Sometimes I Just Can't Be the Person I Want to Be

This morning I had three voice mails on my office phone.
One of them was from a professor in our department. The other two were from this boy I've taken to church on Wednesday nights for the past five months. This kid, we'll call him James, is about 12 years old and gets into trouble almost every week. We've had discipline problems with him a lot including a couple weeks ago when he got into a fist fight with another kid. It was quickly stopped, but fighting is never good. So he (and the other kid) were not allowed to return to church the week after that.

Even though he knew that, he called me the next Wednesday and asked if I was going to pick him up. When I tried to explain that he wasn't allowed to go, he got really upset and hung up on me. He then called me back from a number that didn't show up on my caller id and proceeded to pretend that he was his cousin and threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't take him to church. While it's great that this kid wants to go to church so badly, I didn't appreciate being threatened in this way. I talked to some "real adults"/those with authority at the church, but many have been out of town or dealing with other big issues and I've not been able to actually sit down and talk with James or his family.

So the two messages on my phone this morning (from last night): 1.) "Hi Amy...Can you come pick me up for church? This is James. I'm at ____ ____ house and the phone number here is ____ ____ ____".
2.) "Amy. I'm sorry for what I did to you. Will you please come pick me up for church? The phone number is ___ ___ ____".

UGH!

Then, there's "Tiffany" who (at 19) is pregnant with her second child and calling me every day to ask if I can take her to an employment agency to get a job. She doesn't have one because she got mad and walked out on her old one last week. But if I want to keep MY job, I have to be here working and not driving her around.

Then, "Mark" is a man Emily (my roommate) and I used to go to church with who had a stroke and is living in a nursing home. We haven't visited him in weeks and he's written Emily two letters describing his anxiety and sadness at the fact that we haven't been by.

Then, there's the three girls I love to mentor, the girls I occasionally babysit that I've been dying to play with and all my adult friends.

HOW CAN I BE JESUS IN THIS WORLD AND REMAIN SANE?

I feel like I need to give all these other people attention. I care for them. But sometimes I just want to be selfish. And -- practically -- I CAN'T care for all these people the way I want to. I have to choose. Or go insane. And I have to allow time for myself. But knowing that doesn't make it easier to handle when a 12 year old boy leaves a rather pitiful voice mail on my phone. How do I handle that? How do I love these people?

I don't always know what to do.



I suppose that's why it's good I only have to handle this life one day at a time... :)