Lift where you stand

Yesterday I was helping clean the church.  I like to go over and help vacuum because it gives me time to myself.  And I love time to myself.  I also like vacuuming rooms with very little furniture or dirt.  The last thing I had to vacuum was the stand in the chapel.  As I tried to maneuver the vacuum around the piano I remembered this talk by President Dieter F Uchtdorf from back in October 2008.

Some years ago in our meetinghouse in Darmstadt, Germany, a group of brethren was asked to move a grand piano from the chapel to the adjoining cultural hall, where it was needed for a musical event. None were professional movers, and the task of getting that gravity-friendly instrument through the chapel and into the cultural hall seemed nearly impossible. Everybody knew that this task required not only physical strength but also careful coordination. There were plenty of ideas, but not one could keep the piano balanced correctly. They repositioned the brethren by strength, height, and age over and over again—nothing worked.

As they stood around the piano, uncertain of what to do next, a good friend of mine, Brother Hanno Luschin, spoke up. He said, “Brethren, stand close together and lift where you stand.”

It seemed too simple. Nevertheless, each lifted where he stood, and the piano rose from the ground and moved into the cultural hall as if on its own power. That was the answer to the challenge. They merely needed to stand close together and lift where they stood.

I thought about how cleaning the church seems like such a small thing to do - will anyone really notice if this perfectly clean room was vacuumed?  It would be so easy think that my help isn't needed to clean the church.  And yet it is important to do each week.  The cleanliness of the church is maintained and everyone understands that the church should be clean.  

All of our responsibilities are like that.  Some times it seems like all I do is clean the house, wash clothes, and cook food.  And all I get in return are screaming kids.  But I know everything would be a lot harder if I didn't do those things.