Grateful

Only days ago, I lay on my floor crying harder than I have in a long time. I was feeling hurt and rejected and generally down.

After several minutes of intense bawling, I decided I needed the kind of comfort that has only come to me through prayer and reaching out to my loving Father and by allowing His Son's Atonement heal my broken heart. I desperately needed the warmth and clarity that has come previously through the Comforter.

Habitually, I begin my prayers with the things I'm grateful for. When I began my first sentence, I paused at the silliness of it all. Here I was in a moment of great despair, and the first words I uttered were "I'm grateful for". Surely, there could be nothing in my current state worth feeling grateful for.

However, I quickly uttered, I'm grateful for these intense feelings. I realized that if I was feeling this much pain, it was because I had also felt love and acceptance just as intense or more so. As painful as it was, I was grateful to feel, to care, to be aware of my well-being.

I expressed gratitude for many other things and asked for things that eventually soothed my soul. I was grateful for the perspective I received in that moment and for the other events that day that were truly answers to my prayer.