Blogger Friend School - #102

Assignment: This week I want you to do something for someone else. Do you have a neighbor that needs you? Do you know an elderly person or single mom that could use you? What about the homeless? Pack even one single sack lunch and give it to someone in need. Do you know someone in blogland that is struggling right now and could use a note from you about how much you care? Pray about this. Let God put on your heart the perfect thing for you to do for another. Now, here is the kicker…I DO NOT want you to post about what you do. Whatever you choose to do is between you and God. Our rewards are in heaven, not here on earth, Mathew 6:1. I want you to post about how doing this “act” made you feel. Was stepping out of your comfort zone in this area as hard as you thought it might be? Could you see the gratefulness in their eyes? Hear it in their voice? Tell it from their typing? Do you think you might make doing things like this a more regular part of your time?  If this is an area that you are already active in, tell us how you feel this has impacted your life.

If we do it right, life - REAL life, lived to the fullest, should constantly bring us out of our comfort zones.  :-)  Here's a wonderful example of that from one of my favorite books, Stepping Heavenward.

I went down into the kitchen, put on my large baking apron, and began my labors; of course the doorbell rang, and a poor woman was announced.  It is very sweet to follow Fenelon’s counsel and give oneself to Christ in all these interruptions; but this time I said, “oh, dear!” before I thought.  Then I wished I hadn’t, and went up, with a cheerful face at any rate, to my unwelcome visitor, who proved to be one of my aggravating poor folks – a great giant of a woman, in perfect health, and with a husband to support her if he will.  I told her that I could do no more for her; she answered me rudely, and kept urging her claims.  I felt ruffled; why should my time be thus frittered away, I asked myself.  At last she went off, abusing me in a way that chilled my heart.  I could only beg God to forgive her, and return to my work, which I had hardly resumed when Mrs. Embury sent for a pattern I had promised to lend her.  Off came my apron, and up two pairs of stairs I ran; after a long search it came to light.  Work resumed; doorbell again.  Aunty wanted the children to come to an early dinner.  Going to Aunty’s is next to going to Paradise to them.  Every thing was now hurry and flurry; I tried to be patient; and not to fret their temper by undue attention to nails, ears, and other susceptible parts of the human frame, but after it was all over, and I had kissed all the sweet, dear faces good-by, and returned to the kitchen, I felt sure that I h ad not been the perfect mother I want to be in all these little emergencies – yes, far from it.  Bridget had let the milk I was going to use boil over, and finally burn up.  I was annoyed and irritated, and already tired and did not see how I was to get more, as Mary was cleaning the silver, and had other extra Saturday work to do.  I thought Bridget might offer to run to the corner for it, though it isn’t her business, but she is not obliging, and seemed as sulky as if I had burned the milk, not she.  “After all,” I said to myself, “what does it signify, if Ernest gets no dessert?  It isn’t good for him, and how much precious time is wasted over just this one thing?”  However, I reflected, that arbitrarily refusing to indulge him in this respect is not exactly my mission as his wife; he is perfectly well, and likes his little luxuries as well as other people do.  So I humbled my pride and asked Bridget to go for the milk, which she did, in a lofty way of her own.  While she was gone the marketing came home, and I had everything to dispose of.  Ernest had sent home some apples, which plainly said, “I want some apple pie, Katy.”  I looked nervously at the clock, and undertook to gratify him.  Mary came down, crying, to say that her mother, who lived in Brooklyn, was very sick; could she go to see her?  I looked at the clock once more; told her she should go, of course, as soon as lunch was over; this involved my doing all her absence left undone.

At last I got through with the kitchen the Sunday dinner being well under way, and ran upstairs to put away the host of little garments the children had left when they took their flight, and to make myself presentable at lunch.  Then I began to be uneasy lest Earnest should not be punctual, and Mary be delayed; but he came just as the clock struck one.  I ran joyfully to meet him, very glad now that I had something good to give him.  We had just got through lunch, and I was opening my mouth to tell Mary she might go, when the doorbell range once more, and Mrs. Fry, of Jersey City, was announced.  I told Mary to wait till I found whether she had lunched or not; no, she hadn’t; had come to town to see friends off, was half famished, and would I do her the favor, etc., etc.  She had a fashionable young lady with her, a stranger to me, as well as a Miss Somebody else, from Albany, whose name I did not catch.  I apologized for having finished lunch.  Mrs. Fry said all they wanted was a cup of tea and a bit of bread and butter, nothing else, dear, now don’t put yourself out.

“Now be bright and animated, and like yourself,” she whispered, “for I have brought these girls here on purpose to hear you talk, and they are prepared to fall in love with you on the spot.”

This speech sufficed to shut my mouth.

Mary had to get ready for these unexpected guests, whose appetites proved equal to a raid on a good many things besides bread and butter.  Mrs. Fry said, after she had devoured nearly half a loaf of cake, that she would really try to eat a morsel more, which Ernest remarked, dryly, was a great triumph of mind over matter.  As they talked and laughed and ate leisurely on, Mary stood looking the picture of despair. At last I gave her a glance that said she might go, when a new visitor was announced – Mrs. Winthrop, from Brooklyn, one of Ernest’s patients a few years ago, when she lived here.  She professed herself greatly indebted to him, and said she had come at this hour because she should make sure of seeing him.  I tried to rescue him, as I knew he would be thankful to have me do, but no, see him she must; he was her “pet doctor,” he had such “sweet, bedside manners,” and “I am such a favorite with him, you know!”

Ernest did not receive his “favorite” with any special warmth; but invited her out to lunch and gallanted her to the table we had just left.  Just like a man!  Poor Mary!  She had to fly round and get up what she could; Mrs. Winthrop devoted herself to Ernest with a persistent ignoring of me that I thought rude and unwomanly.  She asked if he had read a certain book; he had not; she then said, “I need not ask, then if Mrs. Elliott has done so?  These charming dishes, which she gets up so nicely, must absorb all her time.”  “Of course,” replied Ernest.  “But she contrives to read the reports of all the murders, of which the newspapers are full.”

Mrs. Winthrop took this speech literally, drew away her skirts from me, looked at me through her eye-glass, and said, “Yes?”  At last she departed.  Helen came home, and Mary went.  I gave Helen an account of my morning; she laughed heartily, and it did me good to hear that musical sound once more.

“It is nearly five o’clock,” I said, as we at last had restored everything to order, “and this whole day has been frittered away in the veriest trifles.  It isn’t living to live so.  Who is better for my being in the world since six o’clock this morning?”

“I am for one,” she said, kissing my hot cheeks; “and you have given a great deal of pleasure to several persons.  Your and Ernest’s hospitality is always graceful.  I admire it in you both; and this is one of the little ways, not to be despised, of giving enjoyment.”  It was nice in her to say that, it quite rested me.

At the dinner table Ernest complimented me on my good housekeeping.

“I was proud of my little wife at lunch,” he said.

“And yet you said that outrageous thing about my reading about nothing but murders!” I said.

“Oh, well, you understood it,” he said, laughingly.

“But that dreadful Mrs. Winthrop took it literally.”

“What do we care for Mrs. Winthrop?” he returned.  “If you could have seen the contrast between you two in my eyes!”

After all, one must take life as it comes, its homely details are so mixed up with its sweet charities, and loves, and friendships that one is forced to believe that God has joined them together and does not will that they should be put asunder.  It is something that my husband has been satisfied with his wife and his home today, that does me good.

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