Helping Others Helps Me

I haven't forgotten about the church, but plan to revisit that topic later. I feel the need to blog another subject at the moment.

The summer before my senior year of highschool, my dad lost his job. He made us a comfortable living as manager of a cedar wood-working plant. I remember the feeling of worry that settled over our family that summer, and how I automatically knew that things were going to be different than I had originally planned. As I've learned over the years, financial difficulties can cause a marriage to break, and my parents marriage was no different. Those were some difficult years for our family, but I found a way through--it was by helping others.

That fall a lady at my church, Gwen Carpenter, began teaching a sign language class. I had always loved watching her sign, and began to learn and practice daily. I was very shy, and didn't like talking to strangers, but I decided that I would approach a deaf girl at my school. I basically had the vocabulary of a three year old with the amount of sign language I knew, but we began to be friends. By learning sign language, I met a whole other world of people and for many years they were involved in my life. It was a year or so after my life had calmed down somewhat that I realized something. Helping people had helped me. I received more blessings from helping them than they received from my helping.

In James 1:27 it says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." It also says in Matthew 25:35-36 "For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, and I was in prison and you came to visit me." I believe God placed me where I am so that I can help people, and that is the reason He placed you where you are. You have special talents that are needed for the situations you are in, and He will use you if you are available.