How can we love a little louder? This lent, we will gather each week to engage with messages from members about several Saint Luke ministries in which we care for one another and those in our community. As we hear inspiring stories and find out more about how Saint Lukans shout and show God’s love beyond the church walls, we too will be inspired to join the mission to know, love and serve Christ.
This week, Madison Miller, organizer of the Welcome Church trips and Gemma Services youth trips, shares here experience loving out loud. Her stories are sure to inspire you and make you smile!
PERFECT CHICKEN BY THE GRACE OF GOD
When preparing for this talk, I stumbled upon a journal entry that I wrote in my phone titled “By the Grace of God”. Usually when you hear someone say, “and by the grace of God,” it follows with something amazing, usually some type of healing or protection or provision. Well for me, my story was about forgetting that I had a chicken in the oven. I came home late from a nice long dinner with my friends, but I wanted to get one more thing done before I went to bed. Anyone else out there like me? I decide that it’s a great idea for me to put some chicken in the oven. I think, “It doesn’t take long to cook chicken, right? I’ll throw it in the oven and by the time I’m done getting ready for bed, it’ll be done.”
Well, I completely forgot that I did that. I went downstairs just to get some water when I smelled my chicken and heard the roaring of the oven. My eyes bulged, my breath stopped in the middle of my throat hard and fast, and I quickly turned off the oven and grabbed that chicken the heck out of there. I instantly said, “by the grace of God,” and just stared at that perfectly done golden meat with amazement.
I felt a tightening sensation of guilt about nearly avoiding the potential of burning my family’s house down in the night. Then, I felt laughter swirling around inside of my mind thinking about how stupid I am sometimes and how I never ever will be perfect or do things perfectly. It also reminded me just how many times God has saved me physically, spiritually, emotionally without me really even fully taking it in. The reason I wanted to talk about this is because this happens all the time when serving the Lord. Serving with the Welcome Church, a worship service in Philadelphia for those experiencing homelessness, and Gemma Services continually reminds me that I am not in control and will never be perfect, and that is exactly what God intends.
I have a fear of forgetting things. Most people who know me would probably be surprised to learn that I am incredibly forgetful by nature. I’m very diligent and organized, but this doesn’t totally cure forgetfulness. I’m always setting reminders and alarms on my phone for things because I know that if I don’t write it down in some way, I will forget it - or I will remember it too late. In part this is because despite the type A parts of myself I like to chill. As a kid, one of the weirdest and coolest things about me was that I loved sitting on my bed in the middle of the day and staring into space – out the window or the wall or at an object. It was like my favorite past time. I was meditating and connecting with the Holy Spirit, but I didn’t ever really do it on purpose. I just knew that I enjoyed that. Well, that part of me clashes with my perfectionism and my desire to get things done. So, somewhere along the way I developed this fear of forgetting things.
When I started to plan events for spiritual purposes, God started telling me to let go of that fear. I have planned lots of events, even conferences, in my professional life and service life outside of church but I never was able to let go of that fear until I started working on spiritual events. Every single time there is a Welcome Church trip I forget something, guaranteed. Multiple times it was Ziplock bags to make the care kits, last time it was a tablecloth. I have forgotten twice to verify that we can park in the lot where a Saint Luke member works, and so graciously gives us free passes so that we don’t have to search for parking in the city or even pay. But guess what, it works. Every single time, we pray with people, we talk with people, we hand out food and drinks, and we give and receive a piece of God’s love to people experiencing homelessness. By the grace of God, we always improvise to fix what I forgot or someone else like my Dad remembers for me, or we just go without that one item or things like parking arrangements. It’s never a picture-perfect event. It’s never smooth but service is not supposed to be smooth.
Just about every time we are scheduled for a trip there is some huge event going on in the city. One time it was the marathon in tandem with an Eagles game, another it was the Puerto Rican parade that had us driving through crazy routes to bypass the traffic, then of course it was the nationally renowned music festival Made in America, and oh yea a hurricane with furious wind and rain! Also, every trip, especially the first few, donations at first were sparse. I would check the collection bin each week and see it pretty empty. I would email people or do something but I still wouldn’t see it filling up – until all of a sudden the week before the event – often even the day of the event I find the bin overflowing and people find me at the service giving me bags or even show up to the church to carpool with a 100 snacks. It truly does feel like the feeding of the 5,000 every time. By the Grace of God, we have had successful trips for five years.
