An Eye for Goodness, with glasses

I play the piano for the primary. I'm telling you this because I spend most of my Sunday in primary behind the piano and I haven't been to Sunday School or Relief Society in over a year. Not that I'm complaining at all, in fact I LOVE seeing the children and hearing them sing. Just today, for example, I caught myself laughing as a girl yelled out the title for our next song as "If the Savior Stood Behind Us"... when in actuality it's called, "If the Savior Stood Beside Me". So cute!! I love my calling and I enjoy every minute of it. Well today we had a few minutes to spare between singing time and closing exercises, so I popped into R.S. The teachers were still getting ready, which meant I got to chat with a few other women, hold a new little baby, and meet a couple of new arrivals to Guam. I sang the opening and practice hymns without children grabbing my neckline and wiping soggy animal crackers all over my dress. Then I listened to the lesson in quietness. It really stirred my spirit and felt invigorating to my heart...I was almost breathless the entire lesson. And here is what I want to talk about...the lesson today, or at least what I learned from it. It was on the organization of the Relief Society--how even before it was organized, Emma Smith was constantly serving people around her, sewing shirts, feeding homeless and sick, boarding travelers. She and Joseph even slept on the floor at one point because all the other beds were taken. Her heart was giving all the time. So I asked myself, how can I do that? How can I give and love like she, and many other women at that time, did? An answer came to me...to have that heart, I must look around myself and see what needs to be done, who needs help, where I can put my efforts. I must open up my eyes to see more that 3 cubic feet around myself...I remember running along a trail along the Wasatch Front in late summer when I was a teenager and focusing so much on the ground in front of me that I missed the entire mountain side. Now, I must keep some watch over my feet or else I'll trip, and tripping while running on a trail is recipe for disaster, plus a few cuts to go with it. But my point is this: seeing how I can help, keeping my eyes open for opportunities to serve and jumping at the chance, is how I can become like those beautiful, faithful sisters that helped found this Church. I think it's something that takes a conscious effort, to have an eye for goodness, an eye to serve others in their time of need. Right now I definitely need corrective lenses, a few inches thick.