What is Your Calling?

I am a mission driven person and it warms my heart to see the compassion and heart everyone has for helping others. Our work is not easy. We are often dealing with people that are in extreme crisis and with that comes all sorts of behaviors that can make our work more complicated and even triggering for us. This work can burn us out if we are not careful. 

For years, my focus has always been on creating one more bed to shelter someone, getting one more roof built to house someone, securing some new funding source to keep supportive services going, etc. That endless repetitive cycle can wear a person down if you are not taking the time to refill yourself. 

A few years back I was wrestling with these feelings of burnout and fatigue and it dawned on me. I needed inspiration on top of self-care to remind myself why this work matters. One evening, shortly after this, my wife and I pulled into the parking lot of a local grocery store. I watched as a truck with a camper pulled into the parking lot. As they parked I noticed that the camper had no back door (just a blanket) and several windows had been broken out. 

Several children climbed out of the truck with their mother, and began to climb into the camper for bedtime. This was their home and it was not something that we would consider habitable. The entire family looked sad, depressed, and defeated. It left me with a feeling of hopelessness. 

As I watched this moment unfold, I remembered that this family and others just like them are why I do this work. The family that I saw didn’t need another person that would look at them with judgment. The world already has enough people that will do this and not contribute to any type of meaningful change. This family needed safety and most importantly the human connection that comes from building community together. This is why I am here and why I have been called into this work. 

For me, inspiration comes in the form of focusing on and celebrating the successes of those we are serving and seeing lives get transformed.

That being said, I have a few questions for us to ponder: 

How do we capture and share these monumental moments with each other? How do we pump each other up to remind ourselves of the role that we play in helping people change their lives? What makes you feel inspired? What fills your cup? How can we better support each other’s goals and celebrate our accomplishments?