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Wednesday, October 13, 2004
the reason for that "ravings" word up there
[ed. note to explain title of this post: my previous journal, from which these posts were imported, was titled "Blissful Contentment: ravings of an unquenchable optimist"]
Sunday during Bible class a friend of ours was closing in prayer and he prayed something that really stuck with me. It sounds very simple; among other things, he just thanked God for the week to come. The reason this has stayed in my mind is because there have been so many times that I was not thankful for the week ahead of me at all -- times when I was mired in a depression that made living through a week seem like a unique and abysmal kind of endurance test, when I wanted to just pull a gray haze around myself and not deal with anything. The best I could do at these times was to thank God that I'd gotten through another day; the idea of being thankful that another day was coming to be faced and dealt with was just ludicrous. I know I'm far from the only person to ever feel this way, and I'm not asking for sympathy; I think everyone goes through times like that. Heck, if I can get depressed, even though I'm usually the most annoying of Pollyannas, anyone can. I'm just expressing the joy I felt on Sunday when I realized that I do look forward to the week ahead, and the year ahead, and the rest of my life, with pleasant anticipation, like each day is waiting there wrapped in shiny paper, waiting for me to open it. And looking back, I can honestly thank God for the times I was depressed in the past (which, when I was in the middle of the depressing times, I never EVER thought I would say), because it is only by contrast that I know what a gift it truly is to feel the way I do now about the future.
