service – Stephanie Richey Art

Neighbor

Sometimes service is not what we expect, and sometimes it’s hard, especially when we have a bad attitude.

This morning when I got home from Seminary I was super tired. I didn’t sleep really well so I laid down and took a nap for 45 minutes. When I woke up my husband asked me if I wanted to go to town with him and how long it would take me to get ready if I wanted to go. We are preparing to either turn his mom’s house into an Airbnb or sell it, so there are a few things that need to be fixed. He was going to look at a new shower surround for the bathroom as well as other bathroom fixtures and flooring, and wanted my input.

I told him it would be about 45 minutes and he said that would work. I went into the kitchen to make a sourdough focaccia and to then eat breakfast. I was trying to hurry because I knew he wanted to leave sooner than later. Just as I was almost done putting the ingredients in the bowl, a neighbor, who tends to need a fair amount of help, came to the door. I am the one who ends up helping all the time, even though my husband is capable, and sometimes more equipped to help than I am. This morning was no exception as the person came into the kitchen to wait for me rather than talk to my husband. I then felt like I needed to hurry even faster.

As I was finishing up the ingredients in the sourdough, I reached across the bowl and knocked it off the scale and tipped it over. Nothing was mixed together yet and the water in the bottom sloshed all the ingredients out onto the counter, down the front of the cabinet and all over the floor. I stood there momentarily and decided to just leave it and help the neighbor. It took about 20 minutes to help the neighbor and then I proceeded to clean the kitchen. My husband walked in as I was cleaning the kitchen and asked me if I was about ready to go. I am grateful to say that I did not bite his head off at that point in time even though I kind of really wanted to. However I did inform him that now I had to clean the kitchen and I still had to eat breakfast and get dressed.

I told him if he wanted to head out that was fine with me, at that point in time I was slightly frustrated with him because he did not help with the neighbor and he did not help me clean up the mess. But I guess he really wanted my input, so he waited until I was ready to go. After I finish cleaning up the mess and threw out my sourdough, I sat down to eat my breakfast. I started to say my prayers and expressed my frustration to my Heavenly Father. I asked him why I was the one that had to help the neighbor all the time. At that point in time the answer that came was not what I had expected. He helped me realize that this was my opportunity to serve somebody besides my family for a while. I don’t mind doing service, in fact I really enjoy it, but I hadn’t yet viewed what I was doing for this neighbor as service.

This week in the New Testament we have been studying about how we serve and our motivation for serving. I realized that often times I find it easy to serve when it’s something I want to do to serve. Dealing with the neighbor on an almost daily basis was not something I wanted to do most of the time, it was always at an inconvenient time, and often the problems that needed to be dealt with persisted over the course of days or weeks. But that person needs help, and for the most part, even if it takes time, it is in small manageable pieces of time. I was reminded that service often requires a sacrifice of time and energy, and that my attitude and irritations made it harder for me to help.

I saw this person a little bit differently, and decided I needed to change my attitude as well as my perspective on this subject. I have found myself recently, especially as we have been reading the Sermon on the Mount, reflecting on how I can try to do better and serve others. I hadn’t even looked at current situations, but was looking for an “easy” service project, possibly something that might even come with a thank you or appreciation in some way from someone. I don’t normally like to be in the spotlight, or even be noticed, so this realization came as a bit of a shock to me. This morning was frustrating to say the least, but I have learned some things about myself that need to be changed, and I learned to see someone else just a little bit differently. I hope I can remember what I learned today (that’s one of the reasons I’m sharing it here, then I can look back and remember), and that I can go forward with new eyes to see and a heart more willing and able to help everyone, not just the easy convenient ones.

Light

I am a day early with my post and email, but only because it is the last day of November, and I promised you in one of my last few posts that I would post about the “Light the World with Love” calendar that my Church puts out. I am super excited about this calendar; it is 25 days of service-oriented activities.

I tried to get it to load so I could share the whole calendar here, but I’ll just have to link you to the calendar instead. You can find it on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website along with other resources and videos, or link directly to it here.

I love this calendar! I don’t do everything on it, and I miss days occasionally. But I keep it where I can see it, try to read the prompt every day, and do something, whether it be the prompt for the day, or I think of one on my own. This has brought so much light into my life, especially during the holiday season, and hopefully the things we do for one another will brighten someone else’s, and maybe their whole holiday season as well.

