break

Don't get me wrong...I am incredibly grateful for a full, paid week off over Christmas. But this time around seemed a little bit harder to stomach. 

Last year at this time, I had just started at Housing Resources. I was excited and still very unaware of the problems my eyes would be opened up to. I was still learning the ropes and getting to know my place in the organization.

After a year and some change, believe it or not, I'm still excited. But I've seen the problems first hand. Heard the stories of sadness and pain. Cried with clients as they tell their story. Celebrated with clients as they walk into their new home for the first time. 

The shelters I so desperately wanted to help with before, I know in and out. I've been in all of them. Seen people come in and out of them. Watched people go back to them, despite all our efforts. The one I now call my own now has a huge place in my heart, that I know years from now will never go away.

So leaving it all...closing the files for a full week of relaxing just seemed a little off to me. Leaving clients there, wherever there might be for them tonight, is a little harder this year. We've put everything into these families, these people, these children. And the need is still, always there. There is no break, in many cases. 

I've come around to the fact that I can't help everyone. I worry too much about the things I cannot change. The people I can't change, their history I can't trade, their actions after they leave my office. 

I know my coworkers and I deserve this time. Time to recover and re-energize. We did all we could in 2013, and I believe we'll do that much more and then some in 2014. I've said this before and over this break I believe it more than ever. When there's nothing else we can do, we can pray. 

Be the change. Make the difference.