Word Filled Wednesday ~#2~ 7/7/10

PASSAGE: Mark 14:3-9 ~ "While He [Jesus] was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came w/an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar & poured the perfume on His head.

"Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, 'Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages & the money given to the poor.' And they rebuked her harshly.

"'Leave her alone,' said Jesus, 'Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me. The poor you will always have w/you, & you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have Me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on My body beforehand to prepare for My burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.'" [emphasis, mine ~ KW<><]

LESSON LEARNED: I love how Jesus treats this woman. We find in Luke 7:36-50 that this woman was a very sinful woman & just her mere presence & the fact that she touched Jesus was looked upon as a social scandal. I lived a very sinful life before the Lord so graciously saved my soul & turned me around on May 20th, 1982, when I was 23 years old.

Jesus understood that in this woman pouring out her very expensive jar of perfume, in doing that "beautiful thing" to Him, she was pouring out her most precious possession onto the most precious Person to ever live. To quote our Lord, "She did what she could." ...I do what I can. Especially in this last year, since my dear husband was laid off in April of '09 & he has only been able to find temp work, we've spent our savings which was supposed to be start-up money for our dream of a bulk food store (Marmee's Pantry) & I have had to go back to work outside the home. I do what I can.

I do what I can by trying to live my life as a REAL Christian, no sugar-coating; real Christians deal w/real issues in this fallen world. Understanding, & demonstrating that you can still have the JOY of the Lord even when times aren't necessarily 'happy'. I try to spread the sweet, savory fragrance of the Lord's presence wherever I go. I try to use my blog as an encouragement to my readers to live for the Lord; & in that, if I can lovingly humble myself & get out of my dear husband's way so that he can be the man & leader of our home that he was created to be, if we can raise our children the best way the Lord has shown us to raise them (& even step aside & let them make some of their own mistakes), if I can homeschool successfully yet cheaply, if I can learn to cook from scratch, if I can learn to live a furgal lifestyle, if I can learn to be satisfied w/the blessings that the Lord has given us & not 'worry' about the blessings He's given others but to celebrate them ... then anyone reading this can, too. I do what I can.

The other lesson I've learned & had never considered about this passage was revealed to me when I was attending Seminary. Remember that this expensive perfume was poured all over Jesus' head & dripped & ran down his entire body. The fragrance filled the Upper Room during His last Passover supper. Jesus, Himself, said, "She poured perfume on My body beforehand to prepare for My burial." Jesus KNEW He was about to die & when Jesus was arrested in the garden, when He was stripped of His clothes, when he was beaten to w/in an inch of His life, while He carried the heavy cross-beam to Golgatha, while He hung on the cross ~ for YOU & for ME! ~ the sweet, pungent fragrance of that perfume, her act of love, clung to Him the whole way...even to the tomb. "She did what she could," & her love gift to THE Savior earned her honor "wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world."

I have no illusions of grandeur, I know that I will never be written about in any books...except one...the only one that really matters...The Lamb's Book of Life. Maybe it will say, "She did what she could."

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Blessings from Ohio...Kim<><