Spirit of Service

I was sitting in a meeting the other day. And it was a pretty relaxed meeting. We were prepping for another meeting. And I remember sitting there... admittedly zoning out for a minute from the contents of the meeting. I was feeling the spirit. And I was thinking to myself... why do I feel the spirit right now? We're not really talking about anything gospel related. I don't feel like I'm learning anything. And then I thought... is it possible to feel the spirit and not learn something? Generally speaking when I feel the spirit, it's testifying of the truth of something in that moment. And I was just sitting there thinking... there's nothing going on right now... nothing I'm learning... nothing. Why would I feel the spirit now? I thought about asking someone if they had ever felt the spirit but hadn't learned anything from the experience... but it felt just like such a ridiculous thing to ask. 

Well, today I was sitting in the meeting that that meeting was supposed to prep us for. And I realized what it was that the spirit was testifying to me. It didn't really matter what those girls were talking about. It didn't really matter what was being said, or what was going on. I realized that those girls had been given the calling they were given for a reason. They are meant to have those callings right now. And that was a powerful realization.

Admittedly, I'm not that spiritual of a person. Less spiritual than I have been. And at the very least, I could be far more spiritual than I am. And I should be. And I'm trying to be more than what I am right now.

Anyway... today I led a brief training for the members of the compassionate service committees in my ward. I will tell you that I felt extremely unqualified to talk about the topic. When I think back across my college days I just think of all the times that I was so much better than I am right now! Once upon a time I was a Visiting Teaching Supervisor. It was actually a bit of a weird calling, because I was realistically doing a lot of things the Relief Society presidency normally does, like choosing companionships and all kinds of things. But whatever. Anyway... I had such a strong testimony of Visiting Teaching that semester. I wanted all my girls to be visit taught. So when my girls reported that a girl hadn't been visit taught, or if they said that they hadn't been visit taught that month... then I decided that as their supervisor, I was like the back-up visiting teacher. So I was visiting over a dozen girls a month. I had been struggling with depression so much that semester. But Visiting Teaching saved me. And it wasn't my visiting teachers that saved me... it was visiting teaching. It was serving others because I wanted to love people. I made cookies every week to give to my apartment complex. I made homemade bread for people on mother's day. That semester, I learned that serving others brought me out of depression better than anything else ever could. So I did a lot of serving to make up for the depression haha.

Realistically typing it all out makes it sound pretty absurd. I mean... no one can keep that kind of thing up forever, right? But I wish I could. I know that nothing will ever make me happier than serving people.

Now for the weird part. I look back on that semester and think... I had such a strong testimony of visiting teaching. I know it saved me that semester... and indirectly, it saved me for several future semesters because of the friendships I made through it. But at the same time.. I really haven't had a testimony of visiting teaching ever since that semester. Even though I have the memory of having a testimony of it, that doesn't mean I've still been able to feel in the same life changing-acting kind of way. Realistically, I feel like I've been a pretty useless lump of a person for a while now service-wise.

So I kind of seem like an odd choice for Compassionate Service Chair. Or the person that's going to talk about the doctrine behind service. And I was really stressed out about it!

Anyway... I really don't know how to explain it... I didn't feel prepared to give that lesson at all. But it went so well. And as I was talking, I felt truth in the words of the prophets I was quoting.

I ended my lesson with the following quote... and I was explaining that this quote made compassionate service feel possible. This quote made me realize that we really can be just like Christ, because he did things that were possible. He didn't just walk on water or turn water into wine. His days were filled with small, simple acts of service that anyone could do. I could be like Christ. You can be like Christ. It's POSSIBLE. I dunno, doesn't sound so profound when I type it out... but it just felt very real to me.

We can pray for our hearts to be filled with love for others. And that love is what makes us want to serve people. Then we don't have to look for the time to serve people. We will just make the time because those people will be our priority, no matter what. And that is always my goal and aspiration when it comes to what I want to be like. Anyway.. here's the quote.

Don’t those small, deliberate deeds mean the most when we are hurting? The kinds of service that Jesus gave in his earthly ministry were often of this sort. Charles Henry Parkhurst described the Lord’s style of compassionate service this way: 

“Christ’s ministry, from Baptism to Ascension, … is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession. The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in body, mind, and heart, the individual. … The completed beauty of Christ’s life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of Beauty—talking with a woman at the well; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart that kept him out of the Kingdom of Heaven; … teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; kindling a fire and broiling fish that disciples might have breakfast; waiting for them when they came ashore from a night of fishing, cold, tired, and discouraged. All of these things … let us so easily into the real quality and tone of [Christ’s] interests, so specific; so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.”

I just wanted to say one last thing. Old people in the Church are always saying that our generation must have been valiant spirits to have come to earth in this day and age. That we each were meant to come at the time that we did, because we were built for it in a way. The idea that we were ready for what we would experience here. Well most of the time when people say that I just think "I don't feel very valiant." You know what I realized today? We can choose to be "as valiant" as we were in the pre-existence. It is a choice. It is an action. It's something we can commit to. Through prayer, obedience, commitment, and action.. we can be as great as we were, and as great as we are intended to be.

And the Lord puts us in a position to realize the things we need to realize.

Anyway.. the end! Hopefully that wasn't too boring!
loves