I think I was born craving communication. It’s been my passion, my education, my living… ah… my living. We were shaped with this innate need to connect with another human deeply. Yet here we all are railing as a world at the balance between failing to speak and failing to listen.

My eyes welled with tears as I read these two words from Louie Giglio yesterday, having expressed his heart openly only to meet opposition. “I failed.” I tried to communicate. I tried to reach. I tried to understand. I failed.

Hot tears spill down my cheeks in identification, in longing for change, in deep need for connection. In recent weeks, I failed, too. I repeat myself too often. I’ve failed to be succinct and efficient in explanation. I’ve failed to share my beliefs intelligently. I’ve been too simplistic. I’ve been too detailed. I’ve been too quiet. I’ve been too…

In those moments of hearing that my words—my heart—failed, I’ve turned off video cameras. I’ve grown more still. I’ve reserved my words… I’ve reserved me. I sat on the bare ground of a wooded trail one day… hearing it all… and cried.

When saying nothing, little, something, repetition… rebuffed, rejected, or simply unheard… communication ends. That yearning to connect, to know, to understand, to reach is cast away unchosen.

That yearning left behind? It’s love.

In all the clamor, we are casting away love.

Love is why we longed for another in the first place. Love is why we reach, speak, listen. Love is our why. It’s in your very DNA.

If you have breath, love is your why.

Yesterday one of my dearest friends listened—not just patiently, but intently—as I chatted away. I apologized for being “yappy”. And with a chuckle, they gently assured, “I like it when you’re yappy.”

That. That desire to know one another.

Last night on a Q&A panel I shared the known. (But maybe we see anew?) Communication is a two-way experience between humans… and between humans and our Creator. We give. We receive. And the cycle nourishes and draws us near.

I can simply concede that my words have failed.

I can move off the trail, or I can chase, or I can simply abide and offer an opportunity for my created why once again. I can abide in Love even if my words fail.