"Our Lord if very glad and happy that we should pray, and he expects it and wants it; for, through his grace, when we pray he makes us like him in quality as we are like him in nature, and this is his sacred will, for this is what he says; ‘Pray earnestly even though you do not feel like praying, for it is helping you even if you do not feel it doing any good, even is you see nothing, yes, even if you think you cannot pray; for in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in weakness, then your prayers give me great pleasure, even if you feel that they are hardly pleasing to you at all.  And it is so in my sight with all your trustful prayers.’  For the sake of the reward and the unending thanks which he wished to give us, he longs to have us praying continually before him.  God accepts the good intentions and efforts of those who serve him, whatever we are feeling; that is why he is pleased when we try hard and through our prayers and through living well, with his help and grace, we incline towards him with all our strength (but reasonably and prudently) until we possess him we seek in the fullness of joy, that is, Jesus.  And he revealed that in the fifteenth showing, where these words stand foremost: ‘You shall have me as you reward.’"  

-Julian of Norwich, Catholic anchoress and mystic from the 14th Century