Saying a prayer for the desperate hearts tonight…

This has been a difficult time for some of my friends. Some people have been going through quite an ordeal with family, loved ones, and themselves. This post is dedicated to you. It's dedicated to your pain, your loss, and your  frustrations.
My Friends, I pray for you. I know it is difficult. Trials have come, and they have beat you down. Some of you have lost loved ones, both physically and emotionally. Some of you must say goodbye to relationships. Some of you must say goodbye to yourself. Sometimes, we think the best thing to do is to bury ourselves what we know. We think it is best to put more walls between us and the world, to submerge ourselves in our own world real, imaginary, steeped in myth or even steeped in the physical plane.sometimes we think it is best to forget about everything we thought was good in the past, in order to save ourselves. We pull away from those around us, those who love us, those who can help us, because we don't want to deal with it anymore. Out of sight, out of mind.

The thing is, it never truly goes out of our minds. It is like a seed, taking root in our minds. We are unaware, most of the time, it is even there.we convince ourselves we are fine, deceive ourselves whatever way we can in or to believe that we are fine. We pretend that everyone is like this: that the world is evil. Pretty soon, we figure out that our only goal is self-preservation. Nothing could be worse than self preservation for a goal.

Should self-preservation be the goal, ambition dies. Community dies. Family dies. Instead of man helping one another, man seeks to help himself, and when man seeks to help only himself, he signed his own death warrant.

To live on this earth is to interact. To live on this earth is to experience fellow man in addition to nature: human or mother. Life is rough: you never know what hit you with, or for how long, or if you'll even be the same person afterwards. But you must have faith that you will come out of it. You must be able to believe that it will not beat you, that you are made of stronger stuff.

Last night, I saw the show on the Oprah Winfrey Network, titled Master Class. The concept was that socially prominent figures in American society sat down and spoke about their lives. The episode I saw was on one of the greatest writers of all time: Maya Angelou. I've known nothing about this woman, or at least next to nothing. The episode was amazing, and the reason why I thought it was so amazing was because this woman, who I think may have actually been younger than my grandmother, held within her a presence that I had long imagined, but never witnessed. Her voice was as deep as a canyon, and the amount of wisdom she had filled that canyon. Perhaps, one of the most interesting things was that she had voiced many principles my beloved friends had said to me. One of the things Maya Angelou talked about was that there have been so many dark times, so many "clouds", as she called them, that had come into her life, but she said there were so many rainbows. That is what she called them: "rainbows". "Every time my life filled with clouds," she said. "There was always a rainbow. Sometimes, we have clouds in our lives, so that we can be a rainbow in another's life." Ms. Angelou was saying that trials are not without their merit. Hardships are not without their gain.

Some people believe that the Bible alludes to the same answer as well. People ask why God put them through certain trials and certain tragedies. Sometimes, the answer is so we may identify with those who hurt later of a similar ailment. Believers who endure tragedies and come out leaders are more equipped to identify and encourage others who are enduring their trials and their tragedies. They know the pain. They know the suffering. They know where your heart is. They can help. They can be your rainbow.

My dear friends, I say a prayer for the desperate hearts tonight. I pray that you will have peace in your sleep. I pray that you will wake up with new strength for the day. I pray that you so they open with the world. I pray that the world, in turn, opens to you. I pray that you take this experience, learn from it, look at it, and all of  its ugliness and beauty, and that you come out all the stronger, the more faithful, the more optimistic, and more driven because of it. Such is the gift of human determination. Such is the lesson of life.