Choose the Better Part

My Dearest Friend,

This letter has been tumbling around in my brain for a little while now. You know what’s funny about this one is that I shared with you the beginnings of it in a voice memo, and you responded with, “This will be a chapter in your book one day.” I laughed out loud when I heard that. I hadn’t even told you about what I’ve been working on. Little did you know! But I realize now that what I shared with you that day was not the complete thought. Honestly, I don’t know if this is the complete thought. When is it ever? I don’t think the thought(s) will be complete until I’m completely with Jesus. All of life is untangling the emotional bundle that is our souls, twisted and jacked up from sin and the experiences that have shaped us all our lives. I expect being face-to-face with Jesus will shake out the last tangles in just a moment, and I will be whole, complete, perfected like Him.

But I’ll do my best until then, letting the Spirit untangle me little by little. The more knots we get out, the more space I have for Him to dwell.

Speaking of tangles and knots, let me find my way back to the point of this letter. I’ll start at the beginning — my birthday. Lately, I’ve been spending more and more time in solitude with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, and it’s been life-altering. A couple months ago, I would have told you that my solitude is where I abide. That I’m discovering that the secret to abiding is in solitude.

I don’t know if you can see it, but there’s a lot of truth in that thought, but also a little bit of deception. Actually, it’s a really harmful deception. I’ll get back to that later on. So, it was my birthday week. As you know, I’m a bit of a crazy person when it comes to birthdays — both mine and the birthdays of the people around me. This is really great for the people close to me when it’s their birthday. I mean, Jackson’s birthday is an entire week of celebration. Our first birthday together, I threw him a party with his family, took him on a camping trip, took him out for a nice dinner, made him a big breakfast — and that’s only what I remember. There was that other birthday where we had all our friends over to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended editions) and had first breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, tea, dinner, supper, and dessert. So, you’re welcome, Jackson, okay?

I wish you and I had more birthdays together.

Okay, but on the flip side, when it’s my turn to get pampered for my birthday, the pressure is on, people!

I’m working on these expectations though. I do realize it’s a problem, as you already know. But I’ve been making progress. I think that might be a letter for another day.

So my birthday was coming up, and of course I had been anticipating it the entire month before, but I had communicated with Jackson that this year I really wanted to keep it simple. I told him he didn’t need to get me a gift (which I could see by the look on his face when I said that, that he already had. No complaints here, though) and I just wanted sweet experiences with my closest friends — a wine night with my girlfriends, an intimate gathering at home with our core group, and a date night out, just us two (which to any normal person sounds like a lot; sorry, Jackson, I’m not normal).

Part of this was my efforts to take the pressure off and keep my birthday from being such a week of heightened unrealistic expectations, and part of it was that I’ve been working through being a present, unanxious hostess to big groups. The key phrase there is “working through.” It’s been a journey, a good one, but I really didn't feel like worrying about that on my birthday. So I thought, let’s keep it simple, just our closest friends, so I don’t feel the pressure of hosting and can just relax and enjoy myself.

Well, something must have gotten lost in translation because a couple days before the celebration, Jackson confessed to me that he had secretly invited quite a few people over. Now, you know me. Typically, I would be thrilled that he was planning a surprise for my birthday. And truly, when he told me about the plans he had been making, I felt so loved that he had been working behind the scenes to make my birthday a big deal. He knows how much I love my birthday and just wanted to make it special for me.

However, the small, intimate, restful gathering I had been expecting just went out the window. Now I was calculating four more families, all with rambunctious toddlers, into our plans — dairy and gluten allergies included. And I was making your delicious pasta bake, which we both know is full of both dairy and gluten! It’s a day before the gathering, and I’ve already done all the shopping. Do I have enough food? Is there someone I can borrow dairy-free cheese from? Having that many kids in the house with all these adults is going to be insane. It’s not like we can extend the party outside — it’s winter in Montana!

As the number of guests rose, my anxiety escalated along with it. And I get it. Maybe there was absolutely nothing to stress about. Someone with a less tangled soul might be reading this thinking, “What’s this girl’s problem?” But this is me, the good and the bad. Take it or leave it. (Thanks for taking it, by the way.)

So there I was, the morning of my birthday celebration, a bundle of anxiety.

I guess I will go a bit into this part where I’ve been working on expectations because I think it plays in here. God had given me a strategy a little while ago to prepare my heart for big (think, unrealistic)-expectation moments. It’s kind of a new thing, so this is only the second time I’ve done it. The first was for Christmas (because I love Christmas, too). It’s so simple that I’m almost mad at myself for not trying it before. In the days before Christmas (we had gotten back from being overseas for five months just three days before Christmas Day, so between the unpacking and jet lag, there weren’t all that many days), I asked God, what expectations do You want me to have for this Christmas?

