One Thing

Sometimes, I panic.

My heartbeat quickens, my shoulders tense, and stress pushes from my center to my skull.

The reason for this is purely mathematical. I am an author and a teacher, a farmer’s daughter and a janitor, a student and a missionary and a sister and a friend. Each hat comes with its own set of responsibilities and concerns which, when added together, equal about five people–and I am only one.

I know I am not the only one who faces this dilemma. In the working class world, and especially in our accomplishment-oriented culture, many people try to fill as many roles as they have fingers.

It’s a matter of priorities, really. And trying to figure out what is most important–of everything I could be doing–is enough to drive an overly responsible, madly planning individual like myself insane.

I am not good at being happy-go-lucky.

Also, I am at a time in life where I do not have a clearly defined path laid out in front of me. Every decision has the added weight of feeling as though it is a deciding factor in the long-term direction my life will take–and I struggle with knowing what direction that should be. Should I focus on building a career as an author? Doing mission work? Getting a degree?

What does God want?

Friday night was kids’ club. I sat across a table from my dark-bearded brother Jeffrey–fisherman, hunter, butcher, gentle for all that–and read a Bible story to two wiggly, wise-cracking children:

Jesus went to visit his friends, Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Martha bustled about the kitchen, preparing a meal for her guests. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to him talk about God. “Lord, don’t you care that Mary is leaving me with all the work?” Martha asked Jesus. “Tell her to come and help me.”

“Martha, Martha,” Jesus said, “you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is needful. Mary has chosen that good thing which will not be taken away from her.”

“I’m Martha, and my sister Elizabeth is Mary,” I said, darkly, when the story was finished and we were filling out the questions on the worksheet. She doesn’t have trouble with over-planning or constant worrying. She doesn’t feel responsible for the fate of the world and her family and the aliens thrown in for good measure.  She takes life as it comes.

“I’m Jesus!” C.J. chimed in, apparently taking my comment in the spirit of performing a play, in which he had opportunity to snag the best part.

Sometimes we need to choose between something good and something better, the worksheet intoned.

Don’t I know it? And how, exactly, is one supposed to know what is good and what is better? And what about the poor Martha’s of the world, like me? We know that, yeah, our focus is probably wrong and we are probably not doing the important things when we struggle through our days just trying to get the work done–but somebody has to do it.

But then I realized what I was doing to myself and what Jesus had actually said.

I had taken his comment as an excuse for a general guilt trip, a reason to decide that my priorities were wrong–a vague, messy oppression that says you can’t win no matter what you choose or how hard you work, because there is a way of life more simple and godly and perfect that you SHOULD be living.

But I wasn’t listening to what Jesus really said. He hadn’t condemned  any lifestyle choice, hadn’t said mission work was more important than a college degree, or teaching more worthy than butchering. His words were simple. “One thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that thing which will not be taken from her.”

One thing only. One thing only that builds up from your center and becomes a permanent part of you, undying, always yours.

And what is that one thing? Listening to Jesus.

Does that mean that any day in which I’ve taken time out to spend with Jesus is a worthwhile day? Does that mean I don’t need to stress so much over the RIGHT decision if I first make that ONE decision?

I think it does.