BEGRUDGINGLY

I was humbled yesterday at church.

Seriously humbled.

The sacrament meeting talks, Sunday School and Relief Society lessons were ALL about charity.

And some particular thoughts REALLY hit home.



If you give a 'gift' (service, help, assistance) begrudgingly, it is as if you have performed no service at all.

If you give service expecting some back (something as simple as a "thank you"), it is as if you have performed no service at all.

My difficulties in helping my brother through his illness right now is that yes, I do begrudge it - he's gotten himself into this mess, and I'm the one that has to help him out.

It also doesn't help that my husband has been sick with a kidney stone and then kidney infection for the entire past month - any Nancy Nurse instincts available have been all used up with emergency room trips and hospital beds.

And I react WAY too strongly to his rudeness - he curses at me when I move his things, he demands actions, he rarely says thank you and NEVER says please. his physical... expulsions are revolting, to put it mildly.

Part of it may be the beautiful paintings of Christ healing the sick - he's dressed in white, no stains - the ill are looking up at him adoringly from pitiful places and reaching meekly for his healing hand.

Yet I can't imagine Christ turning away from an invalid because they weren't polite - or if they physically were repulsive (ever seen a true leper? YUCK). He communed not with the health and well and genteel, but with the sick, the ill and the politically incorrect.


I've got a long ways to go, but I also know it is the way to go.