I've been in a serious funk/borderline depressed the past couple weeks. Not to belabor the point, a combination of factors had led to the point where I felt helpless, trapped, and alone.
The past few days, however, has seen a sea-change. I've reached clarity, separating out those things that I can control from those I cannot, and reaching a healthier, if not exactly pacific, place in my mind. While talking about it with my wife has been a huge factor, I am convinced that even more has been . . . that she told me she has been aware of my changed mood and attitude and has been praying for me. After I awoke this afternoon, and she came home, we sat and talked. It is impossible to relate how much more relaxed, more clear, I am in my mind than I have been.
Because someone was praying for me.
While immediate change is not possible, I do think that both clarity and possibility exist, at least in the near term. Being in the midst of a busy, eleven-straight-day work mini-marathon (and for those who do not work overnights, eleven days in a row will take a toll on your life and mental health, trust me) has not helped, but I am now not quite a week through it, which does help. Also, getting my old, Sunday-Thursday night schedule back helps, too (for some reason, management decided to change everyone's schedule without consulting anyone; from growls to howls, the reaction hasn't exactly been positive, so, at least for the next couple weeks I will be back on my old schedule).
While I believe that prayer is more than simply a way to "fix" our moods, to "cure" those with illness, to make our minds at ease in our bourgeois discomfort, I am nevertheless convinced that personal intervention does occur because of the prayerful please of others. I am grateful for it, and wanted to acknowledge it publicly.
