Un something

So I found this draft of a post that I never published, and I wonder why I didn't. It was written in mid August. I must say reading it now is helping me to know that things have changed for me in the last month and a half...positively. So I'm posting it now so that I can look back and remember that if there is one constant in life, it is change.

I am feeling so unable to express the way I've been feeling lately, so forgive me. I've never felt so confused about everything, yet so sure at the same time. My life is full of contradictions.

I feel as if there is no one who can understand where I'm at, what I see. Here I am helping to plant a church whose primary goal is to serve the marginalized in the city...in Gramercy. One of the wealthiest areas in New York City. Of course, there are people in need everywhere. No matter what their lives look like on the outside, you never really know what their lives are like inside their protected bubbles. And there are homeless everywhere, too.

But here I am living in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, and working in the Bronx. Both very impoverished areas. The people I see everyday in my neighborhood and in my work are very different than in midtown. Mostly, they are black and/or latino. I am a minority in both places. Very different in Midtown where I more easily blend, at least outwardly. Which gives me a sense of disconnect. Not that I don't blend where I work and live, but that there is such a sharp contrast to the area of my church and those I serve with.

The poverty, suffering and pain of the people I encounter in my work everyday is overwhelming at times. I can't help but to become emotionally involved with my cases, which leaves me feeling burdened by the end of the day. I hope that I never become too hardened that I am not involved in my cases--it is after all people's lives I'm dealing with--but I hope that it doesn't weigh me down either.

I pray that I find a way to do God's will and to be understood, all at the same time.