Words for a Wounded World

by Ashley Prevost

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My life is full of blessings. I’m happily married. I have two wonderful children. I have a job doing work I believe in. I have a strong group of friends. I live in a little house I adore where I can surround myself with books and baking and puzzles and music and all the things I love.  I’m luckier than many, and I’m grateful for what I have, but all of this doesn’t immunize me from the melancholy that travels with the news. Sometimes it feels insurmountable.

I can curl up on the couch and watch Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time and feel better for 129 minutes after which the same worries are waiting. What placations can I offer myself and others to get us through? What comfort is there for a wounded world?

But then, I look to the past, and I can see how far we’ve come. Representative-elect Sarah McBride said it best, “If we do what every previous generation of Americans have done before us, if we continue to summon our hope, we will make this a slingshot moment, where, yes, we are pulled backward, but the pressure and tension of being pulled backwards ultimately propels us to destinations that we’ve never been before.” I am capable of doing hard things.  We all are, and it is that collective work we the people do in order to form a more perfect union that not only frees me from despair, but invites me to hope for something yet unseen.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

- Hebrews 11:1