to join us, It will not be the same without you. RSVP here!
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Hey, welcome back everybody. We are still in the season of Advent and we could not resist on the Becoming World podcast but to do a series focusing on Advent. We're not doing the full four weeks of Advent, we've only got three. So last week we did our first in the series, talking about Mary and with Andre and I had a conversation about Mary. This week I'm talking with Kyle about Mary's interaction with Elizabeth. We're going to dig in here a little bit and I want to just give a little bit of context. Why does this matter for you? So, if you're listening and you're here because you've got to struggle with your own unwanted sexual behavior, you're trying to grow in sexual integrity, you're trying to heal your marriage or heal your own wounds from betrayal trauma, or you care about somebody who's wrestling with their own unwanted sexual behaviors, unwanted sexual attractions. What does Elizabeth and Mary have to do with you? Well, you're going to find out, but I want to just kind of set the background a little bit to entice you to keep listening. First of all, when we're talking about Advent, we are looking forward to the incarnation of Christ. He is already incarnated in Mary's womb. He is present, he has become human in Mary's womb, which is worthy of contemplation for weeks and weeks and weeks, not just over Advent, but what it means that when God the word, became flesh, theologians, christian theologians, recognize that means that he entered into our situation and in a very literal, physical way he entered into Mary's situation, into her body. And today, as we're thinking about Mary and Elizabeth, I want you to just be listening for some of the connections for you, because whatever the journey you're on I just kind of went through some different options that may fit you Likely you're in a space that is unknown for you Up ahead is unknown. You're not sure what's coming, you're not sure how this is going to work out. Well, mary and Elizabeth can certainly relate with that. It's intimidating. There's some scary stuff that you're walking through. This is not what you imagined for yourself. Elizabeth and Mary can relate with that. And then, thirdly, what they're walking through is literally changing the relationships with everybody else around them.
Speaker 1:So I think about Mary here, specifically that being impregnated as a teenager, before she's married. There are going to be people who misunderstand her, who do not believe her, many who would doubt and accuse her of doing something that she did not do. And certainly when you're on a journey towards sexual integrity or toward healing in the area of sexuality, there are going to be a lot of people who disagree with you, who think you're on the wrong path, who think you're crazy, who think you're nuts, who don't buy into what you're doing and even say that you're going the wrong direction. So, even though Mary's situation is different than all of ours, even so, as Christ has entered into our lives and in a literal way in Mary's life, there is something here for us. He has entered into something significant for you and for me. All right, hope that's enough to entice you to keep listening.
Speaker 1:Before I invite Kyle to jump into the conversation, I want to read right from the book of Luke what we're going to be talking about. So I'm looking at Luke 1, beginning in verse 39. And, kyle, I'll read this, and then, after I read, I'm going to ask you to kind of jump in with what's the first thing that you see here, as it kind of connects Mary and Elizabeth with our situation. So here we go In those days. So this is right after the annunciation, right after the angels told Mary that she's going to be impregnated and bear God's son, and she's like let it be done to me, according to your word, what we talked about last week.
Speaker 1:And then it says this in those days, mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
Speaker 1:And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me? That the mother of my Lord should come to me. For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken her from the Lord, spoken to her from the Lord. And then we have Mary's Magnificat, which we will lock it into today in great significance, but we'll come back to it and we end with verse 58, 56, which says and Mary remained with her, with Elizabeth, about three months and then returned to her home. All right, kyle, what do you see? What pops out for you when you think about our listeners' journey and what Christ has entered into and what that speaks to us.
Speaker 2:Well, when I think about people who struggle with unwanted sexual behavior or people who are dealing with betrayal trauma, I see this beautiful model. For what does it mean to step into the midst of community with all of that? Because those things can make you isolate.
