I’m sitting in the coffee shop. Planners, journal, books and coffee keep me company. The new year is so close and she beckons me to set new goals, refresh aspirations and give some endeavors a second (or tenth) try. As I gaze out the window I contrast my view with what you saw outside of yours. I see the mini van I drove to get here. It’s parked with a couple hundred other cars in this parking lot. People are coming and going out of concrete buildings and carrying the world on little screens in their hands. My world and yours were very different and yet, I think I understand your dilemma.

To have the Lord in your home! What an honor! And of course you would want everything to be perfect. I know I would. I want to be the best steward of this short trip around the Sun. Do you know, I even write down playing with my babies to make sure I don’t get too busy to do it? The demands of this rushing, screen-holding world are immense. It’s easy to overlook the littlest things that mean so much.

I long for the ability to give the Lord my undivided heart and mind. I could probably sit at His feet but my mind would be racing with to-do lists the whole time. You probably felt the same way: “Let’s just get everything done and then we can savor the Savior.” But Jesus knew that time wouldn’t ever come, right? The lists don’t ever get finished and the more we move, the more we move. Our personalities yearn to do the very best we can in everything and to be still feels like doing nothing- anathema to how we are wired.

Until today, I viewed Jesus’s words to you as a rebuke: “…Mary has chosen what is better.” You were doing what I would have done! And that was only to honor the Lord with making everything perfect. How could Mary sit and ignore my efforts to have my turn at His feet too?? But now I see that Jesus was offering you (and me) a freeing invitation: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed…”

Only one thing is needed! Only one thing is needed. It honors the Lord for us to sit by His feet and soak in His presence. We aren’t neglecting our responsibilities when we keep Him first. If we choose Him first, there will be time for whatever else requires our attention.

As I lay out January and project into the future, and as I juggle dishes and laundry and educating my flock and fish chicken bones out of the dog’s mouth and separate biting toddlers and potty-train and soothe a teething baby and speak two consecutive sentences to my husband before I fall asleep, I will remember that really, truly, only one thing is needed. Did you embrace that freedom, Martha?