LUCINDA McDowell is one of my favorite authors. She wrote the books titled “Ordinary Graces” and “Dwelling Places,” among many others.
In one of her daily devotional entries from the first book, she compared our life to a mason jar filled with water. Let’s imagine putting stones one after the other onto the jar. Each stone corresponds to some inevitable trials that we face in life. A sick child. Misunderstanding with spouse. Financial problem. And so on and so forth.
What happens to the jar of water (our life) as the stones are dropped? They are displaced, and water overflows. Lucinda very aptly writes, “What’s inside is what comes out when life bombards us with one thing after another.”
St. Paul says in Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in faith, so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
What fills our lives? What overflows from inside out, when we are barraged with problems? Is it constant complaints? Impatience and irritation? Distraction and despair?
Lucinda invites us to be rooted and built up in Christ, be established in faith, and overflow with thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:7) “The water in the jar represents living vibrancy of daily deposits of communion with God through prayer and bible study – all those spiritual disciplines that go toward forming our own character rooted in the character of Christ.”
My Dearest SunStar Readers,
My prayer is that your jar may be filled with God’s joy and peace and overflowing with Hope, coming from the source of all hope. The more we work at our spiritual growth, the more we become like Christ, conformed to His image and likeness.
The more problems we face in life, the more we need to spend time in prayer, to listen to God’s message for us, by studying His words, by going to mass, receiving Him in communion. There are many spiritual disciplines we can practice. Daily meditations. Journaling. Praying the rosary and the novenas. Spiritual readings, praise music, and more.
When life squeezes us, what will overflow? As a variety of pebbles drop into our Jar everyday, may what overflows be pleasing to God and to our neighbors.