Today we celebrate the feast of St. Martha. Her story of complaining to Jesus about Mary not helping her, as well as the story of her grief that her brother died and Jesus delayed in coming, are well known to us. Martha is very real with Jesus. She holds nothing back, as she and Jesus are very close friends. Martha is a model for us to imitate in developing a close relationship with the Lord. Like her, we too, at times, might become overwhelmed with meeting our responsibilities to others and, sometimes, resent all we have to do. Resentment will pile up, as it did for Martha, when we compare ourselves to others and resort to complaining about them not doing their share of the work or, more accurately, not meeting our expectations!
It is the responsibility of each of us to balance our work and our prayer time--alone time with Jesus. No one else can do that for us. When we begin to feel overwhelmed, we need to look at how well we are taking time to meet our personal needs, especially our need for solitude and reflection, spending time at the feet of the Lord, listening to Him and sharing our concerns with Him, being utterly honest with the Lord about what we are feeling and thinking, what's bothering us and weighing us down and for what we are grateful and leads us to praising God. Meeting the needs of others must include meeting our own needs as well. Doing both leads to healthy relationships with others, ourselves and our God.
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