The Gift of Service

I mentioned last week that while shoveling out from the mountain of snow, I realized 3 very important things. One of those realizations is that some people seem to be born with the gift of service.

You may remember that my wife and I just had our third child (not pictured) and it's our tradtion to move out to my parents' house to let my wife recover and to get some help with the kids. Although I've always realized my parents were special people, I've finally been able to put my finger on why they are so special. They have the gift of service!

Over the last 2 weeks I've watched my parents completely put their life on hold to help my wife and I adjust to our new family member. They've gotten up in the middle of the night with our other kids depriving themselves of much needed rest. They've picked up and dropped off our older children at the daycare so that I could get to work on time. They've helped shovel our snow, made dinner, given the kids baths etc. etc. I could go on and on.

The coolest thing about their gift is that it just didn't start two weeks ago. They've been living this life of service as long as I can remember. They serve the Lord by serving their kids, their church, their neighbors, their employers. I've never once heard my mother or father say, "But what about me?" Their life has been dedicated to others and what a joy it is to be a part of.

Do you know anyone with the gift of service? Give them a little public recognition and talk them up in the comments section of this page or on facebook! Let them know how thankful you are for them!

CAN YOU DIG IT!!!?

Yesterday my ability to be fit4service was extremely tested. As everyone knows we had a huge snowstorm on the east coast with some reports of up to 23 inches in our area. My wife, kids and I have been staying at my parents house after the birth of our son a week ago. It's huge blessing because my parents help with the kids and it gives my wife a chance to recover a bit before we go back to the "real world."

After spending some time getting my parents' place cleaned up for the snow, we needed to drive into our place and dig us out. We have on street parking in our town and you have about 12 hours to get shoveled out before they issue fines. Anyway, as we pulled down our street we saw the biggest pile of snow in front of our house! Long story short, because we were not parked in front of our house, the borough snow plows decided to deposit most of our streets' snow in our spots for us to dig out. On top of that, there was no where to move it except across the street. Let the fun begin!

My dad and I preceded to start shoveling. Pick up a shovel full of snow, turn around, walk across the street, put it down, turn around and repeat. For 3 hours! We are estimating (and my dad is a mechanical estimator by trade so this is probably pretty accurate) that there was about 2 tons of snow in this spot. Talk about a test of PIES. It truly tested our physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual bodies. But I learned some pretty cool things in the experience.

1. I was physically prepared. No I don't train to shovel snow but because I had taken care of my body, I did not get tired while I was working. (but trust me, I slept well last night)

2. Because I was not getting fatigued, my emotions stayed in check. It is very easy to become frustrated with a situation like this, especially when you are physically exhausted, but I was able to stay in balance. Actually it was a joy to spend some guy time with my dad. (But I could think of better ways)

3. As I was working, the bible verse that talks about doing all things as unto the Lord kept ringing in my ears. Although it was monotonous and potentially overwhelming, I knew that the Lord was pleased with our efforts and attitude yesterday.

4. A major part of life is about community and strangely enough other than my dad and an extremely nice neighbor, no one offered to help. Even as plow after plow, and snow blower after snow blower drove by, no one said, can I help you? This is something that fit4service aims to change.

5. Some people have the gift of service. I'll talk more about this later in the week but let me first say I'm not talking about myself. I'll fill you in later.

Anybody else have anything happen this week that stretched their PIES Post it in the comments below!