I.
In late July of 1989 my husband and I moved into a basement apartment in a nice neighborhood in the foothills of Provo. I was already nine months pregnant, but not nigh unto delivery. We moved from a married student ward into a family ward and it was like we were completely invisible. The ward had our records. The bishop lived across the street. But no one but my cousin who lived upstairs acknowledged our existence.
So I boldly baked batches of banana and zucchini bread and set out to meet my neighbors. “Hi, we’re the Rowleys,” I exclaimed as I stretched my arms past my enormous abdomen to extend my homemade offering. “We moved in across the street about three weeks ago. It’s nice to meet you,” I repeated versions of this greeting to the neighbors on either side of me as well. I still remember the look of shock and horror on the bishop’s wife’s face as she realized a new family had moved in practically right under her nose and she’d somehow not noticed.
That’s when I learned that doors are usually open, but sometimes, even when it appears obvious that your hands are full, you have to stick your foot in and swing them open a little wider and let yourself in.
II.
In late July of 2003 I tore my ACL while participating in a Dutch oven cook-off. Only I didn’t know it. We were camping in the Uintas and I didn’t see the doctor until the next week. He told me I had torn cartilage and scheduled me to have my knee scoped on August 5, the last day he was available until after football season. I remember coming to after the surgery only to have the anesthesiologist apologize. “I’m sorry. It was your ACL.” I’d vaguely heard of that injury before—in terms of sidelining football players—but I had no idea what it meant in terms of sidelining a mother of four. I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able to walk because when they took part of my patellar tendon to do the ACL graft I lost the use of my entire quadriceps muscle. I had no idea the recovery would be painful and long, that it would take six months before I could resume full normal activity and that I would never be able to kneel on that knee again.
My ward was great. They passed out a sign-up sheet for meals (which was really nice because you can’t cook very well when you’re on crutches) and sisters actually wrote in a whole extra week. Some people offered rides to my numerous physical therapy appointments, because I couldn’t drive, either. And, lucky for me school started soon and my friends took in my youngest, who was the only one not yet in school, while my husband was at work. I was very grateful to everyone who helped.
But soon the days turned into weeks and I found myself home alone all day long with not much I could do except the arduous physical therapy that is required with an ACL reconstruction. I was frustrated because it was still difficult to take care of my family. I was lonely and depressed. I still recall how one day, in quiet desperation, I started at the top of the ward directory and worked my way down, trying to find someone to talk to. No one was home. As I got to the bottom of the Ms I dialed the number of someone I didn’t even know very well. I scrambled to find a reason for my call. “Um, I haven’t seen you since you returned from your mission and I just wanted to welcome you back.”
III.
A couple of weeks ago in Relief Society a friend of mine was giving the lesson–I don’t really remember which one. What I remember was when she tearfully expressed gratitude for everyone who had rallied around her family as they experienced the trauma of a house fire just a couple of days before. I recall how she boldly declared that we are sisters and we love each other and that no one in our ward family should ever feel lonely or unloved in the midst of all that love. I remember how she enthusiastically encouraged everyone to reach out to each other and how she pleaded for each of the sisters to embrace and accept the love that surrounds them. I remember how then another sister, a sister I love and to whom I have tried to be a friend, raised her hand and made a comment about how sometimes when we are ill or depressed we don’t have it in us to reach out, sometimes we need people to come to us.
———————
Say what you will about the meetings or the program or visiting teaching, but we make up the sisterhood that is Relief Society. And as a sister in Relief Society, I’ve been in both places: the place where I was the one reaching out (or sticking my foot in the door) and the place where I didn’t have it in me, and so I waited for someone to come to me, only no one did.
I’ve also been in that place where I reached out to someone but it wasn’t accepted and I was too insecure to realize that I wasn’t being rejected, but that the sister was in a bad place and just needed me to keep giving even if she couldn’t give anything back.
