When You Serve, Who Are You Blessing?

Here is a short story taken for a book I am reading:
There it was. The suitcase. Standing at the top of the basement stairs. The very sight of it made her angry. Her husband had just returned from a business trip and had left the suitcase sitting there, assuring her that very soon he would take it downstairs and put it away.

A week later the suitcase was still there. Because the laundry room was in the basement, she was forced to step over the suitcase time and again as she did the laundry. Before long, the way she treated her husband was directly related to the number of times she stepped over the suitcase. It was the middle of January, and outside the temperature was dropping rapidly. Inside, it was plummeting as well.

One day she decided to move the suitcase. No, she didn't take it downstairs and put it away. Helping was the last thing on her mind. Instead, she carried it into their bedroom and put it in the middle of the floor where her husband walked, effectively blocking his path to the bed. Now he would see firsthand how irritating it was to arrange one's life around a misplaced suitcase.

She returned to the kitchen expecting to feel a certain amount of satisfaction and relief. She felt neither. Nor did she feel the least bit smug. What she felt was an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief. She knew her husband had not intentionally left the suitcase out; he had simply forgotten about it. Yet even knowing that, she clung to her "right" to feel offended and hostile.

She stood in the kitchen and thought about the suitcase. Had it belonged to guests, she would have happily taken it from their hands and insisted on putting it away herself. So why, she wondered, was she unwilling to help her husband in the same way? Why was it so much easier to serve others than it was to serve him? She took a good long look at herself and didn't like what she saw. No wonder she felt grieved. Something needed to change, all right, and it had nothing at all to do with the suitcase.



Philippians 2:1-8
1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

As I read through all of this, I was struck by a thought. Probably a very simple thought that you have already thought before. But each time you do something for your spouse, whether it's picking up their shoes, making them dinner, folding their laundry, cleaning the shower, you are not only blessing them tremendously as their perfect helper, but you are blessing our heavenly father. So it's a blessing all around. We are blessed, our husbands are blessed and the Lord is...a cord of 3 strands is not easily broken... :-)

I found a great quote by Phillips Brooks, "Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully." Love is patient, love is kind...

IHS,
Cammie