I also love the Christmas videos I see. There are so many, and they are a great visual reminder to share and to care for others. I have seen many already this year, and here are some of my favorites:

Be Part of the Greatest Story Ever Told

The Christ Child

Giving Machines – by Spencer Murray

Believing Christ – by Spencer Murray

Forgive others – by Spencer Murray

Sharing and giving of ourselves is the best way I know of, to make this ever-darkening world a little bit brighter. If we each take the opportunity to share a little light with someone else, imagine the difference it would make in this world! If Love were more abundant, imagine the peace that we could have, within ourselves and in our communities, even the world around us. Every day is a great day to share and to serve, but the holiday season is an especially good time to do so, and there are so many people in need of a little help, a little friendship, a little love. And when we share our light with others, it helps strengthen the light with in us. What will you do this season to share your light?

Balance

I see so many posts on social media and hear so many people say they are burned out, they are done adulting, they are tired of life. How often do we feel that way? We are so busy, but what are we busy doing? Coming and going, school, work, cleaning, exercising, responsibilities, friends, there is so much that pulls us in so many different directions. How do we do it all, how do we accomplish everything we think we need to do? How do we find balance in our lives and joy?

What is balance and can it be achieved? Balance is making things equal, making things sit just right, so that everything is suspended all at the same time, same level. I think of the old fashioned scales that had a vertical point and a horizontal bar sitting atop. Whatever was placed on one side had to be placed on the other so that it would not tip off or over. I think so often we look at life and want that balance. But that is the wrong focus. I recently listened to some wonderful advice from Elder David A. Bednar about balance. You can listen to the his full thoughts here. It’s not quite 3 minutes long and worth the listen.

As I listened, I started to understand. I think that often we get so bogged down in our minds over all the things we’re not doing, that we can’t really focus on the things we are doing. We are fixing dinner, remembering the laundry laying on the floor in the other room, or going to work, trying to figure out how to spend more time with our families. We try to relax spending an evening out with friends, and worry about the activities of the next day the whole time we could be enjoying friends. We need to look to the future, plan for the future, but we need to live in the present. This all got me thinking about how we might get out of the ruts of our own thoughts, and I had a specific experience come to mind.

This one had to do with service. I know, that adds extra time, extra responsibility, extra running and effort, but it is so worth it. I have seen in my own life, as well as the lives of countless people around me the effects of service, not because they were served (I’ve seen those affects too), but because they were willing to serve. One story I will share. I received a call one afternoon, from a friend in my Church, that there was an older couple in the area that needed help getting some wood stacked. My kids were all at school, and I knew that they were going to be tired, hungry, and not really excited about helping. I also knew the things I needed to get done that afternoon, but I decided we could figure that out later and we were going to be willing to help. When the kids got home I told them what we were doing. They grumbled and complained. We stack a lot of wood for service in our area, and they were not thrilled to be doing it again! I told them to deal with it, we were leaving. We got there and discovered we weren’t the only ones there, that made my kids a little less grumpy about it. But as we got going, as the pile started to diminish where the wood had been, and started stacking nicely where it needed to be, attitudes started to change. The kids started having fun, they had several competitions, they worked together as teams, and the whole pile got moved in a fairly short space of time. When we left, they were laughing and happy. They had helped someone they knew couldn’t help themselves and they were all the better for it. I forgot about all the lists of things that needed to be done and enjoyed the laughter, the fun, and especially the work, and a job well done. Did everything that needed to be done that afternoon get done? No, but the really important things did.

In this life we will never achieve true balance. As Elder Bednar says in his message, when we are doing one thing, we are neglecting another, that is just how life is. We need to pick the best things, even when there are good and better things to do. Life is full of lots of good things, and most of our time will be spent doing the good, all be it often mundane, things in life, but doing the best things, as often as possible, helps us see and understand others better, as well as ourselves. We helped haul wood, and the house didn’t get clean that afternoon, maybe the reading wasn’t as productive, or the homework done perfectly. But the spirit of helpfulness, of gratitude for what we have and our abilities to do what we need to do, and help someone else who couldn’t were far more important than the reading log, far more important than a perfect living room that day. There was no true balance that day, there never will be in life. But the benefits of deciding to do what was best far outweighed the “balance.”