So tell me your stories. Tell me about when you have been lifted by the bonds of sisterhood or about when you have felt left out or that you didn’t belong. Tell me about when you gave and felt rejected or when you were able to be there for someone in an unexpected way and it blessed both of your lives. Tell me about when you got what you needed before you even realized you needed it or about when you felt your needs weren’t met.
How do you extend your sisterhood to those around you? If you don’t always feel comfortable doing that, why not? How do you deal with those sisters who have a hard time letting the love in, but who possibly need it the most?
How do we fill the holes in lonely hearts and anticipate needs that aren’t expressed? How do we get our own needs met when others seem unaware?
What can we do to be a better Relief Society?
I spent the last year living in England. My husband was a master’s student there, and we had no car for the year. The first week we walked to church (eight miles away), because we didn’t know anyone to ask a ride from, and the buses didn’t leave early enough.
I dropped off our toddler daughter in nursery, and walked out, with no idea of where to go next, or anything. An sister stopped in the hallway, exclaimed she didn’t know me and that she was the VT coordinator. She got my name, address, and then asked if I had a ride to church. When she found out we had walked, she told me she would give me a ride, but she couldn’t, because her and her husband were already driving three others to church. So instead she found me a permanent ride, introduced her to me, and arranged it all.
This same ward helped me through my pregnancy there. My bishop’s wife volunteered to watch my daughter while I was in the hospital. She drove me to the hospital when my water broke.
Her mother, the from the compassionate service committee set up people to visit and help me in the first days, meals for over a week, and people to call me and make sure I was doing okay for a week after that.
I could go on about how much that Relief Society helped me, helped my family when we were in a foreign land. I wish I could say what made them so helpful, because then I could copy it. I think it was that the sisters weren’t thinking about themselves; they didn’t worry how they would come across to me, and whether I would think they were weird, or something. They just served selflessly.
So far in my adult life I feel like I’ve mostly been on the receiving end of service from Relief Society, and I’m grateful that any ward I’ve been in hasn’t told me that I’ve exceeded my “quota” of service, or to get a car already (I do have one in the states), or been told that I’m only in that ward for nine months, and so I’ll never be able to give them meals, or rides, or anything and so they don’t want to give me service that’ll go unreturned.
In receiving service, I’ve appreciated that people never tell me that they think I’m not deserving of the service, even if I’m probably not (or am, but not very visibly).
Those are excellent questions, Dalene, and I hope you get plenty of responders. I’m on my way to a wedding so can’t indulge in the trip down Memory Lane I’m tempted to take right now. But there is one immediate thought that comes to mind. I have made a couple of important friendships through serving in Relief Society. in the first instance in a presidency, and in the second, simply as a neighbor.
The first great friend is 13 years older than I am and on some levels we are startlingly different, but we have a bond of love that has not only lasted but also grown in its sisterly intimacy. She was the RS prez and I was first her secretary and then her counselor. She is a very spiritual woman, and an odd duck to boot, and at the time I met her I was still freshly-married and she became something of a mentor to me. We served with a group of women who were unusually compatible and it really set the stage for my future expectations of RS; I saw what it could be and what it could produce. My friend and I both use those days now as a touchstone for our callings. Even though she and I are mismatched when it comes to certain unimportant details, we have a relationship that has been and continues to be precious,. At times, it has truly been a life-saver for us both through times of major grief and loss. At other periods it’s been knee-slapping silly woman fun. We’ve shared some amazing experiences. We consider each other real sisters.
