{12} Thankful...

I am thankful for service.  Service has a sure fire way of taking you by the shoulders and giving you a good shake out of your self-absorbed state.  Service can affect me in so many ways.  I am changed by doing service myself, receiving service from others, and watching others serve and watching the process 3rd person.  It is a powerful thing to behold.

Today, our kids are at the church cleaning the grounds and building.  8am on a Saturday and they were off doing good... love that.  And the fact that there will be other teenagers there doing the same thing makes it more fun and more powerful!

Last night, Christian carried on a tradition of service that my mom started many years ago:

When I was 13, and had started babysitting, my mom came to me and made a suggestion.  She asked me to consider babysitting for free on the occasions when the parents of the family I was asked to 'sit for was doing something church related... for example if they were attending the temple or going to a church meeting.  My mom felt by my doing this it would allow me a service opportunity on a regular basis.  It would also allow certain families that had struggled to participate at certain church events due to tight finances, to then have an opportunity they may have missed otherwise.  I decided to do it.  Looking back, I'm so thankful that my mom handled it the way that she did.  The suggestion was made to me, not forced upon me, and I embraced it and it was a blessing for those families that I served but it made a lasting impression on me also.

So when Savannah started babysitting, I made the same suggestion to her.  She embraced it, NOT SURPRISINGLY, because that sort of thing comes naturally for her.  Now that she is working at Shawn's office, and driving and her social calendar is more full, she has edited her babysitting jobs.  She has one very special family that she has always babysat for from the beginning and I can't see her ever not babysitting for them, but overall she is not babysitting much anymore.  So a family called to see if she could babysit last night but she was busy.  She thought maybe Christian would be interested, and he was.  So it was arranged that Christian would babysit for them instead.  This family was going to the temple so it would be a 'free' job.  I asked Christian if he was going to carry on the tradition... he had babysat for free one time in the past but we had not talked specifically about if he was going to 'formally' take on the tradition.  He said, 'of course'.  He babysat 4 kids for 6 hours and came home around 9:30pm.  He had a blast!  The kids were great and the father shared some of the experiences he had at the temple while he drove Christian home.

Now, I know I am biased here.  I look at my 15 year old son and think he is the funniest, good looking, wise cracker I know.  The boy is down right entertaining and our house is happier because he is in it... also much messier.  But this guy just spent 6 hours on a Friday night with 4 kids, 9 years old and younger, and didn't get a dime for it... and "had a blast!"  Thankful.  A tradition of service continues.