My Drop of Honey

For the past several years (basically since I broke my ankle), I have been living in one funky state of mind.  Needing help definitely doesn't agree with me--in the same way that neutral-colored nail polish doesn't agree with my skin tone.  It's only in the past several months, as I've pushed my way out of the fog (and the narcotics), that I've started to feel like myself again.  Of course, I couldn't go through that experience without learning a bunch of new things, so really I'm my old self, but an updated version.  Make sense?

I was feeling like a larger-than-life loser, not being able to do everything I felt I should be able to do.  On top of that, I felt that I was no help to my friends which made we feel even worse.  So, back in October, I decided to find my own way of helping people.  You might remember my post about not being a 2B kind of woman (brownies and babysitting), so I needed to be creative.  My goal was to try and help someone everyday.  It didn't need to be anything big, but it needed to be something.

The first day (and several days thereafter), I picked up a hitchhiker in our town.

Are you laughing yet?  I told you that I needed to be creative.  If I wasn't going to babysit, or bake brownies, I had to take what I could get.  Turns out, he's a nice guy who's trying to get back on his feet by working two jobs, and I pick him up whenever I see him.

This goal actually worked well, because I discovered that I was in fact already doing a lot of things that were service (but I didn't identify them as such).  Writing Mark almost daily?  It's at least an hour of my time each day, and I needed to allow myself to count it as such.  Practicing with my girls?  It drains me, but it helps them, so it's a good thing too.  Making a nice meal for my family (beyond tacos and pasta)? John is so grateful.

Recognizing this service, and trying to do more, definitely helped me turn my mental state to a better place.  I feel like I was cutting myself a break--a break from the self-wallowing and pity, and thinking more about others.

Then, about two months ago, I was reading a talk given by M. Russell Ballard.  Here's what he said:

My beloved brothers and sisters, each time I enjoy a fresh, vine-ripened tomato or eat a juicy peach right off the tree, my thoughts go back 60 years to when my father owned a small peach orchard in Holladay, Utah. He kept beehives there to pollinate the peach blossoms that would eventually grow into very large, delicious peaches.

Father loved his gentle honeybees and marveled at the way thousands of them working together transformed the nectar gathered from his peach blossoms into sweet, golden honey—one of nature’s most beneficial foods. In fact, nutritionists tell us it is one of the foods that includes all the substances—enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water—necessary to sustain life.

My father always tried to involve me in his work with his hives, but I was very happy to let him tend to his bees. However, since those days, I have learned more about the highly organized beehive—a colony of about 60,000 bees.

Honeybees are driven to pollinate, gather nectar, and condense the nectar into honey. It is their magnificent obsession imprinted into their genetic makeup by our Creator. It is estimated that to produce just one pound (0.45 kg) of honey, the average hive of 20,000 to 60,000 bees must collectively visit millions of flowers and travel the equivalent of two times around the world. Over its short lifetime of just a few weeks to four months, a single honeybee’s contribution of honey to its hive is a mere one-twelfth of one teaspoon.

Though seemingly insignificant when compared to the total, each bee’s one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey is vital to the life of the hive. The bees depend on each other. Work that would be overwhelming for a few bees to do becomes lighter because all of the bees faithfully do their part.

Elder Ballard then compared the service that we render to others like the nectar that is collected by the honeybees.  Though our service may seem insignificant, when combined with the service of others, we produce something wonderful.

Finally, at the end of his talk he challenged the members of the church.  This wasn't a suggestion, or a thought--this was an actual challenge.  Thinking of the many times that I have taught lessons about acting on the words of the general authorities (and not just passively listening to them), I knew that I had no excuse to not do what I was being told to do.  

It is my humble prayer, brothers and sisters, that we will ask in our daily prayers for the inspiration to find someone for whom we can provide some meaningful service, including the service of sharing the gospel truths and our testimonies. At the end of each day, may we be able to say yes to the questions: “Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need?” 

As I knelt down that day to say my prayers, I knew that I needed to pray for someone with whom I could provide meaningful service.  Believe me, I kind of didn't want to do this.  Real service takes a lot of time and sacrifice, and I wasn't sure that I had the time to give up.

Crazy thing?  Heavenly Father, he answers those prayers!

About two hours later, my phone rang.  I don't like to answer my phone (except for my family members), because the conversations usually last a very long time, and I don't have time in my day to be talking on the phone (I wish I did, but I don't).  However, it was a friend of mine who lives here in State College, and she usually calls for something, not just to chat.  I picked up.

Turns out, she just wanted to talk.  For an hour.  She was feeling really, really bad about some of the choices her children are making, and she wanted to talk.  Turns out too that she was recovering from the flu.  

While we were talking, I realized that here was an answer to my prayers.  Here was a woman who needed a listening ear.  I thought it no coincidence that she thought to call me :-)

After the conversation, I didn't feel like I normally do (I had just lost an hour of my life that I would never recover).  I felt that I was a better person because I had been there for her.  In the words of Dr. Seuss, my heart had grown two sizes that day....

Knowing that she can only eat a gluten free diet, and hearing how bored she was at home recovering, I visited the Kennedy Video Store and picked out some favorites.  Then, I headed to Trader Joe's and bought just about every delicious-looking gluten-free food item I could find.  I bought daffodils on the way out, and delivered the goodies to her doorstep.  John didn't mind being dragged along on his day off--he found lots of goodies at Trader Joe's for himself :-)

At the end, I was amazed--it had really worked.  This was a good thing!  Dust the selfishness off my shoulders and replace it with kindness and love.

Funny things happen when we sleep, and I'm not only talking about our hair ;-)  I woke up in the morning, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to include Elder Ballard's challenge again.  That selfishness must have been hanging around my pillow, or sitting on my nightstand, or something, because it was right back where it had been the day before!  However, the first step in keeping a commandment is just doing it because we know we should.

I prayed again.

And I've been praying daily since then for opportunities to serve.

Fast forward to today.  If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might have noticed that my blog posts have been few and far between of late.  If you are my boy, Mark, living in Russia, you might notice that my letters have been fewer than before.  If you are my dead ancestors, you have noticed that I haven't sat down with my beloved genealogy in a very long while.

If you are my girls, Johannah and Glo, you have noticed that we have done nothing of late but run from one service opportunity to another.  In fact, the piano has been covered with music for 50 million different chances to play, all volunteer (aka non-paying) of course.  In fact, we all admit that we are in music survival mode--just getting from one performance to the next, writing arrangements in between, and learning music faster than we ever have.

And you know what?  My life is so much happier.  Like, crazy happier.

While I used to bemoan the fact that I sat at home, feeling pretty much worthless, I would die now for a day when I could sit at home!  Service is hard work, but oh-so worth it.

And as a reminder, this ain't no brownies and babysitting kind of service.  This is hard-core, work to the bone, think about others kind of service.  It may be only one-twelvth of a teaspoon, but it's my humble offering.  And I love it.