The Plan… « iServe

The Plan…

September 27, 2007 at 12:43 pm (iServe, iServe-locally)

The plan. My husband would lead a site and attend a couple meetings to prepare for it and that counts for both of us serving since we’re married and I would be helping him by making phone calls. On the day of, I would take my older two children down to work after things get going (it was a Hammer and Nails project of painting a house – scraping, priming, then painting). Then I would leave and run our youngest to dance class etc. and work on projects at our house to “serve” my family.

My real plan, be unavailable for that whole day, this iServe is just too hard, our youngest is too young, and aren’t we supposed to be “worshipping” together on the weekend anyway, not “working”. Plus not only do I have so much to get done at home and my husband is gone enough helping others, I need help too. Also, I am so out of shape, I have never painted before, let alone while trying to supervise a very active 8 year old and the thought of being around a bunch of people I didn’t know, and trying to make conversation while not looking too sweaty and gross, just upped my already anxious and shy nature to a point I was unwilling to deal with. It all just seemed to hard. Well, believe it or not I do have a conscience. Guilt and low feelings were present this whole time. I prayed for forgiveness and for a more willing spirit…..in the future.

God’s plan. Have husband call one hour into the project to bring the kids down early before the sun got too hot and then I would leave (we were all sleeping when he called). Bring out the already very determined nature of our youngest child and have her refuse to leave, and I mean absolutely refuse to leave, grabbing a brush and starting to paint. I would be left with a choice of leaving with her anyway in a loud scene making kind of way or trying to supervise her helping with the big task the volunteers took on. So we stayed. And it couldn’t be too easy because He knows I don’t need easy, I’ve had a lot of that already. Next, have our two older kids dive right in and work incredibly hard as an example of unselfish serving. Then remind me through out the rest of the day, that “For even the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45) because people are what’s important to Him and should be to us. How did He do this as everyone was scraping and painting and leading and just plain working hard?

He used this teamwork and He used a little dog. A dog He knew was going to be abandoned that day, pushed out of a passing car, right by that particular house at that particular time. He brought a pause, and suddenly there was something to talk about, to talk to the homeowner about – she is not a dog person! Something for my 8 year old (who loves dogs) to work on taking care of with the homeowner’s granddaughter getting to know each other in the process, and so on. Relationships and connections were made with one another in His name above and beyond what I would have expected, because I thought it would all just be too hard.