quoting

"The situations that grow me the most are those in which I feel the most helpless, but in which love compels me to keep trying."  

- Greg Boyd

I was listening to a podcast a few weeks back and wrote that sentence down from a sermon Greg preached.  

It struck me that night - most of what we encounter here can and does make us feel pretty darn helpless. 

In this line of work we're supposed to convince everybody that we totally know what we're doing and that we always make our plan - execute the plan - see results and produce positive outcomes.  If only it were that easy. The endless ambiguities don't allow it to go down quite like that.

Thankfully it seems like most of you have no time for a bunch of show-business reporting and you'd prefer to read/hear how things really are. That works for me because I'd rather be brutally realistic and honest about how complex some of these things are than blow sunshine your way simply because I need to sweet talk you out of your dollars.

Without going into the whole convoluted and long story ...  The last few days Troy has been working through a drama with teen mom, Djenie. He literally has no idea what is true and what is fabricated and he cannot easily figure out if anyone has pure motives in a situation with little Kenny.  Djenie no longer lives at Harbor House but we're still in relationship with her and trying to discern how to encourage her to keep parenting Kenny. 

Her life is too difficult and different from ours for us to truly grasp. The oppressive chains of poverty and broken and corrupt systems and cultural norms threaten to pull her down every day. Troy stands listening to the latest with tears in his eyes in deep sorrow at one moment and with knots in his shoulders in total frustration in the next. 

Greg's quote couldn't be more true.  May we keep growing in the discomfort of our helplessness - compelled by love to keep trying! 

"The situations that grow me the most are those in which I feel the most helpless, but in which love compels me to keep trying."