A few weeks back, I spent several weeks in something of a funk.  That’s really nothing all that new if you know me personally.  But there was perhaps a higher undercurrent of general dissatisfaction than normal.

Part of it came from a brief episode of hypochondria.  It took two visits to the doctor, during which he assured me, at length, both times, that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.  Sure enough, now, the little problem I was so worried about being the start of some terrible condition is completely gone as if it never existed.  Guess it was a sinus-related thing after all.

Part of it came from work-related frustration.  There is always work-related frustration.  Anyone who works in local television has it.  Anyone who works in any form of media has it.  Hell, anyone who has a job of any kind has it.  The thing that was frustrating me most is a little pet peeve of mine that relates to malfunctioning things not being fixed fast enough.  But the problem is that I’m not always the most reasonable person:  if something goes awry, I want it fixed now.  Not tomorrow.  Not next week.  Not after I send an email.  Now.  Trouble is, there are fifty other people with their own short list of things they want fixed now.

There were some personal issues in the mix, too.  No need to talk about them here, because I couldn’t go into enough detail for them to make any real sense, anyway.

The result of all of these minor annoyances, and yes, I can admit that they’ve all been far too minor in the grand scheme of things, is that I have felt stressed out and burned out.  Generally disgusted.  Somewhat unmotivated.

I’ve written before about a teacher’s piece of advice that came completely out of the blue one day but has rang true many times in my life.  Sometimes, taking the advice is easy.  Lately, for me, it wasn’t.  I needed to be in control of these problems, I told myself.  Part of me actually didn’t want to let any of it go, because I liked being melancholy.   Those of you who have never suffered from any kind of depression won’t understand that, and I know it; you’ll just have to take my word for it that there are times when a depressed person feels more comfortable being depressed than content.

Two weeks ago, I was at church and I ran the lights for the service.  Afterwards, I approached my friend Archie, one of my pastors, and just asked him to add me to his prayer list for when he had time over the week.  Archie put his arm around me and said, “Let’s pray now.”  So we did.

I’ve had a harder time since that day getting back into that funk.  Which is both a really, really good thing, and a slightly bad thing.  I don’t want to be down about things in general at the moment, but as I said, there are times when that is my comfort zone.  In praying with Archie, I seemed to come away with some level of peace I wasn’t honestly expecting, and, perhaps, a slightly different perspective on how unimportant a lot of those frustrations had been.

So now, as part of me wants to just slip back into sulking mode, another part of me finds that very difficult to do.  I’ll admit that it’s a very odd way to come to the lesson, but I am reminded of an old saying:  “Be careful what you wish for!”