TRUE STORIES ABOUT ANSWERED PRAYERS December 14, 1999 I decided to finally sit down and write about my experience with this topic. Many people, including me sometimes, have doubts about God answering their prayers. God has blessed me and my family with several experiences that verify to me that he does answer prayers. Here are a few true stories about our answered prayers. Hopefully, these stories will strengthen your faith in God's willingness to answer prayers. At the least, a couple of them will give you a good laugh. RAY GETS A WIFE I had an incredible track record with dating women. I don't know anyone who could match it. When I say incredible, I mean that my luck was bad beyond the normal envelope of reality. Here's one example. I met a girl at our church, it was her first visit. Our singles group went out for pizza together after the service. I talked to her for a while and I ended up giving her a ride home. We agreed that we would like to see each other again and set a date for the coming Friday night. I called her Thursday to settle a few details. She told me she had met someone that week (from our singles group) and had gotten quite close and did not feel right about going out with me. They were married within two months. Here's another example. I had a great first date with a girl, we went on a short dinner cruise. We had a blast and agreed that we would do something again the next weekend. Later that week I called her just to talk and she told me that she had gotten some leave time and was taking the opportunity to visit her parents out of town. A male friend of ours (from our church) who was engaged to her friend was going to drive her up since he had family in the area too. She asked if we could postpone the date until the next weekend. During the trip, our male friend proposed to her, she accepted the proposal. He broke off his engagement with his former fiancé after they returned from the trip. They were married within three months. These types of stories are typical of my relationships with women when I was single. There are many more stories, but I think these two get the point across. I had been praying prayers like "dear God, PLEASE help me find someone, I need a girlfriend, NOW." Or something along those lines. Finally, after years of struggling, I gave up and told God, "okay, it is alright with me if you need for me to stay single. I will quit making it my focus to get a date, and eventually marry. I will simply relax, pray, and seek your will. I will be happy with whatever you want." About a month and a half later I met Gail. We hit it off perfectly from our first date. We had so much fun together. I thanked God for every minute that he let me spend with her. I did not jump to any conclusions, I was just thankful for the joy I had in being with her. We continued to date. I continued to thank God and pray for his guidance in the relationship. Gail professed her faith in Jesus Christ during that time. There was one answered prayer. Everything fell into place and we did get married. We have been married for almost eight years now. It is a great marriage. I don't like to use a cliche', but it is a match made in heaven. I do not doubt that one bit. RAY GETS A REAL JOB I had worked in the shipyard for many years. I did not think it was the place for me to make my career. It was not fulfilling. I was frustrated. I struggled to find a new job for about five years. Sometimes I would work hard at it, sometimes I would wear out and slack off. I had some bad luck in the search. I worked with a headhunter on one job search. He set me up with a local interview with a military contractor that made weapons systems. Everything went just great. They liked me, I liked them. I was getting ready for the interview at the facility and the headhunter said that I would probably have to wet the floor during the interview to not get the job. Once again, everything went well. I did not wet the floor. Days went by without any contact. Finally the headhunter got in touch with their office. Funding had been cut for the project, they no longer had the budget to hire someone with my experience. I really impressed the plant manager at one company that makes automobile glass. The recruiter said everything looked like a fit. They flew me out to the plant to let me talk to the supervisors. I was interviewed by four of them at one time. One supervisor kept staring at me as if he did not like me. I left the interview with an unsure feeling. I had a call two days later. It turns out that the supervisor(who stared at me) did not have a degree, he told the manager that he did not think that I (who had a degree) would be a good fit in the group. That blew the whole deal. One time a recruiter had me set up to have a phone interview with a manufacturer of powerboats. We hit it off well. He was interested in me to fill a position in their new research and development project. We were arranging for a plant visit. Everything was looking good. A new Vice President was named, he cut the funding for the research and development project. These stories are typical. I continued my search. Several years after I got married, I changed my attitude about the whole career-thing. In the past I had prayed that God would help me find a new job, get me out of the shipyard, make me interview well...etc. I finally prayed "God, if you want me to stay, I will stay and do the best job I can. Otherwise just open the doors and I will walk through and work wherever you want me too. I will be satisfied with whatever you want me to do." I picked up a local paper while out for a walk one Sunday. I had been receiving classifieds from papers across the nation for months. I had long since quit looking at our local paper for jobs, they never had any in my profession. I did not even bother to look, but I left the paper on the dining room table. Gail looked through it and saw an ad that read "move to the Houston area." It advertised a position available for an engineer, the qualifications were a very good match to my own. I sent off a letter and resume. Several days later Gail had a call from the human resources manager at that company, it turned out they were located about 20 miles from the home I grew up in, and where my parents still lived, in Houston. I had a phone interview which went well. I traveled out to the plant, the interview went well. They made and offer, I accepted, and we moved to Texas, within 3 miles of my parents home. It turns out that Gail had been praying that if we moved, that we would be close to family. I decided to ask the human resources manager about his selecting my small town paper for his advertisement. He said he did not really know, he just picked it since it was near a shipyard. I asked what other east coast papers he advertised in. He said "none." I also asked if he had a huge response to the advertisement. He said, "oddly enough, almost no one responded, either locally when I advertised or when I advertised in your town's paper." He seemed a bit surprised about how they came to hire me. He was also intrigued by the fact that I asked him about it. It turned out that he was a strong Christian. We had to move halfway across the country, and we had to do something with the house we owned. I casually mentioned the situation to my neighbor. It turned out that his daughter and new husband had always liked our house and he was getting ready to move off base. They agreed to rent our house and move in the day after we left. Considering all the things that had to fall into place to make this new job transition work, I am certain that God was orchestrating the whole series of events. Since then, I have moved to a new company. I had a phone call one day from our competitor. The job was too good to pass up. I took the job. A little over one year later my company bought that company(where I had worked) and laid everyone on off in my previous department except for the guy who hired me out of the shipyard. How about that for a convoluted chain of events? Yes, I do think God is leading me to the right places. I thank God that I am following his lead. MEGAN IS BORN The birth of a child is an answer to prayer in itself. This story goes a bit beyond that. Megan was
born shortly after we moved to Texas. I was busy with my new job, we had just completed a
move, Gail was in the last term of her pregnancy, stress was a bit high. Gail gave birth to Megan
about a month early. The doctor decided to keep Megan at the hospital for one night. Gail and I
went home to sleep.
