I am standing on a concrete floor surrounded by plain cinderblock walls. The ceiling is sometimes so low that my 10-year-old self feels suffocated, and sometimes so highthat my tiny frame feels lost in a sea of nothing. My brand new dress shoes are too big, so I’ve had to create another hole in the strap and now they are buckled so tightly that I feel anchored to the ground through them.
My dress was once my sister’s, so I constantly feel like it doesn’t fit quite right because it isn’t really quite mine. My mother has braided my hair, but not exactly as tight as I wanted it, and I’m afraid the small wispy baby hairs that fall out of it and wave with the airflow of the room give away my wandering thoughts. My little hands are hanging just in front of my stomach, and in my white knuckles I am clenching a jar full of oil. At just 10 years old, this oil is at the same time an all-consuming poison anda beautiful, fragrant substance. It simultaneously diminishes who I am and covers up everything I think I’m not.
I am standing in a still, empty room. At 17 years of age, I am both aware of my loneliness and afraid of being found. I notice tears trickling slowly down my face, maneuvering the shape of my cheeks in a slow dance as if trying to hide that I could possibly be hurt, but at the same time begging for someone to notice and wipe them away.
I am standing in a still, empty room. My jar of oil is my death sentence, and my treasure. I have closed my eyes to trap any more of those betraying tears that would tell anyone who might be watching me in my room that my jar isn’t just a beautiful fragrance.
A Warmth simultaneously wraps itself around my 19-year-old frame in a strong, comforting embrace and ever so gently wipes the tears from my face. It is then that I notice the pain in my hands from clutching my jar as though it were my life source. The embrace lingers for what feels like years, and then when it knows I have enough of its strength to bear the pain, it begins to kiss my fingers with its peace one by one.
As each finger receives its very own permission to relax, it aches with the reality of the damage done by clutching poison. As my fingers fall away from my jar, I notice I am lifting it up, and as the last three fingers let loose, the oil is poured all over this Warmth and is absorbed as though it belonged there all along. The jar comes crashing to the cement floor. The poison is neutralized, and the fragrance is unbearably wonderful as the Warmth settles around me.
I am in a bright, open field. My strong 22-year-old self is warm, and full of joy. I lift my arms to the sky and twirl in a liberty that prompts my mouth to open and songs of peace to burst from my soul up to the sky in triumph.
I am not allowed to share most details of what is happening at training camp, but I wanted to try my very best to convey what the Lord has been whispering into my heart this week, and that’s what has come out.
I could have told you about my squadmate destroying her ankle in a fall, blacking out from pain, and walking pain-free less than two hours later, but that’s her story to tell.
I could have told you about the vulnerability that the staff has had with us in order to offer us the safety to be vulnerable.
I could tell you about being woken up by rain pouring down on my tent the other night and then how hard it was to fall back asleep because the thunder was so loud that it shook the ground I was sleeping on and the lightning was so bright that even my closed eyes squinted to it.
I could tell you about how I haven’t laughed as much as I do with my squad in at least a year…
but that’s not what came out, and I have to honor the woman God created me to be by telling the story He’s given me. The Lord needed to liberate me from my desire to hold onto what was and embrace what is and what will be, so that I can be used to empower others to let go of their jars; so that's the best way I can sum up what training camp has been so far.
What’s in the jar you’re holding in front of you? Shame? Anger? Fear? Control?
Pour it out over Him, Jesus has already worn your fragrance and endured the poison you carry so that you don’t have to.
"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 I 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 love all around me and You don't know the cost of the oil In my alabaster box" – Cece Winans, "Alabaster Box"
