I Haven't Made Anyone Happy in Awhile

I wrote this one awhile ago on a really tough day. Just really felt the burden of not being able to meet everyone's needs. Here it is:

Lately, I have been specializing in letting people down. It's not just my kids, but they get the brunt of it. Honestly, sometimes it's impossible NOT to let them down when they ask me to perform four complicated time-consuming tasks simultaneously such as:
1) Make a cheesecake from scratch.
2) Read to them aloud for an hour using a British accent and five separate voices.
3) Play a board game a minimum of seven times in a row.
4) Plan and orchestrate a lengthy playdate more fun than any playdate in the history of mankind.
Typically, they are asking all this through the bathroom door while I'm showering. OK, maybe exaggerated? Not as much as you might think.....I have said the phrase, "I can only do one thing at a time" so many times that it has lost all meaning.

Anyway, I guess it's the other people that have been making me especially sad. I can't answer all the phone calls, return all the e-mails, send all the heartfelt notes, complete all the tasks, always say the right thing, give the perfect gift at the perfect time, and always come through no matter what is needed. The thing is, I want to. I want to very badly. Instead, I find myself trapped in this body that is completely subject to the 24-hours-in-a-day-rule. That same body also has a bad habit of not always speaking what needs to be spoken or blurting out something that comes out completely wrong. As hard as I try, I find myself flopping as a friend completely on an alarmingly regular basis. How easy it is for the cloud of condemnation to descend and the words to play in my head: "You are not a good friend to anyone. No one likes you. You don't deserve friends." But oh, how Romans 8:1 blasts that smelly cloud into the next galaxy. "There is therefore NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus." That's me. I'm in Christ Jesus! The thing is, God not only doesn't condemn me for failing to save everyone and be perfect, he never asked me to be the savior of everyone in the first place. He took care of that himself. So, the bottom line printed out in my head in bold letters today: I need to do what God allows me to do in a day and trust him to take care of everyone and everything else. Just because someone is hurting or needy and I couldn't meet their need or I fell short does not mean God also fell short. However, mentally, I've been believing that. It has to stop because my God is big, so strong and so mighty--there's NOTHING my God cannot do.