Speaker 2:You know, if you have unwanted sexual behavior, you think, okay, if I just go over here in this corner and I'll take care of myself and get myself all together, then, voila, I can jump back into community and everything will be good and I don't have to worry about any shame or fighting or the same, even with betrayal trauma, like you might not want people to know that you're experiencing this really difficult thing in your marriage and so you want to isolate and you kind of pull away from folks and again you say, well, maybe I'll reemerge when we get this thing back together and then you know, everybody will know or think that everything is okay. I think this is a call to say when you have these difficult things in your life, you need to have a place to go and a person who is safe. Right, the place is safe, the person is safe, and in the midst of that, that, when you bring forth your stuff, you don't hear. This is what you should do, this is what you need to do, but the person can receive what you have to say. They know how to hold it well, and then they can speak truth into you. They can speak truth into who you are in Christ.
Speaker 2:And I think what's one of the things, as you were reading this, that really stood out for me is that when Elizabeth sees Mary and it says that she exclaimed with a loud cry, and it says that she exclaimed with a loud cry, and I think sometimes you need to have those voices that are so much louder than all the other voices that you've heard. You know all the voices of. You know people who say I don't know if you ever get over this. I think you know. Or if you're in a struggling and with betrayal, well, you know, I think you should just leave them and that's it. You know it's over, but sometimes you need that voice that is so much louder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so much clearer than any other voice you're listening to, and then they can really speak the truth to you about who you are in Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much there, kyle. Okay, I want to rewind a little bit. One of the things you're saying reminds me of I remember in my early recovery I'd probably been going to groups at Regen for maybe a year and I was seeing progress. I felt things were beginning to shift inside of me, my paradigm was beginning to change. I was beginning to see my struggle differently, the world differently, beginning to learn to relate differently with God and with other people.
Speaker 1:But I remember one of my dear friends during the season who was not acquainted with recovery. I mean, he knew he was aware that I was going to this group once a week and getting some therapy, but he was really. I remember him at one point saying so how long are you going to be doing this thing? Like it was just kind of to him it just felt like this odd thing that I was doing and I was. I was far enough along to know that I I wasn't going to stop just because he didn't like think it was great.
Speaker 1:But but that's kind of what you're talking about. That's just maybe even a lighter version of what some people go through, which is like recovery, work in this area, in the area of sexuality, where, whichever side you're on, kind of, whether it's your struggle or a loved one's struggle or something that's happened to you or something that you've done it can feel really lonely and it can feel you can feel a lot of shame in the loneliness, especially when people around you don't understand and and either question what you're doing, pose what you're doing. I think, for instance, men and women come, come to us who are wrestling with same-sex attraction or gender identity stuff in this day and age. They will encounter many voices, including many voices in the church, who will say you are going to screw up your life if you don't just accept that you're gay and me according to his design and I'm not going this other route. I'm going to follow God's word and I'm going to follow Jesus Come what may. That can be really lonely territory, especially when people around you say you're nuts, you know you're off your rocker. I think about people in betrayal, trauma, people who have a spouse who's been unfaithful, and even well-meaning Christian voices around them who will say why don't you just leave him, why don't you just leave her? This doesn't make any sense that you're trying to reconcile, trying to grow this marriage and I'm not saying that every marriage can be restored. I'm not saying that it's always healthy to stay it's a whole other podcast. But certainly even those whose husbands or wives who have been unfaithful, who are doing the hard work of recovery, their spouses, can experience a great deal of shame and isolation. And I think what you're saying about story to kind of just, you know, turn this into a Thomas Kinkade picture. You know, like you know, silent night, holy night, it's all peaceful, it's all calm.
Speaker 1:There's some real scandal and difficulty for Mary and I think we can infer from the text here in Luke she went away for a reason. And not only that, it wasn't just her, like she didn't just kind of skip town of her own volition. If you look back, it was the angel who said to her your relative Elizabeth has also conceived, even her in her later life. He's tipping the hand for her, saying you're not alone, god has provided someone else near to you. He's not even it's not. He didn't.
Speaker 1:The angel didn't say like hey, there's also somebody else in the world going through this. He said you know who she is. Like she is near. Like god provided someone that mary could go to. And I think we can infer that she went away because this jolted her system. This was hard. So I think, kyle, what you're saying about not being alone is it's just, the text is just drenched in the fragrance of God's heart for us, that we, even in the place where we feel most alone, he provides for us, that we do not need to be alone. Right, make sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and she went with haste.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:She didn't. You know, sometimes you can kind of contemplate. You know that there are those people who are for you. They're in your corner and you may have the mindset of, well, I really shouldn't bother them with this, they've got their own things going on. I don't want to add to their thing. But she went with haste, Like there wasn't any hesitation for her. It's like I'm getting up, I'm going and I'm going to a person who I know, who loves me, who understands, who I can trust with all of the things that I need to bring to her. I can trust her with that. And so, you know, sometimes we can kind of, you know, waddle around a little bit or waffle a little bit about whether or not we even go to the people that we know are safe.
