When Jenny Guthrie and her husband left to serve as mission leaders in Texas, they had three children. They came home with four.
Having a baby while on their mission taught Jenny that sometimes our stages of life change how we’re able to serve in the gospel, but that doesn’t mean the Lord thinks less of our offering.
Different Ways of Serving
During the first part of their time as mission leaders, Jenny recalls feeling like she “had an abundance to give.”
“Not to say that it was easy, but I felt like I was operating from a place where I would serve as I would hope that I would serve,” she says. Jenny helped the missionaries teach lessons, visited them, and regularly spent a lot of time interacting with them.
Partway through their mission she became pregnant, only to have a miscarriage a few months later. Then COVID-19 hit, and she and her husband helped their missionaries through the “incredibly challenging” circumstances at the beginning of the pandemic. Everyone in the mission had to accept a change in the way they thought they were going to serve.
Midway through 2020, Jenny became pregnant again. This time the pregnancy made her so sick that she had to spend the first three months in bed. Once again, Jenny had to relearn what it looked like for her to serve. “I would have never believed or would be convinced that this was the right time for this to happen,” she explains. But she also recognized that this pregnancy “was where God was fulfilling a promise that He had put on my heart.”
Don’t Compare Offerings
Being bedridden made it impossible for Jenny to interact with the missionaries the way she had before, leading to thoughts of inadequacy. Turning her worry over to the Lord, she was reminded that she was still serving—it just looked different than before. “It was a gentle reminder of the kindness of God and how He sees things,” she shares.
Moving forward, Jenny was able to stop comparing her previous way of serving as mission leader with her capacity while pregnant, reminding her of the widow’s mite offering.
“If I compared the second 18 months of my mission to the first, I felt like God would be so pleased with me because I was abundantly giving and abundantly feeding,” she explains. “And if I compare that to the second half, it was ugly, then it was messy and it was harder.”
However, she came to recognize that when we turn our lives over to God, giving Him our all, He appreciates whatever that offering might be. “I really felt like God appreciated that ugly offering more than the one that was all tied up with a bow and looked beautiful,” Jenny shares. “It’s just so important to recognize the message is always the same, but sometimes the offering, depending on where we're at in life, can be a little different.”
Hear more of Jenny’s story and why her personal mantra comes from the Savior’s words, “Feed My Sheep,” on the Magnify podcast!
More articles for you:
▶ The verses President Freeman reads to her granddaughters
▶ Why serving a mission for selfish reasons can be a good thing
▶ President Holland on one of the 'most important' things youth can be doing
