When your own heart aches

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the October 1983 Conference.

I've been thinking for a while now about the idea that power comes from service. I heard a really good talk in church that got me thinking along those lines—a lady in my ward talked about how the most important part of the Law of the Fast is the part telling us to serve others: "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and [to] break every yoke… to deal thy bread to the hungry, and…bring the poor that are cast out to thy house…[and] draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul".

She talked about how it is the very process of pushing aside our own fears, worries, doubts, pains—all those very things we are so desperately fasting for relief from—and putting other people foremost in our minds instead—that brings the power we need to endure our own trials.

I have even thought there might be some kind of direct correlation—some specific law of heaven that pairs relief from a trial with the corresponding easement of that trial for another person—when we give a true sacrifice in love. I don't mean that we have to necessarily stick to only helping those who have trials like our own, of course! We learn a lot from seeing how different the needs around us are. But I've just sensed some sort of…I don't know. Some sort of answer or release at times, when I am struggling with a specific trial—and I encounter another person with that same category of trial—in praying for that person and myself both, knowing we share a struggle.

Anyway, Elder Richard G. Scott gave such an amazing talk on this topic in the October 1983 Conference. There are so many beautiful quotes from it!

I speak of service—self-sacrificing service to others in need. I know it is hard to help another when you feel you have been wronged. I know it is difficult to take the first step when your own heart aches for companionship or yearns for understanding. Yet such acts of service open to us the mercy and love of Jesus Christ, the Master. 

Free agency is a divine gift, and God will not override it. Because of free agency, we must take the first step. Our initial acts of kindness or service to others provide us with channels of inspiration and power. In contrast, darkness and despair close in when the light of love and service dims or goes out within us.… 

If you would be loved, love another. If you would be understood, show understanding to another. If you would find peace, harmony, and happiness, lift another.…

Because I keep running into this principle in my gospel study, I know it's something important for me right now, and I'm trying to figure out how to implement it more fully. One funny example was when a friend of mine was overwhelmed with a bunch of things, and had been praying that perhaps her ministering sister would be inspired to offer her some help. And finally one morning, that ministering sister called my friend, and then…ASKED my friend to help HER with something!

Later we were laughing about it, and we said jokingly that perhaps that blessing of being able to give service was the best thing of all, even though it felt like Heavenly Father must have misheard her prayers—"Wait, it was ME that needed help, remember?" And even though we were joking about it, I keep thinking about it and I've been trying to see if I could actually use that principle better. Could I train myself to immediately figure out someone to help, when I start to feel overwhelmed or in pain? The idea of going outside my home to "serve someone" often makes life seem MORE overwhelming, but if it were for a friend I already knew and cared about…or perhaps if I took a task I had to do for someone anyway? Something like cleaning up a mess or cooking a meal for my family—if I were to deliberately try to do that task AS an offering, AS a willing and happy service for God—would that help me feel better?

I am convinced that when we give unconditional love; when our interest is first in serving, building, edifying, strengthening without thought of self; when we do not expect an automatic return for each act of kindness, generosity, or sincere effort to help; when we are not concerned about what we will receive or what others will say or whether our own burdens will be diminished, but selflessly seek to build another, the miracle of the power of the gospel is released in our lives. When we permit the Lord to work through us to bless others, that sacred experience releases power in our own lives, and miracles occur. …

Elder Scott does say that we should not be "concerned about what we will receive…or whether our own burdens will be diminished"—so…hmm. Maybe it's not ideal to think, "I want my burdens to be lifted! So, who can I serve?" But, I feel like it might be okay to think that…as long as you are ALSO trying to genuinely care about those you are serving. And as long as you aren't saying in an ultimatum sort of way, "Heavenly Father, I will ONLY serve if my burdens get lifted RIGHT NOW!"

But this is so typically Elder-Scott-ish. I love him:

Begin now with your best effort. Reach out to another. You will feel the power of the Lord flow through you.

I believe him. And while I can't say I have tons of personal experience living this principle, I really want to try to start applying it by trying to deliberately serve "when my own heart aches"! Elder Scott's reassurance that even our "initial acts of kindness or service to others provide us with channels of inspiration and power" reminds me of Elder Renlund's "light the match" metaphor. It is exciting to think that the small act of "reaching out to another" could immediately open up those "channels of inspiration and power"!

Other posts in this series:

Why do we suffer?—by Jan Tolman