Sunday night the door bell rang and when I answered it (in all my sickness glory: sweats, hair slicked back, no make up on.....very embarrassing) my bishopric was standing on my porch with two boxes of food and two turkeys. Apparently they were taking food to the single parent households in the ward. I was very shocked to see such a generous donation and certainly was grateful to receive it but I have to admit something else. I felt a little guilty too. Surely there are others who are worse off than I am right? I don't know why it's so hard for me to accept help from anyone. I rarely ask for favors, and when/if I do it's usually only from my very closest friends. Since I have moved from my house in Mapleton and "downsized" to my townhouse in Spanish Fork last year I have worked very hard on trying to get back on top of all my bills and getting out of debt. I'm not there yet but getting closer and closer with each passing month. I have struggled at times, and sometimes get tired of living on a tight budget, but for the most part I feel incredibly blessed. I have nice things in my home, a job that might not pay the most money but it has benefits (thank goodness since I called in again on Monday) and a decent, steady income. I feel like I've taken my lemons and made lemonade. I know there must be others out there that can use this food more than me. I've been thinking about this for a couple days now and I've come to the conclusion that I need to be more humble and be willing to accept help when it's offered to me. After all, isn't service one of the basic principles of living the gospel? I am so blessed to be a member of the gospel of Jesus Christ and see service hard at work. That said, for a while now I've been wanting to do some service myself I just haven't known what. It all started when I read about a family who went on a "service vacation." They literally spent a week driving through a few states and would stop wherever they saw something or someone that needed help and would do it. They said, supposedly even the kids too, that it was the most rewarding vacation they'd ever been on. As much as I would love to be that creative I would probably not notice very many service opportunities unless there was a neon light pointing the way so I quickly dismissed that idea. It got me thinking about some of the times I have volunteered such as when I was a "Big Sister" in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. I had the cutest little brother named Gilbert and I often think about him and wonder what he's doing now. Anyway, this morning as I was reading the newspaper I read an article about a program called Friday's Kids. It's a place where families with handicapped children can take their special needs child for a few hours so they can get a much needed break. This got me thinking about when I worked at Tiny Tots with the severely handicapped kids who lived there and how much I miss it. I loved working there so Friday's Kids might be the perfect solution for me. However, as much as the desire to serve is there, I need to make sure I am 100% able to keep my commitments before I sign up. Sometimes I feel like life is hectic enough as it is so I don't want to just throw one more thing on my schedule. I'm going to give this a lot of thought and I'll keep you posted as to what I decide. After I finished typing this I was getting ready for work and heard some noises outside. Not sure who it was but someone was shoveling my driveway and sidewalk for me. Now that is some service I can live with! lol.
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