The two cartons of store bought Christmas cookies mocked me from the counter and I didn’t care.

They mocked me because, other than the odd package of Oreos I keep on hand for friends with nut allergies, I don’t buy store bought cookies. Ever.

I always bake. Always.

Trust me when I tell you that I’m no gourmet pastry chef. My husband once picked up a chocolate cake round I was planning to add to a German layer cake for his birthday and used it as a Frisbee. I’m not quite sure what I missed in the recipe, but edible, it was not.

I bake and cook from scratch because it’s part of my love language. It’s as simple as that. So even if it’s for an event I’m not attending for people I don’t know, I always feel compelled to bake. No store bought cookies shall pass from this house. Ever. That was my unspoken mantra.

Until three weeks ago.

I picked my son up from school, and instead of turning left out of the parking lot that day, I turned right.

“Where are we going, Mom?”

“To the grocery store.”

“Why?” He was slightly irritated that I was running an errand and dragging him around during those precious after school hours.

“To buy cookies for your scout event this weekend.”

It was such a freeing thing to say. And then it was such a freeing thing to do. And then, as they sat stacked on the kitchen counter, it was so freeing to look at them and think, “This is what I’m capable of doing this week. And I’m totally fine with it.”

I had to be pushed to the brink to come to that point. Thanksgiving weekend had just passed and we had barely recovered from that. The very next Saturday I was committed to speaking at a Christmas event at a local church. My boys both had basketball games on the same day and my older boy was working at a community shopping event for little kids, run by the boy scouts that morning. All scout families had been called upon to donate three dozen cookies for the event. Of course, as luck would have it, our schools close on the Monday after Thanksgiving  (what’s that all about?).  So that was one day of the hectic week already gone. If you’re wondering why we didn’t take that day to bake the cookies together, don’t even go there. That day ended up being a blur that I have blocked from my mind. Add to that all the regular, routine activities of a busy family with tweens, and I was feeling pressed to the wall. What almost put me right over the edge was the fact that my parents were expected to arrive back from Florida that Friday, around 4. I always cook for them on the day of their arrival. Always.

Friday morning, I put the finishing touches on my talk for Saturday, then looked around my house and realized that I two options. I had enough time to either tidy up the very lived-in house or to cook a homemade meal for my parents. I could not do both. I’m not a fan of “either”/“ors”. I always want to fit in both. But as my parents drove north on I-95 that day, I knew that I had to pick the “either” or the “or.” My back was up against the wall. So I texted my mom:

Then I picked the “either.” And it was so freeing.

That evening, as we sat down to a delicious meal that I did not cook, in a house that was tidy enough to calm my mind, with candles flickering in low light and a stack of three dozen store bought cookies on the kitchen counter ready for the next day, I listened to the excited chatter between my parents and their grandsons, and relaxed. This is what life is supposed to be about.

Then I thought of Mary of Mary and Martha fame. She knew a thing or two. Here is the familiar story, as recorded in Luke 10:

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 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, NIV)

In our activity driven, perfectionist culture, we often read this passage and run to Martha’s defense. What’s wrong with tending to the preparations? Why was Mary’s way so much better?

For me, this Christmas, I’m focusing on what Jesus said in verse 42. “Few things are needed – or indeed only one.” There are so many things we could do. I know that I lose sight of what it is I really need to do. Stripping out what could be done to do the things that need to be done is so freeing…and paves the way to relationships…because it leaves time and space for relationships. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it many times again. In all the hundreds of pages compiled into the Bible, the central message is always about relationships – our relationships with God and our relationships with each other.

So yesterday, I decided that I was going to spend the entire day being a Mary. I was going to read and write and pray. I was going to spend a quiet day at home, preparing my heart and mind for this final week of celebrating Christ’s birth and getting ready to spend time with out of town family. Then I realized that we were completely out of toilet paper. And I decided that in that circumstance, it would probably be more appropriate to be a Martha. Sometimes, we really do need to be a Martha. So I went out to be a Martha, guilt free.

But this morning…this morning I am setting aside time to be a Mary.

It doesn’t have to be a whole day or a whole morning. We don’t have to set aside huge swaths of time to be like Mary. We just need to be willing to cut out what we could do but don’t need to do. We need to make either/or choices when doing so will free up the time to spend with God and family and friends we care about most. And we can choose to be like Mary in our hearts even when we’re busy being like Martha with our hands. We can drive and sing. We can shop and pray. We can walk into a hectic store and smile at a harried shopper or say a kind word to the weary clerk. Even in the small things, we can make the relational choice. That relational choice, according to Jesus, is always the better way.

As Christmas Eve approaches, are you in a relational or a task driven mindset?  Which sister are you feeling like today and where can you choose the “either” over the “or” and the “need to do” over the “could do?” It’s not too late to choose differently…to choose the better way, and invest in the relationships you most want to endure long after the activity of this holiday season has passed.  How might you free up time for that today?

Maybe you’re feeling like it’s time you spent some time at the feet of Jesus, whose birth we will celebrate in just a few days. You’re wondering who he is, really, and how you can come to know him more. Feel free to contact me here, or consider finding a Christmas Eve service in your town. If you are local, you are more than welcome to come to a service at Faith Community Church of Hopkinton, which has a crazy number of services from which to choose this Christmas!