loving hard: for Pauli, old thoughts on my old place, now hers

My life is full right now. I am student, RA, friend, daughter, and Christ follower. The roles I step in to everyday are varied and challenging, and I'm still trying to figure out how it's suppose to work. Especially because God has called me to things I can't do, to a person I can't be. God has called me as an RA to give until I die, when I am dead to myself and alive to Christ.  I am suppose to share my coffee creamer, my time, and my tears. I am suppose to lose myself in loving others. I am suppose to be the one who reacts when the fire alarm goes off, when someone has a melt down, when people are crossing lines, when the hopeless can't see the way out. I'm the one who is suppose to be in charge, the one who gets the calls at midnight. I have to learn how to always be willing to say yes.
I know there are boundaries, a healthy balance. Saying no is an option. But please don't give me excuses. Jesus has called me to a life of radical self-leaving. I must say yes, I must be there. I must share all of my life because that is His call. Forsake all and follow Me, take up the cross. Leave the world but give me Jesus. And I honestly want that. I want to love like He does, give like He does, unreservedly share my life, even the coffee creamer, with the twenty one girls on my hall. But I can't. He has called me to something I can not do. I need those healthy boundaries, and in fact, my sinful half tells me that it would bring me the best happiness if I didn't share anything with anyone.
So I've been thinking a lot about this: this call to self-leaving and unreserved giving but also my inability to carry it out. The obvious answer is Jesus. Which is true. but also how is Jesus the answer? how does that work when I'm dead tired, someone is knocking, and if I have to listen to one more person's problems, I'm just going to call the insane aslyum and commit them. How is Jesus the answer then? How is it a real, manifest answer? And I keep coming back to one thing: I have to know that Jesus loves me. He listens to my problems, He loves me, He is faithful to me. I must understand that Jesus is the lover of my soul, He fills me up. But here's the kink: isn't that still all about me? Isn't that simply an inward turning, a self-looking, not a self-leaving? And I'm not sure exactly what the answer is to that kink, but I still keep coming back to Jesus loving me. I have to be loved to love.

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