Leaping Into Love

Do you ever feel yourself holding back parts of your life, wondering how much you can give and still have something left? Like Mary, you feel the call to total abandonment, but surrender like that makes you afraid. If you've felt that way, you're not alone. I think every one of us comes to a crossroads in our relationship with God where we're faced with the dilemma of total or partial surrender. I think I know a little bit of what Mary must have felt that day she stood at Jesus' feet. As she held her precious ointment, she must have trembled inside. For no one gives her everything without a struggle. No one gives her all without somehow wanting to keep part of it back. Perhaps Mary had wrestled with the thought of surrender as I did. Perhaps she'd stared at the alabaster bottle in the night. Can I? Should I? Will I? until she said, "Yes, Lord. I'll give my all." The extravagance might be misunderstood by the others, but not by the one that she loved. "She has done a beautiful thing for me," Jesus said in the face of his disciples' disapproval. Leave her alone. She belongs to me. (From:Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World)