I was so taken by this article that I pulled the pages from my magazine to share with The Husband. Thankfully, it has shown up on the website so I can link to it.
I love the fact that we can help/serve others. I've often felt there's a conflict between helping and overstepping our bounds. I witnessed this a few weeks ago, someone needed and wanted to serve someone else. Her offer made him feel inadequate and "less than". She never caught on. And as an observer I was pained.
We recently had a lesson in R. S. about service and the comment was repeated (as it always is) that the way to serve isn't to offer, but to just go and do it (whatever the service is). Yes, there is merit to that, and often it is heartwarming to the recipient. But, and this is a big but, sometimes in our zeal to serve / help we get carried away with our own goals/thoughts/needs and forget that there's a real person with real feelings on the recipient end of things. And that person is totally different, in a different place and going through different things than we are.
Considering how ugly the past months of political campaigning have been, and that I (mistakenly) thought would be over when the election was done, there's still work to do on all fronts: being kind, allowing others their agency, retaining our civility towards others and not demanding/expecting others to be/react as we assume they're going to.
Going forward, I hope to be better at serving. Once again, in some ways it comes back to that "seflish" thing. I'd rather be selfless. It's a long road.
How 1 Conversation Forever Changed This Woman’s Perspective on Volunteering
I'm grateful for those who can articulate things that uplift us. For words of hope and kindness, that encircle our hearts in a warm embrace.
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