A PAIN IN MY BEHIND This story is not for those with a weak stomach. For some years I had a cyst-type infection on my backside. It went through phases, sometimes very bad, sometimes hardly noticeable. I had put off having it "fixed" because the cure seemed worse than the problem. To fix the problem, the doctor told me, he would have to carve out a sizeable portion of my behind. Unlike other surgery, where the doctor stitches up the wound, this "excavation" would be left open to heal from the inside out. This would be best described as scooping out a section of your body with say, an ice cream scoop, and just leaving it to heal on its own. Finally the problem was so annoying that I decided to have it "excavated." The doctor said that for about a week or so after the operation, that I would experience "quite a lot of pain." Most doctors describe things like giving birth as "discomfort." When a doctor actually uses the word "pain" they mean serious business. He said he would give me some pills that I could take that would take the edge off the pain. He said without them I would be in a lot of pain. I understood that "pain" was soon to be a part of my daily life. Before going in for the operation I prayed "God, please prepare the doctor to do the job you want him to do, in the best way possible. Please prepare my body to handle the operation and recovery. Please help me to deal with the recovery ordeal. Just take care of it." I awakened from the operation. A male nurse told me I did great. I told him I was not aware that I did anything, I was unconscious. I asked him, how big of a hole did he carve in me. He replied "he took out a section about the size of half a lime." "Half a dime?" I replied. "No, half a lime." He gestured with his hand to show me the size. He had large hands. The first test of success in the operation was to see if I could urinate right after the operation. The
nurse asked me if I was ready to try. I said "sure, I think I can do it." I stood up to realize that I
had what looked and felt like a huge diaper taped to my backside. I waddled to the restroom.
Urinating on demand is difficult for a guy. With the added pressure of wondering if the operation
had caused a dysfunction, the task was anticipated to be doubly difficult. The nurse waited just
outside the door. Wooh, yes sir I could! I passed the first test. I swaggered out of the bathroom
heady from victory. Everyone was impressed. I was impressed. I was also full of
pharmaceuticals. The operation was a success so far. Time to go home, and wait for the pain.
My next milestone was to go to the bathroom(not urinate, the other kind). Remember what part of my anatomy we are talking about here, and what normal body functions occur in the adjacent location (about one inch away). If this did not cause pain, nothing would. The time had come. I went to the bathroom as one would walk to the gallows. This certainly could be no fun at all. I would certainly have pain. I will stop the detail here. There was no pain. I thanked God again, he was just making this too easy on me. No character-building pain at all! I stopped taking pain killers. I never had any pain. I was talking to my mom during this recovery time. I told her that I could not believe that I had no pain! She then told me that she had been praying for some time that I would go through this with no pain. She herself had been through a similarly grueling operation and recovery. She had more that enough pain, for a long time. Her son had not thought to pray for her pain. But she knew what to pray for, and it worked. I had a call from the doctor. He asked me if I was handling the pain okay. I said "what pain, I have not had any." "What do you mean, none, or just not too much?" "None." "I do not understand, why not?" "An answer to prayer, my mom had been praying about it." There are more stories. I may put them all down on paper someday. But these examples illustrate my point. The point is, I am convinced that God had a hand in these events. I know my parents have prayed for me all my life. You may get the impression that all that bizarre "luck" with dating kept me from ending up with the wrong wife. You can also see the difference in the type of prayer and attitude that seems most effective, at least in my case. It is when I truly commit something to God, and HONESTLY subjugate my will to his, that he really starts making things happen. It is difficult, and I am a long way from true obedience, but the small steps I have made resulted in enormous blessings from God. Have a blessed day. |