The other friend, who is much younger than I am, is a young woman who moved in across the street from me a few years ago. She was a beautiful single mom at the time, with one adorable little son who insisted he was Spiderman. They were fresh from Puerto Rico, completely alone without family or situation. My friend had a boyfriend here, the missionary she’d followed, but back then it was a rocky relationship, and she had nobody else, no family or friends, and very little in the way of English skills. My husband and I decided to try to befriend them. I helped her with English, spent time visiting, took them to church, gathered Christmas stuff for her to decorate her sad little apartment, and generally tried to reach out, despite our obvious differences. What sealed our bond was the night when she and her boyfriend broke up. She called me late, snuffling wet wailing Spanish into the phone, and I ran right over. She spent the next long hours on the floor with her draped across my lap, gushing out all the pent-up pain and fear in her heart, and I just held her, only understanding a few soggy words here and there, but knowing exactly what she was saying. That was the time that really cemented our friendship; after that, I was dubbed her American mom. She survived, she learned English, she spent a lot of time at our house, she cried with me when I lost my babies, she made up with the boyfriend and eventually married him, and recently Spidey (now Batman) was sealed to them in the temple. Yesterday, on my endowment anniversary, my friend gave birth to her second child, a beautiful little girl, and I got to be there and hold that precious little person for a long, long time. Sometimes family is created in ways we don’t expect.
It makes so much sense to me that it’s called Relief Society. We can really have both, the relief and the society, when we approach it right. I often feel like an outsider, but I can’t deny that I have enjoyed some sweet moments when it has all come together as it should—when I have come together with others through service, either as the giver or the receiver.
This isnt a story of mine but its one I love so I’ll share it anyway.
When my husbands grandmother was pregnant with my FIL (her 4th) they were living in VA for a few months. for some training. Grandmas mother wasnt going to be able to come when she had her baby and Grandpa wasnt going to get any time off work. She was really worried about what she was going to do with her older children. Then one day in RS a sister asked her how she was doing. And she told her. The sister volunteered to help. Grandpa dropped the kids off before work and picked them up after work everyday for a week.
I love this story because it illustrates two important things. We have to be willing to express our needs, and willing to provide Relief.
Dalene–
YOU are the one who reached out to me. We hadn’t met in real life more than a few times but were online friends for awhile. YOu sent the e mail asking how I was the day that my world fell apart. I had no idea if I would be married, how I would support myself, etc, etc. It really was the day the world eneded for me.
Your simple reaching out provided a lifeline. Then came the cards. Just happy notes and cute pictures. To get something in the mail that was bright and happy in the middle of the drama and sadness was another lifeline. I kept them in my purse for a very long time and whenever I felt like it was just too hard to take one more step forward I would pull them out and read them.
Beacuse of the nature of the issues we were dealing with, it wasn’t “public” so there were’nt many people that I could reach out to. Your sweet words and the many, many other tender mercies extended by others who had NO idea what I needed and to whom I am very sure I didn’t respond to were what got me through a very difficult time.
Sometimes it really is just as simple as a card or a note or a meal. Not always, but sometimes it is.
I have been so abundantly blessed by my Relief Society sisters. When my son has been in the hospital, we have never lacked help with our children. People are fighting over who gets to take our kids next so that I can spend the day in the hospital with him. It has taken such a weight off of my shoulders and makes me want to do whatever is asked of me when I am in a better position to serve.
When my health issues first started, we had a RS where the new president (who had made an effort to meet and talk with every sister!) did a lesson where she was trying to assess specific wants and needs of sisters in the room (no one understood that, though, and everyone spoke in generalities).
I knew what she was doing, because she was actually implementing an idea I had shared with her. So I decided I needed to try to steer the effort in the direction she had hoped it would go. I shared how I had oodles of appointments (doctors, physical therapy) and that it was very hard to keep finding people to help care for my three very small children (3, 2 and not yet 1).
After the meeting, several women came up to me and offered help. The compassionate service leader later gave me a list of the women I could call, and the days they were available. It made a *tremendous* difference to know I had women who were *volunteering* to help — saving me from feeling like I was imposing time and time again, which was very stressful for me.
On the flip side, suffering from unrelenting chronic health issues means that there are many things for which I can’t ask help. There are many concrete challenges for which a list like the above, or meals brought in, or other tangible, physical help can easily be defined. But sometimes I can feel pretty alone, because life is often just hard.
That said, I do have friends who are regularly checking up with me, telling me that they are putting my name on the temple prayer roll, and are willing to listen to me share how I’m *really* doing. But they know about my life because I have been willing to share about it. Sometimes we have to let people know that we need help. (I >wrote about this recently on my blog.)
