Pain.

I met a woman today who touched my heart. She and her family have spent their summer hosting a little girl from Afganistan. A few years ago, this beautiful little girl had a wall of her house fall on top of her. Her skull was fractured, her face was badly scarred. She came to America with a severed optical nerve, loss of hearing, and an ear infection. Thankfully, she is alive and smiling today because of this woman. But this isn’t the whole story…. last summer this woman lost her own flesh and blood. Her daughter died suddenly. She was 6 years old.

I received a prayer request today about another beautiful woman I know that just lost her mother in a house fire. She was in a wheelchair; her father couldn’t get her out of the house in time. A mother, a grandmother, a wife…..lost. I cried this morning as I prayed for them. I wonder how they’re coping.

I talked to a friend today, who told me of her friend who is living with and struggling though a battle with stomach cancer. She has had the majority of her stomach removed. The cancer has spread to most of her lymph nodes. She can’t eat from her mouth, she is fed through a tube. She has a long journey through Chemotherapy before she will be out of the woods.

Women facing tragedy. Women facing loss. Loss of jobs, loss of relationships, loss of health, family, loss of innocence.

Women living through pain.


My heart is hurting. I honestly said out loud today….”I think I’ve heard enough, this is so much tragedy to hear about in one day”. I don’t know what to say. I feel so helpless, I feel so sad, I want to make things better. I will never be able to. I can’t fix this. I can’t even pretend it’s someday going to feel normal again. I can only cry, pray and hope.

I hope for a world someday where there is no pain, I hope in a God who bears our burdens, who is near to the broken-hearted. I hope in a God who knows the pain of the human experience, of losing a son. It’s the only thing I know how to do. I wish I had some profound thoughts on living through pain. I don’t. The only thing I do know that pain hits us all, in one way or another we are all walking through (or at least know someone who is facing) great pain. So I guess the only way to live through it….is to be in it together. I’ve heard it said once that “Joy shared is doubled, and burdens shared are cut in half”. So I will share, I will weep, I will pray, I will hope. I will hope for you. I will hope for me. I will hope for this world. And I will not let go of the promise: The promise that someday there will be no more sorrow. And today, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we have a God who knows us, who is always waiting to comfort us. So I pray today whatever you are facing, that you take the hand of the one who knows you and though darkness surrounds you, that you may have the strength to believe He walks close beside you. And always will.