"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:45 (NLT)

This past Sunday, my friends and I turned Calvary Women’s Services (a transitional housing organization for homeless women in Washington, DC) into a full service day spa. We’ve been doing this twice a year for the last few years and I’m always amazed at how God moves through our service.

Our volunteer service providers have been quite consistent over the years and most have never missed a spa day. However, there were quite a few scheduling conflicts which provided an opportunity to bring others in to serve.

One of the service providers that joined us for the first time had never volunteered in any capacity. Toward the end of the day, I asked about her experience and she was overjoyed as she shared how blessed she felt to use her gifts to serve others. She was almost in tears trying to describe what the day of service did for her. She shared that she would never forget the looks on the faces of the women after being pampered, the stories they shared about their lives, and what led them to this time of transition, as well as how serving made her feel. She stumbled trying to find the perfect word to describe the day, saying “it’s a feeling I can’t describe…it’s like hmmm, it feels like, I don’t know, it just feels good.”

It truly is an indescribable feeling that I can’t adequately put in words. A number of emotions arise while serving like gratitude, euphoria, and peace (an emotion of faith) which can truly change your perspective on life. Serving makes you forget your troubles – or at the very least recognize how trivial some of them are in the grand scheme of things. Serving urges you to not sweat the small stuff and reminds you that things could always be worse. It transforms you, shifting your focus from ‘me’ to ‘we’ and helps you to honor the blessing of connecting with others in the most selfless way possible, through service!

If you’ve never served before or have been away from it for some time, it may be just what you need! Seriously, if you’re in a funk, feeling like something is missing, or consumed by all that just isn’t going “right” in your world, considering stepping into the world of others and serving them.

Philippians 2:3-7, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." (ESV)