I will pray for you and your team.

Swimmerbabe11 : Here's a Traveler's Prayer from my tradition, somewhat archaic but.....

Traveler's Prayer
The Prayer for a Safe Journey

May it be Your will, Gd, our Gd and the Gd of our fathers, that You should lead us in peace and direct our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in peace, and cause us to reach our destination in life, joy, and peace (If one intends to return immediately, one adds: and return us in peace). Save us from every enemy and ambush, from robbers and wild beasts on the trip, and from all kinds of punishments that rage and come to the world. May You confer blessing upon the work of our hands and grant me grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us, and bestow upon us abundant kindness and hearken to the voice of our prayer, for You hear the prayers of all. Blessed are You Gd, who hearkens to prayer.

Psalm 91.

Great thread idea.

I'm traveling today through Wednesday for work, any and all prayers for the families safety back home are appreciated.

Thanks

Prayers sent. I hope your return is safe!

TY. All went well.

Prayers sent for you and your family. May you all find strength, comfort and peace in the Lord.

Thank you and bless you.

From St Gregory of Nyssa's first homily on the Lord's prayer:

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To be sure, all things are dependent on the divine will. The present life is ordered from above. This is obvious to all and no one can contradict it. However, as we have come to know, success in such material things through prayer has other causes. God in no way dispenses these things as good gifts to those who ask, but rather grants them as means of strengthening the faith of the more shallow. Thus engaged with the smallest requests and learning by experience that God hears our supplications, God wants us to rise to the desire for the gifts which are both higher and worthy of Him.

In the same way God uses all things to accustom a person to look to Him. Therefore He is often not deaf even to the smallest requests in order, through His kindness in small things, to call the recipient of His grace to the desire for higher gifts. So now you must comprehend the aim for which, according to divine providence, a person rises from obscurity to become both renowned and admired, or acquires anything else, such as high position, or wealth, or reputation, which are sought after in this life. God's loving care shown in these matters provides you with proof of His great power in order that, because you may have received such childish toys, you may present requests to the Father for greater and more perfect gifts. The latter are the gifts that accrue profit to the soul.

Indeed, it would be utterly foolish for one to approach God and ask the Eternal for transient things, the Heavenly for earthly benefits, the Highest for trifles, the One who grants the Kingdom of Heaven for earthly good fortune deserving of contempt. To do so would mean that from the One who gives abiding blessings we would ask for the fleeting use of things foreign to our eternal destiny. Indeed the enjoyment of earthly goods is temporary and their use risky, while in the end they must necessarily be taken away.

Excessive concern for ephemeral things belongs to those who hold no hope regarding the future age neither fear of judgment, nor the threat of hell, nor expectation of blessings, nor anything else which we await at the resurrection. Looking upon the present life in the manner of grazing animals, they classify as good whatever gratifies their palate, their belly, or any other carnal pleasure. They strive to be ahead of others and to be regarded as preeminent. Or they find security in their abundant money or anything else in this deceitful life. If someone happens to speak to them about our future hope, it seems to them as outright nonsense talking about paradise, kingdom, life in heaven, and the like. It is characteristic of those who are without hope to cling to the present life. The Divine Word well states, therefore, that pleasure seekers who suppose that they can fulfill useless and vain desires through prayer are like the Gentiles. For these think that by beseeching God for unseemly things, they will recruit Him as partner in achieving what is not needful.

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Don't let the enjoyment of earthly goods tempt you away from your true and sole purpose as a Christian: to seek the abiding blessings, to ask God for the gifts worthy of asking Him.

Those challenges are good for us, because they show us how dependent we are on things that are ultimately empty -- food, money, power, sex, recognition, etc. This is an opportunity for us to recognize our weakness and bondage to created things, and turn to God where we look to the "hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast". (Heb 6:19) From there, we say to ourselves: "My soul, wait in silence for God only, For my hope is from Him. (Ps 62:5)

As David says:

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LORD, make me to know my end
And what is the extent of my days;
Let me know how transient I am.

"Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight;
Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.

Surely every man walks about as a phantom;
Surely they make an uproar for nothing;
He amasses riches and does not know who will gather them.

And now, Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in You.

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Even in struggle we have a blessing.

K2 & JJ, thank you for the awesome reminders, it is a blessing to have faithful to help us through our struggles.

God Bless you both.

RetiredAg said:

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Struggling with depression right now. Badly. I suffer from chronic depression. Please keep me in your prayers.

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Prayers sent!!!

St John Cassian wrote about the eight passions, the basis for the seven deadly sins in the west. Interestingly, the one that's left out in the west is the one you are struggling with -- what St John calls despondency or melancholy.

While patristic psychology seems perhaps at times at odds with modern understanding of depression, I'm not sure that when you take the approach holistically (that mind, body, soul are interlinked) that it is. It seems to me at times that the mental diseases that can plague us can have root in spiritual struggles. Not all depression meets this criteria, but I believe some does.

Anyway. Here are some of his writings on the subject.

