One of the three excellent talks on Sunday was on losing ourselves in the service of others. The speaker, my friend Lory, grew up with five brothers and so she was a little disgruntled when her Grandma asked her to do the dishes for her Mom every day. She explained to her grandma just how many dishes that was, but her Grandma had been asked to do the same thing for her Mother when she was growing up and she asked Lory to do the dishes every day and see how she felt. So Lory did what she was asked, washing a lot of dishes by hand every day. She learned to love doing dishes, and I imagine her Mom was super grateful.
Her talk reminded me of a time in college when I was talking to my Mom. I was having a hard time and my Mom said when that happened to her she would get out the ward list and go down it until she came to someone she felt like she could help in some way, and then she went to help. I have tried this occasionally. I do not always manage to forget myself by doing service, but at the end of the day I can at least look back and know I have tried to do something good.
Sunday after church I was doing the dishes and jokingly asked who was going to decide to do the dishes for me every day. Nobody volunteered, but when everyone else went outside, Jake quietly came over and helped me finish up the dishes before we headed outside too. Service does not need to be big to make a difference.
*Photo by Catt Liu on Unsplash
No comments:
Post a Comment