“In Mary of Bethany, with her broken box of ointment, we see shadowed forth the life of surrender. . .The lesson of giving, like all other lessons, is best learnt in His presence. It is as we look into His face that we grow dissatisfied with offering as we thought to offer, and rejoice in a breaking of will and spirit that sets free all restraint in the surrender.
It may be in some outward act of obedience costing dear, that the breaking will begin; but it will be best perfected, at any rate, by accepting, instantly and wholly, the hourly disappointments, losses, jars, and burdens of common experience, till a practical readiness to be offered is developed.
Let our one aim in the matter be to find what still remains kept back; let our ideal of life be no longer a fair unbroken whole but a handful of shattered, empty fragments from which all that could be given has been lavished upon Christ. Is He not worthy?”
— Lilias Trotter