I could not come this time and stand on my feet. I just thought of you and sank. "I'm tough, I'm tough," I told myself... but I fell apart. Thin arms cling lightly to my sunken chest. I hold my breath. Your sad eyes droop with hopelessness, and I feel like I'm dying with you. And I hold your toothpick ribcage. And I pray aloud into your ear, "Lord what would you have of me? To plead before You for this child? Why does faith seem so foreign to me now?" Every time I see your beautiful faces in my thoughts, or in something I see, may faith stand firm. Let it grow from grace I have received and know that this grace abounds to you so far away.