Where would He have been found?

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”Happy Father’s Day to my dad.” So read my ten year old grandson’s post on Father’s Day. Timmy’s father, Timothy Sanders the elder, was killed in a tragic accident a couple of months prior to little Timmy’s birth. As to who the senior Tim Sanders was, the following story illustrates best.

My daughter Stephanie met Tim in a Pancake House where the two worked some time before they were married. During an electrical black out, when the restaurant was totally dark, Tim was nowhere to be found. While the staff and clientele gathered to talk in the dark, someone discovered Tim in the bathroom. There, flashlight and toilet paper in hand, he was quietly cleaning up an old gentleman who had soiled himself.

This was a kind and gentle person, quietly taking on an unpleasant task others would have shied from. Tim’s childhood years were years of much suffering, much heartbreak and loneliness. But out of all that, emerged a gentle and kind human being, full of compassion and caring, the kind of person who would respond to another in trouble, as in the case of the old gentleman in the bathroom.

We might ask ourselves, if Christ had been present in that restaurant that night, where would He have been found? Indeed, the lesson we are to learn if we would be true followers of the Christ is this one: We have come into this life to serve our fellow beings, for when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God. (Mosiah 2:17, the Book of Mormon)

May we be among those unto whom He shall say in a future day, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” (Matthew 25: 34-36)