Speaker 1:I like to waddle around. I think that's that's waffling.
Speaker 1:We waddle around, yeah, all right. Like to waddle around? I think that's that's waffling we waddle around, yeah, all right. So let me just I'm going to throw in another kind of curve here that I want to ask you a question, because you said something about somebody who can bless you.
Speaker 1:One of the things that strikes me is that the angel told Mary that her relative, elizabeth, had also conceived. We don't have any evidence that the angel told Elizabeth that she had a relative, mary, who was going to conceive, right Like so. We don't know when Mary left to go see Elizabeth. We don't know at that point how much she knows, or how confident she is, or isn't, that Elizabeth is going to be a safe person. She, she, she may. She may just kind of knowing Elizabeth's character. We don't know. Think, yep, she's trustworthy, she loves me. She may be going, may, just kind of knowing Elizabeth's character.
Speaker 1:We don't know. Think, yep, she's trustworthy, she loves me. She may be going with some sense of you know, yeah, for Elizabeth to be pregnant, that's just a blessing, because she and her husband have been wanting to be pregnant for so long and now they're vindicated. God's blessed them. But I'm a single woman, not even married. How is Elizabeth going to receive me? You said something a minute ago, kyle. You said one of the other things we need is someone who's going to bless us. So talk to us about that. What does it mean to be blessed? What do you see here? How does that pan out for Mary?
Speaker 2:And what does that mean for the person who's wrestling God's power working in your life? I think, when you come and you bring to them whatever it is that you're bringing, I think with them there's a witness in their own spirit that says they need to know that God truly loves and cares for them. Elizabeth had this witness within her womb that Mary was speaking the truth, that this wasn't something that she was making up or trying to, you know, get out of, where she can kind of say, hey, you know I made this mistake, but it's really the son of God, right?
Speaker 2:No, it was like there was this affirmation of I understand fully what she's saying and there's an and because that she had the fortitude to be able to say I can go to elizabeth, I can share this with her.
Speaker 2:Then Elizabeth can say and bless you for that right. So there are going to be people, when you come and you bring all the hard stuff to them, there's going to be something within them that says they need to hear the truth about how God feels about them and they can sense that witness. They won't sense the oh my goodness, they just told me icky stuff. The sense that they will have is this person needs to know the power and the love of Jesus and I'm going to make sure they know that. And so I can speak this blessing over them, over who they are. I can speak this blessing of hope that their things can be different and their lives can be transformed. So you know, it's this opportunity. You get this opportunity when you bring stuff to people to really have a true sense of what it means to experience the love of Jesus through other people.
Speaker 1:Man, my brain is literally like flipping through Rolodex of memories of times where I had to go to somebody else with fear and trembling about something that I'd done, including people that I'd hurt in my sin, and the response back was just God's grace, god's grace, god's grace. And I know that's not the case for everybody. I know there are times where somebody shares their struggle or what they're going through and they're received not with a blessing but with what we might say is a curse, something that's feel really ostracizing or shaming. We've heard stories of that. So let this be even a lesson to all of us listening that that when someone discloses something that's very difficult, isolating, shameful, sinful, look for the gold, like, listen for the spirit's voice, like what is he saying that this person needs?
