How To Have Yourself a Mary and Martha Little Christmas

I’m trying to be more like Mary this Christmas.

No, not that Mary. The other one. The one who’s always portrayed as the A+ student to Martha’s “needs improvement” whenever the Biblical story of Jesus at Mary and Martha’s house is told.

(Briefly, based on Luke 10: Jesus was hanging out at his friends’ house. Mary parked herself at His feet and gave Him her rapt attention. Martha, meanwhile, ran around trying to cook for everyone, including Jesus. She started whining to the Man Himself about how her sister needed to get up off the floor already and help her out. Jesus said [paraphrasing here], “My dear Martha, you’re all worked up trying to do things your way. But Mary has picked the better way.”)

I’m on the record as a longtime member of the Martha Defense Council. I’ve been a guest in houses where no one was on Martha duty, and frankly, I’ve been hungry. But I think both Mary and Martha have some pointers to pass along where this present Christmas is concerned.

Use the paper plates, for instance.

The thing is, Martha wasn’t doing a bad thing; she just wasn’t doing the better thing.

Wow, would it ever be a whole lot easier to ace this test if the choice of how to spend our time came down to good versus bad. The trick is that it’s usually a choice between good and better.

It’s not like Martha was in the back room gossiping with her BFF while she ignored her honored Guest; she was trying to show love and care. She was trying to meet needs. She was trying to serve well. (Sounds like most moms I know.)

I think Martha was doing what I tend to do, especially at Christmas: I run around like a crazy person doing things that can be done anytime or another time and miss what can only be done in this time.

Martha could always cook a meal, but she couldn’t always sit at Jesus’ feet. I can always do dishes, but I can’t always sit on the couch with my big kids and look at the Christmas lights. I can always—another year—put the greenery garland I like but don’t love on my front railings, but I can’t always decorate the Christmas tree with the teenager I both like and love.

So I’ll be keeping Martha close at hand to keep me on track while I try to be a little more like Mary this Christmas. While I leave the real dishes in the cupboard and use the paper plates for family pizza night with my whole present-and-accounted-for family. While I leave the front railings plain and decorate cookies with my big kids.

While I put good on the back burner good and sit at the feet of better.

Known By His Names

Two years, five days, and about eight hours ago, I shared a post on this blog introducing a 365-day series on the names of God. I thought it would be fun to wake up every morning for a year to a name, title, attribute, or role of the Great I AM (which, by the way, was Day 5).

I knew there was a 365-names-of-God song, so I figured if someone could sing about them, I could write about them.

I imagine God got quite a laugh out of that, but, true to His graceful, provisional nature, He faithfully provided a year’s worth of entries about Himself.

Now, I am so grateful to let you know that the book version of this series, which my mama “suggested” I write starting on about Day 2, is finished in self-published fashion and available on Amazon as Known By His Names: A 365-Day Journey From The Beginning to The Amen.

I came to regard writing the original series as a manna in the wilderness experience: save for a couple weeks when I was away with my family, God never let me get more than a day or so ahead on His names, and so they joined the journey in no particular Biblical order. 

But once I had a stack of 365 pages of individual names to guide me, I was able to order them more or less following the path of Scripture...from The Beginning in Genesis to The Amen in Revelation. In the book, they are headed by day (Day 1-Day 365) but not by calendar date, so the journey can be started on any day of any year. Each day is intended as its own entity, but the days also feed off each other so that the reader can start with Day 1 and continue along in order...by Day 365 (however long it takes to get there!), I am trusting a tapestry will have emerged, woven together by the thread of God’s names.

To back up the book, I gave it its own page here, including an A-Z names of God bookmark that can be printed of, as well as a list-in-progress of links to all the original posts as they first appeared on this blog but in the order they appear in the book.

In all this, my prayer remains the same as it was on Day 1 of those first 365: that God’s great names might be known and praised forever.

He is the Beginning. He is the Amen. And He is everything we need Him to be—and infinitely more—for every breath of every day in between.

For His great name’s sake,

Elizabeth

 

This Is What Parenting a Young Adult Is Sometimes Like

I’m pretty sure the reason no has, as far as I know, yet written What To Expect When You're Expecting a Young Adult is because no one who has parented one of these wonderful but often mystifying creatures feels like enough of an expert to author the thing.

Life with a young adult is a lot like life during a pandemic: this is what's going to happen, unless it doesn't.

I'm certainly not about the write a book on the subject, but with the help of some other YA parents*, I did put together what could possibly be considered a pamphlet on this stage of raising humans; I'm so grateful to Grown and Flown for running it. If you make your way over there and have anything to add, I'd love to have you pop back here and leave a comment. Who knows? Between us, we might be able to write this book yet.

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*Sue Moore Donaldson, Melanie Hardacker, Miranda Lamb, Kim McKay Laws, Karen MacLean, Kori Titus, and other sweet friends on my Guilty Chocoholic Mama Facebook page.