Five years ago, I wrote Mary and Martha’s story. Fresh from my first trip to Israel, I was living part-time in a tiny apartment in a retirement home, companion to a 97-year-old lady. There couldn’t have been a much stronger contrast. I went from radical life change to routine; having the whole city of Jerusalem for my back yard, to barely budging from the couch.
It was a hidden life, with spots of frustration, and moments of great beauty. Nothing was so beautiful as the occasional vivid flashes of reassurance: all of it was precious to God.
This story led a hidden sort of life, too. After it failed to place in the contest for which it was written, I brought it out only rarely: when I wanted some other single woman to know that she, too, was intensely precious. They made it easy for me to imagine Mary at the moment when she most emphatically honored her Savior. (And I didn’t have to look past the end of my own nose to find a Martha!) Suzanne Hadley describes it so well in her article: yes, we are vessels of honor. Man or woman, married or single, Mary or Martha.
If there was ever a vessel of honor, it was Jesus — and He seemed to think He could accomplish something through a hidden life in humble circumstances. If anyone ever had great potential, He did. But He poured it all out on my behalf, and never thought it a waste.
There might be a time for me to do that, too.
Elisabeth Adams 