Order In Chaos

To Serve

There is a beautiful picture in January’s ensign.

Eunice Teaching Her Son, Timothy, the Holy Scriptures, by Sandy Freckleton Gagon.

I will admit, however, that my first thoughts when I saw this picture were rather derisive.

Wonderful. Another woman with amazing patience. Inner calm and serenity. Great strength. Perfect.

So not me.

I scoffed.

Why, if that was me trying to study a long and cumbersome scroll, I would have been grateful for some quiet alone time. Perhaps I would have gotten up early in the morning just to be by myself—with no little ones climbing on me!

I studied the picture a bit more.

Seeing the young boy leaning on her shoulder, I could feel his weight pressing on mine as well.

I felt proud. Knowing now that perhaps the mother was in truth slightly grumpy with her son, as I would have been. The weight. The awkward positioning of her arms holding the scroll out so her boy could see it now too. Perhaps she could be patient for a little bit, and she’d soon ask him to go play elsewhere.

But then I noticed the light.

I noticed that the world around the mother and son is very dark (a home early in the morning? a reference to an ever darkening world?).

And that, as she studies the scriptures, the mother is illuminated with light.

And, as she bears her son’s weight and makes the extra effort to hold up the scriptures for her son, he too is illuminated.

And I wonder, where would he have been, if she had not made room for him?

Left, perhaps, somewhere in the dark?

My challenge, ever so often, is to change my way of thinking.

The world has taught that we deserve. We deserve our time alone. We deserve happiness. We deserve pleasure. We deserve all we want. And in de-serving, we lose all thoughts for others—aside from what they can do for us, of course.

The Master Teacher, however, has taught us to serve. For in serving, in thinking of others and in bearing the weight of others and doing things that may be uncomfortable for us, there is joy.

While I know I am far, far from perfect, I am thankful for the bit of light that has shone my way.