Alabaster Box

Grief shows up in the strangest places.

You expect to find it in the valley. When that mountain top experience is a faint memory and all you can see is what you don't have and what you aren't doing and who you haven't become.

You expect to find it as you toil up the hill, when each step burns and doesn't feel like it's getting you any closer to the top.

But in your moment of joy? What a strange place to find grief!

Grief says, "Remember the last time you felt this warm sense of overflow? Remember the last time you felt this full of hope and vision? Remember the ones you loved that were there with you then? If only they could be here with you now..."

Today the joy and grief are swirling together inside of me... I feel like I have just peeked over the brutal hill I've been climbing and caught a breathtaking view of what's on the other side.

Part of me wants to run down the hill with wild abandon into what God has in store for me.

Part of me wants to go back a few paces on the path and grab the hands of those who are still struggling up the hill and pull them up.

Part of me is longing to be back where I was before I started climbing - happy and safe in the idyllic cabin I left behind, with all of my dear, dear friends.

Part of me wishes they could be here with me to see this incredible view.

At the Good Friday service I attended, I heard a young woman sing a solo - a song by CeCe Winans called "Alabaster Box". Here's the chorus...

And I've come to pour
My praise on Him-like oil
From Mary's alabaster box
Don't be angry if I wash
His feet with my tears
And dry them with my hair

You weren't there-the night He found me
You did not feel what I felt
When He wrapped His loving arms around me
And you don't know the cost
Of the oil in my alabaster box

Something just clicked for me when I heard that song. It had always been clear to me that I had come to Portland because God called me to. So whether or not I had made the right choice was not a question in my mind. I wasn't tempted to go back, because why would I want to be somewhere other than where God called me to be?

Yet I was so disillusioned and disappointed to realize that what I had in Chicago could not be replaced. My relationships there were a blessing too rich to describe. This was not just a different city, a different church, and different people, but a different life.

But it did not occur to me until the moment she was singing that song that everything I gave up when I moved here to Portland was my sacrificial worship to God.

And I truly believe that He is the only one who knows how much that cost me.

Sometimes I feel like Chicago was kind of a tease...that all that I never imagined I could receive was handed to me on a silver platter - and then it was taken away.

Occasionally, when the subject of Chicago comes up, someone will ask me if I miss my family. I always want to cry out, "YES! I miss them desperately."

But then I realize they're probably talking about my parents, and not only do they not know that my parents live in D.C., but they don't even know about my New Life family...and how could I describe it to them? How? If I could just show them the place inside of me that is ripped. If I could show them the pictures in my mind. If they could feel what it was like...

I don't have a "nutshell" response for that, you know? So I'll have to take some time in the next few weeks to tell you about some of the people who have poured themselves out for me - who modeled the characteristics of Christ for me.

For now, all I can think of is a phrase that I heard a lot in college...incarnational ministry. Because Jesus was willing to come down and put skin on and walk among us, eat with us and feel our pain to the point of death, we are also called to lay down our lives for others.

I am rather embarrassed that I didn't jump at the chance to live out what they modeled. That I sat licking my wounds and wishing I could have them back. I feel like God was holding out an offer to me:

"Here, Holly, you can live like them. You don't need them to do this for you. You can experience what it's like for me to touch people through you. Step out. I will do these things through you. It will be okay."


So, here I go, one bold step at a time...


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