I step over a pile of green mucus the person in front of me hawked on the ground and board the bus. Body odors and foul air greet me, the stench of the unbrushed and unwashed.

I’m the only fair skinned one on this bus and I stick out like an alien with purple polka dots.

I’m traveling to a rural town called “Spirit Mountain” and when I arrive, I do sense the spirits, the long time resident ghosts that have kept this place in darkness.

I take light into the darkness.

I proclaim “Yesu” to giddy girls in dorms, to hardened taxi drivers who laugh cynically, to beach goers who can’t get past my white skin and pregnant belly.

Traveling home now, spent. Grimy and smelling myself. Aching back and blistered feet. But I’ve given my life to Jesus and I’ll spend it for Jesus and there is a glory in the work.

Five years later, I’m a virtual hermit, trapped on the 6th floor of an apartment building on the other side of the world with no car, no family, no outlet, not even a backyard…and 4 kids, 3 of them under 3 and in diapers.

This is not how I envisioned spending my life for Jesus.

Even the smells and the spit wads seem more glamorous than this.

That’s when I hear it, the story of the $1000 dollar life. Each of us have one, we are one. We have been assigned the highest value possible by our Maker.

And in our love for our Jesus, we want to lay our lives down on the altar, heave our $1000 dollar bill on the table and live the glorious sacrifice.

And God sees our offering and He’s pleased and He takes up our thousand dollar bill and He calls us aside and He says, “My precious one, you who I delight over and just can’t get enough of…this is what I want from you: I want you to take your thousand dollar bill to the bank and exchange it for $1000 in quarters.”

“This is what I want from you, dear one: I want your thousand dollars in quarters.”

Oh how I’ve balked at the insignificant sacrifices, those that press hard, that seem so trivial but cost so much, those that no one sees or cares about, those that seem to have no glory in them. The every day ones that fill the life of a mommy.

Yet this is how my Lord, my sweet Jesus wishes to receive my thousand dollar life. In quarters.

One meal, one hug, one diaper change, one bedtime story, one calm training session at a time.

Thus the choice of every homemaker: Will I willingly choose to hand Him my quarter, moment after moment after moment? Will I joyfully trust that I am storing up treasures in heaven as I slip those coins on the altar?

Will I entrust Him with the seemingly insignificant pennies worth of service? Can I offer even a simple penny up in praise for my Jesus?

Or will I insist on the “big” work?

I’ve given my life to Jesus and I’ll spend it for Jesus and there is glory in the work. Even if it’s in quarters.

Even if it’s in pennies.

Either way, here’s our thousand dollars, sweet Jesus. Sweet Jesus.

By Arabah Joy, Arabah