I once suggested to the bishop that we as a ward have an “In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see” fast. He responded. I want to suggest that in our new ward. It helps to be reminded that not all trials can be addressed with a casserole.
I know you are talking about RS sisters but the thought that came to my mind is what happened with my sister. The moring of her daughters funreal I crawled into bed with her and cryed. We are not a huggy or show emotion kind of family but there wasn’t anything else I could do. That is a moment I will never forget. We cryed we talked and eventually she did get up. Sometimes we just need someone to cry with us.
One reason I never want to move from my current residence (even though sometimes it seems we are growing too much for our house to handle) is because of the amazing sisters I have in this neighborhood & ward. When I had my 9th child in May I received (wonderful!!) dinners for a solid week even though my delivery was perfect. I’m talking a full-on pot roast Sunday dinner with all the fixings, amazing tortellini soup and homemade French bread… we were spoiled (and feeding my family is no small feat). Ladies showed up at my house and took my kids for the day so I could have some time to do whatever I needed. When our kitchen flooded into our basement while we were in California it was cleaned up before we got home. One sister even emailed me pictures so I could see what to expect when we got back. I love being watched over and loved and I feel overwhelmingly thankful to live where we do because of these amazing sisters (and brothers, too).
I have been on all sides, too: feeling left out, served in amazing ways, unable to reach out, etc.
My current ward is the first ward I’ve ever been so aware of some of the service that goes on, though I suspect other wards I’ve been in have had their share of helping going on. My visiting teachers have helped me tremendously since our son came–dishes, meals, grocery shopping, mail sorting, babysitting, whatever I’ve needed. Even before he came, once one was over just to hang out, somebody came to the door, and while I was talking with that person, my vt got up and swept my kitchen floor. Besides the service, there is a strong feeling of “we need each other” in this ward that really bonds us together.
Re: extending my sisterhood, I would say I do more by way of friendship than actual physical service. I try to welcome and include new move-ins, as well as call or visit or email people who may need a lift or a friend (which is ironic, since I’m terrible at visiting teaching). I am making efforts to get better at physical service, but it’s not something that comes natural to me.
Regarding filling holes in lonely hearts, I think of a time when one of the RS Presidency spoke to me about our childlessness. In part of our conversation, she admitted to being insecure about reaching out to others, not feeling like she had anything to offer (how many of us feel the same way?). Yet in that and another conversation, she so sincerely asked, “How are you doing?” that I felt an immense amount of love and compassion from her, and I felt free to say, honestly, how much I was really struggling. It meant so much to have that question asked with such real intent.
It seems difficult to know how or when to get that real with some people, but it can be so very helpful. Right now I know a woman whose husband recently left her and, though I feel a bond with her, it doesn’t seem to be the right time to ask her about it. So I express love and give hugs (she’s a huggy person) and am going to be praying to know if/when there will be a time when she needs to talk about it with me. At this point, it hasn’t even been the right time to say, “I’m here if you need to talk,” but I think it will be soon. She may never need to talk it over with ME, and I need to respect that. I don’t know if that makes sense . . .
I kind of have random thoughts in my mind, thinking of all of your questions. It seems that for me, that since becoming a mom, sometimes I need physical help more than emotional help, but don’t know how to ask for it–it seems like such an endless need. I’ve finally resorted to paying my friend’s daughter to play with my son so I can get a few things done. It is not as hard for me to ask for a listening ear (and thankfully I have some wonderful friends), though I know I haven’t done that as much as I have needed.
Great questions and examples, Dalene!
I’m not sure that I can name all the times I feel sisters have come to my aid. I’ve found amazing women everywhere I’ve been.
There was the time I was going through a clinical depression and having anxiety attacks. If I called my vt she was always there to talk or, if needed her, to even come help with the kids.
When our daughter first got sick there was the Mom whose son had passed away about a year before, but she gave us a tour of the children’s hospital to make sure we knew how to survive a long stay. There were the families that watched our other sons until a family member could come and stay with us for a few weeks to help care for them. They would have done a blood drive for her if had been needed. The meals that were fixed.
