How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news....and encouragement...and there is nothing like the fragrance of a loving conversation with a friend to do your heart some good.
I will admit that in the last month, I have had what seems like an entire season of heartache. I have needed God's love so much, and his presence, and I have experienced it in my prayer life and devotions because of the new growth He has been leading me through. But this last week I have been stunned and humbled by the tender love and healing companionship of my husband and my dear friends.
The fragrance of their love and prayers remind me of the story where the woman comes to Jesus and breaks her costly alabaster jar of perfume on his feet,weeping and washing him with her tears and her tresses. As I think about how the aroma of her blessing spread through the house where Jesus was, I thought about why that vase was her most costly possession. A friend and client of mine recently gave my daughter and I each a gorgeous glass vase with a stopper, from Egypt. She let me choose a rosé and a lavender essential oil fragrance to fill them with, and demonstrated how these amazing fragrances from the Middle East work, how they look, what you can do with them. I drove away from her house smelling like gorgeous roses and the smell lingered even as the gift from her began to bless me more and more....
Mary's jar, was its beauty and scent how she would attract a mate? Cover up her unseemly smells? Was her alabaster jar a saving up of all of her good works or bad deeds? Did the jar's beauty signify her rank in society?
Seems like a symbol, a picture of how we position ourselves in our lives. We set up shop for ourselves, we create our personas. There is a way we like our hair to look, our children to behave, our relationships to function.
I always thought the alabaster jar was a story of love and sacrifice of wealth.....I can see it now also as a woman's total surrender of every pretense and claim to self reliance....and the trading of the things that a woman treasures in this life for the chance to love and bless Christ wholly.....perhaps finally moving into a space where she can be truly, simply, just loved.
Who knows where that woman went after. When I have traded my jar to Christ even in this last week...he has shown me all that he has blessed me with: a tender husband, loving friends, the gift of love here on earth....the smell of those relationships has been precious to me to say the least. It's not even that they have been trying to soothe me superficially...they instead have been speaking the truth of God's great love and their love for me regardless of current events....
The friends God has given me are keeping me going today, what's keeping you going?
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