Speaker 1:Elizabeth didn't make the situation go away, right, she didn't. She didn't make all the scandal disappear in everybody's perspective of mary. She didn't make the situation go away. She didn't make all the scandal disappear in everybody's perspective of Mary. She didn't go back with Mary to proclaim, you know like, no, this is hey, it's really God's son. Like she just brought herself in that moment to say this is what I'm experiencing and yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:You say she had a witness in her, inside of her. Like literally, she had this witness. And again I want to point out, like this isn't just human, like it's not just on a human kind of horizontal scale, like Elizabeth was the baby left in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Remember, the Holy Spirit is not just friends, not just a vague power. He is a personal, he's a personal God. So Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, spirit by god's will like to testify this, and so might we, might we trust that he will provide for us, that his heart is, even if some people don't get this right that god's heart for us, when we're walking through something difficult like this is is to provide blessing in the spaces where we most need it, even even though the hardship will continue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one of my favorite parts of this whole story that John the Baptist leaps in her womb and she's filled with the Holy Spirit. Like what the heck, you know? Like something wonky, powerful is happening there. That is just, I mean, it is what it is. And then she exclaims with a loud cry you called that out a minute ago before we got on and started recording. Like what does the loud cry mean to you? Like with this loud cry I?
Speaker 2:mean, I think it's just this ability to shut out all these other voices.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, sure, I would expect that, mary, as this young woman is, I've got to go to my relative's home and I got to tell her that, hey, I know I'm not married yet, I'm pregnant, and this was, you know, done by the Holy Spirit, and like I need you to hear this and know this. And she could have had all these voices saying you know, when people find out about this, you're going to be stoned, or Joseph is going to. You know, just divorce you, the betrothal will be over. You're going to be this young woman who has no place to go and will be ostracized, the community by the community.
Speaker 2:And so that's the voice, those might be the voices that she was hearing, because she, even when, the, when, the, when the angel came, she even said you know, hey, well, how will this be? Like? She even had questions, sure, even in that. And so how must she still be trying to process that and ensuring that the voice that she hears is the one from her heavenly father who loves her, and not the enemy who wants to tell her that she's in big trouble? And so Elizabeth's loud exclamation is certainly going to shut out any of these other voices that Mary may have been listening to.
Speaker 1:It reminds me a little bit of this, of jesus parable the prodigal son. Returning, he comes with this rehearsed you know bit that he's going to say to his father and he never even gets it out, he doesn't even get home and his father's run to him and mary doesn't say anything. Here she just shows up and and and I guess she says something because the elizabeth hears her voice. But you know, elizabeth, you know, and kablamo, and that's it. And and she's met with this loud cry of like it's you, you're blessed, like I'm blessed because you're here, why are you here talking to me? Like what an upside down twist for what she might have expected. And you, you also said you called it an affirmation of the truth, which I love, because we're not given much about Mary's inner life, and I wish we were, because she's this beautiful, incredible figure in Christianity and in the scriptures and she's given so little air time and certainly in evangelical Protestant circles, circles she's given very little airtime. But there's something about her, this faith journey for her, and and I I do think we have to assume on some level that that mary, that elizabeth's words over mary are a blessing that mary needs, are and are affirming the truth in a way that Mary also needs. Maybe she would have been okay without it, but then why the Holy Spirit moving in this powerful way over Elizabeth and blessing her, empowering her to speak these words of truth over Mary? I mean even Jesus. When he started his public ministry, the Holy Spirit descended. There's a voice from heaven. This is my son and we're well pleased. And again, I would just want to encourage our listeners and myself not to get too I don't know a storybook about this. This is earthy stuff. And so the idea that Mary would have needed someone to say Mary, it's true, like you're not delusional, like it wasn't a false memory, like this is real and we're a part of a bigger story, like that, what, how, how encouraging that must have been for her. All right, curveball, I didn't, I wasn't I, I, you're not expecting this question.
Speaker 1:So at this point in our conversations we begin landing the plane. I just want to revisit where we started. We're talking about Mary here, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Elizabeth, this upright saint. I can imagine that some people listening right now are going like, well, yeah, for them I can get it, but are you sure that God doesn't want me to be alone, that he really wants to bless me, that he really wants to speak some kind of truth over me. That's going to be empowering and helpful and blessing me, because what I'm walking through is not this virginal conception, it's not carrying the Son of God. It's crap that I've done, really hurtful harmful stuff to other people that I've done, or really hurtful harmful stuff that's been done to me. What kind of assurance do we have that this truly does apply to our listeners, to you, to me?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think and you mentioned it earlier, I think, if you think about the prodigal son, you think about the prodigal son. Here is this young man who was hanging out with the pigs should have never been with. He was already unclean, because we're assuming this is a Jewish person hanging out with pigs comes back. Nobody should even be touching him. He is ceremonially unclean. He would have had to do whatever rituals he needed to do to be clean before anybody even touched him. And yet the Father not only runs to him but embraces him, kisses him, shows that he's not too dirty. He's not too dirty. Or if you think about the lepers that Jesus has healed, he never strayed away from touching them. He was willing to be up close and personal with them when nobody else would, and I think it's an assurance from Scripture right from the words of the Lord that you are never too far.
