I think I've had a breakthrough-- I've now had two strong days in a row. I'm going to try to make a third tomorrow, please continue to pray for me. Your prayers are making a big difference.

The revelation was this notion of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The past two days I have been focused on keeping them more in balance. I'm going to try to build my life around this concept.

I ran the Liturgy Committee meeting last night. I recognized ahead of time that this would put my sympathetic nervous system on overdrive-- so I asked my manager if I could use three hours of vacation time this afternoon. I got home at 13:00, and was able to catch up on all of my church stuff. Now instead of being up all tonight totally wired, I will be able to relax for the next hour and a half before lights out.

Monday morning was rock bottom for me. I cried the whole way to work-- I could barely make out the road. I prayed and prayed and prayed, imploring God to have mercy on me. Then I got the parking lot at work, and just put my head on the steering wheel, sobbing: do I go into the office, or do I drive to Wisconsin, get a hotel room, and just throw everything out the window?

God gave me the strength to make it through the day. Then I found the aforementioned nervous system explanation. And now I've had a couple of good days in a row. The evening prayer today was written just for me: I completely broke down reading the two Psalm 116 sections-- but this time, I cried not out of pain, but out of gratitude to the Lord our God.

At last night's Liturgy Committee meeting, our pastor assigned me the responsibility of leading the Stations of the Cross all throughout Lent-- "the perfect thing for a deacon candidate." This is a huge blessing for me, and I extremely appreciate Father's vote of confidence as Ellyn and I near our panel interview date on February 4.

These affirmations help me to have strength, as I work with God's graces.