There are moments in life when the weight of the world feels unbearable, like it’s pressing in from all sides, and there’s no escape. Lately, it feels like those moments are becoming all too frequent. I find myself surrounded by everyday suffering here in Sierra Leone—the kind that breaks your heart in small, unrelenting ways. A preventable death in a hospital, children struggling for food, systems that don’t work despite how much people want them to, and nurses doing their best to care in the face of impossible odds. And while I’m here, witnessing these heart-wrenching moments on a daily basis, I can’t help but feel the overwhelming reality of suffering happening across the world.

Thousands of miles away, in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of lives are being torn apart by war. Innocent people are dying, and even those who survive are left with unimaginable trauma. The violence, the devastation—it’s hard to comprehend the scale of it. I sit here, and it feels like a different planet, but the pain transcends distance. It’s all part of the same brokenness.

And if that isn’t enough, Hurricane Milton looms on the horizon, threatening to unleash its fury and bring even more destruction. Natural disasters, man-made crises, systemic failures—it feels like everywhere I look, there’s something going wrong. It’s overwhelming, and I feel so small. What can I do? What can any of us do?

All I have is prayer. But even that feels so small. I know God hears me. I believe He sees every tear, every heartbreak, every life lost. But it’s hard not to wonder if my prayers are getting lost in the flood of voices crying out for help. When I kneel in the stillness, offering my prayers, it feels like shouting into a storm. And I wonder if I’m doing enough—if I can do more than just whisper a plea for mercy.

But what else can I do?

I don’t know.

I don’t have any comforting answers. The weight of the world feels heavier than ever, and there are no neat conclusions, no silver linings. Just the reality of a world that’s falling apart, and the helplessness that comes with watching it happen.

So, I keep going, but with a deep, unsettled feeling in my chest that maybe things won’t get better anytime soon. And that’s hard to sit with.