Fragments (and why you CAN pour from an empty cup)

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The best lessons are object lessons, and there’s one particular object lesson that God has continually brought back to my mind over the last eleven years. In 2013, I was struggling in my marriage – realizing, for perhaps the first time, the long-term nature of my husband’s mental and emotional needs and what that would mean for me as I endeavored to love him well from a place of exhaustion.

I was sitting in a blogging conference where I had hoped to learn about how to grow a successful platform and write a book, and instead I was being convicted about how my family was more important than my platform and that I needed to pour into my husband more than my online audience.

Eleven years later, I still haven’t written a book. And – while my online audience has grown – I haven’t become any big name in the blogosphere or ammased a huge following.

But I have seen God work miracles – and grow me and my family in the process.

Here’s an excerpt from a post I wrote from that conference:

I watch my husband struggle with it all: wanting to provide more but knowing that he can’t; wanting to be used by God and have a voice with which he can influence others, yet not having the opportunities.

A valley of dry bones.

But God says: “Do you believe me for the dry bones in your life? Do you believe me for the dry bones in your life? Do you believe me for the dry bones in your life?”

“Do we trust God to do the work that he’s entrusted to us?”

“Impossible is where God shows up.”

Hearing those words, I felt so inspired. I fully believe God has something mighty planned out for my husband and for our family – but our circumstances have clouded our vision and we just can’t see beyond our current situation. Instead, God has us in a time of waiting, of famine. Why? I’m not sure, other than to refine us, teach us, and heal us from our past hurts.

We see dry bones but He sees life. He asks us only to believe.

And He asks me to keep loving in the mean time.

The speaker went on to pray aloud, words that speak to me even now:

So we are calling out to you, believing, Lord God, that you can take our widows mite, that you can take our two loaves, that you can take the little oil that we have, and you can multiply what we have, Lord God. You can begin to do supernatural things in our lives, despite our circumstances, despite our doubts, in spite of us and our brokenness and our mars and our failures – You are God. . . . we believe that you are a God that can, that does, and will do impossible things time after time, day after day, month after month, year after year, lifetime after lifetime, and generation after generation. May our generation not be known for our words, but our works and our words and our faith and the blood of the Lamb and the word of the testimony in the name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

As soon as she uttered the words “the little oil that we have,” I was overcome with a visual picture of what God was asking me to do – how He was going to work in me and through me in regard to my marriage.

I spent the entire afternoon in the prayer room. I studied the story of Elisha and the widow of Zarapheth backwards and forwards, the vision God was giving me growing right before my eyes as I saw my marriage in the story. I sat down and wrote the following parable:

She sighs wearily and her heart constricts with fear as she looks at the pantry of her heart. On an empty shelf there sits a barrel with only a handful of meal remaining and a singular cruse of oil.

God has asked her to nourish a man, a man in hiding. Unseen. A man whose only source of life has dried up. He is hungry and thirsty and hurting and has lost his will to live as he runs from the danger that haunts him.

She knows her God can work miracles. God could feed this man on his own. He could have made a spring in the dry bed of that brook; but instead, He sent this man to her. Into her home and her heart and her space. And He has commanded her to sustain him.

She gathers sticks for the fire at home that she struggles to keep flamed. The man asks her for a drink of water. And before she can even meet his first need he asks for bread to eat. She is pulled in multiple directions and the responsibility of sustaining this man with her little weighs upon her. She is dying from hunger herself, barely able to meet her own needs, and yet God commands her to sustain him.

She explains her little. Her meager. Her own hunger – the death she fears is imminent.

The son she is responsible to care for is hungry and needy too. But the man says “meet my needs first.” He is her primary job. Her needs and the needs of her son become secondary to the man who is hungry and thirsty.

But God says “don’t be afraid.” And then He gives her a promise:

“I know it’s only a handful. A small cruse. I know you see it and you are scared because your resources of love are depleted and you are trying to deal with your own hunger. But one more time. Deny yourself and give. Use your hands to lovingly prepare for him. Pour out your love. Keep on loving and giving, even if you feel like it’s the very last time you can give before your resources of sustenance are exhausted. I promise it won’t fail. I will provide sustenance for that man and for you and for your son through the last of what you have and what you are until the rain you long for comes.”

