My immediate reaction was, there’s no way. This trek is
along a highway that I’ve not only had occasion to find myself in close,
personal contact with a moose at high speeds, but have also done a couple of
unplanned and very frightening 360 degree revolutions at high speed. To say that
my thoughts on making this drive once a week again fills me with apprehension
is a bit of an understatement.
I could just skip it and visit other words for Sacrament
meeting. But I have an important calling in my ward. I lucky enough to be entrusted
to spend two hours playing with the littlest of our members so that their
parents’ can be edified or fulfill their own important callings. I love those
precious little hearts that are given into mine and the others who share the
calling with’s care.
I knew it was something I had really think about and pray
for understanding on. Though I didn’t. I avoided praying about it, because I knew
I might not like the answer, and honestly I wasn’t ready to not be upset about
it.
I told my friend who used to share the ward with me, but has
been moved to another ward. She was a little sad at not being able to share the
new chapel and journey. I definitely didn’t want to hear that. Or anything else
she might say in favor of it. I could feel myself shutting out her points, with
the thought that she’s just a better person than me and I’m not at that place
yet. And I was okay with that. But she is a special person and she chipped
through my ice a little, though she didn’t change my feelings.
One of the reasons we were given is that while we may be
growing, there were two places that could receive the money for a new chapel.
Alaska or Africa…. We have this very rural chapel that is under used.
So, cue my humbling moment while laying face down waiting
for the chiropractor to come make me not feel like an eighty year old woman. On
a quiet radio close to me an old Christmas song that I love began to play. It
was a song from when I was a teen by Bandaid, Do They Know It’s Christmas Time.
I listened to it and was thinking about the conditions for
some of the people in Africa. I was wondering about my accountability because
we know that people starving there or the extreme violence waged against some
and we sit in comfortable homes in our mostly safe country and do very little.
And then I realized how selfish I was being about my forty-five minute to hour
drive each way in a nice, warm vehicle to go to a church that has made such a difference
in my life, a church that gives me hope when I feel like there is none.
How can I begrudge having to suffer a little inconvenience to
give some people in Africa the chance to have those same things that I am so
lucky to gain from having my church? I can’t. Well I suppose I can, but I don’t.
It’s funny how being humbled can make you feel really good.
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