Alabaster Box: "There's no place here for her kind"

This past weekend, I was reminded of a song that has touched many, but perhaps none so much as myself. Yet, even though I have heard this song a thousand times and been brought to my knees while the original songwriter sang these words from 10 feet away, It never hit me how close I identify with the lyrics of this masterpiece. No, my physical story is not that of Mary, but the pain…rejection…heartbreak… I know it all too well.

Music speaks to my soul like nothing else and God places songs in my life to speak to me at the right moment. I could tell you how they saw me at my weakest and most vulnerable or how they celebrated with me on the mountain top, but, I will reserve those for later posts.

Today I am writing, perhaps, the hardest blog post I will write. It is the beginning of me finally speaking out about everything I went through that no one knew. This blog was titled, “Diamond in the Rough, Finding Beauty Beyond the Surface,” because my journey is not what everyone saw. It was a hidden battle that I never mentioned. I am now at a critical point in my journey: The purpose. What was it all for? Was God just having fun watching me suffer through or did he have a plan all along?

The world looked on and placed me in a stereotype, without caring to know the truth. Sadly, I let them. People looked at my physical appearance and assumed I choose to be this way. They didn’t want to know that I was battling two diseases that dictated my life: How I looked and sounded; what I could and couldn’t do; who I was.

Before I continue my story, I want to give you history about the song “Alabaster Box.” The vast majority who know this song may believe it is by CeCe Winans, however, the songwriter was an Apostolic pastor’s wife, Dr. Janice Sjostrand. She had been asked to sing during alter call at a church service in SoCal. The minister’s sermon was on Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with oil. When she began to play, these God-given words flowed from her lips. Later on, it would become an award-winning hit, but none can sing it so pure and heart gripping as Sis. Sjostrand (see video below).

These lyrics speak a truth about my life that I may have never been able to say so clearly. “You don’t know the cost of the oil in my Alabaster Box.” The lady, who sung these words at Baylor’s Gospel Fest last Saturday, repeated these words and then reminded us, “you can’t question someone’s worship,” because you don’t know what they’ve been through to get to where they are today.

Don’t let me out-worship you, but just know, you won’t out-worship me. You don’t know what I’ve been through that makes me want to sing. Today, hopefully, I will begin to share what God has brought me through and why I whole-heartedly believe He can and will do the same for you.

I mentioned in the last post, if God has directed my journey this way to be able to help others, then I accept it and will do my part to fulfill his purpose in my life. It has taken a long time to get to that point and I will speak in the posts to come about how I struggled to believe in God’s healing power.

The hardest truth I faced in the lyric of this song was “She felt such pain, saw unspoken anger. Heard folks whisper, ‘There's no place here for her kind’.” I have felt the rejection of my peers, of strangers, of family, and of myself. There were those who never believed I was worth their time or attention. I suffered criticism and bias over how I looked and what I believed, but through it all, God never left me. That is why “I pour my praise on Him, like oil from Mary’s alabaster box.”

Please join me as I continue to share my story. God Bless!