Volunteering

       When is it too much? That is the question I have been asking

myself.  I love doing volunteer work, but sometimes I give too much of myself.  I am in the process of learning where the line is between being gracious with my time and pushing too hard.  I love my job.  It gives me opportunities to volunteer and it is not too often.  I volunteer every week at the Bartow Family Resource Center.  I love it there.  The people I work with were there for me when my world felt like it was falling apart about a year and half ago.  I am also active with my church.  I do the occasional job for friends like the FCA.  I have such a wonderful life to have all these opportunities.  I am also learning that God will use any circumstance for a time to share Him.  I have recently started hiking with some people that I work with and I am seeing that God is using that as part of my ministry.  I don't have to wait to go to another country.
 
    However, I have to draw a line somewhere and I am learning that it is not easy.  All this is good things, but I am learning to be selective to be able to serve at the best of my ability.  I refuse to feel guilty if I must turn someone down.  I refuse to worry about what it may look like to others because at the end of the day the only thing that matters is my relationship with God.

^"9 What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God."

Ecclesiastes 3:9-13