The things we do not say.

I just came back from singing at several youth conferences. This required quite a bit of traveling back and forth, and I often found myself making new friends along the way. On my flight back from Florida, I sat next to a woman who told me of how she longed to be a mother, and how she and her husband had not been successful in conceiving. I listened as she talked, and I even felt a litte guilty because we, literally, prayed to concieve and BOOM!...it happened. After I listened, I smiled and said, "I'll pray for you." What else could I say?..."I know this will happen for you!" or "Everything is going to be alright?" I couldn't say those things because, the truth is, that I didn't know if this woman would ever be blessed with a child...but I meant what I did say. I really meant it. I did pray for her, and I still wonder what is going on in her life.

In Providence, I cried with a 17 year old girl back stage, who gave her witness to 2000 people. She told the dark story of her childhood...of how her father would sexually abuse her, and then afterwards, say to her, "I wanted you to know how much I love you and how beautiful you are." Luckily, this sweet child knows she has a father in heaven that loves her, and this father takes away all of her woundedness. Backstage, she told me that her family is in the process of a trial. "Can I pray for you? What can I pray for?" I asked. She asked that I pray for courage to do what is right and fair. She has the heavy burden of being included in the decisions that will determine her father's sentencing. Avrien and I pray fervently for her.

In the Toronto airport, I was reapplying lipgloss and I saw a girl drying her tear-soaked face behind me, as I looked in the mirror. I turned around, and asked, "Are you OK?" She replied, "I will be...at some point." I couldn't help but wonder what was going in her life and what I could say to make it better...but I was so little and her problem seemed bigger than kind words. "I will pray for you," I said with tears in my eyes. "Thank you," she said warmly. I left this girl crying in the Toronto airport bathroom. I still pray for her and wonder if she is doing alright.

Sometimes, the words just aren't there. When I don't know what to say, "I'll pray for you," is what usually comes out of my mouth. I used to feel bad about it, like, people wouldn't want to hear those words, but now, I find those are the only words that I need to hear when things aren't going great...especially if they mean it. We can't expect to say or do everything right...that's God's job. What we can do, is promise to take it to God. It is so funny to me, that everyone is connected in this world. I made connections with people that live nowhere near me, and I think about them, often. Is this weird, or is this exactly how God intended it to be? We live in a world that tells us this is abnormal....that it's abnormal to be tenderhearted to people we do not know, simply because we do not know them. Doesn't that sound strange to you? A bit inhumane, isn't it?

When I got home, I realized in prayer, that opening my mouth was not necessary in these situations, but opening my heart was. Sometimes, the things we do not say are exactly what someone else needs to hear....these things are a matter of the heart. "I'll pray for you," seems to be completely sufficient at times like these.