It shall save thy own

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the October 1980 Conference. 

Awhile ago, one of the Young Men's Leaders in our ward shared a letter sent from one of the widows, to the young men. The letter told how her husband, before he died, had gone out every time it snowed and shoveled snow from the sidewalks of his entire street. His wife, knowing that he was sick and weak, asked him, "Why do you feel like you have to do all that shoveling?" He answered, "Someday I will be gone, and when I am, I hope someone will do the same for you." The lady told the young men that now, every time they shoveled her sidewalk, she felt close to her husband.

In that same meeting, another man told the story of how when he was worried about his aging mother who lived in another country, he found an older woman in his own ward to sit next to, hoping that someone would likewise find his mother and reach out to her since her son was far away.

I've been thinking about this…reciprocity?…and wondering if it is a generally applicable spiritual principle. I know we usually get MORE than we deserve from Heavenly Father, when we serve. But I like the idea that if I am seeking or hoping for a specific blessing, I might look for a way to meet that specific need for someone else, and by doing so, gain more confidence to ask Heavenly Father to help me with my own request.

Elder C. Reeve, Sr. said:

I’d like to tell you that a person is never nearer the Lord than when he is reaching out, Savior-like, to bring another soul to Christ. The words of the poet Whittier say this truth: 

Heaven’s gate is shut to him who comes alone;/ Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own.

Often when I am praying for someone and I ask for a certain blessing on their behalf, I will think "…and really, I could use this too, please!" So I love the idea that what we seek to help others attain, we can attain ourselves. I think I've felt it happening when I become really invested in trying to show someone else that God loves them. In the very act of doing this, as I ponder how I can be God's messenger, and think about the things He would want the person to know if HE were here talking to them, I often find myself feeling an outpouring of His love myself!

An example of a time this happened is once when I was worrying about a friend who was feeling discouraged. As I prayed, I was going in my mind through all the things I admired about her—things God must be so proud of her for—things that I wished she would believe about herself. As I went through the list, I found myself feeling the impression, "And God wants ME to know that about myself, too." It was unexpected and very comforting to feel that heavenly approval, which is something I'm always wishing for, but hadn't even explicitly asked for right then!

It makes me look differently at the idea of ministering, too, when I think that my own deep longings for love and friendship may be best met as I give those things to others. Of course I know that people have different needs. And sometimes one of my sisters may need something different than I need myself. But still, I like this idea of reciprocal blessings, and I'm going to try to be more intentional about seeking that reciprocity, looking for ways to give the very things I most need.


Other posts in this series:

• Putting Salt and Baking Soda in Your Cookies by G
• A Remarkably Difficult Truth by Nathaniel Givens
• The Light We Wield by Jan Tolman