“Momma! Momma!” He grabs my face and tries to get me to come back from the darkness. “See this,” he holds out two pencils, one in each hand, “they Austin’s wings! You make me fly.”

“I can’t honey. Momma is not feeling good.”

Then he gets angry at me. He hits me with the pencils, trying to break into the world I am trapped in. It’s not fair to him that I am here, but I’m not here. He deserves better than a depressed mom, but I’m all he has and we will make it through somehow. I put on a cartoon and sit down to write, hoping it will make the pain bearable somehow.

It’s not all darkness. We painted together for a couple of hours. He loves the black paint. He holds the brush on the very end and makes sweeping lines of pigment across the page. He’s so beautiful when he is creating! If I hadn’t started watching the Cohen hearings I wouldn’t be such a mess.

When Cohen turned state’s witness against Trump, I had to hope that his remorse was genuine; that someone who was under Trump’s spell could be redeemed. There is enough of a cynic in me to note the significance of the fact that he was under a lot of pressure from federal law enforcement before he decided to tell the truth, but I have enough of the optimist to believe that there is hope for his soul. The Savior is enough for him and if he chooses to live a changed life, he could be a force for good in this world.

I vividly remember my dream when I was seduced by Trump on the yacht. He was important and rich and powerful, and he thought I was special and smart and worthy of his attention. That was intoxicating to me and I was under his spell. Seeing Cohen testify today as a broken man stirred powerful feelings of empathy and compassion. Was this broken man so different than I would be had my dream been real? He was trying to undo some of the terrible damage he did when he worked for Donald Trump by testifying for the House of Representatives. The way the House GOP representatives treated him was deplorable.

Have we sunk so low in our national politics that we allow people to treat others the way they treated Cohen? Are we so heartless that we need to rub someone’s face into the consequences of their choices? These men are our representatives and they speak for us. Instead of doing their constitutional duty and investigate possible crimes by a sitting President, they chose to demonize his accuser and ignore the gift of his warnings. Why? Because they are still under the seductive spell of Donald Trump. They are drunk with power, the power that he offers them in exchange for their loyalty. Donald Trump, through his trickery and flattery has amassed great power which he offers to them in exchange for their integrity, as he does to all who take his devil’s bargain.

It is cold comfort to me that the Democrats are performing their duty to check the President and try to hold him accountable. I don’t trust them because if the tables were turned, I have reason to think they would behave just as badly. It makes the world seem like a cold and heartless place. Is there no compassion? Is there no empathy? I fear greatly for my country, and more, for my children.

Character matters. It matters in you and me and those who speak for us. The Lord has said in his scriptures that by small and simple things He brings to pass that which is great. It is also by small and simple things that nations and people are destroyed. When we refuse to hold ourselves and our leaders to a moral standard that is applied equally to all, we fracture the moral fabric of our country. When we allow people to commit crimes and get away with them because of their money; when we give them our loyalty and our votes; when we trust in their leadership and honor them with our lips; we are sowing the seeds of our destruction.

But I am in no fit place to judge the world. I am nothing and no one; a meaningless life; a face in a crowd. There is no reason to think that I have an impact on anyone or that my pain has any deeper purpose. Still, my words ascend to my Father in Heaven and his beloved son. They have created me for some purpose and as long as I live on this Earth I will do my best to fulfill it.

Lord, help me to bare my cross! Have mercy on me, and grant me a portion of thy peace. Give me strength to be a mother to my little ones.