Holding Onto Hope

Fear. Panic. Terror. These words seem simple in text, just a gathering of letters typed onto a vacant sheet. But they are so much more than that. They spell emotions that are compound and so real that they can impose the most insurmountable amount of stress onto the human body. And, regrettably, the City of Boston, alongside the rest of the country, is especially familiar with them all.

Next comes: Empathy. Concern. Exhaustion. What has this world come to? What should we tell the children, do they even understand? Is it easier to imagine it’s not happening? How can we pretend it’s not happening when people have lost lives, lost limbs? Am I being selfish because I am thankful to be protected, well, and secured around the people I love? It is all too tiresome on the body to wonder, and wonder, and wonder some more….and never have the ideal responses.

I can’t answer any of these questions that I've found myself asking others, along with myself….because I can’t even wrap my head around them. These are honest, true issues that so many Bostonians, and many other Americans, are facing right now, yet it all seems like a nightmare that we will wake up from and thank God that it didn’t happen. But it did.

So, again, I pray hardest when it's hardest to pray, and I hope when there is little hope to be had. I let my faith be bigger than my fear. And then I collect the tainted pieces of belief I have left, hoping to find composure. I pray for those who are lost, those who are suffering. Those who don’t know where to begin, and those who worry it will never end.

I pray for Peace. Stillness. Answers. Strength. Reslience. These words, again quite uncomplicated, yet powerful enough to eclipse the horror going on in our beautiful city as we speak.

 

I hope that you pray too.