Not only has serving God helped me let go of my fear of forgetting but it’s helped me let go of worrying in general. Of course, I still worry about things in life but I’m not kidding when I say that I worry way less than I used to after starting to serve God in these roles. Because serving allows you to see so clearly that what God wants to happen will happen. Our human failures can’t stand in the way of God’s perfect will. Realizing this helps me take the focus away from me being a “good volunteer” or a “good servant” and just serving, just showing up and not placing the focus on myself but instead focusing on God. Trusting God. Philippians 1:6 says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ”.
For me, God used service opportunities to help me relax, trust him, and – to just let go and let go of my ego too. Each person’s lesson is unique to them and their situation in life. For example, we have seen on the blog and during the services many different ways that God has touched people through various ministries at Saint Luke. While everyone’s lesson is different, I think there’s a common thread in a lot of our lives. We often don’t feel qualified, or we hesitate thinking that someone will be better for the role, or that we don’t have enough time or energy. Or we even doubt that this one type of service is where we are being called. Do you ever relate to any of those things? I’ve been in phases where I feel like there are lots of ways that I can serve but I don’t feel super passionate about a certain one – so maybe I’m not called to these – maybe I need to find something different. Well that usually results in me waiting around rather than trying things. It’s great to be discerning and pray to God for guidance on how to serve, but I think that the Devil uses a lot of these tactics to hold us back and to hold us away from others. But God says each of us were given gifts from the Spirit and he tells us in 2 Corinthians 12: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”.
Going back to the reading, Paul tells the church in Corinth: “Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.” I feel that a lot of us have this desire. God is pleased by our desire and wants us to complete it.
NEXT STEPS
BAKE IN SERVICE FIRST
My future father-in-law, reminded me that service is an opportunity to meet Jesus. Jesus says in Matthew 25:40: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”. It is a helpful reminder that we literally are interacting with Jesus when we serve others. Who doesn’t want that? A lot of us are wonderful at loving our family and friends. Jesus is very specific about who else we also need to love. In Matthew 25, he tells us that we are supposed to feed the hungry, invite in the stranger, cloth those who need clothes, take care of the sick, and visit those in prison. God also repeatedly tells us to care for the poor, widows, and orphans. Life can be so full. There is a part of me that likes to wait and see: “maybe I’ll sign up for that event if I don’t have anything else going on”. At some point, God told me, you need to bake in service first. Put it on your calendar and commit to it, because if you don’t, something will always come up. We need to be willing to say no to some things in the world to say yes to God sometimes. I mess this up a lot, but it is a continual journey.
COMBAT BURN OUT & LONELINESS
It’s really been on my heart that people are burnt out. I can relate. Being in a PhD program, planning a wedding, being in friends weddings, trying to find a place to live, and my fiancé Michael trying to find a new job – we both have been filled to the brim. But despite the busyness and constant connections with people, I feel so disconnected when I am not serving and I feel a burning desire to serve. God actually designed us for service and generosity. Our brains are literally wired for it. When we give or engage in serving others, our brain’s reward center, the mesolimbic pathway, ignites and we receive a rush of endorphins. As someone studying organizational behavior, I read a lot about burnout and burnout especially from covid. But research and individual stories show that one of the best ways to counter burnout at work and in our lives in general is to find meaning. What better place to find meaning than serving others.
I also study loneliness in the workplace. Loneliness was designated as an epidemic in this country by the US Surgeon General in 2017 – years before the pandemic – because of the prevalence of loneliness and its links to severe diseases and death. Yet statistically in studies as well as in my own research, three antidotes for loneliness include volunteering, worshipping in church regularly, and praying and meditating. How amazing is it that serving in spiritual ways connects all three of these. Serving through Saint Luke is like a superfood against loneliness that brings meaning and connection into our lives and can actually help us feel less burnt out. So, the other way that service impacts me is that it actually energizes and rejuvenates me. Psalm 16:11 says that “in Your presence there is fullness of joy”. That’s what servicing is like.
JUST START
In whatever limited time, energy, or finances we each have, we just need to start something and God will help you finish it – or He’ll get somebody else finish it. He’ll find a way. We need to take away our fear of starting (wherever that fear may come from – whether it’s forgetting things and not being the picture-perfect leader or whatever it may be), just start and just trust.
God, you make it all work. Give us the vision and energy we need to server world in need. Amen.