As I’m reading through the Bible this year (see the link on the sidebar for the reading plan), Saturdays have become a catch-up day. I look back over the passages from the week where, no surprise, something unexpected stands out.

This morning I noticed Psalm 113:9. He (the Lord) settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. I flipped next to Luke 1 and the story of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, a childless woman well into her old age.

Elizabeth certainly knew this psalm. A devout woman, married to a priest, she thought about these words and prayed them and hoped in them and cried over them.

Then, a mile past hope, God fulfilled this particular promise for her. Elizabeth’s response: The Lord has done this for me.

I struggle with disappointments as I pray and ask the Lord for what seems to me good things for me and for those I love. Sometimes those things come, and sometimes not. So it’s helpful to read about Elizabeth and her response to this long-delayed gift.

Gracious, not bitter. Rather than spin on what I think I’m missing, Elizabeth helps me look with gratitude on what the Lord has done for me, and hope for what is yet to come.

Week ten of reading the Bible cover to cover