Taking a Sharpie to your List

Eliminating goals and other commitments
may be the best thing for you.
By Kelli B. Trujillo

No offense, but I’m crossing your name off my list
with a big black Sharpie.
I’m not crossing you out of my life—just off my list.
It’s not crossing you off because you’re unimportant
or because I don’t care or because I don’t think
you’re cool.
Blackening your name off isn’t easy for me,
but I’ve got to do it.
It’s not you; it’s me.
And I’m not superwoman.
Sorry, but I’ve got to do this . . .
Blackening your name off isn’t easy for me,
but I’ve got to do it.
It’s not you; it’s me.
And I’m not superwoman.
Sorry,but I’ve got to do this...
Screech . . . (Sound of Sharpie on paper.)


This one-sided dialogue was repeated in various forms in my
mind throughout a revolutionary hour I spent with a blue
index card, a pencil, and a big, bad, black Sharpie.


Before that hour, my life looked a bit like this . . .


There were the various groups I was already a part of: a book
club, a ministry group, a home group, a Sunday-school-class
group, and a few various committees peppered in here and
there. Then there were the groups I felt interested in joining
or guilty about not participating in or somewhat pressured to
be a part of: Wednesday morning women’s Bible study, a
mentoring program at church, three more committees and
ministry groups at church, and various parent volunteer
groups at my kids’ schools.


There were also all sorts of various relationships I was trying
to maintain: “outreach” relationships with neighbors,
relatives, friends, international students, and a regular
Jehovah’s Witness door-to-door visitor. Then of course there
were the close friends who live far away in Portland and
Boulder and Istanbul and Grand Rapids and Chicago. Then
there were the Christian friends who are close by, from my
present church, from my old church, from MOPS, from book
club, from here, there, and everywhere. Then of course my
family: my husband, my son, my daughter, my sister, my
brother, my sisters- and brothers-in-law, my nieces, my
parents, my parents-in-law, my aunts and uncles, and my
fabulous 17-year-old cousin. Oh, and there were the people
I’m trying to invest in and encourage, like the newlywed
couple we go on double-dates with, the single mom I’m
encouraging, the new Christian I studied the Bible with at
Starbucks on occasional Friday mornings, the mom-friends
who I swapped parenting advice with and . . . well, trust me,
I could go on and on.


And along with groups and relationships, there were
spiritual growth habits, exercise goals, personal aspirations,
various other neglected hobbies, work commitments, and
household tasks. I felt like Bilbo Baggins when he told
Gandalf, “I feel . . . thin. Sort of stretched, like . . . butter
scraped over too much bread.”


Ignatius of Loyola outlined the spiritual practice of examen or
“examination of conscience” in his Spiritual Exercises written
in 1522-1524. In essence, examen is the habit of help, on your
thoughts and actions during a given period of time and considering
how your life matches up with what God desires for you. Christians
from various traditions throughout the centuries have practiced the
habit of examen in various forms, from formal Ignatian prayers to
John Wesley’s brutal accountability questions to simple private
reflection on the life-giving and death-dealing moments of one’s day.

(You can read John Wesley’s accountability questions in “Do You
Desire to be Told Your Faults?” from www.ChristianityToday.com and
you can also find Ignatius’ description of examen here. )


I knew I needed to assess more than one day. I needed to
look with God at my pattern of living over weeks and
months and years. I knew that rather than living with
purpose, I was aiming for hundreds of targets and missing
most of them. Rather than living richly, I was left spiritually
and emotionally poor. Rather than enjoying deep and
meaningful relationships, I’d become thin, listless butter.


Hence, the appointment with the Sharpie for some lifestyle examen.


I filled that card with every commitment I’ve got, every
person I’m trying to care for and encourage, every task or
person I feel guilty about not attending to, and every dream
I’m neglecting. I jam packed every centimeter of that poor
little card. And then I sighed.


And then I prayed.


“Lord, help me,” I prayed. “Help me get a grip. Help me get a
grip, first, on my outrageously huge view of myself. (I am
not Atlas—nor do I want to be!) Then help me see your
vision for my life and grasp onto it.


“Then Lord, help me loosen my grip on all those other things
I’m holding on to and trying to do but just . . . well, just
can’t.”

And after some prayer and after some silent staring and
after quite a bit of inner wrestling with self-imposed guilt,
I put that Sharpie to work.


I crossed several commitments and goals off that list.
(That wasn’t so hard.)


But then I literally crossed several people off that list.
(That was hard. It felt very . . . mean.)


But that blacked, blotchy, barely legible card became a
target for me. A clear, defined target to focus on that freed
me to obey and follow God’s leading rather than chasing
after all my own notions of what it means to serve him and
live life.


So if I crossed you off my list, I’m
sorry. You’ll never know you got crossed out because I’ll still be
kind and I’ll still enjoy being with you and I’ll still meet you
for coffee if you ask.


But I’m called by God to invest my energies elsewhere.
And if that’s fine with him, it’s fine with me.


Kelli B. Trujillo's newest book is Faith-Filled Moments: Helping Kids
See God in Everyday Life (Wesleyan). She blogs at www.kellitrujillo.com.

Prepare

In terms of your goals, commitments, and relationships,
are you aiming for too many targets? Are there things you
need to cross off your “list” in order to live a more healthy,
balanced (and sane!) life? Muster up the courage to write
them here in the comments or down on a piece of paper at home. Pray
about this list, ask God for His direction.