Little Jug, Big Miracle
To the Little Jug of Big Miracles,
I don’t know why, but when I watch the flames sway and whisper in the wind, each one a soft, trembling echo of eternity, I think of you: A small jar, hidden away in the quiet dark. I wonder if you ever felt the way I do, burdened with a weight too heavy for something so small. The things I carry hang heavily like the air before a storm. Maybe, if I look close enough, I’ll find the answer in you.
What was it like, to be the last flask of oil to retain its purity—tucked away, deep in the shadows of a temple violated and defiled, while the world outside fractured and bled? Did you know what you were, even then? Could you feel the tremor of history pressing against you, waiting, patient as only eternity can be? Or were you content simply to exist, unseen and untouched, as chaos clawed at the walls around you?
Then, one day, they found you. Their battle-weary hands trembled as they reached out, breath shallow, eyes filled with awe and gratitude. Did you feel it—the tug of longing and desperation—as they lifted you into the light? What did it mean to be chosen in a world where everything else lay shattered? Within your smallness, you bore the weight of their belief, their yearning, their fragile hope for salvation… How?
And when the wick was dipped, when the flame caught… Your oil was lit, and you watched as they all held their breath, fearing they were to witness the inevitable doom: the light that would fade, the flame that would die, and the hearts that would break in the moment of your failure. Perhaps you lifted your silent cry to the One who made you: God, I am small. I am weak. I am not enough. Or did you say nothing at all, simply gave yourself over, drop by trembling drop?
Perhaps you understood what they could not: that it was not your strength, nor your sufficiency, that mattered. That the measure of your worth lay not in how brightly you burned, nor for how long, but in the simple act of surrendering to your Purpose.
It was never about the light, nor the flame, nor even the miracle. The greatest wonder lay in this: that you became not what they hoped for, but what you were meant to be. A vessel—not just for oil, but for the will of your Creator. A carrier of something infinitely greater than yourself, like us all—fragile and imperfect, entrusted with a light not our own.
And oh- how could I have forgotten the most wondrous part? You lasted. Eight long days and nights, defying the rhythm of nature, the cold hands of fate itself. You, the fragile and fleeting, held your flame long after reason declared you should fade. And yes, not only for those days—for eternity, truly. Your flame lives on, flickering in each menorah, winking through the shadows of exile and the storms of our history.
Teach me, little jug, what you knew. Teach me to stop measuring myself by the light I can give, by the weight of others’ expectations. Teach me to trust in the Hands that made me, the Hands that lift me, even when I feel too small to carry the burdens placed upon me.
Let me remember that in the end, it is not the vessel’s strength that matters, but its offering. And as the flames rise and the world watches, I pray to light my own flame—not with the fierceness of certainty, but with quiet trust in the purpose for which I was created.
In awe and prayer,
A fellow vessel
Gail Reed is a writer whose work explores the intersection of faith, everyday life, and tradition. She lives in New Jersey where she does editing and proofreading for a local magazine. This is her first submission.
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