Drops of Love

Today I want to thank each of you who has taken the time to take notice of my cancer-fighting and healing journey. Shortly after posting on a bout of discouragement to cyberspace (over 6 months ago!), I experienced something that has happened multiple times along this journey; and it's high time I wrote about it; and thank everyone for it! I have been thinking about this post for over two years, but haven't tackled it, fearing I could not do the topic justice. But today I feel like it is a good time for sharing this, so I'll just give it a shot.

What kind of service matters?

It was the last week of August when my mother was passing away. Only a handful of people were able to be present in her final days to offer love and hugs. My dad, two sisters, and I were the ones who kept constant vigil for five days while her body slowly released the spirit within. We figured this day would come; my mom battled cancer for 14 years. In my premonitions of the event, I had anticipated it to be excruciatingly sad, even unbearable. But the actual experience surprised me.

During that week, we wanted to let my mom's family and friends know what was happening so they could call or email their last goodbyes. My sisters and I also sent out emails and facebook posts to our own circles of friends. I was floored by the volume of responses that poured in. Whether they came from my mom's friends, my sisters', or my own; whether it was a page long or a sentence; each loving reply acted as a soothing drop on wounded hearts. As so many soothing drops added together, I soon found myself feeling a strange sensation. Although I was heartbroken, and shed many tears, I was not drowned by the sorrow. Mixed with the sadness, I also felt light, a sort of buoyancy, as though I was being lifted up and carried. I was not the only one who felt it either. My dad compared the feeling to jumping off the stage at a rock concert and surfing across the throngs of upheld hands. That powerful lift of love exalted that devastating experience into one that was simultaneously exhilarating.

I don't know how to explain the mechanism that causes a chemical reaction to begin when the saturation point is reached, but I do know that when I am infused with enough kindness and love, even my deepest sorrows are placated. That infusion may have been possible from a single individual, but it was, I think, even more powerful as a cumulative effect. Since then I have thought, "I want to be part of this feeling much more often. I want to be someone who contributes drops of love everyday."

This experience answered a question I'd had for many years since serving as a Relief Society President in my BYU ward. During that calling, I cared very deeply for the women I was serving and I tried as best as I knew how to get to know them and serve them and love them. But at the end of the year I felt like I had changed no one. All of the same problems still existed: depression, boyfriend issues, low self-esteem, weak testimony, etc. Despite all my effort and love, I hadn't helped anybody! Sadly, I came away from that year rather disenfranchised with the calling and struggled when asked to serve in similar callings after. I thought, "What was the point of caring if my caring made no difference? And if my caring did matter, actually fixing someone required way too much exertion."

But after this experience with my mother's death, I finally realized the real point of service. It's not my responsibility to "fix" or to "save" anyone. No one could (or even should) have saved me from my grief. I have learned too much in working through this potent experience, that removing me from the grief would have been destructive, not helpful. Instead the many loving words and acts along the way have given me support to rise above the grief and to grow from it.

Sometimes in serving, we have the opportunity to do the heavy lifting, but usually our service does not need to be that big or that hard. Overdoing it can be fruitless and exhausting. Rather, when we feel that frenzied urge to rescue another (especially when we recognize how little we can control), we are wise to remember that there is only one Savior who can truly save anyone. We would be much happier if we let go of our panic grip on other people's lives and trust Him to do His job, "in His own way and in His own time."

However, that doesn't mean we don't do anything. It just means we don't have to approach service as an all or nothing thing. Instead we should approach service as a very simple thing... a single drop (that smile, phone call, or text). If we refuse to give our single drop because it doesn't make "enough difference", we lose the opportunity to make any difference at all. And while our single drop may seem too insignificant to bother giving, when it combines with a dozen or a hundred other drops from other people, one drop may be the catalyst to make someone's cup of love overflow.

One month after this very personal lesson on the cumulative effect of simple service, I heard this talk...

"Over its short lifetime of just a few weeks to four months, a single honeybee’s contribution of honey to its hive is a mere one-twelfth of one teaspoon.

Though seemingly insignificant when compared to the total, each bee’s one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey is vital to the life of the hive. The bees depend on each other. Work that would be overwhelming for a few bees to do becomes lighter because all of the bees faithfully do their part.

Imagine what good we can do in the world if we all join together, united as followers of Christ, anxiously and busily responding to the needs of others and serving those around us."

Be Anxiously Engaged
By Elder M. Russell Ballard
Oct, 2012

Bonus idea: We need to give each other more feedback. Thank people for their drop. If someone's effort made a difference, express it. By giving this feedback we help people gain confidence in their caring. Plus we give a drop of love back, which is doubly cool.