I don't watch sad movies. Other people like them, because "sometimes you just need to cry." I don't get that at all. Life is sad enough on it's own, I watch movies and read books for the happily ever after. Real life gets so few happily ever afters, because our lives are so fragile. Our tenuous grasp on life, it can be snatched away at any moment, and by the most seemingly random events.

My heart cries out with sorrow for my friend Nicolle. Her boyfriend Brock was just given a few weeks to live after a hard fight with brain cancer, over the course of which he couldn't recall her name at times. I can't even imagine that. Her strength and faith are a testimony to God's strength and faithfulness.


The fact that I cry harder for other people than for myself, it makes me wonder if I am going to be a better or worse social worker. I tend to become more upset over things that are out of human control, because they just seem so arbitrary and without greater meaning. Social problems, I understand that they are difficult to deal with. But those can be fixed. Terminal cancer... I can't fix that. And so I just cry for the loss of a love, a son, a brother... In the death of a young person, I always think about the mother, and how it would feel to have to say goodbye to your child.

So I'm praying for strength for Nicolle and for Brock's family, his mother in particular, as they prepare themselves. God, only you could be a comfort for them in this.