All About You FRIDAY – Gather the Jars

“I don’t know why this is happening to me,” my patient said in desperation. Her knee was swollen and it wouldn’t bend. This sweet woman had been widowed a couple of years back and since then it seemed her life was a struggle. Complications from her total knee replacement had taken away her independence.

“Gather the jars,” I thought. My silent mantra that has carried me through rough times.

It comes from a short story in the Bible. One that many have probably missed unless they are students of the Old Testament.

I imagine she was just a young girl, maybe 13 or 14, when her parents gave her up to be married. After all, that was the custom in those days and it was a good arrangement. Her husband was a good man who loved the Lord and kept company with the prophets. She bore him two sons and spent her days managing the home and raising her sons in the customs of her people.

Life was as it should have been. Humming along. Busy, but doable. Her family was intact. She could see into the future, and it looked good. Secure. Safe.

And then the unthinkable happened. We don’t know the details surrounding his death, but one horrible day, her life got turned upside down and she found herself a widow. Worse—a widow with two dependent sons and a boatload of debt. In those days, a woman had no standing in society as an individual. She gained status and income through her husband or her grown sons. And in one fell swoop, in one horrible moment, she lost everything. No trade skill. No way to make a living. A woman left alone to raise a family.

Can you imagine it? Can you feel her despair and her desperation? I mean, the plight of widows in those days was so desperate that a widow in scripture was often considered on the same plane as the poor and the orphaned. These were the hopeless and helpless in society.

She was perhaps shell-shocked for a time. Maybe she was surrounded by family and neighbors right after the death of her husband. But there comes a time in every widow’s life when she eventually has to face the darkness alone. Those moments where family and friends have all gone home and you are faced with your new reality. The fear can be oppressive. The silence daunting.

I know. Because 18 years ago, I found myself in a very similar situation. I was humming along, doing life. Running a business, raising a family, being a good wife, when in one seemingly senseless moment, my life was turned upside down. I still remember that day like it was yesterday. Oh, sure, the acute pain I felt then is no longer present, but I can picture what I was thinking and what I was feeling. And after the activity of the funeral and family visits died down, I was forced to face my new reality.

It could not have been a bigger departure from what I had known. The stress of what to cook for dinner was replaced with the loneliness of an empty chair. All of a sudden, the bed seemed too big, and I could care less that I finally had control of the TV remote. The worry of what I would encounter at home at the end of a long workday was replaced with a longing for someone to greet me at the door…just the way that it had been for over 16 years.

And when I stepped out of my house and realized that the world around me continued to hum along, with no regard to this enormous thing that had just happened in my life—that is when I felt the deep aching that I imagine this young widow in the story felt. The vulnerability. The fear.

What am I supposed to do now?

The bills started piling up. The debt numbers grew larger by the day. My husband’s business was shut down and liquidated. I closed down my second clinic and incurred yet more debt. A few months down the road, I would be notified by the IRS that I also owed them a lot of money. It was overwhelming. Seemingly insurmountable. All the hours I put in and the side jobs I got didn’t appear to have any power in making even a slight dent in the figures that now loomed before me. And as if on cue, the economy took a down turn and my autistic son hit adolescence.

At least I had a job…or two or three. This young widow was not so lucky. And so, I imagined, even as she mourned, she pulled herself up every morning, made her bed and took care of her children. It is a funny spot to be in—being pushed into a future filled with unknown variables while trying to hang on to any vestige of a past that you thought was so safe—the sound of his voice, his smell, the funny things he used to say.

And so you understand, this widow was in dire straits. She had tapped her last resource. There was no food left and creditors had threatened to take her sons as slaves to pay off her debt. Though this seems a bit drastic, it was the custom of the day. To pay off a debt, a man or his sons could be enslaved until the year of the Jubilee.

The Jubilee (Hebrew Yov-el יובל) year is the year at the end of seven cycles of Sabbatical years (Hebrew Shmita), and according to Biblical regulations had a special impact on the ownership and management of land in the territory of the kingdoms of Israel and of Judah. That means that in order to pay off her husband’s debt, this woman’s sons could have been enslaved for as long as 50 years!

And so in one final act of desperation, she approaches the prophet, Elisha. He asks her what she has in her house and she replies, “Nothing, except a small jar of olive oil.” He tells her to go around to her neighbors and gather their empty jars and adds, “Don’t ask for just a few.” And then he instructs her to take her small jar of olive oil and begin to fill the jars.

His request seemed a bit outlandish. She was to go door-to-door asking her neighbors for their empty jars. How many did he say she should gather? Not just a few! In fact, she was to pick up as many as she could get her hands on. Everyone in the neighborhood must have known of her plight, and I’m sure a few wondered out loud what she was going to do with them. Still, she and her sons labored in obedience, gathered the jars into their humble home and began to fill them.

Oh, what I would have given to be in that room on that day. I can imagine her thin hand shaking as she lifted the tiny jar of anointing oil and poured into the first vessel. And even as that one started to fill up…a quarter…half…three-quarter full…I imagine her young sons looking over her shoulder, their eyes getting wider by the minute. One jar full. Two jars. Five jars. And as their mother filled one up, I imagine they moved the full one over to a corner of the room and brought her another…and another…and another.

She brought the oil to the man of God and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay off your debts. You and your sons can live off the rest.”

I imagine they sat in stunned silence, staring at a living room full of oil-filled vessels, as they realized that they had just witnessed a miracle. The kind of miracle that was so huge and yet so intimate…I mean, to this woman, this must have easily rivaled the stories of her ancestors crossing the Red Sea! God dealing with nature to prove He was big and powerful. That was one thing. But this?! This was God descending through the ether to work a miracle for HER…in HER house…dealing with HER problems.

Her God wasn’t just almighty and powerful…he wasn’t just big enough. In that moment, He proved to her that he was also small enough. Small enough to be concerned with the likes of a widow and her fatherless sons and her dismal financial situation.

I wonder sometimes, what if she had only gathered a few jars?

I looked at my patient, her face straining in pain as I worked on her leg. I didn’t have time to tell her about the story of the jars. Instead, I said, “When things got really tough in my life, I kept thinking God must have something really big planned for me. And I think He probably has something big planned for you too.”

I have gathered a lot of jars…and they are being filled as we speak. When I stop to really think about my journey, I feel a strong urge to fall to my knees and just remain silent.

He who is the God of the widow, the orphan and the poor…He is your God, too. He who can part the Red Sea is also concerned with the minutia of your life. He is big enough—and He is small enough.

Gather the jars…and not just a few. Trust the plans He has for you.

It is my prayer that you do not grow weary, but rather that you continue to grow stronger as you gather the jars in anticipation for the day when he says, “Now, it’s time to start filling.” I can hardly wait to hear your story…

It’s been a long week. Don’t forget to celebrate.

Until next time…