I have known good years and bad years with prayer, seasons of contentment and gratitude and seasons of anguish and dereliction. I expected a straight-line vector of growth, something like the Wall Street charts of mutual funds that steadily gain in value every year. Instead, the line veers up and down erratically like that on a heart monitor. Only later, in retrospect, can I see that the darkest times solidified my faith and that somehow the words I wrote in those times God used to speak to others.
