More Blessed to Give than to Receive

I have seen the hand of God reaching out to touch me, my children and our family today.

My mother-in-law is still being gracious in lending me her car while mine is STILL in the shop. In her CD player she has all Christmas CD’s, so today, while running my errands I flipped on the music and the car was filled with beautiful carols. The second song to play was the Hallelujah Chorus by Handel. When I was in the 7th grade I took Concert Choir. My teacher was fabulous. Most of my understanding of music theory came from her. For Christmas we learned the Hallelujah Chorus and performed it for our school concert (imagine that being done today…). It was one of the most profound musical experiences of my life. I still remember every note all these years later, so when the song came on, I turned up the volume and sang along at the top of my lungs with my mediocre-choir-voice! When the song finished I started it over and sang along again. When I got near the end to the passage where the refrain “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” is repeated several times, I suddenly found that I couldn’t sing…and I had a hard time seeing the road too. I whispered the words in a choked voice until the song was over. It’s hard to put into words, but what I felt was the hand of the Lord in my life, accepting my mediocre-choir-voice tribute and blessing me with a testimony of my Savior.

Tonight my daughter told me that for Mutual on Wednesday they will be going to a homeless shelter to serve dinner. She commented that when you give service, you feel so good, that you actually feel like you are doing it for yourself. What a blessing to learn something so profound at an early age.

Tonight was also Enrichment Night. I have a hard time going because ever since I moved into this ward I have been in Primary, so even though we have been here nearly 2 ½ year I still don’t know anybody. I ventured out anyway since they were serving dinner and dessert and found a table with a fellow Primary worker. A few other people moseyed over to our table and soon we had a great discussion going about the difficulties of raising children, and how each child is different and unique, and how they each require a different approach when disciplining and loving them. All the ladies at the table were in different stages of motherhood, but the overall theme we all agreed on was that we need to love more and criticize less. I came away with a resolve to be more loving and patient. We also got to do some humanitarian work and you know what? My daughter is right; service does more for the giver than the receiver.

Count your many blessings; every doubt will fly,

And you will be singing as the days go by...