Hardships - Opportunities to Reap the Blessings of Service

Elder Hugo E. Martinez's talk, Our Personal Ministries, focussed on service, and how we, as servants of God, ought to serve one another. Service is, in my opinion, one of the more inspired principles of the gospel. When people serve one another with all their hearts, both those who receive service and those who give the service are blessed. Thus, one person's misfortune can become a blessing to both them and to those who help alleviate their suffering. When we experience trials, we can develop patience and exercise faith in God. When He sends His servants to come to our aid, we can express gratitude to both them and Him, and grow in spirituality. When we see others who are in need, we can practice empathy and charity. We can show kindness, and possibly get some physical exercise as well. Then we can express humility by giving the credit for our service to God, and express gratitude to God for the opportunity to give service and grow in spirituality.

It's slightly ironic that one of the best things in life, coming together to serve one another, is brought about by the tragedies and hardships of life, but that's what makes God's plan so perfect and beautiful. He knew we would have to face hardships on Earth in order to gain the experience we need to become like Him, but the real stroke of genius was turning those hardships into opportunities to distribute blessings among many people. The prophecies of the Second Coming list many natural and man-made disasters that will befall the land. In fact, they've already begun. I'm not looking forward to facing the hardships that I know will come, but I do hope that when those hardships come, I will be able to roll up my sleeves and get to work in helping to alleviate the suffering of others.

Thankfully, we don't have to wait for some great disaster to happen to get involved in the glorious work of service. There are already, unfortunately, hardships aplenty. We just need to open our eyes, look beyond ourselves, and seek out opportunities to serve. If we search prayerfully, God will help us find those that we can help.

I'm thankful for my mother, who raised me with a desire to help others. It isn't always pleasant or convenient, but it always brings me the blessings I need to overcome the discouragement and challenges of life. Because I give service, I know that I'm a good person, and as I may have said once or twice before on this blog, I need that reminder every once in a while. I'm thankful to have gotten another reminder today. But this reminder also comes with a call to serve. There are things that I should do today, people I should help, and service I should give, so I should probably wrap up this blog post and get to work.