Good Morning. In these times when so many are suffering, I think about Lincoln’s words of compassion and encouragement. I reflect upon them and their meaning, trying to bring them forward into the messages that I like to share with people. The goal is to encourage people in this time of pandemic. I recall a letter that Abraham wrote in November of 1864. The tide of the civil war har turned. Union victories had been achieved, Atlanta had been taken, and a significant victory by General Sheridan at Cedar Creek occurred. Abraham Lincoln still took the time to pay attention to those who suffered loss. He wrote a letter to a Miss Lydia Bixby, a widow in Massachusetts. The letter goes like this.
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
- Lincoln President of the United States of America
I think how wonderfully those words fit in our present times to all of those who have suffered losses. I think of all those who have been on the front lines, even some of those who have lost their lives in helping all of us try to get better. Not only physically and mentally but to encourage those who have suffered to look at something positive and be encouraged by Abraham Lincoln’s words. He called people together to try and unite them and not divide them. We as Americans all together must fight this virus. Looking at the doctors, the nurses, the front liners but also those in nursing homes. The elderly and tribal lands who were forgotten and neglected. Abraham Lincoln cared. He had compassion. He was a leader who reached out and when you think about it, taking the time to write a letter, I feel in my heart that he would write a letter or at least his word get that to each individual that has suffered saying I care about you. We care about you. We are all in this together. That came seem like a trite phrase these days: We are all in this together. It was not trite to Abraham Lincoln. He knew the meaning of it. He would personally write letters to those that have suffered. He paid attention to what was going on and to families that had lost soldiers in the Civil War. He paid attention when he freed the slaves. He paid attention when he said, with malice towards none and charity towards all as the war was coming to an end. These are words that we can cherish now and embrace in our hearts and minds as we look at our neighbors forgetting our differences for a moment coming together. Abraham Lincoln would love that. I think he would look down on us with approval if we reached out with love and charity. Charity for all.
