The stream of giving has taken on a different personality in my mind. Instead of gently bubbling along, encouraging me to give like Jesus, it has become a swirling current that threatens to drown as I try to give and give.
I never was about forcing my sons to share while on the other hand I carefully check the caller ID before picking up the phone to make sure it’s not someone who will need anything from me. Lately I’ve been struggling with how to share my time. I often feel spread thin, strung out, tired, fatigued, overwhelmed, frazzled, wiped out, beat. In fact, the other day when my friend came to meet me in the park to pick up her two kids that I’d been babysitting all day, she said to me, “B, you look like a mad woman.” It wasn’t until that moment I realized I had left my house in a not-clean shirt, with not-clean hair (since I hadn’t managed to shower before the little darlings arrived). I still had my wits about me enough to feign humor and say with a smile and a laugh, “Well I feel like a mad woman.” She may not have read through me, but the Lord looketh on the heart and he knew that I was saying it in a passive-aggressive way, hoping she wouldn’t ask me to watch her two kids again any time soon. Anyone who has ever taken care of children can probably imagine my lack of energy at that point.
However this is where my confession starts. Even if she had asked me to babysit again, I still would have said yes, because that’s all I know how to say. Years of membership in the church hearing lessons about service, giving, and Christlike love, have conditioned me to say yes no matter what my circumstance. I say yes first then try to work out the details later. I have been taught that if we take care of others and give selfless service, we will be blessed with peace and joy. How is it then, that the promised peace and joy is sometimes so hard to detect?
