What's service got to do with it?

Dear Surrey Two,

It has basically been a month since the Chapter Heads' Retreat (CHR, which is where chapter heads and unit heads are prepared for service), and as you can tell, I've failed to write about it up until now.

On the Saturday morning of CHR, I found myself awake a good hour before the other sisters. After walking around DBYC, I ended up lying on a makeshift two-chair-bed in the only empty upstairs room. I began to drift back to a multitude of moments from before I stepped up as chapter head: moments of joy, peace, loneliness, and old friendships. I finally began to wonder what caused me to stay when so many others left. Did the Lord call me back each time for you?

There is one moment that I revisited for the first time which, though small and strange seeming at the time, may have made my subconscious unearth a part of my heart waiting to be discovered.

Camp Zion brought my first service role as one of the four spec ops. The camp leaders constantly mentioned "the road to Zion", and so evidently, this was the start of a deeper understanding of my spiritual adventure. I remember standing in the foyer of the camp site, Camp Capilano, speaking to the sister Cluster Head at the time about how I loved service. I was unaware of her service role (not that I knew what it was anyway), but I knew she was an overseer for camp (again, whatever the heck that was). Being younger and new in the community, I was intimidated by her ALIVE conference sweater and the way she held herself. Now here was a woman of great faith and integrity. So when she asked me,

"Why do you want to serve?"

I was taken aback. Impressing her didn't strike me as important, but figuring out my answer did. I knew I said I loved service, but did I really know what that meant?

I can't remember what my answer was then, but I know what my answer is now:

I want to serve

I need to serve 

I desire to serve

because I was created by Love to love. I dream of a world united in Him. I want others to understand by pursuing Christ. I want them to feel the joy that comes with allowing Him to pursue them. I want others to feel the comfort of Our Lady. I want people to be inspired by the lives of the Saints to get back up after every cloud of darkness. I want them to know their potential for living and endless capacity for love. I want Him to be able to hold the hearts of His children in His hands because they willingly put them there. I want to be certain their souls will find the peace of eternity. And I thirst for these things every time I kneel before His throne.

It is not out of selfishness that I am able to serve in small ways, but out of selflessness that I am able to serve in big ways.