We were in a different ward and there was the friend who would call if I wasn’t a church. If I didn’t have a good reason then she gently let me know it wasn’t a good reason. She helped keep me on track.
There is my vt/friend now who I love talking with. I know if I did need her, that I can call her and she’d be there.
I don’t always reach out now. She and I have had conversations in fact about the word FINE and how I’ve adopted “The Italian Job” definition. Freaked-out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. If someone tells me they feel “Fine”. I usually stop and ask something further. She knows if I ever tell her I’m feeling “Fine.” I’m not. But very few people have their “Sunday Face” on all week long. Sometimes it can take a little work to find out what’s behind the “Sunday Face”. (And I’m not talking about the do one thing on Sunday do another during the week - just that the smile we wear on Sunday can hide things we face in life).
My visiting teachers have been some of my best friends. The people that I visit teach I truly love. They aren’t always the ones I would call if I were going to go to the movies or the mall - my enjoy my time with them. I want to know what’s going on in their lives and learning about each of them can take different things. My husband is fond of pointing out that I don’t have to be someone’s vt in order to be their friend either.
mommom, I love your acronym for FINE. There are definitely a lot of people in our ward who we can say to each other that we are “fine” with an exaggerated sense that communicates much more of what’s really going on. There is great comfort in being able to be real, even if we don’t give all the details at the foyer in church.
So many questions and things to ponder…
I have a really hard time reaching out to people, mostly because I don’t want to be a pest, and I fear that’s how I come across. I also don’t want to take time away from others’ busy lives or appear to be needy, which is why I tend to not ask for anything either. I don’t know how to need people, and I don’t know how to be “needed,” but I really am so happy to serve when asked.
I need to be better, so thank you for the reminder. Being called to Primary my second week in the ward presents a bit of a challenge with knowing how and who to help, though.
I’m afraid I’m totally a pest. I barge right in and sometimes take over, scheduling meals, drives, cleaning. I think it’s a type A thing. I know it’s not always welcome.
I love RS. I love the women, their lives, their struggles, their amazing charity. So many women have blessed my life so richly, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
Bringing in the casseroles is such a trite thing … My mother was an invalid in her last years, and my parents ate mostly fast food from whatever places my father, in his late 70s, could walk to: fried fish, tacos, burgers, fried fish, tacos, burgers, fried fish, tacos, burgers. But when Dad occasionally was ill and couldn’t walk to the fast food places, things got dire. When I realized what was going on, and when I couldn’t do anything about it personally from my home in another state, I called Mom’s visiting teacher, something she had been too embarrassed to do. Suddenly there were home-cooked meals, and rides to the grocery store, and no more fried fish, tacos and burgers.
That World War II generation can be so proud and stubborn. We need to look actively for signs that all is not well, because often they simply cannot ask for help.
For the first time in my life, I’ve been the Relief Society “project” over the last year. Last October, my three-year-old woke up one morning and couldn’t walk. It turns out that he had MRSA. He spent the next two weeks in the hospital. Then he got out, spent the next eight weeks on IV antibiotics, and the day he got the tube pulled from his arm, broke his femur, which put him back in the hospital to be put in a full-body cast.
Long story short, we live far from our families. Our ward stepped in big time. My Visiting Teachers drove back and forth from the hospital so my baby, who was still nursing, didn’t have to spend all of her days learning to walk on the dirty hospital floors. There was a steady stream of visitors, bearing crayons and playdoh and other things bed-bound three-year-olds like. My carpool buddy took the kids to and from school by herself for weeks. When he was in the cast, a ward member loaned me her jogging stroller so I could still get out and run (I was training for a marathon at the time) since he and his cast couldn’t fit in mine. People came to the house so I could go grocery shopping. Then, once he finally learned to walk again this spring, some of the girls in the ward organized a Trunk or Treat for him (he had surgery on Halloween and talked constantly about how he had missed it). On a warm May night, about thirty kids dressed in costumes met in a park and went from trunk to trunk, all so my boy could have his Halloween.
