As you can imagine, with our good friend in the hospital and her family out-of-state, we have been very busy.  In addition, two of the four residents in one of our Emmanuel Houses were admitted to two different hospitals this week.  Saturday night during Evening Prayer I could hardly keep my eyes open.  (I had been at the hospital from 8:00 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. the day before and had not slept well that night.)  As a result of my temperament, I started thinking, “Lord, I wish I was serving you better.  I’m sorry that I’m so tired and don’t have more to give.”  Then I remembered–I am just a human.  I had given all I could give, and part of loving is bearing the cost of giving everything you have.  Feeling drained and empty does not necessarily mean that you are doing something wrong.  I remembered this piece by Caryll Houselander that has encouraged me in the past.  I hope it encourages you as well:

When you have done something really healing, it happens so often that the only way you know it at first is by your own feeling of emptiness.  Even our Lord experienced this; when the woman who touched the hem of His garment was healed, He knew it by the sense of something having gone out of Him, and emptying “[power] has gone out of Me.”  It is the same for His followers–we know the moment of healing, not yet evident, not by exaltation and triumph but by emptiness and a sense of failure.   (from Maise Ward, That Divine Eccentric,  p. 136)