Birthdays and Service

My son, Evan, turned six this week.  SIX!! And he is my second  child.  As a parent, each child's birthday is like a reflection of my own. Each one reminds me of how old I am and that I am getting older and older. Then when my birthday comes along, there's no denying the increasing age. 

Against all my efforts to be a good father, raising my children to appreciate the good things in the world, I allowed Evan to have a Pokémon party. It pains me to see how much joy he receives from talking about fictitious, yet violent, creatures that fit inside a little ball and are only released to seek vengeance.  The whole idea is to capture these creatures that weren't hurting anybody, and squeeze them into a space the size of my fist.  Despite my dislike of Pokémon, I've made the sacrifice for me son, including staying up past midnight the night before cutting and pasting little party favors for his friends.

Though opportunities to serve my children come in abundance, I've been praying for opportunities to serve other people, and for the strength to take advantage of those opportunities.  I've actually been praying for a couple weeks, but I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunities I did this week, my sons birthday included. Two others that may seem simple, but meant a lot to me are as follows.  Neither blessed me in any specific way other than helping me realized the reality of God and his awareness of each individual.

The first experience was the ability to help a hurt students. As I was walking to class with a couple of colleagues, I saw a young man hobbling down the hall, using the wall as support, and wincing in pain with each meager step. Without even thinking about it--which is firstly unusual for me as I tend to anxiously consider every decision I face, including  whether I should wash my face or brush my teeth first when getting ready for bed.  Without hesitation I offered to help the guy, his name was Austin, to wherever he was going. He had already called his roommate to come pick him up, but still needed to cross the building and climb two flights of stairs to get to the rendevouz point.  I put my arm around him and helped him hop to the end of the hall.  At this point, another BYU student offered to help us as well--apparently he could see that I was not the strongest support for Austin, who was about 150 lbs. (sad emoji).  With another agent of service, Luti--did I mention he was a polynesian rugby player--and I lifted Austin and carried him to the elevator and then out to the road just outside the building doors. I'll probably never cross paths with Austin again.  But that doesn't matter, I helped a brother, who  like me many times, needed somebody to offer help by helping, rather than polite courtesies of asking, receiving a polite decline, and moving on.  I was late for class due to the incident, which is usually difficult for me, but today, I didn't care.  I felt renewed.

Two days later, I found a man's wallet in the hall of the same building.  I held onto it for a couple hour during my classes, waiting for the lost and found to open up. In the meantime, I looked on the University student directory to find this young man and call him (his ID was in the wallet, but no current phone number).  I found his name in the directory, but he didn't make any email or phone number available. Grrrr.  

Which brings up an important lesson. Thought we live in a troubling world, it may be wise to allow a contact phone or email to be publicly seen in a school directory in case something like this happpens.

Once the lost and found office was opened, I came to find that they wouldn't make any effort to find the man who lost his wallet.  Only the main office across campus had thee authority to look through wallets and purses.  So, I decided to use the legs the Lord blessed me with and walked across campus with the wallet to the main office.  There they told me that they would look up more info on Scott to make sure he gets his wallet as soon as possible.  I walk away feeling good that I did my due diligence, thought I typically find excuses.

When I arrived home, I found an email from Scott! He heard I was the one who found his wallet--how did he get my name?--and was hoping he could get it back from me.  I told him where I'd left it and that the office closed in 30 minutes.  I don't know if he retrieved his wallet before the weekend started, but that doesn't matter at this point.  I did something that may (or may not) have made a difference. 

We don't know the effects of our efforts to do good.  But I have hope that by taking advantage of the opportunities that came to me, I am happier by nowing I made a situation either easier or more secure for those I served.

Please look for opportunities to serve.  They are everywhere, but we don't always recognize them.