Regret

How far do you extend yourself to try to make someone else okay, before you are not okay yourself?  Where is that line?  How do you know when you are about to take that step that will plummet you to a place that is nearly impossible to recover from?  How do you know when all of that giving of yourself has been in vain?  When will it be clear that you may have never really helped at all, but hindered?  You got in the way of the person you wanted to help so badly by doing what they needed to do themselves.  Or, you gave so much energy and thought into fixing a problem for another person that you created a whole slew of problems in your own life.

Hindsight is 20/20 only if you are smart enough to learn from your mistakes.  To learn that no matter how your heart aches for that person, you can't make them all better.  There may be an explosion waiting to happen, and they are about to throw a match on the source.  You alone cannot stop them from doing it.

I wonder sometimes what the motivation is for all of this giving to others.  Is it really all about them?  I think we like the feeling of getting credit for good decisions...what they inevitably have to decide.  I also think that their failure is somehow seen as a reflection of us.  If we are associated with this person who fails in life, we believe we have failed.  Sometimes, we distance ourselves from these people to avoid that stigma.  Sometimes, we educate them so we seem set apart from them.  Sometimes we get so enmeshed in their lives, it can be difficult to see where they end and we begin.

When they leave our lives, we often feel regret, usually from not doing enough for them.  Whether we had done more than needed or didn't do anything at all, in both instances, we did damage.

I am finding that balance more so now.  After years of trial an error, I am learning how to relate to people in such a way that hopefully I do more good than harm.  God has blessed me with knowing others that teach me how to help.  They aren't teachers, preachers or counselors.  They are those that people often throw their hands up about, becuase they just don't know what to do for them.  I have learned so much about healthy boundaries in relationships, what my role is and how to trust God when there seems to be no hope.  For a long time, I let others take from me what I did not have to give.  All that did was hurt both of us.  Without those times, I never would have learned the lessons I did.  Without the pain of mistakes from the past, I would not know the joy of living a full life now.

So, although my heart is burdened by the choices others make that I love, I know that God feels that pain, too.  He doesn't forget and listens to unspoken prayers. I may wait, but He is never late.