Christlike Service

The Light the World Christmas invitation for today asks this question: “Who represents Christlike love to you?” It invites us to highlight them, and so today I want to express my gratitude for my parents and their Christlike service they give. One of the ways my mom has always given Christlike service is by cooking for others. She has hosted hundreds of lunches and dinners at our house for gatherings large and small, slaving away for hours and sometimes days in meal preparation and clean up in service to her guests. And of course she has cooked thousands of meals for us as kids where each day included a hot breakfast in the morning, a sack lunch for school, and a dinner fit for kings always on the table in the evening. She was famous among my childhood friends particularly for her desserts; if you talk to them even today they will tell you about the incredible cookies my mom would always have for them whenever they came over to our house. Just ask them about the chocolate ones with marshmallows in the middle and chocolate frosting and sprinkles on top and their mouths will start watering. I am pretty sure that her cookies were half the reason a nerd like me had any friends at all in high school! The Savior once “took the five loaves, and the two fishes” and blessed and multiplied them to feed “five thousand men, beside women and children” (John 6:19-21). I don’t know that my mom has ever fed five thousand at once, but she certainly has fed five thousand many times over through the years as they have come to eat at her house! Her Christlike service time and time again has blessed countless lives and inspired me to try to serve my own family.

             Now for my dad, probably the only person who actually reads this blog. I think the way he most shows Christlike love is his genuine interest in people no matter who they are. As my friends were eating my mom’s cookies when they visited my house they were undoubtedly also answering my dad’s questions about their lives and family. He was genuinely interested in them and how they were doing. He even shows this to those he doesn’t know. Countless times growing up we would get embarrassed and squirm as my dad struck up random conversations and cracked jokes with some stranger such as a waiter or cashier or someone we were standing in line next to. We went to Versailles as a family fourteen years ago when I finished my mission, and one of the only things that stands out in my mind about the visit was that my dad took the time to chat with one of the workers there. The Lord gave us this invitation in our day: “Therefore, strengthen your brethren in all your conversation, in all your prayers, in all your exhortations, and in all your doings” (Doctrine and Covenants 108:7). I realize that this is what my dad is so good at: strengthening others in conversation, showing Christlike love and lifting others who may need a kind word. I remember in particular one conversation we had many years ago driving down a dark road in Tennessee where he counseled me to focus my life on doing what Christ would have me do, and I am grateful for that and so many other moments of guidance and instruction from him and my mom. I give thanks today to my parents for the love they show whether in cooking or conversation or countless other acts of Christlike service to me and so many others!