Speaker 2:You are never too far gone. No matter how far you feel like you are, you're never too far.
Speaker 1:I love that, what kind of comes to mind for me and this is why I was telling Kyle beforehand, telling you, kyle, beforehand, that this whole passage to me has been one I've kind of just zipped through. I haven't spent a lot of time on it until this year and again, I think one of the things I've missed in this is that christ is present through all of this. He is, he is a an embryo, a tiny, tiny embryo that at this point would not be able to survive on his own outside of Mary's womb, and he is entering right even so, entering right into this very difficult, lonely situation that Mary's walking through. And we're seeing the provision of the Father here. And I hear what you're saying is this is the pattern that Jesus shows us, that God has, over and over again, he enters into our mess, has, over and over again, he enters into our mess and and thank god he does, because whether the prodigal son or the blessed virgin, or the leper, or you or me, like, if he doesn't enter into our mess, like then we're in our mess and that's it.
Speaker 1:Okay, kyle, last word, we didn't, we were not reading the magnificat here mary's song after this, but but she in response to what happens with Elizabeth, she bursts into this beautiful, eloquent, preserved for all of time song of praise. What's going on there? Like land the plane for us, with this beautiful kind of response of Mary. What do you see there?
Speaker 2:Well, I think when others can show you the love of Christ, no matter what's going on in your life, that they can offer a blessing of hope to you. If you can have your hands and heart open to receive that, what song might burst forth from your own?
Speaker 1:lips.
Speaker 2:What praise might you give to the Lord? But just because of the hope. Right, you may not have even seen anything take place yet, but if someone can speak those words of hope to you that you can grasp, what song might you burst into? And I think that is a way of solidifying your faith, saying that you trust God, you believe the word that is coming from, whoever it is. Who is saying God is for you, who is saying God loves you, he wants the best for you and he wants to be a part of this transformation process. He's not expecting you to do it on your own, he wants to be a part of it. When you can really receive that, I think there are things that just burst forth from you because of that truth.
Speaker 1:That's so good. I think our knee-jerk response in the in, in the midst of our shame, midst of isolation, midst of our sin, need your response to blessing and friendship and kindness and and affirmations of of a truth that feels feels like something that we do not deserve are. I think at least my tendency can be well, yeah, yeah, nice idea, but and we kind of stiff arm the word and maybe one of our closing questions to our listeners and to ourselves can be if Mary needed friendship, needed someone who, who, who could be with her, needed someone who would, who would bless her and and and affirm that God is in this journey that she's on. If Mary needed that, then how much more do we need that? And she didn't stiff arm Elizabeth's response. She didn't say well, elizabeth, let me tell you the whole story. Let me go through all the crap happening at home. Let me tell you what Joseph said, whatever she received, it, and yeah, and this song burst forth. That's, that's the fruit we're after.
Speaker 1:So if you're, if you're like me and Kyle, you're wanting to go around sexual integrity, you're wanting to heal, you're wanting to grow like, receive the friendships God brings your way, receive the blessings, receive the truth and affirmation that God gives, even when you don't feel like you deserve it, because from that burst forth the life of praise, which is where we want to go, that's where we want to be. So good, kyle, thank you. Let me pray for us. Jesus, man, lord, christmas can be so. Yep, we've been there, done that, but we can never plumb the depths of the mystery and profundity, the profoundness, the immensity I'm lacking words of your incarnation, when you became flesh, when you dwelt in Mary and among us. Lord, go deeper in us, open us further to your truth this Christmas, that we might be healed and we might magnify the Lord along with good Mary. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
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