Alabaster Ramblings...

Well, this is my very first blog, so here goes! I guess my favorite Bible story has to be the story of the alabaster box (Luke 7 if you'd like to read it for yourself...). Here is a woman with an amazing heart! In a few short verses alotted to her, she left a legacy of absolute abandon to the only One who can truly make a girl's dreams come alive. She makes me long to take a peek into this heart of hers...

The Bible tells us that she was "a sinner," traditionally it is thought that she was a prostitute. It makes me wonder, at what point in her life did she have to resort to such a way of life? Surely she once had little girl dreams of meeting her "Prince Charming" one day, having a family, and getting to pick out her very own set of china...where did it go wrong? Somewhere in her life she had learned a thing or two about the gut-wrenching feeling of shattered dreams...probably she had given up hope of ever meeting that prince from her little girl fairy tales.

I wonder how it must have been for her growing up. As was customary for a Jewish family at that time, at some point her parents had presented her with a beautiful box of alabaster filled with the most lavish perfume they could afford, to be used for her dowry one day. I can just picture her as a young girl, holding the box and touching the delicate carvings on the sides, dreaming of the day her perfect love would ask for her hand in marriage. In acceptance she would present the box to him, along with her heart, as a promise of her love and devotion to him alone. I can imagine that as years passed by and life began to lose the luster of her fairy-tale dreams, her beautiful alabaster box on a shelf somewhere served as little more than a painful reminder of the sinking void in her soul-weary heart.

But, even before she knew, the most perfect Prince this world will ever know was seeking to win her heart and fill every torn and tattered place inside. We don't know how she met Him or when she knew He was the only One worthy of such reckless abandon, but we get to see a beautiful snapshot of her healing and the awakening of her own true love as she shatters the constraints of her deepest dreams and pours out her entire soul at the feet of the only One who could make her dreams come true. In that perfume mingled the aroma of her little girl longings, her innocence lost, and the hope of one day being found beautiful in the eyes of one who loved her. Perhaps she knelt at Christ's feet a dirty, undesirable tramp (as far as those watching would suppose), but at the touch of her Prince's hand, she stood up a breathtaking, flawless Princess...and found all her dreams encompassed in the touch of her True Love. Now that's better than a fairy tale!!

Anyhow, here's a poem I wrote some time back as I was reflecting on this story...

Alabaster Offering

Blow my mind again, my Lord,

break through the box I've tried to contain You,

Smash my fragile, too-weak faith

and replace it with Yours.

Fill my heart with the ache

of a holy emptying,

and satisfy me with Yourself -

Lord, set my heart to beat too fast,

as a nervous bride awaits her beloved...

Come, my Prince,

blow my mind again...