I love serving the Lord and people. God has given me opportunity after opportunity to serve in our church and even to go on my first, short-term mission trip this summer to Bogota, Colombia. I have always told everyone that God led me to this church where He is very present and living!
Taking the opportunity to jump right in was totally up to me. There are so many Bible studies, groups to attend, events to volunteer for. I was and am eager and devoted to following Jesus, wanting to demonstrate my love for Him and others through acts of service!
Until I totally committed my life to the Lord several years ago, this was something I had never thought of. My mentality for years was: “Go to church. Do good deeds.” I found out there is way more to living for the Lord through praising, worshiping and serving Him. How exciting to learn that He is always with us so we are never alone, and He is busy blessing us daily.
At the beginning of this month, I volunteered for a community back-to-school event at the Merrell Center sponsored by churches in our community. My assigned task was to register parents who had signed up to receive free back packs for their children for the coming school year.
That Saturday morning the volunteers gathered, prayed and received our assignments. It was already beginning to be a really hot, humid day and the event was outdoors. Right before it was about to begin, my daughter texted me that my former sister-in-law passed away that morning. It was such a shock because my sister-in-law had recently contacted me for information on senior apartments in my area. I sent names and phone numbers of three locations. A day or two later, she discovered that a member of her church family could accommodate her. But she had only spent one night there before she was taken to the hospital and passed away.
Not wanting to bring any attention to myself, I just began praying silently – but feeling emotionally weak from this death in my extended family. I went to my pastor, who was also working at the event, briefly told him what had happened and asked him to pray with me.
My heart’s desire was to stay at the event and serve the people there. There were some 4,000 people who had registered, and my help was needed. My team and I worked for 2½ hours straight with a few breaks in between. During that period, I had to stop once and ask someone else from our church to pray for me.
It was near my time to leave when I started feeling dizzy. I sat down and knew I needed help getting to the “cooling center” that had been provided for workers. A friend was nearby, so I asked her to walk with me. I could not breathe and was gasping for air as my pulse increased. I shared about learning of the unexpected death of a family member at the beginning of the event and thought maybe I was having an anxiety attack because of being emotionally upset as well as overheated.
My friend helped me stay focused on God and we started praying Psalm 23 over and over. She kept speaking God’s words to me and I cried out to Him. Slowly my breathing got back to normal, and my heart rate was coming down. How I thanked God for coming to my rescue and bringing me peace. Because of His answer to our frantic prayers, the firetruck with its crew that was waiting to help anyone who got overheated was not needed. I had experienced a fresh outpouring of God’s grace.
After my ordeal at that back-to-school event, I was afraid of going out in the heat. But I took my fears to the Lord and kept asking for His peace. It has come through Philippians 4:6-7: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men.
Ephesians 6:7
