What if you can't pray?

I have a confession to make. Sometimes, I am a complete slave to my mood. I don't know why, and I haven't figured out a way to combat it yet. It just happens, and all I can do is wait for it to go away. Anger or grumpiness or deep saddness or all three at once take over. They own me for two or three days at a time, and I don't know why it starts. I just know I can't make it stop.

That's crazy, you say. You can control your mood. Think positive. Act nice. Pray for help from the Holy Spirit.

I try, I really really do. I force the corners of my mouth up. I say polite words and hope they will turn to kind thoughts. I think of other things. I go through the motions of a day that means nothing.

My mind pulls me the other way. I think of doing the craziest, meanest, most spiteful things. These thoughts rarely result in action but still...I cannot make the bad images go away. I can't be nice because I can't think of anything nice.

I say words to God, but they always sound hollow. I feel disconnected and out of joint. I feel no return from the Father or from myself. The mood remains, and I am its slave. I can't pray. My mood won't let me reach up, won't let me reach out. I am an island, alone with my spiteful thoughts, with no way out of the pit.

And then, suddenly, the switch turns off. I am fine. I feel good. I can smile and mean it again. The mean thoughts and hurtful ideas hide away in some locked compartment of my mind, as if they never existed. My doorway to heaven re-opens. But not because I was praying. Not because I was being cheerful. It just happens for no reason I can discern.

What do you do if you can't pray? What help can you have if your spirit can't reach up to God? These dark moods are the worst struggles of my life, and I am sorry to anyone who gets the worst of me during those times. Something bad invades my mind, and what is inside affects what we do and who we are.

So when I can't pray, pray for me. Pray for joy and light to enter life again. Pray that my heart will re-awaken and banish these blues. Be my strength, and lend me understanding, show me grace when I am hurtful to you and say the wrong things.

I am stuck in the desert, searching for streams of water that do no appear. But when you are in the desert, when you can't pray and nothing seems well, the trick is not to stop. Keep moving, keep plunging forward, never give in to the mirage. Wait until you reach green lands again, because it will come. Even when you can't see the horizon. Even if you just can't pray.