Balancing Act

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him.
Psalm 28:7

I'm responsible for a lot of relationships here. Relationships between our staff team, relationships in the community, relationships with our adult leaders, and relationships with our student participants. It's a lot to balance and a lot to juggle. Sometime one relationship seems really important and the next minute is a completely different relationship that demands my focus.

Last week my relationships with adult leaders took a lot of finessing. They were a difficult group and I spent a good portion of my time devoted to working with them. This week I had a conflict with a community member. The challenges of intercultural communication and living in a completely different world really caught up with me and I'm still working to heal that relationship. This morning I had to send some students home for seriuosly breaking youthworks guidelines.

I've spent time in the last two weeks crying over all these relationships. Working my hardest to do the best for people when they often have conflicting interests. I think I've learned something about people though. Regardless of which category the relationship falls under, if it is a conflict, or a drama:

.... people do not feel like they are loved.

Whatever issue that is at hand, if you listen hard enough to the heart behind the problem, you will see that most people are not loved enough. They are lonely. They want someone to listen and they want someone to care.

I'm emotionally drained from caring for people. Listening and sympathizing is not hard. Loving someone to the point that your heart aches for the pain and the problems they face in their lives is physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting. But at the same time, I feel like my heart is full. God continues to fill my heart with love and compassion so that I can pour it out into the people he puts in my life.

I know if I tried to truly care about people with only my own strength, I would fail, and I would quit. But I can't quit, and I don't want to. So I lean on the Lord and He gives me strength.