The next day after

I woke up Monday morning at 2am. And haven't gotten back to sleep since.
I'm weary, but I'm also wide-awake.

Driving home from work last night, I had to maneuver past several blocks of television trailers, huge vans with satellites, and cars and trucks with some media logo on it. Driving past, I saw three separate news people standing in front of their cameras, telling the story our city now has to tell. And I wondered, how they do it.
Do they simply turn off their emotions and forget the grief and destruction they've seen?
When they go home at night, eat dinner with family or alone, maybe watch themselves on tv, do they feel overwhelmed? How do they go from story to story, destruction to destruction, crime to crime, sin to sin, without falling apart after a time?
Those stories about the woman who hung her children, the guy that lost it and murdered his grandmother for drug money, the 9 firefighters that died fighting a blaze in Charleston, those stories were all written by human beings. Emotional, feeling human beings that go into prisons and talk to murderers. They talk to phony politicians and business owners that don't care that they swindled someone out of money. They're caring individuals that write about the older lady that was found in her home deceased - 3 days after she had passed away - and then go home and read a bedtime story to their children.

I know reporters are not generally considered in a sympathetic way. But as I began to feel overwhelmed by the stories I was being told, I began to wonder how those reporters did this every day. And, most especially, how do they do it without leaning on God? At least I have an off button on the news. At least I have God.

I wish I had words to know how to pray for all these people. But so far I've yet to make it past "Oh God". The bible describes Christ as someone who can discern the thoughts and intents of our hearts. I'm just going to rely on that.