Early on in our journey, I spent a season wallowing in self pity. It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when you have a child with a disability. Heck, it’s easy even if you don’t!

A wise friend once told me that the remedy for self pity is to serve others; and when it’s possible, spend time serving as a family.

As always she’s right. Serving others is extremely powerful. Not only does it keep us from self pity & isolation, but it teaches us to give and to love others. Most importantly, it helps our eyes focus… so we can truly see that we are blessed despite our circumstances.

Yesterday we took our kids to serve for the Manna Project. Laynie and her daddy arrived on time… Gideon and I were late, since he decided to take an early nap. Kevin and Laynie served by measuring out & boxing up rice, beans and soy. Laynie was eventually moved (with the other little kids) to coloring and decorating the boxes. I helped keep the kids on task and Gideon….well, Gideon was unable to help physically. But he brought smiles to all the volunteers….so I would think that’s a huge help!!

The big take away was that we spent two hours as a family working towards a common goal that would bless others. It led to some amazing conversations with Laynie. It gave me fresh eyes to see my son and how fortunate we really are.

It was through our mission to bless others that we realized… we are the blessed. In 2 hours, all campuses combined packaged more than 200,000 meals. While that’s wonderful news, I can’t help but think, what if we served for just one more hour? What if we did this every weekend?

Maybe I’m becoming an idealist, but how would our world (and our children) be changed if we spent more time serving others with our families, instead of just serving our families?