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29. Sorrow and despondency. In our fifth struggle, we are faced with having to deflect the arrows of all-consuming sorrow, which, if they conquered us, would prevent us from seeing God, plunge our soul from the heights of its worthy stature, weaken and crush us. Sorrow will not allow us to pray with the necessary heartfelt animation, nor read the Holy books (a means of spiritual therapy), nor work diligently, nor be at peace and affable with people. Having taken away from us all powers of reasoning, sorrow will make us impatient and cantankerous, agitate our heart and make our soul appear inane and gloomy, crushing it with destructive depression. (Blessed John Cassian)

29. Sometimes, this sickness is begotten from some type of passion: anger, lust or desire to become rich. At other times, without any apparent reason but through the actions of the cunning enemy, we are suddenly overwhelmed with such sorrow that we alter our attitude toward even our dearest individuals, so that anything they say to us, we regard as inappropriate and superfluous, unable to respond to them politely as our heart is filled with bitterness. (Blessed John Cassian)

29. There is another, most frightful aspect of sorrow, which does not instill into the sinner an intention to change the lifestyle, but a destructive depression. It didn't allow Cain to repent after he murdered his brother, and forced a depressed Judas to hang himself after his betrayal. (Blessed John Cassian)

29. The sorrow of this world is extremely complainant, impatient, cruel, obstinate and leads toward destructive depression. Having overwhelmed a person, it upsets him, distracts him from prayer, from every redeeming activity and from any act of repentance. (Blessed John Cassian)

29. We can conquer ruinous sorrow if we try to enliven our soul with visions of future joy. In this way, we will be able to overcome the various forms of sorrow emanating from anger, from suffering losses, from having been offended, from spiritual disorders and that sorrow which brings us to depression. Being joyous in our vision of future blessings and remaining in this disposition, we will not lose heart when we experience unfortunate circumstances, nor exalt ourselves when we are happy considering our circumstances to be worthless and temporary. (Blessed John Cassian)

29. The sixth struggle facing us is that of despondency or melancholy. Despondency is akin to sorrow and is experienced mostly by people who commit themselves to a solitary life. It especially disturbs the ascetic at midday. Some Holy Fathers refer to it as the "midday demon" mentioned in Psalm 91. (Blessed John Cassian)

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I also found this link to be a good read.
http://www.antiochian.org/1141449331

Good luck my friend. Prayers, Lord have mercy.

RetiredAg said:

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Struggling with depression right now. Badly. I suffer from chronic depression. Please keep me in your prayers.

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I know the feeling. Hope you get some relief soon.

RetiredAg said:

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Struggling with depression right now. Badly. I suffer from chronic depression. Please keep me in your prayers.

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How does depression manifest itself for you?

Curl up in fetal position. Get very short-tempered and intentionally start fights, typically w/ my wife, so she gets mad at me and I feel like I justify my self-loathing.

RetiredAg said:

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Curl up in fetal position. Get very short-tempered and intentionally start fights, typically w/ my wife, so she gets mad at me and I feel like I justify my self-loathing.

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Wow, that's awful. Do you typically find there is a trigger or is it random?

I'm interested in other people's experiences with depression as I'm very close to someone dealing with it right now.

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Wow, that's awful. Do you typically find there is a trigger or is it random?

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Yeah, there are typically triggers.

RetiredAg said:

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Wow, that's awful. Do you typically find there is a trigger or is it random?

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Yeah, there are typically triggers.

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Thanks for responding, and I'm sorry you're going through that.

RetiredAg said:

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Curl up in fetal position. Get very short-tempered and intentionally start fights, typically w/ my wife, so she gets mad at me and I feel like I justify my self-loathing.

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You're a good person, Retired. Positive thoughts sent and I hope you are able to start preventing some of the self sabotaging. You are not alone, friend

RetiredAg said:

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Struggling with depression right now. Badly. I suffer from chronic depression. Please keep me in your prayers.

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Retired, I am praying for you again tonight as I am struggling with the same kinds of feelings. For only the second or third time in my nearly 55 years have I fallen pray to these overwhelming feelings of depression and despair. I pray you will be blessed and strengthened by his word and his grace. I pray you and I are being sharpened to handle bigger opportunities to help and encourage others and to receive blessings we can't imagine at this point! Our Heavenly Father will not give us more than we can bare and be will support and carry us in our troubled times as long as we are willing to do our part!

God Bless you Sir!

K2 and JJ, thank you both again for the blessings and encouragement through your words and readings!

Thanks all for the prayers. I'm out of the storm now and feeling much better. It's hard to explain how it feels during those cycles, but the closest I have found is that it's like a combination of walking through a horribly thick fog and how sometimes the voice and lips on a tv show don't match up. It's this sense of being utterly lost and hopeless while nothing seems in sync.

Again, thank you all for the prayers. I have an amazing wife and children that are so amazingly patient, compassionate and understanding during these times.

Retired, I know exactly how you feel when you talk about being out of sink. Facing the desperate feelings of hopeless and helplessness that overcomes you. I've never been one to want to feel like a victim but those feelings coupled with the struggles of life make it feel like the deck is stacked against us.!

