Broken Questions in an Old Brick Hall

What do you do when the things you’re telling her are about to make her cry? At least you deduce she is from the expression on her face, her inability to speak anything back, and the tears behind her eyes.

As you share these truths with her on a bench in the ancient brick corridor of some candy store turned bar and music hall on that forgotten street in Brooklyn, earthy strands of bluegrass meander by, squeezing between the crowds of people who carry their glasses to their seat.

What do you say when the truth about how valuable, and worthwhile, and special she is has been driven so far from her thoughts that even the fleeting glimpse of it in your words is enough to cause her normally brash facade to crack?

Would the tragedy of it all be enough to bring you to tears? Would you have the courage that I didn’t, to spill the tear, right there in front of whom ever might have passed down that hallway? What words are there, truly, for a moment that holy? How do you tell her about the one Love that won’t make her feel used, abused, objectified, lesser - that never leaves?

Is it enough that for a brief moment she brushed up against some little piece of the truth in your words? What if He tried to reach through you and touch one of His most beloved sheep, and you got in the way, only allowing a brief glimpse of His redeeming love?

Why can’t you tell her what is going on? Could she possibly come, through it all, to understand how much she is loved, that the truth she can feel in your words is only a glimpse of the impact of the full reality?

How? What? Who? Why?

Is there any hope she picked up on any of this? The answers are difficult enough to find, why must the questions be so hard to bear.