I Wanted It To Go Well Too Much

You can feel it in your shoulders about four minutes in.

Everybody is sitting down. It is going all right. And something in you is already up and monitoring, checking faces, watching for the first sign that this is going to be one of the bad ones.

That is not enjoyment. That is a shift on a ward.

And here is what you have half suspected for a while and never had words for: the wanting might be part of the weather.

Not the cause. Nobody at that table is upset because their mother hoped for a good evening. But there is a pressure in a room when one person needs an outcome, and small people are extremely good at detecting pressure without being able to name it.

So the evening carries a weight it was never built to hold, and the weight is invisible, and it is yours, and you have been adding it for years out of love.

I want to be very careful here, because there is a cruel version of this article that tells a woman she is the problem. That is not what is happening and I am not going to let it be.

You are not the problem. You are carrying something that nobody handed you, and the whole of this is about putting it down.

Careful and troubled about many things

There is a moment in Luke where a woman is doing everything right and is told something startling.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:41-42, King James Version)

Notice what He does not say. He does not tell her the work was unnecessary. Somebody had to make that meal.

He does not tell her she was wrong to serve, and He does not tell her to stop caring.

He names a condition: careful and troubled. Full of care, and pulled about by it. That is a description of her inside, not of her cooking.

You are a woman holding something she was never asked to carry, and wanting an evening to go well has never once been the thing that makes it go well. Luke 10:41 names the carefulness rather than the work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can say that to a woman without a word of blame in it.

And then the phrase that changes everything: one thing is needful.

Not none. One. He does not tell her to want nothing. He tells her the number, and the number is not many.

You have been asked for one thing instead of a list, and a woman carrying many outcomes has never once been carrying the one that was actually required. The Spirit of God is the one who reduces a load rather than distributes it, and it is written in Luke 10 that the good part was a choosing and not an achieving.

Look at what Mary was actually doing, as well. Sitting. Present. With no outcome to secure.

That is not idleness. That is the one thing, and He calls it the good part, and He says it does not get taken away.

You are able to choose the one thing at your own table, and being present with no outcome in mind has never once been a lesser contribution than managing the evening. It is written that the good part shall not be taken away, which is a promise about the sitting rather than about the serving, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a woman sit down inside her own kitchen.

What the wanting is actually doing

Now the mechanics, and I want to be precise, because vague guilt is useless.

Wanting an evening to go well is not a feeling that stays inside a person. It comes out through pace.

A woman holding an outcome moves the evening along. She smooths the awkward bit. She redirects the moment before the moment. She fills the silence that was about to be filled by somebody else.

You are doing several small things that come from love, and a mother who kept an evening moving has never once been a mother who spoiled one. The Spirit of God is the one who names something exactly without condemning anybody, and Luke 10:41 describes a state rather than a fault.

And every one of those small interventions removes a chance for somebody else to be a person in the room.

The awkward bit is where a nine year old works something out. The silence is where somebody says the odd true thing. The moment before the moment is often where two children sort themselves out without an adult.

You have been filling the spaces where they were about to arrive, and a room with a gap in it has never once been a room that was failing. It is written in Luke 10 that one thing is needful, which means the many can be set down, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a woman leave a silence alone.

So the instruction is not to care less. Nobody could do that and it would be a worse thing if they could.

The instruction is to want nothing in particular for one evening, which is different, and possible, and lasts twenty minutes.

You are able to hold nothing for twenty minutes, and one evening with no outcome in it has never once been an evening a woman stopped loving her family in. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a weight off somebody who never noticed picking it up, and Scripture puts the needful thing at one rather than at none.

Be the first to lose interest

Here is the practical version, and it will sound almost rude.

Be the first person to lose interest in how it goes.

Not in them. In the outcome. Care about the people at the table and be genuinely indifferent to whether the evening is a good one.

You are permitted to be uninterested in the result, and a woman with no stake in the ending has never once been a woman who did not care. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in an evening nobody was steering, and Luke 10:42 puts the good part on the one who sat rather than on the one who arranged.

And there is one physical thing that helps more than any decision, so use it.

Let the silences run. Do not fill any of them for four seconds. Do not smooth the awkward bit. Do not redirect anything.

Watch what other people do in the space, because they have not had any for a long time.

You have a household that has never been given room, and four seconds of quiet have never once been an evening going wrong. The Spirit of God is the one who works in a gap that a woman deliberately left, and it is written that the good part shall not be taken away from the one who chose it.

And if it goes badly, let it go badly. That is the freedom in this and it is real.

You are able to sit through a poor evening without it costing you anything, and a night that did not go well has never once been a report on the woman at the table. It is written in Luke 10 that one thing is needful, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present in an evening that nobody rescued.