Eupora Lions Club congratulates Kaitlyn Edwards for winning the 2024 Eupora Lions Club $500 essay scholarship contest that was open to all Eupora High School seniors.
The club received excellent essays, and the members were most impressed with Kaitlyn Edwards' essay titled "Heart of Service." We all wish her the best in all her future endeavors!
Heart of Service
By Kaitlyn Edwards
Service: A word I have not truly understood the meaning of. As I began to reflect on what service means to me, I looked at my parents and the impact they have had on who I am as a person today.
My mom is currently a teacher and my dad is a retired teacher/high school football coach, and now works in a job where he helps those with special needs learn basic life and job skills. Their entire jobs are centered around the idea of serving others. From the perspective of younger me, I simply saw two hard-working people providing for their family, which was more of a necessity rather than a service.
From the perspective of today, I see my mom and dad not only serving my siblings and I so we can have the best life possible, but I see many young kids being helped in many different ways through my two loving parents and their willingness to serve, which has inspired me to become more of a helper myself.
While my parents have been an impact in my decision to serve others, my belief in Jesus is an even bigger influence. Jesus’s mission was service. He served others through sermons, healing the most unhealable, and loving and saving the most unlovable. Luke 6:31 says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Service is an essential part of my faith. I believe that if I am not serving others, I am not shining the Lord’s light in the way that I should. My heart is always at its fullest whenever I am able to serve in places like my church with the Children’s and Youth Ministry.
Genuine service is not evident very much in our world anymore due to the lack of servants. I believe it is important to serve others because by serving others we can start to break the cycle of complacency and indifference that poisons so much of what society feeds us.
In order to change the way our world is we need to start putting our differences aside and simply help people when they need help. I want people to not only demonstrate service the way it should be, but be willing to receive that same service if needed.
The old saying that it is better to give than to receive should still be a motto practiced today. If we learn to give of ourselves whether that be our time, money, talents, sweat or tears, then we could impart a change in our world today.
Independence is necessary but knowing when to ask for and accept help is also necessary to prepare you to serve. When you have been faced with certain situations, you can understand and empathize with people more.
In conclusion, my family and faith have influenced the way I view service and I hope to be able to continue to use that influence to help make changes through my service to others.