So she arises. She uses the tired hands extending from her weary, hungry soul to give loving sustenance one last time – to care for the man, the son, and herself.

The man stays with her many days while they wait together for the provision of the rain, the guidance for the life-plan of the man, and the giving of God’s Spirit on the parched landscape of their lives. Somehow her love, her weary work, and her depleted resources are multiplied in the hands of the Almighty God and they are all fed and sustained, even in the famine.

This is what God was asking of me: to keep giving, keep loving, even when it feels like my love is depleted. He is responsible to multiply what love I give. And through my loving, my obedience – He can work miracles and my family can be sustained.

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This object lesson – visual picture – has come to me over and over since that day in 2013. I have seen God take the little that I can give to my family and multiply it to meet the needs of those I love most. I have seen God sustain me in supernatural ways through my son’s diagnoses (and more diagnoses), through the birth of our second child, through homeschooling our boys, church changes, becoming a church pianist, and so much more. We’ve seen so many successes: my husband and I have reached the milestone of 15 years married and our boys are thriving.

Yet so many days I still feel overcome with inadequacy and exhaustion. There’s still so many struggles that go on behind our closed doors. There’s still so much anguish caused by the mental health issues my husband faces. There’s so many hurdles my boys still have to jump over to become even remotely successful teenagers and adults. And the strain on my emotional, physical, and spiritual resources is just as strong.

Sometimes, I still look at the barrel of oil on the shelf and it looks empty.

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A few weeks ago (July 28), I was sitting in church when a phrase of Scripture popped out at me.

Mark 6:43 – “And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.”

These two miracles – where Jesus feeds the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes and where Jesus feeds the 4000 with 7 loaves and a few fishes – are mentioned multiple times in the gospels. The 5000 is recorded in all four gospels. The 4000 is recorded in Matthew and Mark only.

Each time, in 8 separate verses, the Greek word klasma is used when talking about the leftovers. Six times it is translated as fragments, and twice it is translated as broken (meat) – with the word “meat” as being added by the translators for clarity.

Strongs defines it rather simply: a fragment, broken piece, remnants of food

It comes from the Greek verb klaō, which means to break. This is the word when discussing the breaking of bread, communion, and the Lord’s Table.

“And when he had given thanks, he brake (klaō) it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken (klaō) for you: this do in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:24)

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August 11th, when I was again sitting in a church service, our pastor mentioned the miracle recorded in 2 Kings 4 where a widow who found herself in debt was commanded by the prophet Elisha to pour oil out into containers.

Much like the miracle performed by Elisha’s predecessor Elijah, the oil did not stop flowing until the need was met.

“So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out.

And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.

Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.” (2 Kings 4:5-7)

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Here’s what I find very interesting about these four separate miracles recorded in Scripture:

In each occassion, there was an action on the part of the person. The first widow had to make the cake with the scant oil and meal she had (1 Kings 17:14). The second widow had to pour out the scant oil that she had (1 Kings 4:5). And in the gospels, it was Jesus who broke the bread that fed the multitudes.

God could have caused extra cakes, jars of oil, or more loaves of bread to just appear. He didn’t. In each miracle, there was an act of faith – the person took what little they had and gave it…poured it…made it…broke it. It was in the making, the breaking, and the pouring out that God multiplied the resources.

In our self-help and self-care riddled generation, a popular adage is this:

“You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.” – Norm Kelly

or this…

“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” -Eleanor Brownn

I’m not going to lie. I think caring for oneself is important (and I’ve blogged about it many times), especially if you are in a role that causes one to have to care for others.

But God meets us in inadequacy. And sometimes He asks us to give, to pour out, to make, or to break – for the express purpose of His showing His power of multiplication and provision.

And His provision is always more than enough.

Mark 6:43 – “And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.”

When I look back over the last 16 years, I don’t see an abundance of my strength and resources. Rather, I see baskets full of broken fragments – moments I gave when I couldn’t give anymore – where God multiplied the fragments I had and met the need.

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So let me encourage you:

When you can’t manage one more sleepless night, one more meltdown, one more therapy session, one more exhausting homeschool day…when there’s nothing left for you to give…

Give of yourself anyway, and watch what God does with your fragments.