mmmm....

I've definitely hit a new low in titles, but I'm just not sure how to head this up.

I was driving to church tonight, and the phrase "fully present" popped into my mind. I immediately wondered where I'd heard it recently. It was in a blog post here, that Hope wrote. It encouraged me to read her thoughts that day a week or so ago. I was thinking about my crazy week, about calling my friend every day to make sure things are still okay, about hanging out with some really good friends last night and the powerful time of prayer we had for our mutually hurting friend.

To be quite honest, when I went out last night, I was exhausted. I was stressed from my week. It was a week that could be colorfully described as frantic - like a hamster on speed running around in it's little wheel! I was feeling heavily the weight of my friends problems. When the guys picked me up to go out, they commented that I was quiet. I told them (much to their amusement) that I was just tired and glad to be out with people who weren't going to dump whole loads of their problems on me. (One guy immediately said, "oh, well, I was hoping to talk with you about some problems I've been having. Yeah, comedians my friends - all of them.) They asked me again at the end of the night how I was doing, and I was so relaxed after having no demands for the last several hours - just fun and refreshing company. Because I was relaxed I was able to share coherently what our friend has been facing this week, and we were able to pray. And God was there. And it was good.

But, to continue being quite honest, I was still feeling somewhat resentful that God's call on my life to bring healing to the broken seemed so demanding and draining right now. I fielded yet another negative phone call from my friend this afternoon, and was feeling frustrated again.

So, I'm driving to church, and I start thinking about the idea of being "fully present" and about how I love the idea, and I want that, but I'm not sure how to do it, and that I'm not very good at it. Most of the time, I'm only partially present - I'm distracted by what's going on around me, by my own thoughts. There are very few people who can command my "full" attention. I'm thinking about this stuff, and I'm driving to church, preparing myself mentally to see my friend - to give, to do whatever she needed, and to try to be present to her. But I'm still resenting the energy demands of this calling for the broken.

A girl spoke at church tonight. I know her a little, and her life has been impacted hugely in the last year as God has called her to minister to the homeless on the streets of our city after church every week. She and several others feed, talk with, occasionally clothe, etc. those who call the streets of our city home. She shared a lot of her story, and basically challeneged the church to action - to get up, to answer God's calling, and to take joy in it.

I have to admit I groaned a bit at that last part. I was sitting with one of the guys from last night, and he smirked at me and patted me on the back in mock sympathy - he reads my mind and facial expressions pretty well, and usually knows when something is hitting me close to home. And it was - hitting me close to home I mean.

I am convicted of my need to not only be "fully present" to these people God has placed in my life and asked me to care for, but of my need to do this with joy. Yes, there are a lot of issues involved in some of these people's lives, and yes I need to be careful as I provide support and obey God, and yes, the issues are big and draining. But, God has called me to this. He has given me a heart for these women I am caring for, and He is calling me to take joy in His calling.

I'm not quite there yet. I still find myself lacking equilibrium from the work God has done in my own life in the last month. I struggle daily with the fine balance between caring for a person, and taking their problems as my own - I'm not very good at letting God carry them - I seem to think that things will go better if I devote my considerable obsessive tendencies to the issue of the moment. I find myself frustrated that instead of healing me first, and then calling me to help heal others, God gave me one tiny little piece of ground, and then sent me headlong into the tumult of another's life. And yet, my desire is to take joy in this. My prayer is that God will intervene between my head and heart, and grant joy in this which He asked me to do for a season. And somehow, I believe that God will be faithful to provide the joy.