Who knows what it really means to serve? For sure, I did not
If you had asked me anytime in the last 50 years, I would have told you I’m committed to service.
It started in Christian college when I joined music groups that traveled all over the country singing for worship services, youth rallies, missionary meetings, and Christian conventions. We gave so much! We served.
For a few years, I worked on church staffs. What I remember most about it are the friendships formed, the happy get-togethers, the laughter, the food. And the attention. I was always in front of people, enjoying the heady exhilaration of speaking while others listened. What service that was!
Soon I was at the publishing house. And even from this quiet and almost cloistered environment, my service was public. For one thing, I became editor of a magazine that at that time had a circulation of some 175,000. It had existed for decades, serving all those thousands week after week after week. Now I was the servant-in-chief, setting the course of the publication for the masses. My name was in front of them with every issue.
Variation on a theme: Speaking at my retirement dinner in 2017. Steve Carr photo.
And it’s not like I spent all my time behind a desk. No, unless budget bothers restrained, management wanted me out with the people. Shaking hands. Leading workshops. Standing up front. This service took me away from home and my young family. My wife tended to little children while I was a guest at church suppers and business dinners. I relished every minute. I’d tell you I missed being at home, but the service was important. Really important.
Different now
But in the last couple of years, I’ve come to understand more about service.
Today my service is about adjusting, constantly adjusting my own agenda as I respond to the notions or needs of the person in my care.
Service is giving up trying to plan a vacation and giving away concert tickets we just can’t use.
Service is tidying the living room, chasing after clothes on chairs and the floor as if my housemate were a toddler or teenager, planning and cooking all the meals, monitoring a half dozen medical conditions to make sure there are no dangerous changes, tending to laundry (always laundry), and trying not to sigh when precious time alone is interrupted by this troubled person who won’t go to sleep at night or awakens in the morning much earlier than expected.
Natali_Mis photo at istockphoto.com
Service is kneeling on a bathroom floor, cleaning up a mess.
And all of it, every busy or boring or unpleasant moment of it, happens behind closed doors. No one notes what I’m doing, usually not even the loved one I’m serving.
Still in process
I’d like to feel noble about all this. I’d like not to resent it. I’m getting there. Writing about it gives me the chance to consider where I am on the serving/selfish continuum. Some might accuse me of seeking attention by posting these thoughts online. I hope they’re not right.
I’d like to think, instead, that any of us might reconsider what it means truly to serve.
Jesus said, “The greatest among you will be your servant.”
Years ago, my friend Roy Mays responded, “All of us claim we want to be a servant—until someone starts treating us like one.”
The direst needs
Someday I’ll probably be glad I was able to rise above (or is it “go below”?) my concept of service. Hopefully, I can continue to realize the purest service is not about me, but about the ones whose direst needs are often best served in secret.
I’m often concerned about how Evelyn and I will get along in public. When someone compliments her outfit, I smile, because that means I did a good job helping her put it together. When she laughs or says something witty at dinner with friends, I laugh too, relieved that she’s not complaining because the food was slow coming. When friends at church seek her out with a kind comment or a warm hug, I tell myself how well we’re doing, for at least this one more week.
All of that’s worthwhile, but it barely begins to contain the sum of her needs or my calling.
To nurture and sustain her is to serve her. Every day. And she is supremely worth the effort! I’m asking God not only to keep me serving, but to help me feel good about it.
Coming Friday. Look for Part One of a new two-part Shared Story.
And think about sharing YOUR story here. It will encourage others and help YOU to put it in writing!
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