Do I really have to stay sane???

     So it's been a rough last few months.  In my own life, in the lives of people I know, and in the lives of people I don't know.  There's the family who's 18mo old died while taking a nap, the thirty-four year old husband and father dying of cancer leaving behind his beautiful wife and kids, the friend who experienced stillbirth shortly before she was due, the precious woman in her 40s who cancer decided to take, the middle aged gentleman who had an accident and ended up dying, at least 3 teens who thought suicide was the answer to their hurt, precious ladies close to my heart suffering from PPD, pain, surgeries, yeah, you get the drift.  Damn it, do I really have to stay sane?  I mean sometimes life is just downright depressing.
     I have this blessing and curse.  Empathy.  It's good to possess because you can put yourself in others shoes.  It can also help you be more diplomatic.  For me, I also feel others pain.  Nope, seriously, I feel their distress as my own and feel compelled to do something, to help as if it were me experiencing what they are.  No, not crazy, and yep, always been this way.  It is so easy for me to get discouraged and feel helpless.  You can't replace someones child, you can't take away their cancer, you can't take away their pain, you can't be there all the time because you have your own family and commitments.  Most times there is nothing you can do to make it right.  Sometimes you feel what little you can do is worthless.  Sometimes you can't do anything but offer your prayer.
     It occurred to me the today.  So much of my discouragement and helplessness is pride.  Pride in depending only on my own power and resources.  You want to take away suffering, but in reality, you can't nor should you.  God has plans infinitely better than mine.  Even if it involves suffering or taking a precious soul back to his bosom.  Sometimes you can't do more than offer your prayers.  We can get trapped in thinking that somehow prayers, offerings, and sacrifices for another are at the low end of the totem pole.  If we're not "doing something" we're not helping.  In reality, it is the best and most important thing you can do.  Everything else stems from those things.  Prayers and closeness to God will calls us into action.  God calls each of us to different actions.  Each of us has different gifts and God calls each of us in different ways.  We shouldn't feel bad if all we can do is pray, or all we can do is offer a kind word or note.  God in his infinite love gathers many to help those in need, and sometimes that need is trust in Him and prayer which showers graces where they are needed most.
     It's grace that get's your friend through that last chemo treatment.  It's grace that keeps despair and anger at bay and replaces them with love and remembrance in the heart of a person who's lost a loved one.  It's grace that enable a person in chronic pain to say yes, I can do this again tomorrow.  It was a great reminder to me that God indeed has people close to his heart.  That while I may be tempted to despair because I can't "help", maybe God is asking me to help in the way his sons and daughters need the most.