Checklist: The Last “To Do” List You’ll Ever Need

Dear TEAMS,

I am a list maker.  You know it from living with me; hence the “thought holding” board in the kitchen, the perpetual grocery and Kmart lists on the fridge, and the 8-1/2” x 11” papers before a big event.  Judging from the papers in your grandma’s belongings, I got this from her.  I’m so good at making lists that it is my default switch when I wake up.  Before I even open my eyes, I am mentally saying, “Okay, devotions, then morning routine.  What will I have for breakfast?”  And so on.  It’s that engrained in me.

 

I am thankful I am gifted with administration.  I really think it’s fun to organize things, and I feel that taking something and making order out of it is a creative, fulfilling act.  In fact, I would I would almost equate it to a fun game.  I am making something new or improving on something existing.  It’s fun for me, when I’m not overwhelmed.

But there’s the rub, isn’t it?  As with all gifts that come from God, when it is used as part of my identity, or focused on more than on the Creator who gave it, it can and will become a Master to be served rather than a tool to help me achieve my destiny.  I do feel that my list of things to do in my day can master me.  When I wake up and know what is before me before even opening my eyes, I am tempted to go to boredom and despair, because there is nothing that requires repeated acts done in a consist manner so much as homeschooling children and running a home.

So our faithful, kind, compassionate Father—knowing my predilection for taking the lazy way out and walking like a robot through my day, answering to “The List”—confronted me about this in January.  Mind you, it was the same song, umpteenth verse He’s been trying to teach me since I gave my life to Him to have.  But in January, I listened a little better.

I had just finished doing my devotional time and was refining my list.  In the middle of my thoughts, He interrupted me.  As succinctly and lovingly as possible, He said, Actually, Carolyn, there is only one thing on your list for today.  You just have to trust Me.

As usual, I responded in quiet devotion with, “Yes, my Lord and Savior.  Of course I will trust you.” 

{        } Giving you enough time to recover from your laughter.  Okay, now that I’ve brightened your day…

No, what I started with was questioning.  “But Lord,” I said, “if all l I do is trust you, how will the practical parts of my day get done?”

You have to trust Me with that.

“No, I mean I get that, Lord.  What I mean is life is about practical stuff.  I can’t just say, ‘I’m not planning anything today with your school because I’m trusting God to show me.’”

Yeah, you have to trust Me with that, too.

“No, I don’t think you’re getting my point, God.  It’s that I have kids to raise, food to cook, education to happen, calls to make with the business…”

Technically, my dear, I don’t think you are getting what I am saying.  Especially since I know everything and you do not.  Just trust.  That’s it.  No clarification needed, because that would kinda discount the whole concept I am trying to teach you.

That day, I got up with one thing on my “To Do” list:  1)  Trust.  When I found myself, 30-seconds later, composing a list out of habit, I said, “No, I just have to trust.”  After breakfast when I was figuring out what sequence of events would happen in our morning meeting, I said, “No, I just have to trust.”  

It became a mantra for that day, and the next, and the next.  I had no peace in saying it and doing it, just faith that God was leading me into green pastures.  And little by little, I am finding the tyranny of my lists subsiding and the glorious freedom of it as a tool being rediscovered.  I am more present in my moments, catching the little surprises God has for me in every day that I glossed over before.  I am seeing that {GASP!} everything that needs to get done is getting done, and in fact even more.  I am positive that many things that have gotten done in the last 3 months would never have made the cut for my list.  But they were important and were on God’s agenda.  Because I am trusting Him, I get to see them accomplished.

In fact, when all this happened with JS’ murder and so lots of things had to be put on the back burner just so we could process our emotions, I had a tiny epiphany.  It was such a relief when the voices inside my head were yelling at me about lost momentum with the business, and not finishing the school year early, and how can we help the family, and how can I make sure you were being taken care of to stop them with a simple, “All I have to do is trust.”

I don’t know at what point in your life God will lead you to this post.  I believe it will be at a point where He’s trying to teach you about deepening your concept of Trust.  It is a subject that I am aspiring to model to you all.  I hope I will be a great practical example for you at that point.

Love, Your recovering,  list-making,