It's been a crazy couple of days at the shelter. Friday started off with the immediate discharge of one of my clients, who has been verbally aggressive and threatening to other residents since she arrived. Unsurprisingly, my client was not happy about her discharge, and let her feelings be known. The situation quickly spiraled out of control, and, to make an extremely long story short, we ended the day with three immediate discharges, violent threats against the building, inadequate police presence, a shelter full of domestic violence victims who felt physically and emotionally unsafe in the very place they had come to escape the danger in their lives, and a staff exhibiting high rates of compassion fatigue.

Leaving the shelter on Friday, I felt anxious and distressed. I was plagued by the feeling of having lost a client, even though the safety of all the residents made it clear that she should leave. I was also preoccupied with a sense of inadequacy. Could I have been a better advocate for this woman? Could I have done something to make her discharge less messy? Could I have gotten her the services she needed and avoided the discharge altogether?

On Monday evening, I spent several hours in the emergency department of a nearby hospital with another of my clients, who, on top of complaining of pain and tightness in her chest, was nearly unresponsive due to the fact that one of the multiple psych meds she takes on a daily basis had gone missing from the shelter. Although her status was pretty alarming when we reached the hospital, within a few hours she was alert and back to her baseline mental functioning. When her EKG came back normal, there was nothing left to do but get up and walk the couple of blocks back to the shelter! Not a lot of answers came out of our brief stay in the ED, but at least the situation didn't develop into a more serious emergency.

Then today I was forced to discharge another of my clients, a young woman who ended up in jail over the weekend due to a series of unpaid traffic tickets. We're only able to hold beds here at the shelter for 48 hours, so I had no choice but to pack up her room, close her file, and let the intake counselors know that her bed is now available. There was something profoundly depressing about piling her belongings into the black trash bags which are the only available storage containers here. I know that within the next 24 hours, that room will surely be filled with someone else's belongings, because the calls never stop coming and we always need more space than we have - the reason I was packing up her things in the first place. But I still felt an almost physical pang in my chest when I opened up her closet and saw her clothes and shoes neatly piled inside. I wondered how she decided what to take with her to the shelter, and what she had left behind. What would I take if I were in her situation? What would I leave?

The events of the past few days have provided me with many, many lessons about the importance of self-care. They've also encouraged me to reflect on the people and places in my life that make me feel safe. I feel blessed to have my family only a two-hour drive from Philadelphia, and the means to return home whenever I need to. Being home with my family reminds me that my life is more than this job and this city, that I am embedded in a web of love and support that reaches beyond the present moment.

I also feel blessed by the multitude of spiritual resources blossoming in my life in Philadelphia. This Sunday, I was able to attend an hour of Eucharistic Adoration at Old St. Joseph's with one of the JV's from Camden. Sitting in quiet, prayerful fellowship with her, the other parishioners, and Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament dispelled all remnants of the discomfort I had left the shelter with on Friday. I felt embraced by the love of God, awed by the mystery and majesty of Christ, and comforted by the sense that we are made for no greater purpose than to love and adore God's presence in the world, ourselves, and others.

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What's getting me through is love - that timeless force that is beyond emotion, deeper than reason, and more powerful than all pain. I have such wealth of love in my family, my community, and my faith - and it is only this love that can sustain me wherever I am and whatever I do.

I have been keeping the words of St. Paul as a manta in my mind: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.