I sat in fellowship with our Father, His Son, and the Spirit and let the question settle between us, and I felt the answer in my spirit.

Just delight.

Delight in Jesus, and all His incarnation meant.

Delight in my marriage, the love between Jackson and me.

Delight in Phin & Archie; delight in their joy over all things Christmas.

And you know what? Once I made my focus delighting, it was one of my favorite Christmases yet. We had the least amount of presents since mine and Jackson’s first Christmas together. We had a simple Christmas dinner. We didn’t have time to do anything extravagant over the holidays. We were still recovering from international travel and jet lag. Yet it was so sweet and simple - so delightful.

So I took this new tactic, which I will be using more and more, and applied it to my birthday. A couple weeks before the day, I sat in fellowship with Jesus and asked the same question: what do You want me to expect from my birthday? I waited and received an answer in my spirit once again. It wasn’t what I expected but who I expected it from that needed to change. I felt God’s urging for me to set my expectations for my birthday in Him.

It’s like all I’ve realized about myself in the last few months wrapped up in a day. I want to feel favored, special, significant. But I am all these things to Him already! His response to my question was to look to Him with my expectations, knowing He is celebrating me, delighting in me, favoring me. Let Him be the one to indulge me, surprise me with His love.

Once I set the weight of my expectations on Him, two things happened. My expectations themselves changed, reoriented, and the weight was lifted off of my relationship with Jackson. In the past, I had given Satan a foothold to steal, kill, and destroy during my birthday, setting the unbearable weight of my unrealistic expectations on Jackson, who is an imperfect human. But once that weight was gone from its misplaced home, I could feel the shift in my regard of him.

I say all this to give some background of how I was feeling about this particular birthday. I was enjoying and anticipating all the ways God would love and celebrate me, but it felt like this new development was producing anxiety and stealing delight when I really wanted to be fully present to all God had for me.

So I found some time in the busyness of the day to sit in my place of abiding, to have some solitude in fellowship with the Trinity. I offered my tangled, anxious heart up and simply asked for help.

My mind was drawn to the familiar scene where well-meaning Martha had her priorities mixed up while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. I again felt that voice in my spirit, the voice of the Spirit who makes His home in me.

Tonight, you are to be like Mary. Choose the better part. Let Jackson bear the responsibility of hosting. Tonight, you are to sit at the feet of the friends that God has lovingly gifted you with and enjoy them. Delight (there it is again) in them, in the way that I lavish my love on you through them.

Choose the better part.

And you know what, it worked. I decided, hey, these are all technically Jackson’s guests anyways, right? So, I took my hosting mantle and placed it on his shoulders, rolled my shoulders back and wiggled around as I released the weight of the yoke that Jesus didn’t have for me that evening.

And I chose the better part. I sat in the living room and soaked up the love of these beautiful people God has placed around me in this season of life. I ate, I laughed, I told and listened to stories, I sat back and drank it in. In fact, I quite literally sat at their feet, as there were too many of us to fit on the couches. When I think back on that evening, I feel such a quiet joy.

But really, the point of this story is not my birthday party (but, yay!). The point is this concept of choosing the better part. I have found that this wasn’t just a word for my birthday party, but for my life. The phrase keeps returning to my mind, again and again. I find myself checking tasks off my list in the morning and struggling with anxiety. The boys are playing with magnetiles on the living room floor, and there’s still more to do before naptime. I think, “What can I accomplish while they’re playing well together for a few moments? Also, why am I feeling so anxious?”

Then I hear: “Choose the better part.”

So, instead of ticking one more to-do off the list, I take a deep breath and practice presence for a few moments, sitting at the feet of Jesus while sitting on the living room floor.

Or, maybe it’s another night of hosting, and dinner’s not ready on time, the home is overcrowded. I hear again, “Choose the better part.”

When I haven’t had much time to spend with Phin and Archie, and they are in front of me, asking, “Come play with me.” But there’s still a huge pile of laundry and dishes in the sink. I hear, “Choose the better part.”

When a friend stops by unexpectedly or Jackson needs to externally process, but I had planned to work on my grocery list, I hear, “Choose the better part.”

So, I’m choosing the better part. I’m sitting at Jesus’ feet, whatever that position looks like today. Sometimes, I run off and let my anxiety and need to control take the reins, but more and more these days, I’m responding to the Spirit’s whisper, “Choose the better part.”

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