Even though I hate that my little boy has had to go through the struggle of the last year, I feel like I’ve learned a lot. I’m much more likely to volunteer myself, much more likely to bring someone dinner. I could definitely be better, but I feel like I might finally be getting it.
I love this post and the one that started it.
I have too much to say about this in a comment. I will write about it someday.
Sure, I have my complaints about the strange ones…but I usually find out when I AM WILLING to give them a chance, how much we have in common. How much we can learn from each other. How far my ability to love reaches.
I must agree with ‘anonymous on this one’–you, Dalene, have a gift. Your 6th sense (maybe it’s your 7th or 8th) of “knowing” somehow just the right thing to say or do at just the right time is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with me.
My favorite thing in the world is when someone just knocks on my door and brings me something or visits for no reason, or stops to talk when they see me in the yard or at the store, or where-ever. I feel like there is a small connection, and it always makes me happy. It’s these small things that make me realize that the world is good.
I have a really hard time asking for help. I would rather suffer through something alone than have anyone know I’m struggling. So these little spontaneous chats really help me to know that someone out there cares about little ol’ me.
Because of this I have made it a goal to try to be a friend to others. I love the sisterhood I feel all around me. I pray every morning that I can make at least one person happy each day. It helps me the most because on my lowest days I know I need to step outside myself and think of someone else.
I had an experience with someone close to me that absolutely changed my mind on service. It doesn’t need to be a big production. They don’t even have to know you’re doing it. Sometimes just being there is the best service of all.
The most important thing we can do is to just remember we are all God’s children, we are all special to him. One of the ways he shows his love is by prompting us to love each other, and to show it.
Forgot to add that you are one of the greatest examples I know of someone who is in tune with just what is needed. Thank you.
There are too many thoughts racing through my mind about this.
My view of Relief Society has evolved over the years, most especially the last two as we’ve lived in a spanish branch with few strong members.
One of my VT sisters is living with her boyfriend after her marriage of 30 years ended when her husband cheated on her. In the beginning I wondered if it was my job to get her to change her lifestyle but the spirit has whispered to me that my unconditional love will do more than censure.
Another sister I visit has 5 children but only custody of one because of actions in the past. She recently joined the church and is trying to fix her life. But it didn’t get this way overnight and it won’t be fixed overnight either. She struggles to make ends meet with a husband who is illegal and can’t find a job. They have had help from the church but don’t follow through on what the branch president asks of them so they go without. Again it seems that just being here for her, loving her without limits is what she needs to encourage her to continue trying.
These are examples of what an amazing blessing it is to be a servant of the Lord in Relief Society. It is such a priviledge to receive revelation about how to help a sister. It is great to see when following those promptings makes a difference. To be “about our Father’s business”. I am so grateful for that part of Relief Society.
Not that all my feelings about Relief Society are rosy. Because of the circumstances of our unit Relief Society does not meet my needs currently. In this area I’ve had to become more self reliant, taking action to insure my strength. Hopefully things will change and I will feel more buoyed by RS.
Thank you all for sharing your stories. I loved them all.
Jendoop summed up so well how I feel:
I don’t always get it right, but that feeling I have inside when I know I’m doing what God wants me to do and that I am acting in his stead is quite humbling. It makes me want to live in such a way that I will be more open to the revelation and promptings jendoop describes.
The sisters is RS have taught me compassion through good and sometimes bad examples. I know the joy when I do something for someone else and it makes a difference. I know the feeling when sometimes help doesn’t come when needed because we are all imperfect and flawed and can’t always get it together. I’m the first to admit I am one of the imperfect/flawed visiting teachers who can’t always get it together. I would love my sisters to tell me if they need me to help in some concrete way, but I know how most of us don’t want to “be a bother”. Please, be a bother sometimes. I would love to be bothered more.
