No Formulas in Serving

And so it's come back to this. The discussion of our insatiable need for formulas to follow with these things we call our lives.

I wrote a post on this back when Ryan and I were engaged, and we were getting peppered with questions and cautions because we weren't following all the prescribed formulas and timelines for relationships.

In truth, nothing about my life has followed a formula, including when I showed up in life, to a family that deemed itself complete...and then there was me.

Most recently, when I left my job at WBCL, people stared, open-mouthed when I told them I was leaving to stay home. I expected questions, and I sure got them! People asked if we were having a baby...or when we would have babies. People asked if I was going to work somewhere else or if I needed suggestions on new places of employment.

None of it offended me, of course, but the truth is, no one quite knows what to do with the girl who walks away from her dream job to be a wife without a plan of children...and certainly without another job search on the horizon.

And my formula-less life continues.

In the questioning that came my way after I announced I was leaving work, many people asked what organizations I planned to volunteer with.

Gulp.

My mother is a master volunteer. She loves it. She thrives on it. She helps out with great causes and {truthfully} overcommits herself serving others.

Want to hear a confession that feels kind of ugly to say? I have no desire to do the things she does. {GASP!!!} Like I said...the causes are worthy and the needs are great, but they don't zing my heart. They're not my passions. I wrote another post a few weeks back about how people seem to get so devoted to the causes that zing them...that they believe everyone around them should feel zinged for the same things. And we're not, always. That's the beauty of the Body. We all have different gifts.

I've struggled with some guilt about this whole volunteering thing, because I wondered if I was broken in some way...if I should be eager to get out there and join the forces and serve alongside...and...and...and.

And then came last week.

I received a phone call that a gentleman from the church of my childhood had passed away. Though I now attend a different church, I'm in a Sunday School class with his daughter, and she was asking for people to help serve the funeral dinner, since the church where we went together all those many years ago is quite small in number now, and they weren't sure they'd have enough people to staff the dinner.

My heart jumped. THIS zinged me. Walking back through the doors of the church that laid my foundation...working in the kitchen where I used to stir pitchers of Kool-Aid for the kids' ministries...serving a family who invested in me when I was young...YES. And I've never had the freedom to serve in such a capacity, because I've always been at work when funeral dinners were being served.

And so it was that I baked a big batch of Buckeye brownies, grabbed my favorite serving dish, and strapped on heels for the first time in a while, so I could walk across the familiar threshold and serve. I worked alongside old friends I'd not seen in too long, and we sliced pies, arranged the puzzle pieces of salads and vegetables, chased slippery ice cubes with tongs and wrestled with safety tabs on iced tea bottles so we could fill the glass dispensers. We hugged the family and offered what they needed and then slid around a table in the back of the kitchen to sample the goodness of church folks' cooking once the family had settled at their tables.

After everyone filtered out the door, we scooped leftovers into recycled butter and cottage cheese containers, put the salt and pepper shakers back in the cabinets, wiped down the tables, and washed and dried the dishes. Hours after arriving, I picked up my crumb-filled glass baking dish and the nicely washed serving dish and limped to my car, feet screaming at me for daring to rush around in heels for so many hours after weeks of tennis shoes.

I came home fulfilled. I'd served...not out of guilt, but out of desire. I'd found a need that I could fill and I did it. This is the formula of serving. Or perhaps I should say the non-formula of serving. It's waiting for God to say "THIS!" and then doing it. It's about not signing up because the narrowing, confused eyes of those around you declare you should be doing something, but about choosing His Sacred Yes for you.