For me everything points to God,  y’all are probably going to get sick of hearing that for me but it is the truth.  Living and working as a full time missionary, living with people that “on the margins” has been a balancing act of self care, how not to get on the crazy train with my peeps and keeping God at the center

Our first year here we had not 1 but 2 pregnant women living with us. They were both addicts and homeless. We not only jumped on the crazy train with them,  I am pretty sure we were the train conductors.  We were responding to everything that was happening, we needed/wanted to be right there in the thick of it.   Or so our prideful selves thought.  What we had done was take God out of the middle and made it about us; what we could do, how we felt helping.  But we serve a gracious God, and He showed us grace.  He reeled us back in.  We decided that before we responded to any crisis brought to us we would take a beat and prayer and see what God wanted us to do.  We got out of the position of savior.

When we were allowing the external factors to control us we became unhealthy, far from God and we made mistakes.  For me especially I found myself running on empty, taking on every emotion of those around me, becoming so consumed with the demonic present and brokenness of our neighborhood that  I could not focus on anything else.  I live in my heart and I give it away to those I love.  I am an empath and I have a mercy heart so I become overwhelmed by those suffering.  I spent the better part of 8 years learning how to listen and receive what God had for me so that I did not implode, learning how to love with mercy and as an empath but not give myself away.

God bless Charlie and his desire to protect us and keep us healthy.   We have been seeing a marriage counselor since we got engaged.  We each have an individual counselor and we take several yearly trips outside the neighborhood with our family as well as a month long sabbatical each summer. We try to be very intentional about self care and what each aspect is meant to accomplish.  Family trips are a time to connect with our children outside of the neighborhood where we do not have to worry about someone knocking on the door.  Sabbatical is an intentional time of focusing on health; spiritual, emotional and physical.  Counselors are all faith based and spirit lead so we can continue to grow in our relationship with Christ.  This self care is important to our ministry- if we are are not healthy we cannot help anyone.  It is what has allowed us to do what we do for 10 years.

Listening to God is key.   He called me to specific women and if I am close to Him and am paying attention he will show me who.  The hardest and most beneficial lesson I learned working with the women I do is that I cannot save someone if they do not want to be saved.  I have been in the hospital praying for Sandy while she lays in a coma  because she wanted crack more than dialysis.  I have showed up to help talk Velma into 72 hr mandatory mental health hospitalization because she was found on the street with a belt around her neck.  I have given coffee, breakfast and a shower to Tina because she wants slept on the street when it was 20 degrees outside.  I planned Lisa’s wedding and am godmother to one of her 8 kids.  I visit with my neighbor and gossip.  I have celebrated births, mourned death and anything in between.  But through it all God told me to show unconditional love, not to save.  And that is what I have worked to do. I have danced along that line, sometimes doing too much and sometimes doing too little, but never leaving.

I think I rambled a bit and got off track but ultimately when I am stressed or off balance it is because I have not stayed connected to God and/or made space for self care.