Becoming Like Mary

It was an early 6:00am in the morning as I rolled over to shut off my alarm clock. I didn't want to get up. Yet, after about five minutes of laying in my bed arguing with myself over whether or not I should sleep, I had crawled out of bed, walked over to my desk, and prepared to spend a wonderful, non-stressful hour in the precious Word. I was reading in the Gospel of Luke that morning, and what I read proved to be a very great blessing for me. Luke chapter 10, verses 38-42 was exactly what I needed to read that morning:

"Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named
Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister name Mary, who sat at
the Lord's feet and listened to His teaching. But Martha was distracted with
much serving. And she went up to Him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my
sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.' But the Lord
answered her, 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things,
but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be
taken away from her.'"

Just 10 minutes before reading those verses in Luke, I was lying in bed thinking about all that I needed to get done for that day. . .I need to make sure that I have this done by 8:00am this morning. I need to remember that I need to do such-and-such for my family. I need to make sure I have everything done, and set aside a large portion of time today to talk with dear friends. . . .all were thoughts that were flooding my mind. Thoughts like those didn't just flood my mind that one morning. Thoughts like those have been flooding my mind every morning and during the day for the past few weeks. It was wearing on me. . .not to mention stressing me out before I had even crawled out of bed!

You see, I am a doer. I am a planner. I like to have everything perfectly organized. When something comes up and my plans are interrupted, I cope with that interruption. I can change the plans to make them work around that 'interruption' and move on with it. When I have what appears to be a massive amount to do in a day, I want to make it all work, and feel terrible if one aspect of my plans for the day is not accomplished (usually when it revolves around time spent with family and friends). I am capable of doing that for awhile. However, over time, that all begins to wear on me. . .yet, I keep trudging on. I keep trudging on to the point where I don't give myself a break, and the result of that is oftentimes--most of the times--being totally stressed-out with it all, and that is the point I reached the other morning.

It was the line: 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.' that really touched my heart in those verses in Luke. It was that line that made me halt all of my thoughts, all of my plannings, all of my anxiousness. As I read back over that verse I couldn't help but add my own name to that line, feel my Savior beckoning to my own heart in that very line of the precious Word. 'Kristin, Kristin, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but One thing is necessary!' Only One thing is necessary. I can tell you right now that was a huge load off my mind that morning. Huge load. As I read those verses the weight of (what seemed to be) 10 million different things to do that day vanished. It was narrowed down to one thing, the only thing that is truly necessary: time spent with our precious Savior. Everything else--anxiousness over work, over time spent (or lack of time spent) with family and friends, over school, over anything--is not necessary in light of what really is; He is.

O Lord, may You continue to work in my heart and help me become more like Mary!