Mary and Martha

I had a Mary and Martha moment today, when my wife texted me to say that two of her friends were coming over to pray for her and the latest baby process.  I freaked out because she only gave me 30 minute’s notice to straighten up and clean the house.  In all honesty, it’s not that we’re slobs or anything.  Generally speaking, our house is usually in good shape.  But we do live in it, if you know what I mean, so a certain amount of effort would need to be involved to get it ready for public visitation.

So, I found myself frantically running from room to room, grumbling the entire time about my wife’s complete disregard for my time.  Of course, she wasn’t even home to help, so I had to do it all myself.  And all of a sudden, the Lord put the story of Mary and Martha on my heart.

In the story, Martha was in the kitchen preparing a meal for Jesus, while her sister Mary was sitting in the other room talking to Him.  Finally having enough, Martha complained to Jesus that He should tell Mary to help her.  He responded that Martha was unnecessarily worried about things that weren’t that important and missing the things that were.  She should have been focused on the life-giving words that Jesus was speaking instead of the food, like her sister.

So, I stopped grumbling and focused on the fact that these women were coming to speak life over my wife.  They weren’t there to judge the state of our house.  And the stories of the Bible suddenly came to life and intersected with my own living reality.

To top it off, the women brought oil and anointed my wife’s feet…just like Mary did with Jesus.