“What a waste! A whole year down the drain with nothing to show for it!”

My heart’s cry was filled with frustration, pain, and confusion. I had just spent over a year ministering among Syrian refugee families, but I quickly found myself having to pack my entire household and leave the country because of visa issues. So many hours spent talking, visiting, drinking copious amounts of tea and Arab coffee was all for naught. I had a few key conversations with women who were curious of my way of life. I had started to see small openings into their hurting hearts. But now, it was all gone. I just could not understand how this sudden turn of events would be part of God’s plan but there it was. I felt like I had just wasted an entire year. 

As God would have it, He highlighted a story where people also felt the impact of presumed waste. As everyone was sitting in Mary and Martha’s house, Mary broke an alabaster box of expensive perfume onto his feet. She then proceeded to wash his feet with it and dry them off with her hair. The disciples watched but one raised the question of wastefulness. The perfume poured on Jesus’ feet was the equivalent of one year’s wages. One year gone, dumped at His feet. The things that could have been done with that money. The year’s work just spilled onto dirty feet. 

Jesus saw something different, as He began to show me how He saw my year. It was not wasted. It was poured out as worship, as an offering to Him. The year it took to save for that perfume and the year I just spent at the feet of Syrian women was an offering to Him. I will not know the impact or results of those hours but He does. It had a purpose, unseen by man, but fully accepted no matter the outcome by Him.