30 Days: Day 7- Service and Selflessness

Last night I got home hours past when I should have been sleeping. I was so discouraged because I knew I would have to wake up very tired and go to work after having worked a 14 hour day. I was trying to do my best but feeling so extremely worn out.

I pulled up and walked into the room (I am sleeping at my parents house this month while I am in the process of moving), and my mom had made it all ready for me to crawl into the sheets. Earlier, I had thrown my stuff all over the room in a hurry and she had straightened everything and made the bed because she observed I was a little too busy.

That act of service meant so much to me that it really had me thinking about it throughout the day. She is the best example of service I know. I can't tell you how many times I ask her to do something, and to this day, I honestly can't think of a time she has ever said 'no'.

She does a countless number of things for me each day, I would never be able to keep count. For example, I ran the Dirty Dash 10K a few months back. I had a bag full of muddy clothes and shoes that I had in my trunk. She took this bag, power-washed my shoes to the point they looked brand new and washed all the mud out of my clothes before I had even noticed they were not in my trunk. When a girl hit my car last month, she let me take her car to work while she sat at the body shop and dealt with getting it repaired. While I have been at my parents house for the past couple weeks, she has made me my lunches for work before I am even out of bed and makes sure I eat my breakfast. :)

The seven of us kids always joke about who is our mother's favorite child. Each one of us is always 100% convinced that we are the favorite. Isn't that talent?! To make each person around you feel like you are their favorite? I don't know how she gives that much attention to each of her children and my dad, but she does. It is amazing and I admire that so much.

All of this leads me to the question that I have been pondering about today. How is it that someone becomes so selfless? I mean, if someone close to me were to ask me to do something for them, I'm afraid I would probably say, "You can do that!" or "Come on, don't be lazy!" but at the same time, if I were to imagine my mom saying something like that to me, I would be shocked. Is that level of selflessness a part of someone's character? Or is it something that needs to be learned? You know the 5 Love Languages? Acts of Service or Giving Gifts doesn't even show up on my radar. It usually doesn't even cross my mind because I am more geared towards Words of Affirmation. How do I trade in my independent nature and desire to be self-sufficient (and for others to be the same) to learn how to be aware enough to do things for people? This is definitely a quality I hope to acquire before I have children, because I have seen how much love and security that brings to a child to know their mother is always there and would do anything for them.