Show me, Lord, what alabaster jars I have yet to break and pour out at your feet. What tears I have yet to cry, what love I have yet to show.

I break the alabaster jar of my heart at your feet, the self-jar I had shaped to be perfect, controlled, safe. I let my love and my tears and my thirst and my kisses run over your feet with the shattered shell on the ground, discarded.

I break the alabaster jar of my mother's heart, inlaid with tenderness, hopes, dreams and fears. I set my precious children free to be poured out by you.

It's not the alabaster jar that is beautiful, but what is inside. The love inside. The broken jar allows love to be free, to fill the air and give itself abundantly. The jar gives beauty when it is wounded, fragrance of love that it cannot give in sealed perfection.