Moment of Silence

I had one of the coolest experiences ever, at church today. Our meeting was all about service. A dear friend of ours spoke. Her husband is serving our military overseas right now. He has a few more months left before he gets to come home. She spoke about the service offered to her and her family these past 10 months. It was really sweet to hear her testimony of how the Lord takes care of us. I can  say that I have a strong testimony of that as well. We have been very blessed by the service of others. God is good!

After she and two others spoke, our bishop stood up and said that since tomorrow is a day that we honor our military, he would like for all those who have served or are serving in the military to please stand. Wow, the power and the spirit that instantly flooded the room was amazing. Then he asked for all those who have family members who have served or are serving to stand. I stood for my Grandpa Sanders who served many years. Trever stood for his father who also sacrificed many years for our freedoms. The power and spirit grew even stronger and the tears became pouring down. Then he asked everyone to stand and join in a moment of silence for those that have sacrificed for our country. Wow, words cannot describe the gratitude, the emotions, the power that I felt at that moment.

I went to a high school that was very patriotic. The things we learned and the love for our country that I gained was amazing. I am so thankful I was able to be a part of that. The men that sacrificed hundreds of years ago, to create a free nation, and all of those that have or are serving to protect those freedoms, have my upmost respect. As do their families who sacrifice so much.

My dear husband feels the same way about our military. He has always been good about seeing the needs of those around him also. Because of those things, he noticed that our friend (mentioned above) really wanted a back yard for her kids to play in. He offered to install her back yard for her and do all of the labor for free. If he could have, he would have paid for all of the materials and everything as well. He is such an example to me about selfless sacrifice. As we learned today, when we serve others, we are usually the ones who feel like we got the better end of the deal. That is for sure! He has given so many people the opportunity to serve this sweet sister and he has been able to provide so much more for our family because of it. I'm amazed that the days that he will go and randomly mow someone's lawn, or when he goes to work on her yard... We will get more amazing jobs in the pipeline. He doesn't feel like he is doing anything extraordinary, just helping out a friend, and yet we are blessed so much more financially for it. It's amazing. Service is like tithing. It's insurance!

My mother in law and I were talking about this very thing last night. (She has always been a great example and t Escher about service to Trever. As was his dad) She used to have a music business. Piano, singing groups, voice lessons, etc. She always had a scholarship student who just couldn't afford to pay for it. She knows that because of that, she was blessed to always have students. In fact she had a huge waiting list each year. We are so blessed when we serve.

Thanks for serving our family these past few months. I also want to send out a huge thank you to all of our military and their families, for their sacrifice.