There is an ache in your heart when your circumstances do not match with those around you, or at least you cannot see it. Many years ago, I was a young married in a married student ward, but I was YOUNG and in school and the other women seemed to be out of school, have more experience and have children, which I wasn’t ready for yet.
I had a tendency to pull away because I felt so invisible. But after a few months of moping around and being sad that no one visit taught me, I had a change of heart.
I became the best visiting teacher I could be–one like the one I wanted. The ache went away over time, and I learned compassion and how to see a need and fulfill it, not just in physical ways but in spiritual, as well.
Since that time, I’ve grown with many experiences of being lifted and being the lifter in many types of wards as a woman and a friend and later in our stake as a president. The most important lesson I have learned as both the giver and the receiver of Relief is to see individuals as individuals, which is the way the Lord sees them. I try, now, not to generalize about “Relief Soicety” as one big entity but focus on finding the one(s) the Lord wants me to see.
Each woman has opportunities and assignments to tune into the Spirits and fulfill a special task for the Lord. And when we connect with someone else in this way, it is a humbling and awe inspiring feeling.
Many years later, looking back on where my attitude was those many years ago, I am surprised but sincere in saying that my closest associations outside my family developed through the bonds of Relief Society.
This is a really thought provoking post!
For over a year now I’ve been thinking of the biggest “non-service” occasion I had… I’m still working out what I could or should have done about it.
I was moving interstate, and as far as I’m aware absolutely everyone in my ward thought I was super capable - not scary, just very able. So much so that no-one offered to help pack, or clean, or ask how I was going with the preparations. One great sister invited us all over for FHE and dinner in the last week, but absolutely nothing else happened. No card, just… nothing. The day I moved was over 40degrees celcius and I was cleaning the house absolutely boiling and wanting a cold drink. All furniture and cars had been collected, so no luck for getting it myself.
I just couldn’t bring myself to ring anyone and ask for a really cold drink because the people I would have rung would have been absolutely hurt and disappointed in themselves that they hadn’t done it, and I didn’t want them to feel like that.
So I struggled through it. It hurt though. I know all the sisters loved me, but it didn’t come through in action in that instance.
I’ve learnt from that to make sure I help and offer to others, no matter how intimidating or capable they seem to me.
And in doing just that, I’ve found ways to help sisters that seem to fall through the gaps on the other end of the “need” spectrum, which is really good.
My four year old was diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. Our ward then just didn’t understand. They wanted to do all sorts of things, I told them dinner after our weekly chemo appointment would be great. It was hit or miss whether it would actually show up. Our Relief society president changed and so did our schedule for chemo. So, I told them they could back off the meals through the holiday season because we wouldn’t really need them (more hospitalizations than coming home. They asked to come see how we were doing after the first of the year, right after chemo ramped up again. I was sitting in my front room, with my daughter writhing in pain on my lap, while they explained to me that we had already gotten enough help and all of the ladies in the ward having babies needed more help than we did. I was horrified, thinking we had been sucking off the system more than was our fair share. They made me feel awful! Finally my daughter said, can they go? And I told her they could. When they left I cried. Then I went and looked through my thank records. We had been doing chemo for 24 weeks and we had received 7 meals through the RS. More had been scheduled but they didn’t show up. 7!!!!! Meals!!! And we had been sucking off the system???!! I just don’t think they got it and the only way they could’ve was to have the same thing happen and i wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Our new ward has had trial after trial with this sort of thing. We haven’t needed their help, but I was just happy they understood.
LCM, it breaks my heart to hear your story. Right now our ward is providing service for a woman (young) who had a stroke a few years ago. She was scheduled for a series of 4 surguries this year to repair damage to joints caused by stroke medications. The first of the surguries had complications, and now she has been in the hospital for the past 6 weeks or so.
