The purpose of prayer

To start off, if you find yourself within the grasp, or rather the talons, of a predicament - such as that of depression or grief - then please remember one thing for your own well-being: nothing, except for the creation of another deity, is impossible for God to do if you believe in Him. Now I'm not going to shove a whole load of watered-down, evangelistic theology down your trachea but I want you to at least acknowledge the stance from where Judeo-Christian philosophy roots itself from on the purpose of prayer.
Furthermore to the point, sometimes the likes of other people, and that of the current consensus that really can influence other people, can lead us to define what we need to regard as an imperative for being - say - cool, successful or even happy. Not achieving these standards can lead us to feeling chagrined, but Christ thought we were to die for (and I guess that he doesn't really care about how many hours we spend of our valuable time in the office!).
However the act of falling short of a hypothetical standard can lead us to feeling emotionally discharged; sometimes we just want to exist within that relatively transcendent void that seems to be in-between that of absolute life and absolute death - that's kind of like saying "I wish for a different kind of conditioning" as oppose to that of saying "I want to die" ad lib. The Bible teaches us to woe to those who call good evil and evil good; we Christians can take confidence in knowing that God is the dominion over all men (and the laws that they enforce) - Romans 7 is a great reference to turn to if you would like to learn more about The Lord and dominion.
Sometimes when fate is against your will, you wish for the drive (its the human norm to feel "needed") to hypothetically provision an alternative algorithm for doing the "desirable" thing - which should permit you to speculate that of your desired result a priori. Not knowing what the outcome could be because of acknowledgment of fate, sometimes you perceive such acts of fate as acts of serendipity, can lead us to make some pretty ill informed decisions, but don't rely on the fallacy of "luck" - speculate with that of the infinite entity - who "spoke the Earth into motion" ad infinitum - who will, regardless of which path you may choose to take, respond for so long as you accept Jesus as the messiah (knowing what happens in the future should really be a right observed for God alone) - and use him as a vessel for your forgiveness by God (only then you will be saved from the sins by which you were previously bound to), thus you will be able to experience the kingdom of Heaven as real once you pass away (spiritually) from this entity (what you perceive to be real right now will appear to you only as an illusion, in hindsight, once you start to regard that of a transcendent entity as real)!!