This weekend was our stake's turn to help with the hurricane clean up in North Carolina. I had been wistfully watching clean up efforts for years, wishing one day my children could be part of that kind of service.
Many members of our ward signed up to serve. So many, in fact, that it was decided that the home ward would only have a sacrament service today due to the lack of teachers and leaders. It felt good knowing there were so many true-blue service-oriented members in our ward.
My two oldest sons decided to go. So did my daughter. When it came down to which parent to send, there really wasn't even a discussion. The parent who bought all the mallets and crow bars was obviously the one who could most effectively handle them, and that parent wasn't me.
I helped pack a bag of travel food, and helped my husband rearrange the garage so we could get to all the tools.
When it was time to see them go . . . without me, I was surprised by how sad I felt. Part of it was being left out of an adventure with my husband. We travel so frequently together that it felt unnatural not to. But I knew another part was my desire to be part of this special service project, to be part of something big and uncommon and memorable and noteworthy.
My job was to stay home with the three year old.
Our short church meeting today was mostly testimonies. The first was given by my 10-year old's Primary teacher. In his testimony, he mentioned the Bible story of Naaman the leper. Naaman goes to the prophet to be healed. The prophet doesn't see him in person. Instead, he sends his servant out to tell the leper to bathe seven times in the river. Naaman is insulted, and might not have obeyed if his diplomatic servant hadn't suggested that if the prophet had asked Naaman to do a mighty thing, that Naaman certainly would have done it.
Brother S. went on to compare that to small and simple things the Lord asks us to do. He must have been inspired, because that resonated strongly with many members of the congregation, myself included. I would have been happy to wear the yellow t-shirt and work with the other Helping Hands . . . or at least have taken pictures of them working. My small and simple assignment was to stay home with my youngest two children. It wasn't difficult. I've done it many times before. But it was not what I had hoped to be doing.
My mind went back to a conference meme I saw this week. Maybe you've seen it. It had a photograph of President Nelson with the message: "You thought last conference was exciting? Buckle up!"
I had idly wondered to myself what other exciting things could possibly happen that hadn't already happened. Most of my ideas were improbable, if not unlikely. Then, during sacrament meeting, I had a startling thought: what if no new exciting thing was announced during conference? What if we went in with high expectations of excitement, only to be told to read the scriptures as a family, serve our neighbors, and keep going to church? Could we handle that?
At this point, I would almost be more surprised if the October 2018 conference didn't have surprises than if it did have surprises. Either way, the Lord is at the helm. Either way, these are his servants that he has sent to us with a message. Are we willing to hear, even if it is a small and simple thing?
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