The Power Of Prayer

A little time-out for an expression of deep appreciation.

After a depressing year of setbacks and struggles, leading to a rather melancholy Christmas, my wife and I find ourselves in amazingly better spirits this week, thanks to a Heaven-sent series of sudden circumstances that have made many hoped-for dreams come true.

It took a lot of work, and I fell short of the goal a few times along the way, but we did our best to remain cheerful despite the torrent of bad news that hit us personally in 2008, and that struggle sure paid off. Which is why I wanted to write this post. I firmly believe in the power of positive thinking, and that this ongoing effort to renew our positive attitude, coupled with persistent prayer, brought a trio of timely blessings to our lives over the past few days, more wonderful than I ever would have dared to ask for.

As it always seems to happen with miracles, they all fell into place at the absolute last minute, renewing light after a despairing period of prolongued darkness.

So (keeping a long story short…), despite the negative signs that filled each day all the way to Christmas Eve, I won’t be losing my job this spring after all, thanks to an incredibly fortunate turn of events, which means we don’t have to move away as we dreaded we might; the personal health problem that worried me so much this past year was able to be addressed successfully, so far anyway (that’s an even longer story); and, last but not least, we were able to find a new dog to replace our old buddy who passed away late last year... and the stream of coincidences that led us, step by step, to finding such a perfectly suitable replacement still leave me awestruck by it all. Truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction.

As the old saying goes, to become happy you should first act happy. To which I've learned to add: to act happy you have to first believe that you should be happy.

Seeing the forebearance of others carrying much bigger crosses than my own made it just a little more possible to imagine a time beyond our present problems, seeing their determination to remain cheerful despite their situation made it that much more probable to resolve to stay cheerful myself, seeing their faith in action made it just that much easier to keep my own.

And now my perseverance has been rewarded, in all respects, even fulfilled beyond my expectations, for which I humbly Thank God for these blessings that He has seen fit to have come my way.

Thanks to the power of prayer, for us, in our little world, it seems to have become a truly Happy New Year.