Service - You Snooze, You Lose

The special project from yesterday was replacing worn-out parts of our fence so our fence now slides open and shut more easily. I wish I could take credit for this project - especially since it was honestly something I was planning to do - but I can't. It was the Pesqueras, a family that stayed with us over the weekend, who took the initiative, bought the materials, and showed up on our porch yesterday morning, ready to install the new parts. All I did was provide the tools and install the parts with a lot of help from the Pesqueras.

I found myself kicking myself yesterday because I really was planning on fixing the fence (including replacing the parts) myself, but I just hadn't done it by the time the Pesqueras decided that they were going to. I wanted to have done it, but I had put it off too long, and now I've lost my chance.

The same concept could apply to a lot of good things we could do. If you see a service opportunity and let it pass you by, thinking I'll do that later, the person you were going to serve might do the job themselves, or ask or hire someone else to do it, or perhaps someone else will step up to the plate, as the Pesqueras did, and your opportunity will be lost. The same could go for comforting someone, following a prompting, magnifying you calling, or doing virtually anything else. We have lots of opportunities to do good and be awesome, but many of those opportunities are only ours for a limited time, so if we don't take those opportunities when we can, we might never get another chance.

The Pesqueras certainly understood this. I'm not sure how long they were planning on being in the area, but I'm pretty sure you could count the number of days on your fingers. They had a very small window of opportunity, and no one would have blamed them if they let it pass them by, yet they stepped up, went above and beyond what anyone expected them to do, and accomplished in only a few days what I had been planning on doing for months.

I regret not being the one who replaced our worn-out fence parts. I was going to do it, I could have done it, I should have done it months ago, but I didn't. And now it's done. But I'm not going to waste any time crying over spilled milk. I'm going to take this experience, and (as I do with many semi-negative experiences) try to learn from it and help it make me a better person. I lost that opportunity to do good and be awesome, but I'll have others, and now I feel more committed to not let them pass me by so easily. I'll follow the Pesqueras' example and do what I can, when I can, rather than let things wait until later - and later learn that I waited too long.

And as a personal note to the Pesqueras, in case any of them are reading this, I really am grateful that you fixed our fence. It works so much better now, which is a great blessing for everyone who lives, or even visits, here. I'm grateful for the example you've shown me of working quickly to do good while you can. I'll try to follow that example. I only wish that I had done it sooner.