In the midst of all of this, I overheard the old saying: That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It stuck with me, turning over in my mind as I held Dad’s hand in the hospital or rubbed my daughter’s back as she hunched over a bucket by our bed.

The reason I kept thinking about this cliché is that it rang so hollow to me. I do not feel that these hard days, these stresses and sorrows and challenges, make me stronger. At the end of these three weeks, I feel profoundly weak and vulnerable.

In this world where news of torture and death runs like a ticker through my day, I’m realizing in a new way that I must learn to pray. I must learn to sit in silence with a God who is all-powerful and all-loving in the mystery of horrendous suffering. I must learn to lift up my sisters and brothers without ceasing. I must learn to pray ordinary prayers for them in my small way and believe that God makes those prayers matter.