I can’t fix your situation. I can’t give you what you need. I can’t give you a job. I can’t take your baby. I can’t.

“Mwen pa kapab”. “I can’t”. It’s an important Haitian Creole phrase to know as an American. My white skin is symbolic of affluence. My white skin means that anyone can and will ask me for things.

Friends and people who know me don’t. They know I’m not actually rich. But, strangers on the street ask.

They correctly assume that I have access to more resources than they do because I am American. So, they ask. Give me your sandals. Give me your phone. Give me some food. Give me some money. I can’t.

I’m used to that kind of “I can’t” by now.

But I’m learning about a new level of I can’t.

I can’t take any more bad news. I can’t watch as children are kept out of school and workers are kept from their jobs and elders die and police and gangs fight for control and families suffer and fear clears people from the streets. I can’t.

And in my inability to fix any of it – In my inability to process it – In my inability to accept or even look at it somedays, I am learning. It’s ok, even good, that I can’t.

It limits my striving. It turns my attention to the only One who can. When I say “I can’t” the Lord says “good.” He waits patiently for me to acknowledge that “I can’t”.

It isn’t that I have license to ignore the injustice around me. It isn’t that I have no responsibility to do what I can do. It’s that the Lord is still present in all I can’t do.

And, I’m learning about giving away too much. I’m asked for all kinds of resources, not just stuff and money. I’m asked for time and favors and lots of both. I’m asked for prayers and lots of those too.

When a Haitian asks me where I’m going and I say to church, the knee-jerk response is “Priye pou mwen!”. “Pray for me!”. And I usually say yes. And then I remember them in a prayer.

I had realization recently that I was starting to resent being asked to pray for others all the time. As though prayer was a limited resource, I was annoyed that other people kept demanding mine.

Now I know that the Lord’s answers to prayer are unlimited, but the time I devote to those sacred conversations is sometimes limited. And I can’t always share that sacred time with every person who has asked for a piece of it. I don’t always remember each person who’s asked.

It makes me appreciate even more the people who pray for me. It isn’t an empty gesture. It is a sacrifice of their time and emotion and thought. It is being included in their most sacred time and relationship. And the God of all I can’t do responds to those prayers.

So I am doing my best to focus on what I can do. Instead of being overwhelmed by the things I can’t do, I’m leaving those things up to the God who can. In my weakness, I find His strength. In my can’t, I find His can.