Getting It Right

Is it just me, or is it a hard thing for everyone to locate themselves with exactly the right amount of involvement and caring in relation to an issue?

A friend told me recently "I can't believe you have the energy to keep working at this.  I would have given up a long time ago."

I was incredulous, and thought I can't believe you don't care.  

When I care a lot, I don't mind investing a lot.

Sometimes I feel like I don't even choose what to care about, but a burden finds me and climbs on, unbidden.

I do understand the need to not make everything my responsibility, but I cannot simply turn away from a matter just because things seem headed for disaster with seemingly no hope of redemption.  I carry a great deal of sorrow over such a matter, and simply cannot stop caring--even when there's nothing more to do.  I tell God I give this to  you.  I do a lot of crying and praying.  The one thing I cannot do is "just forget about it."

If I resolved not to care--pushed away or pushed through beyond the burdens that find me--I feel like I would be saying no to what God is asking of me.  Walking in faith demands that I trust Him to keep working in every matter that concerns me--that I not give in to despair and a grim, heart-hardening sense of inevitability, that I stay willing to do my part, as another step is shown me.

I love that I'm not the only one in the caring business.  God cares for me--and you!

I also love that I do not carry my burdens alone.  They are not permanently mine, and not totally and unremittingly mine--only temporarily mine, and only partly mine, because the full weight of them rests also on God and on others walking alongside me.  

 It's a good thing that how much to care is not mine to determine.  I'll never be smart enough to get it right.

Later:  I posted this last night and read this this morning.  I've recently started following this blog, written by someone I've never met, but have had some email correspondence with.