Being Like Martha

For as long as I can remember, I have always heard Pastors and Sunday School Teachers infer that being like Mary was more desirable than being like Martha. Do you remember the bible story in Luke 10:38 -42? Two sisters, Martha and Mary are dear friends of Jesus and so when he passes through their village on his way to Jerusalem, he stops at their home for dinner. They are happy to have Jesus there and the story tells that Martha is preparing dinner for them. Verse 40 also says that Martha was "distracted by the big dinner she was preparing." (New Living Translation)
Ok, so she was distracted, but I have always wanted to say to the one teaching the message, "she may have been distracted, but have you thought about the fact that she did not have the luxury of going to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients or bring home a prepared meal for a last minute guest? She had to prepare everything from scratch. What if Mary was not handy in the kitchen and so Martha had to prepare it all herself? What if her gift of love was to serve others and she wanted to have everything just so, for those who she loved?" I get Martha. I have been there and still find myself being a Martha when it comes to loving my family and friends by preparing special meals and gifts for them.
Jesus tells Martha, 'my dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.' This is the hardest thing for someone like (me) Martha to hear. We thrive on being busy and serving. So how do we respond to such a moment? As you, I want to be teachable. I want to apply this truth to my own life, but how do we do this if we don't "do", who will?
I have been thinking about this for a long time and I thought that it had to do with balance, but I found out that the definition of balance is not what I thought it was. I thought it meant to do a little bit of everything, you know, the Ecclesiastes motto - there is a season for everything. I would work and rework my schedule until I had it so that the moment the rice would be done, I could tell everyone to come to the table. I went overboard right? I scheduled my first child, deciding when he would be sleeping, eating, and awake when he was a baby, but found out early that until I learned his bent, having him sleep one hour when he needed a two hour nap defeated the purpose of my schedule. I did two loads of laundry a day, but fell into a rut when sometimes it would just pile up and I had to do four and yet did not have the time. You see what I am getting at is that my concept of balance was all about me, not the people I was serving.
Back to my definition of balance, Random House defines balance as a state of stability. All the order and discipline in the world is worthless without this kind of balance. My balance, my stability comes from Jesus. When all is said and done, I want my husband and children to have been fed of course, but most importantly, I want them to have been loved. Without bathing every part of my day in prayer, and releasing the anxious uncontrollable parts to my Lord, I go into control mode. Don't we all? We think that if we have a schedule full of order, everything else will fall into place. This can go on for years until we hit a wall. It may be that our spouse feels neglected, one of our children lacks self confidence, or we just feel unsatisfied because we have not stopped long enough to see that our concept of "just so" is not good enough.
God knows what is good enough for each of us. The only way to know His will is to commit our lives, our marriages, homes, children, work, and friendships to Him daily.
This week my home needs a cleaning crew and it is easy for me to have a meltdown. Instead of opting for that, I am going to give it up to God. It is a given that we need to be good planners when it comes to our family's life, but perhaps you'll agree with me that everyone will be happier if they are from a balanced home, full of love and stability. Trust me, the dust bunnies will still be there tomorrow.