Anyway, our ward sisters have willing provided hours upon hours of help to this family, and we know it will be far more. I would say that we took in meals about 3 times a week for about 3 months. When she was home from the first surgery, and her husband needed to go back to work, we had about 10 of us that took turns sitting with her for several months. We each took a shift once a week. One sister (not in the RS presidencey) went over every single day and helped her with various things. This same sister had her children for literally weeks on end while she’s been hospitalized. She will be coming home from the hospital again soon, and the service will resume. Our ward has just had the attitude that we will do whatever it takes, whatever is needed. I think in large part this attitude has started with our RS president (and honestly, I think she would call on the carpet anyone who balked). But we have all loved being part of this. It has bonded our ward.
Now for my own story: I can relate to the poster above who talked about how much it hurts when your life situation is different from most of the ward. About 10 years ago I was in that situation, being a bit older and dealing with infertility and childlessness in a ward where most people were young families with several children. I even remember a sister bearing her testimony and saying how wonderful it was to be in a ward where everyone was in the same boat, and I wanted to jump up and scream that everyone was NOT in the same boat.
I prayed and prayed many times for a friend. I wanted the spirit to prompt someone to show up on my doorstep and be my friend. I also prayed and prayed for a child–I wanted it to just be handed to me. I was told in a priesthood blessing that this would not happen, and as devastating as that was, I need to get up and deal with it. So I did–I went to see a therapist for depression and grief, and in the process, I learned how to come out on the other side of my trial, emotionally-speaking. Part of what we talked about was the frienship issue. I realized that the Lord wasn’t going to just fix this for me. I had to take steps, and I would grow as a result. See, it’s not just about easy answers or fixes, it’s about personal growth. So, I started praying for help in being able to make friends. And I tried to listen to the spirit in the process.
One day I learned that a woman in our ward, who I knew casually and liked, had suffered a miscarriage. The spirit told me I should call her up and talk to her. I was really, really scared. I didn’t want to intrude. We weren’t close. I hadn’t had a miscarriage, though I felt like my infertility gave me some insight into loss. After some arguing with myself, I took a deep breath and picked up the phone. She admitted to me that she was not doing as fine as she had thought, and I offered to come over in person and talk.
We had a wonderful visit together that was the start of a very close friendship. I had not had a close friend in literally years, and now, because I had made the first step, I did. It was amazing to me how this deeply desired blessing came about because I made the first step. If the Lord had had someone show up on my door with cookies, asking how I was doing, it would have been nice…but it wouldn’t have been the triumph for me that this was, as I learned that I could BE a friend. As a result of that experience, I started to realize that I had something to offer people, and I started to become more open and friendly. The Lord blessed me with two other close friends within just a few months of this experience. I went from no friends to three really great ones in just a few months.
I really do think that often (though not always), we get out of things what we put in. I had a friend once who constantly complained about the unfriendliness of the ward and the cliquishness of the RS women. It was a more cliquish ward than others I’d been in, for sure. But my husband and I had good experiences, in part because we tried to be very involved. My friend never came to enrichment or ward activities, places where she could make friends.
So I’d like to add to the comments above. After I had my second child the recovery was heart wrenching. I hemoraged three times the first two within inches of death. By the third time I was unable to have anymore transfusions because the doctors feared my body would start rejecting it. But this was nothing compared to the post pardum that I experienced afterward.
I was new in the ward and many sister helped with meals after the delivery but the hemoraging went on for months and the recovery…. well is still in progress! I was so depressed that I longed to feel that love I felt as a new mother with my first child but I couldn’t feel it with my second. I rarely left the house. My sister seeing my grief and understanding my needs would come over often and clean my house because I couldn’t mentally bring myself to do it…. Ok so basically it was bad, really bad, probably the hardest emotional time in my life and I felt so alone, useless, helpless, and I wondered if these feelings would ever go away I had had them for so long.
So I prayed and prayed for recovery and the answer came in serving others. It was the only thing that seemed to help. It was like I forgot myself for a moment and I felt at peace and accomplished… something that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. In fact I questioned if I would ever feel it again. Now when I start feeling so bad that I think my world is just going to start caving in on me I find someone to serve in some way…. no matter how small. I have found this is the best medicine for heartache of all kinds= )!
Sorry I don’t even have a word processor I can run this through so excuse my grammar errors and such.