I refuse to be a victim but I also refuse medication so prayer is my support system. I to have a great family support system but it ways very heavily on them and it is unfair to them!

Retired, prayers for you..and your family to have the patience and gentility needed to help you through those storms.

Woody, prayers for the person who you know who struggles with depression too.

TLDR: Pray for me.

Well friends, I think it's time I disclosed this. I've been suicidal off and on for decades. Dealt with depression, dealt with anxiety. Part of the issue that I ultimately came to realize, is the very Nietzschean dilemma of nihilism. For pretty much ever, I saw absolutely no reason to continue to exist. As you can imagine, this was a fatal blow to virtually every aspect of my external and internal life, and I lived this out for many, many years. So, I tried a bunch of reasons and beliefs on for size. I needed a compelling reason to live. I needed a compelling reason to take any kind of action in life, even at the most rudimentary level. Obviously, I didn't have it. The awesome thing is, I recently came to a crazy realization. I do have a reason to act, and by God, I've been acting it out and I had no clue I was. This revelation immediately dissolved the suicidality. And I feel great. Really. A sense of persistent, positive emotion and even meaning in living. Truth is though, I'm not all the way there yet. I need a little help. In the midst of my existential crisis of being, I developed a number of poor habits and addictions, and boy are they ingrained in me mentally and neurologically. My shift in problem has been from a problem in being to a problem in living. I need some help. I need to break these habits and addictions. God, I've been trying so hard to, and not just since my realization. I've been trying to break them for a long, long time. I need some prayers. Please pray for me. Pray for me to let go of the cravings. Pray for me to let go of the resistance. Pray for me to surrender these issues. Thank you. I'd like to close by saying that I love each and every one of you, and not in spite of anything you might think is a negative about you, but because of it. Thank you.

1492, you have many praying for you. Many you don't know and will never know pray for you and your family, pray for your strength through our Lord and Savior, pray for the Lords grace and healing power to overcome your additions and emotions supporting these addictions!

God Bless you!

I'd like to request prayers of peace for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ at my congregation and celebration that God in His great mercy has called two of His own away from this vale of tears.

We have two funerals this week. One today and one tomorrow.

Today is the funeral of a baptized member of our Church who was only 4 days old. His father is Ethiopian and our church is sponsoring him to seminary to further build our African ministry. His mother had an emergency c-section and as her child was life flighted to another hospital, she actually never got to see her son. However, this sweet baby who never breathed on his own was baptized and joined with our congregation just as any of us are.

Please especially pray for his mother and father, that they may receive the peace only God can give.

In very sweet juxtaposition, receiving the same funeral service is Reverend Gene Oesch, who was the first pastor of my church and served for 40 years. He will have 60 members of his biological family at the service. He was 90 years old and went to sleep in Christ through natural causes. He was a giant in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and his funeral will practically be the type a dignitary would have with all sorts flying in. To hear the families baptized, confirmed, married, etc is just amazing.

Please pray for his family and celebrate with them a wonderful life lived.

My pastor told me last night that the baby's father has taken immense comfort in the juxtaposition and the fact that they receive the same exact service because they were both complete member's of God's Church and even though they are 89 years apart in age, both Children of God hand in hand today.

Welp. Randomly clicking around this afternoon with nothing better to do, so I'll post here.

I'm absolutely scared sh**less right now. On Thursday night, my wife picked me up with a positive pregnancy test.

A little background about us. We're both in our early 40's. We mulled over having kids, but it was always a "if it happens, it happens" thing. We were kind of confident we'd be good parents, but that was all theory. As time went on, we really enjoyed being workaholic DINKS. As the window closed, we were slowly making peace with it never happening. And then this happened.

I know the chances of a miscarriage in older pregnancies is really high, but I've spent all weekend planning my next 18 years. Forget going back to Europe, forget the cruise we had planned next year. Forget the $3000 espresso machine I wanted to buy. I gotta lock up my booze now and get a much better gun safe. Jeez, we'll be in our mid 60's when she graduates (Yes, it'll be a girl. I'm 100% positive. Don't ask - long story. No, we didn't do a procedure. I just know.) Long term financially, are we really ready for this? We're going to need to get a bigger house.

Outside of the Super Regionals, my only thoughts this weekend were how to tiger dad her into A&M.

So, basically T&P would be really appreciated. I never thought this was my calling, but if it is, please bless me with the wisdom not to screw it up.

Congrats, dude! Also, you are supposed to be scared ****less with your first. Also, you are never ready, never have enough time or money. But these are just fears. You will be fine. Y'all sound like you have a very sound foundation. I've known a few couples with pregnancies in their 40s. All were fine and routine. Buckle up, and dont lock up the liquor cabinet too tightly...you're going to need that too...

That's awesome dude. Regardless of what happens, just be the best Dad you can be. Love that baby. Show that baby the love of Christ. Teach that baby what it means to be a man. Conversely, teach that baby what it means to be a woman. Golly. That's so awesome. Growing up, having a career, having kids, that's ****ing life! Lot of people today don't get that. Or hate it. Love your kid man.