Broken and Spilled Out

The woman with the alabaster box has always been a story that has connected with me.

I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I hope that, if I lived in the day and the hour that she lived in, I would be her. I would come to Jesus with oil that cost so very much and I would pour it on Him.

The Bible says she broke open the box and washed the Lord's feet with her hair. How intimate-how worshipful.

I think about when my hair was long I would wash it with flavored shampoo so that at night when I would go to sleep, my hair by my face, I would go to sleep smelling the wonderful smells of wildflowers or exotic fruit. And now, I think about this woman who washed the smelliest, dirtiest part of Jesus' body with this fragrant perfume-how did her hair smell that evening?

Did it smell to her like the picture of her life--smelly and dirty mistakes overwhelmed by the scent of His majesty?

She committed herself to the act of worship when she broke that box. The oil spilled out, never to be recaptured or contained again--it now had the purpose of serving the King of Kings.

How I long to live my life this way...broken and spilled out for the purpose of serving the King of Kings. I long to never be contained again with the way that I passionately love my Saviour. Never again to be afraid to share His name or the power and truth of His cross. Never to back down from giving Him glory...all the glory.

Lord, I commit my life to You. There is nothing You can't have. There is nothing that You ask for that I won't give You. There is nothing that I will withhold from the One I love with my life. Ask for any of it. Ask for all of it. I will freely give it to the One who is so kind and accepts all gifts.

Even those gifts that are broken and spilled.