I recently collaborated with the women at Beautiful Depths to contribute a blog writing and illustration for their website, surrounding the theme of the Visitation. Here is a short excerpt from the full blog post:

“This scene of the Visitation can seem like such a small, ordinary moment with two seemingly ordinary women. However, when we look more closely we can find layers of beauty: the beauty that comes with openness to new life and unexpected surprises. 

One layer reveals the sweetness of an embrace between two new mothers. Another layer shows us the depth of this embrace, revealing the complicated circumstances both women were facing in their uniquely unplanned pregnancies in their very different states in life. 

Looking closer, we can see another hidden layer showing the radical love and accepting support that comes from two women in a virtuous friendship, holding each other up in the face of challenges or unexpected joys. 

And going even deeper into another layer, we find the raw openness of both Mary and Elizabeth—two women whose holiness and sanctity did not depend on what they did, but rather what they allowed God to do through them. This layer is so uniquely beautiful because it reveals the simple love and trust of women who are completely open to cooperating with the hands of the Creator, Who formed life within their beings.

Each of these layers of the Visitation holds something deeper for each of us to meditate with and ask ourselves—Am I open to the unplanned events God has for my life? Am I supporting people in my life during difficult challenges and joyful surprises? And, in what ways am I being called to cooperate with God’s hands in creating right now in my life?”