What was that prayer? "Lord, help me to accept things I cannot control?"
I remember when, fired from a job for the first time in my life and prospects few, I got on my knees prayed, and gave over my career to God (not like he didn't have it anyways). From that point on, with the ups and the downs, I persevered and thrived despite setbacks and delays.
God plays the long game. Be patient. Pray. The dark night does not last forever.
I got to do fun and wondrous things in my seemingly turbulent career in software. I still do. Even now, as I grapple with depression and frustration with trying to get published, there is a part of me that knows that I will be successful in the end. Sometimes it's drowned out by the inner, clamorous voices of anger and despair, woe and screeching futility. But it is enough to keep me going.
The very essence of Faith - the main thing when you strip away all of the flowery, high-sounding words of those who have far more conviction than I - is that God protects his own. Daniel in the lion's den. Noah and his ark. Isaiah, David...the list goes on. So even as the storm rages around you, remember, so long as you live and breathe, there is hope. And a little hope can do amazing things.
I'm sure this sounds like a bunch of easy platitudes and nonsense. Were I a more pessimistic man (and, believe you me, my pessimism can be measured on the Richter Scale), I'd agree. But I lived it. I made peace with it. And it has served me well.
And given the events of the past few months, if you find these words therapeutic, understand that I wrote them for you as well as me. I'm not sitting here like a man on the hilltop, preaching hope to the masses. I'm down there in the valley too, wondering what will happen when the sun finally hides behind the mountains, and the darkness descends.
Or at least that's how it feels.