Days to Serve

How can you use the days God has given you to love and serve others?

Hmmm... I wonder.
How?

Let's see: a while back I was really hyped with making, writing, drawing on, and coloring homemade cards for people- birthdays, funerals, and so on. It felt good to make those cards, and good to give them away, and very good (and flattering) when I happened upon one of them magnet-ed to my Grandpa's fridge- the card I'd given to him at Grandma's burial.
And those cards did take up a few of my days. Sitting down and thinking of an idea, brainstorming, writing, erasing, drawing, erasing, writing and drawing and erasing again. I felt- pleased with them, too. Not just the cards themselves and how they looked, but with making them for someone else, to encourage and inspire through a dreary storm or happy day.
I felt good for serving others and showing love with my cards.

But I don't think that's quite it here.
Oh, definitely not.

So how can I use my days to serve and love, love and serve?
Not by sitting on the couch for hours on end, that's for sure.
Not by grumping about all the effort it takes to make people happy.
Not by using every second for self-pleasure when I could be using them for pleasing others- reading my favorite book instead of helping Grandpa tend the garden; watching a funny Internet video instead of helping Dad stack the wood; starting a new round of a computer game instead of playing a board game with my sister.

No. Certainly not.
And while I must strongly admit that I am a professional self-seeker and couch potato, I do long to serve. Deep down in my core, my gut, my heart- maybe buried by a couple too many tortilla chips and mermaid videos- I ache to serve. To see smiles and hear laughter. To feel the firm happiness in handshakes and sweet appreciation in hugs.

To serve others-
and to serve God. 🍂

Of All

Oh look at the sun, how it shines, how
it shimmers
Oh look at the dew, how it sparkles
and glimmers
Just peek down at small blades of fresh springtime grass
And peer up at white clouds, oh see as
they pass
This bright world around you is calling
out loud
Pulling you far from the e'er
madding crowd
 

So fight it not, fear it not, let it be king
                           Embrace with bold heart-cry this most wondrous thing
                                                       Of summer and winter and colorful fall
                                                                                The Lord, He is the Highest, oh Ruler of all.

A Rock in a hard place

Pain.
Hurt.
Weariness.
Lovely words, aren't they?
Of course not.
Who likes feeling pain, or being hurt, or experiencing weariness?
But they will come.
You will fall.
Encouraging, right?
What IS encouraging is that you will fall but you will get back up.
And you will ALWAYS get back up.
You will just never get up on your own.
The Lord will be your support, your Rock, your go-to help for getting back up.
He is ALWAYS there to help you stand up straight again.
Don't believe it? It's easy not to. But those tough patches of doubt and pain are so small and trivial compared to what's awaiting you.
Yes, you will fall. But you will always, always, ALWAYS get back up.
The Lord is, after all, your Rock and your Redeemer. 🌿

Not here to be happy

Happiness.
A word the world dreams of having and holding and keeping forever.
Ah, a nice word. Very nice.
But is it possible? Humanly possible?
Hardly.
Happiness. Have we ever achieved it? Some claim this very thing. But have they really had it?
No. Not true happiness. Humans are forever trying to grasp that slippery emotion, trying to feel its sweet comfort. But they can't- not without God.
Happiness, truly, is of God. We can find it, yes, but only in Him.
Sometimes it seems like happiness- what's happiness???- doesn't exist. Sometimes we are drowning in sorrow, anger, hurt, anything and everything but happiness. We stumble, we cry, we're hard-pressed to get back up. It's hard. It's horrible. It's not happy.
We tend to drop our heads and lose our faith and generally assume the world is absolutely over, when happiness hides itself from us.
Because- we want to be happy.
And nothing is wrong with being, or wanting to be, happy. But when we take the extremes to create a fake, sickly-sweet shell of what we think seems like happiness, then we are stuck, caught in our own trap.
But when we try innocently and honestly to be happy and fail, we get so low it's a wonder we ever get back up.
And then we turn to God.
He is always there. He has always been there. He always will be there.
We aren't here to be happy, no sirree.
We are here to spread the Word, and to be a blessing for life, and to fulfill God's purpose for our lives.
If happiness doesn't come, so be it.
We aren't, after all, here to be happy. 🌿