Prayer

If you have not read Bernard Bro's book on Learning to Pray, I hope this long quote will be inspiring to you:

Every person, one day or another, becomes aware of her poverty as a creature. And since this experience is a crushing one, the natural temptation is therefore distractions, or as Pascal said, diversions...distractions appear as the opposite of prayer, a refusal of our real condition, an evasion of it in favor of illusion, dream, mirage.

...the first moment of true prayer occurs in the experience and awareness of one's limitations. ... prayer brings us back to what is most authentic in our quest for happiness. "The truth will set you free."  Prayer makes us free; it preserves what is most fragile and most precious in us: the integrity of our desire, that desire which, in final analysis, is nothing but the need for God.

And so, when I come face to face with the reality of my own poverty, I actually have come upon a moment of grace. I have the opportunity to enter into true prayer, and deepen my awareness of my need for God. This is a time when I must not be faint of heart, but go forward with great courage. For it is in prayer, true prayer, that I can become most authentic, and not let the truth I learn about myself be anything but a stepping block on my journey forward.