Meaningful Service

A few weeks ago I was sitting at home while the kids were at school and feeling kind of depressed. Part of the reason was the inability to go anywhere or do much, but it was hitting me particularly hard that day (as opposed to the previous few weeks, although not much had changed), and I thought maybe there was something in particular I was missing. I couldn’t figure out what, though.

Having been raised as a good Mormon girl, I decided to start trying to figure out the answer using some of those standard Sunday School responses. Not because I think they’re a cure-all, but because they were mostly things I could do, I figured it wouldn’t hurt, and I had to start somewhere. So I started with prayer, and then moved on to scripture study. Neither were bad, but neither did anything to get me out of my funk, either. After reading about a chapter in my scriptures I thought that maybe reading some of my favorite GC talks would be more helpful. I started perusing some of President Uchtdorf’s talks (because he’s my favorite), and a couple of talks in something he said (no, I don’t remember what, or which talk) made me realize what I’d been missing. Service.

It’d been months since I’d been able to do pretty much anything for anyone else. And while I’m a huge proponent of taking care of ourselves so we are better able to take care of others, and not running faster than we have strength, and all of that good stuff, still, I like to help other people, too. And I was missing it. The problem was, I still wasn’t physically capable of doing much of anything for anyone else.

So I spent a while thinking about it and trying to come up with something I could do. I remembered how we talk quite a bit about how kindness, and service, and all sorts of other things, should begin at home. Since that was pretty much my only option, I thought about how I could serve someone at my house. And you know what? It wasn’t that hard. I decided to pick up my younger boys’ room.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think sometimes it can be hard to come with ways to serve at home (especially as a parent, and maybe most especially as a stay at home parent) precisely because that’s pretty much all we spend our time doing, day in and day out. But really, most of my service at home is of the obligation variety. I do the laundry, and cook and serve meals, and clean, and get kids up and ready for school, and help with homework (and on and on) because those are things I need to do. Most of them are simply my responsibility as a parent. And when everything is your responsibility, doing it is not quite the same as volunteer service.

But my kids are old enough now that picking up their room is their responsibility. This particular week they were supposed to have picked it up a few days previously, and they still hadn’t. Generally in that situation there’s lots of nagging, a little yelling, a lot of pouting and complaining, and possibly a bit of cleaning. It’s not particularly fun for anyone. So instead, I just decided to do their job for them, just to be nice.

And you know what? It was pretty great. I spent less than an hour cleaning their room (mostly sitting on the floor and scooping up LEGO), and I felt happy the entire time. And when they got home and the 8yo went to his room, he noticed. He came back downstairs and asked if I cleaned it up for them, and when I said yes, he gave me a hug and said thank you. (On the other hand, I don’t think the 6yo noticed at all). Instead of yelling and nagging, or alternatively, being resentful the whole time I did their chores for them, I was in a good mood while I was cleaning, and an even better mood when my son acknowledged my help.

That being said, it’s not something I’m going to do all the time. As great as service is, teaching my kids responsibility is also important, so cleaning their room is still their job, and I’m going to make them do it most weeks. But it was good to remind myself that if I look, I can find little ways to serve all over, and when I do it’s pretty great for both me and the people I serve. And home isn’t a bad place to start.