Anne and John Duddington present the spirituality page.
Corrie Ten Boom and the Vitamin Jar
The story of the jar of meal and the jug of oil, both of which never failed, has been an inspiration to many down the ages and is particularly appropriate at present when there seems no certainty when the Covid pandemic will end. We need to hope that our own jar of meal and jug of oil does not give out. The story is in Kings 17:15.
Elijah was ordered to go to Zarepthah and was told that a widow would give him food. Elijah found her by the city gates and asked her to bring a little water and also a scrap of bread.
She replied: "I have no baked bread, but only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am just gathering a stick or two to go and prepare this for myself and my son to eat, and then we shall die". But Elijah said to her: "Do not be afraid, go and do as you have said; but first make a little scone of it for me and bring it to me, and then make some for yourself and for your son. For Yahweh, God of Israel, says this: 'Jar of meal shall not be spent, jug of oil shall not be emptied, before the day when Yahweh sends rain on the face of the earth'." The woman went and did as Elijah told her and they ate the food, she, himself and her son. The jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied, just as Yahweh had foretold through Elijah.
A modern example of the jar never running out is related by Corrie ten Boom in her book The Hiding Place. Corrie and her family lived in Haarlem and sheltered Jews from the Nazis. Eventually they were discovered and Corrie and her sister Betsie were imprisoned in Ravensbruck, the notorious concentration camp for women in Northern Germany, sustained always by their strong Christian faith. Betsie became very weak and Corrie gave her drops from a bottle of Davitamon oil which had come in a Red Cross parcel. Then she gave the oil to others and then to others too and as she remarks:
"And still, as I tilted the little bottle, a drop appeared at the tip of the glass stopper. It just couldn't be! I held it up to the light, trying to see how much was left, but the dark brown glass was too thick to see through."
Corrie wondered if the answer was that only a tiny molecule got through the little pinhole in the bottle but her sister Betsie, reminding her of the story of Elijah, had the answer: "Don't try too hard to explain it, Corrie. Just accept it as a present from the Father who loves you".
Then a prisoner who had been assigned to hospital duties brought back some Yeast Compound. "Vitamins" Corrie cried but she then decided to finish the drops from the little bottle first. Of course, it was empty. It had done its work.
Betsie died in Ravensbruck but Corrie's jar never did run out as, when she was released, she spent the rest of her life preaching the message of reconciliation in Jesus as Lord as recounted in her book Tramp for the Lord. Their house in Haarlem is now a museum.
Anne and John Duddington