Conviction.

I've been thinking about this for a while. I don't know that I'm ever going to find the words to really convey what I mean to say, so please be flexible with me and try to hear the spirit of what I'm writing.

I've encountered a few people in my life going through unimaginable loss or struggle. I'm sure this is a universal experience: someone shares the unfiltered reality of something they are going through, and you are at a complete loss for what to say. Your own sympathy, your own emotions, they just seem irrelevant, because it really isn't your struggle. It isn't the thing you have to face every morning you wake up, and untold moments throughout the day. You want to reach out, but that chasm is so huge, and mere words of sympathy just seem so inadequate.

In these moments, I find myself thinking about the song Dengo sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock. Chris, being an incredible sort of person, bought tickets for us to see them when they played in Cincinnati several years ago. It was some time ago, so I may not have hung onto all the details in my mind, but this is what I remember them giving as the description of what this song is about. A woman deeply wants to have a child and begins feeling great despair that she remains childless. She cries out, praying for a child, and those prayers are added to by the other women of her family. As she finally welcomes her child into the world, she realizes that the prayers of the generations of women who came before were there for her, just as her prayers and those of family now will be there for the generations that come after.

I don't know if it really translates, but it gives me comfort to think that my thoughts of you, my well wishes, desires for safety or comfort or lessening of grief are being invested in your futures and the futures of those that come after.

I wish I could tell you that while my compassion is clumsy and awkward, that all this love goes somewhere.