Serving Others by Lorrie Lane Dyer

Recently I’ve been making a conscious effort to evaluate my responses to certain situations. I’ve always been a person who wanted to know why and to understand whatever was at hand. Perhaps that is why I never really got math. Math is all about facts. Sometime there isn’t a way to explain why something in math is the way it is…it just is. So, needless to say, being a person who looks to gain a better understanding of things, math and I did not become good friends.

I admit as I have gotten old, lived life a little I’ve come to realize that there are many things in life that can’t be explained. Often we are bombarded by the bad of the world. No one can explain why a child loses his or her life at the hands of another. No one can explain to a loved one why their husband, wife, son or daughter was suddenly taken away. These remain the mysteries of life that we cannot find resolution to. We just have to come to terms with the fact that we can’t understand everything in life.

No doubt, for me and other likeminded thinkers, this makes accepting things a little more difficult than the individual that can look at a situation and say, "This isn’t fair, I don’t like it but I have to accept it." Often we look out to the world and to others to find answers in our own lives. What I’ve recently discovered is that while I’ve been searching for various answers, often critiquing others, my life has been going forward full swing. I’ve busied myself with a lot of outside projects. I am busy from the moment I wake up to the moment my head hits the pillow. I do get my daily prayers in but it is usually when I am doing something else. I used to pride myself on all of the multitasking I did throughout the day. I could look back over my day and say, "Wow, I got a lot accomplished today!" But what are those tasks that I rush through my day to ensure were done? How is what I am doing making life better for someone else, for those I love? I guess the bottom line is; is what I do for my benefit or the benefit of others? As I go about my busy day do I share my love of God with those I come in contact with? Am I truly serving God or am I serving myself?

As I was saying at the beginning of this story, I’ve been making a conscious effort to observe my responses to different situations in my life. I’ve decided I wanted to see what is really going on in my life. I truly want to become a better person. In order to become a better person, I think I need to look at my interactions with others and my response to others. I believe each person on earth has the capacity to reach out to someone else. Each person can touch another person’s life and can even have a profound effect in that person’s life. As I’ve thought about my life and what I am doing I realize the happiest moments were when what I did brought joy and happiness to another person. Learning to give selflessly is a difficult thing to do in our present society. We are a "me" society and have come to believe our greatest happiness comes through serving ourselves before others and rewarding ourselves instead of sharing our rewards.

Today I take stock in where I am and where I want to be tomorrow. More importantly, who I am today and who I want to be tomorrow. God provides us with wonderful guides in how to live a truly happy life. Believe it or not, it isn’t through serving ourselves; it is through serving God through serving others. When we stop living for the world, for all we can accomplish in a day and start living a God centered life, focused on serving one another, true happiness overflows throughout our lives. I don’t think that means we won’t have a bad day or endure hardships. I believe it means because of all of the blessings we share, we can get through the times of difficulty, no longer needed to ask why.