Here's what sticks out to me about both of those stories: both illustrate an example where the impact of someone's actions is not fully felt or appreciated.  In one story, a person's actions aren't even known, and therefore not appreciated, by the person he is serving.  In the other story, the full impact of the person's actions isn't even known to himself.

Most of my thoughts are mroe in line with the parachute story, but the other does relate somewhat, too.

So, I've been thinking a lot lately on how much it sucks to serve people and then to have them either not know, not appreciate, or not reciprocate.

Christians know that the Bible says we are to "mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice."  It really takes someone who is really compassionate (feels what others feel) to truly mourn with those who mourn.  And when you're mourning, it is very comforting to have someone compassionately hold your hand through your tough time.

But what we know is really the harder thing to do is rejoice with those who rejoice.  Why is that?  Why is is so stinking hard for us to be happy for others' blessings?  I believe that a lot of it is because we feel we deserve them too.  We've been serving and serving and serving and continue to be marginalized and ignored and forgotten about and overlooked.  How the heck does someone expect you to rejoice in others' good fortune when you feel like you're not even there, or when you feel like no one would notice if you're gone?

I have a few personal antecdotes and scriptural antecdotes along those lines.

Both during my time while living in Orlando and during my time back in Chicago, the serving that I've spent the most time doing has been in offering my skills on the computer to a ministry or to a church.  In Orlando, I was working with a team of people would would put in up to 80 hours a week on developing software or doing tech support.  These are husbands, wives, dads, etc.  They have a life outside of their serving.  In fact, in order to provide for their lives outside of their serving, they are responsible to raise their own financial support and develop a team of people who are praying for them regularly.  All this to develop tools that are increasing the impact of tens of thousands of missionaries in almost every country of the world.  These people are making a huge impact in introducing all around the world to a relationship with God.

But you'd have no idea if you were to ask someone about the organization, or even if you were to read some of the feedback they get.

Just imagine how aggrevating it is to be in that environment, you've brought frozen dinners to the office for 2 weeks so that you can put in 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, and then you deploy this application you've been working on and you only get complaints.  The people you deploy to focus more on what's deficient with it than with how it helps them.  The people you serve have no idea the sacrifice that was made to develop that application.  The people you serve think 12 people worked on that one application, when in fact just on person worked on it while still supporting every other application they use to do their job. The people that see you every day ask you "Can you do this one more thing?" rather than "How are you doing?"

How did the person packing that guy's parachute feel knowing that he's saving figher pilots' lives and they have no idea who he is?

Secondly, how does it feel when the respresentatives of the organization never once mention that team when mentioning opportunities to serve?  What if you were gifted in packing parachutes, but the Air Force only recruited pilots, and as a result they had no one packing parachutes and continuously lost pilots when their parachutes wouldnt' deploy?  Imagine the impact that would have on the Air Force.  Imagine how effective a church or a missionary organization would be if they only way you could serve was to share the gospel or to give food to the homeless.  How would the organization get that food?  How would those missionaries get their resources?  How would you feel continually giving yourself serving in one of those roles while continually being overlooked because you're not in a war-torn or poverty-stricken country?

More antecdotes to come later, but lemme just say how much it sucks to be packing other people's parachutes while no one has any idea that you exist.

(disclaimer: I'm really not as bitter as these posts may sound.  I've definitely had a lot that I've had to work through over the past 5 years or so.  I wanted to focus on one aspect in these blogs, though, so that may make me sound more bitter than I am.)