Musings on Organization and a Servant’s Heart

So I am up to my eyeballs in invitations. I am preparing 300 invitations to a wedding reception. Not just mailing them out – my tasks include:
– picking out the invitation
– writing the invitation wording up
– printing the invitations myself
– hole punching and threading ribbons through the tops of the invitations (THANKS A MILLION to my small group friends who helped me knock out about half of them last night!!)
– getting the address list
– doing a mail merge
– printing the envelopes
– getting a picture at the wedding on saturday
– getting 300 prints of said picture
– getting a map to the church
– printing and cutting said maps
– separating and enveloping blank cards
– finally stuffing envelopes with said half a dozen enclosures
– stamping
– and FINALLY mailing.

All in the time period of this past Tuesday to next Friday.

Why am I doing this, you ask? Well, of course because I love the bride, but mostly because I love my Mother, who is in charge of the ENTIRE reception. Also, I apparently made a “deal” with her that I would help her with this one if she would help me with Lindsay’s tea. I don’t remember making this deal, but I would have helped her anyway!

It’s very interesting to me that my Mom thinks she is so disorganized and always puts herself down and says she’s not good at things like this, but she ran a consignment book store with 50,000 books in it for about 8 years and was able to keep up with everyone’s books and pay them when they sold, is in charge of Cubbies at our church (the three and four year old group of AWANAs), homeschooled three children, and has headed up various events like the one I mention here. She always says she’s too disorganized for big projects, yet she always takes them on, and is successful.

I finally think I figured out today what it is. Mom is organized, but only once she gets INTO the project. Mom has always called me organized, but I think that’s because I can see from the front side all of the organization that will need to take place. Mom doesn’t see it until she gets into the middle of it. And it is due to this very fact that my Mom is willing to take on these massive projects. I, seeing in advance all of the work and stress it will cause, steer very clear of taking on big projects (except for one every few years for someone really close to me, like Lindsay and Baby Eli’s Tea). Mom is like “yeah, that would be fun! And not too much work!”, and then it ends up being TONS of work, but she always does a great job at it, and has a great attitude about it.

So does that make me a pessimist? Or a realist? I think it’s a mixture of a realist and LAZY. I know what it will take, and I don’t wanna do it! I’m a great person to help other people, like my Mom, with their courageous and adventurous projects, but I don’t like being in charge of one myself! I actually ENJOY doing things like making invitations and fixing them up all pretty, but if I’m in charge of the whole thing, I stress too much about it all the way up to the event (but then really enjoy the actual event!!). Also, I’m too much of a perfectionist. I think I mopped the floors about 6 times in the day before and the day of Lindsay’s tea. And I am NOT normally a neat freak, but if I’m going to have 50 people in my house, I want it to be perfect.

But really what it boils down to is that I don’t have the servant’s heart like my Mother has – to put aside my interests and give my time for others. I want one, but I often find it too “high maintenance” to take on big projects like that to bless others. I want to be better at that, and more willing.

So Mom, more power to you! You’re a whole lot more organized than you think, and have the perfect personality to take on big projects, because you never realize quite what you’re getting yourself into (despite mine and Dad’s warnings!). :) But you always do a great job.

And everyone else, if you get one of my lovingly-crafted invitations in the next couple of weeks, you better appreciate it!! ;)