The Alabaster Box
Regret.
Oh, that we could have done things differently - if we could only turn back the hands of time... How different would life have been if we'd only known then all the things we know now. . .
Maybe.
Inside every person is something called an "Alabaster Box." It is the most sacred and secret place in the human heart where the precious and carefully guarded truths of your existence are stored. What you believe to be true about yourself and what you hold most dear is kept in there. Memories, emotions, heartache, love, the deepest and most profoundly felt of all your experiences have been distilled into the most potent of all elixers - the essence of you.
There's a story of a woman named Mary who brought an Alabaster Box of perfume to Jesus and poured it on his feet. In her desperation and sorrow she washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair as she lovingly poured her most valuable possession on the feet of God. There were those standing around who scoffed at her gesture and ridiculed her actions, because they, who felt themselves more worthy, were suddenly exposed as imposters and she, the measure of truth.
A broken, desperate prostitute, ridiculed and despised by the moral majority became a symbol for all eternity of what God really values the most.
She didn't come in flashing her diamonds or wispering gossip about the neighbor's son. She didn't look down her nose at the overweight woman serving the food or notice how dirty the floors were. Amidst the glares and the sneers and even the leers, she could have qualified her life choices by pointing a finger at some in the room, or she could have pretended to be someone else. In point of fact, she never said a word. With a singleness of purpose she laid down the most priceless of all gifts before him - everything in her heart.
If you've lived a life filled with regrets, been down all the wrong roads, made the biggest mistakes and carry more baggage with you than Continental Airlines, Mary is the gal to know.
What I find interesting to note about her story is not her sordid past, or even her life after this encounter - but, that it is the most broken and least likely people who actually get to touch God.
"I have not come to get those who think they are right with God to follow me. I have come to get sinners to follow me." Matt 9:13
In a world that has turned upside down and nothing is as it seems, the only thing we really have of any value is what's in our Alabaster Box -and it is only thing God really wants.
This week if you find yourself in a mess and life has not turned out the way you planned, if you're overwhelmed by failure and consumed by regrets, if you've had more failed relationships than Britney Spears and you feel like the last kid to get picked for the team, take a tip from Mary - open up your box.
The biggest messes are the biggest miracles and there's nothing God loves more than making something out of nothing and what looks like a hopeless cause to the rest of the world might just mean you are as close as you can get to being touched by the hand of God.
You are loved.
RiMi
