A faithful life

I think I'm going through what I've heard about from many friends who are Mums - a special sort of guilt and sorrow from not being able to serve the people around you as a 'normal person' might. While I understood what my friends were saying, I never really got how it felt - and I'm surprised at how difficult it is. I'm a loyal, hard-working type so I always want to be pitching in, being a really involved part of the church, using every gift I've got. But right now I just can't. I can understand most things and can be a successful part of even a long conversation if the other person takes the lead, but I can't initiate and I can't speak with any nuance. So I can't get going on making friends and discipling people. I have to wait.

I see things that I could be doing all around me, people I could be caring for and teaching, and it pains me that I can't do that for them. And all these unanswered needs lean on me, staring at me with their puppy-eyes, stressing me out. I don't know why - in the three years of ministry I've done so far I've learned that you can only do what God gives you the ability to do, and it is prideful to assume responsibility for all the rest. So I don't know why I'm forgetting this now, or rather, why it keeps slipping from mind and I need to say it aloud to get it back.

Anyway, in the midst of this smalltime guilt, I met with the woman I am discipling, who's from Australia and is here for a year. We're at similar stages, but instead of focusing on what we can't do (and feeling bad about it not doing it - and then still not doing it - and feeling bad), we thought concretely about what we can do. Are there people at church, locals or foreigners, who speak good English? Yes. Are there Spanish-speakers who don't notice or care if the conversation flounders, or who love to talk? Yes. Well, there we are then, that's what we can be faithful in for now. This has been a help.