I saw this picture and laughed..."get out of my head!" I thought immediately. I had been looking around my house and thinking about the days when I used to dust and vacuum daily, wander around "fixing" and "straightening" things, when I used to put away every folded piece of laundry in it's proper place...and yes, make the bed with fluffed pillows and a OCD-like smoothed out bedspread.
Those days were long ago, when the children were tiny and I didn't know the Lord yet. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that when one accepts Jesus as Lord and Saviour that cleanliness goes out the window...I am saying that the importance of things shifts dramatically.
As I prepare to leave for Africa in 7 days (!!!) I have been contemplating the cultural differences. The homes that I will visit will have dirt floors instead of plush vacuumed carpets, there will be woven mats instead of overstuffed couches strewn with colorful accent pillows, there will be a window with a view of wild animals instead of a large screen T.V., there will be food eaten cross legged on the ground instead of sitting at a solid cherry dinning table with matching buffet and corner cabinet....
It was a few years back when I went from obsessively straightening things to the dark side of "leaving it for later". I had been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in addition to my already existent auto immune diseases: Fibromyalgia and Graves Disease.
During the earliest stages of the illness everything in my life went on hold. Even the simplest of tasks was nearly impossible. My priorities shifted and my abilities soon followed suit. I was basically able to eat sleep and rest, in that order. Reading the bible was my only comfort at the time .
It took many doctor's appointments, hospital stays, medicines and years for me to be back to a fully functioning individual. And now, praise the Lord, I am about to go on a mission trip to Africa!
God did me a solid favor when he allowed me to be so sick. He cleared my plate of all of the "nonsense" in my life. I was so ill that I had to pray about and consider any new thing that I added back into my life. I began to let dishes pile in the sink for later. I left the vacuum in the closet, and the dust rag in the drawer. I spent more time with Jesus and plenty of time resting.
While the world, and some of my secular friends might have called me foolish and lazy, God showed me that I was becoming wise and strong. I was becoming a bit more like Mary as I stopped fussing around with a "Martha" mentality.
"As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!' 'Martha, Martha', the Lord answered,'You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." - Luke 10:38-42
God had showed me what actually mattered...what was better, and it was not being taken away from me. Once you see the truth, once the table turns...there is no going back.
I distinctly remember the difference that I saw in my maternal grandmother as the first clear example of this "better" life. Before my grandfather died, their house was predictable to say the least. I could close my eyes and tell you what nick-knacks were on which table and where all of the furniture was in each room. Right down to the placement of the hairspray in her bathroom cabinet...my grandmother never moved anything, and everything had it's place. Things were dusted and adjusted and more than likely glued into position! But after losing the love of her life, something happened. My grandmother (a Baptist church organist by trade) began to really live a Christ driven life. Dishes began to pile in the sink for later, and dust blanketed prized possessions, while my grandmother started tending to the older widows in her church. She started having these women over for lunch dates, she drove them to doctor's appointments, and she tended to the needs of these women before her own. My grandmother had lost her husband who had started courting her when she was barely a teen and had walked with her throughout her long lifetime, and in that profound loss, had finally found her true love; Jesus.
We tend to put many things before Christ. We unintentionally focus on the gifts instead of the giver. We exhaust our energy on menial tasks and waste our quickly fading moments on things that have no real value and find ourselves standing alone in a house well swept and tidy without a clue as to the treasures that we have forfeited.
I often wish that she could see me now...that she could know that her example mattered not just to the widows that she made time for, but to Jesus, and to me.
When I go to Malawi and work with the widows and orphans, I will be taking this priceless memory with me...Thank you Grandmom for showing me what really matters :)
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