the streets you're walking on, a thousand houses long.

My dear friend Matt works full-time in a home for homeless people who are dying of AIDS and other terminal illnesses in Washington, D.C.

He absolutely loves it. And it is, as you can imagine, tremendously difficult.

The past few weeks he has been spending a lot of time with the 8-year-old son of one of their residents. Here's an excerpt from a recent email (name changed, emphasis' mine).

"...This is one of those relationships that has been teaching me about love.

It has also been a reminder that I cannot fix everything that I want to.

John's wife and son need money and I don't have that to give to them.

His son is going to grow up without his dad and I can't do anything about that.

But, as Dr. Litfin always says, we aren't to respond to need, we are to respond to calling.

The needs are overwhelming and we can easily get bogged down in a futile attempt to meet all of them. God is reminding me that even though I can't make everything better, we are doing important things. We are providing a place for John to die, which is huge, and, in reality, all that Joseph's House is designed to be.

And even though I can't be there for his son in a year or five years or ten years, I can hang out with him now.

I can run around playing games with him and love him in the present.

So not enough,

but all that I have to give right now,

and so from my perspective,

it is enough."

So much to be said on those themes, but I will leave good words alone for now.

(I will say this: for all of the many areas at which I am so sub-par... I am so good at somehow finding the best people in the world to be my friends. I am, all of the time, in grateful disbelief over the people I know.)