I Wanna be "THAT MARY"

Most of you that know me, know I am a Martha! For sure!! Love, Love, Love being in the kitchen.....food is my love language.  Anyone sad, how about a cookie? Bad day at work, Bluebell vanilla milk shake, want to put your feet up? Chips and salsa comin' right up! No question, even though I like people, and do enjoy a good sit down and visit, I love being in the kitchen and hearing the laughter of friends and family in the other room enjoying some fellowship with a treat I have prepared for them. But, God has been showing me something........

First of all, let me back up, this past fall BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) was planning on studying the Book of John.  Ok, confession,...... I don't like the book of John! Yikes! I said it! I feel bad, but it is the truth.  What am I going to say to John when I meet him one day in heaven?  It's just sooooo wordy and flowery. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,........" My goodness John, just say Jesus was there in the beginning!!! Just drives me nuts, I mean, I was a PE/Art major, I don't really like wordiness, just spit it out! I am more of a Matthew/Peter kind of girl!!

Well, anyway, because I loved the women in my BSF group, and I am desperate for friends, still new in Stillwater, I decided to gut it up and go!! Maybe God wanted me to give John another chance.  Ok, so after I got through the first chapter, I have to say, it grew on me.  John really is a good book! Ha! I know some of you are horrified with my confession here, I mean come on!! It's THE book we send new believers to to START reading the Bible! Anyway, I have and am continuing to appreciate more and more what I am learning and studying through John.  But one of my favorite nuggets is about Mary.

In Chapter 11 verse 2, it says, "It was That Mary," as he begins to tell us the story of Lazarus. "That Mary"  It made me stop in my tracks. It was that Mary who anointed Jesus with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair.  He wanted us to know that this was a special Mary, not the one that just sat as His feet.  Not just another of the many Mary's of that time, popular name! It was THAT Mary.  The one that loved Jesus so adauciously that she sacrificed a bottle of fragrant oil, very costly, and annointed His feet, then wiped them with her hair.  The whole room was filled with the beautiful smells of her sacrifice unto the Lord.  Everyone in the room was aware of her shamless love for Him. I want to be THAT Mary, or rather THAT JJ.  I want to sacrifice all, I want my love for my Saviour, to fill every area I go.  Not so that people with think great of me, but will think, what in the world is so special about this Jesus that He invokes such devotion, sacrifice, and adoration?  He must be awesome or she must be crazy!  I am sure there will be those that will think I am crazy, stupid, or foolish, consider what Judas said about her.  But all that matters is what He thinks.  I want to be THAT JJ.

I am not there yet, but I want to work, daily, towards loving Him with such abandantment that I forget about myself.

And just think, I would have missed this had I not given the Gospel of John another chance.

God is good,
JJ