Have you had your prayers answered?

[greenhi]

Low. Just looking for hope really.

Yes on many occasions.

Prayers don't work but changing you outlook and mental fortitude to be positive will help you go in the right direction.
Millions of RC prayed for Pope John Paul II when he was ill and on his death bed, it didn't work for him so I'd say the rest of us are all out of luck!

A job I really wanted.
I prayed to get into uni. I applied to 4 but wanted one closer to me. I got accepted into one which was just a short bus ride away
A better car than the one I was driving at the time. I ended up getting into a minor accident and the pay off from insurance and some of my student loan made it possible to buy another one.
Prayed for some friends/family to be healed from their sickness
Been really broke and not much food in and no money for a few days; I'd pray for help and somehow money would become available (school food voucher/ someone finally paying me back or my brother finally sold my trainers on Vinted and transferred the money to me)

The biggest I'd say is my teenage son used to go missing and got trafficked by drug dealers. I prayed every night he would be kept safe and return home to me. After 2 months the police called to say they found him A&W.
When he came home he told me of all the near misses and violence he saw around him but he was never harmed

God does hear us and gives us what we need when we need it. Please hang in there

(Sorry this is so long)

Hiya Greenhi, I pray daily and really believe in the power of prayer. I think in your case prayer may help bring you comfort, help you order your thoughts and help you rest. I don't think prayer will magically make things change in your relationships. If you want change, I think you need to take active steps towards that. So here perhaps a full and frank (calm) conversation with your ex about what you each feel, what you each want, and agreeing on practical arrangements that will be best for each of you and your child in the short, medium and long term. Hope you get some good sleep tonight and feel better soon x

Sometimes we get the answers before we have finally formed our questions. Today I have been thinking about someone who died. A series of thoughts of thanks for her life.
I feel that I have been 'looked after' by God/Jesus. So many small things go well or have good timing.
Some of the older prayers and readings are like meditation. The good ones sum up our feelings and express them succinctly.

Yes many times!

Don't forget that you won't always get the answer you want. But it will usually become clear why later on and make sense!

Touchwood, I'm just starting to get through a very difficult time, it was horrendous and the lowest part of my life. Very soon I think I will feel relieved this low point happened because it has been the catalyst for a better life, truly life changing. Don't make any rash decisions, feel
Your way through slowly and don't panic about stuff right now you can't change.

I never in a million years could have imagined thinking the disaster that happened would have a silver lining.

Yes prayers are answered but not always in a good way. Please be careful how you word your prayers. Like you I have a young family, but 12 years ago I was very very alone. I asked God to send me someone I could have a future with. I instructed God to not send me anymore time wasters. I met my DP soon after, but the key word I missed out of my prayer was a "happy" future. Oh we certainly had a future but most of it has been difficult due to his sneaking and problem drinking If I knew what my future had in store I would not have prayed for that. Now I pray that his character will change, yes it does at times but it never stays that way for long, until the next prayer. It is like a never ending cycle.

Why dont you pray to find happines you and your baby without him ?.
Your bsby is too small to know any different

No that's not impossible.

I meant things like changing the past or praying that terminally ill people survive.

But from what little you've wrote I dont think it would be the best for you.

Like a few have suggested it may just be worth praying for a good life for yourself and your child. Whether that involves restoring your relationship will become apparent with time.

Pray that His will be done. Pray for strength and comfort to overcome whatever challenges you’re going through. Often we want to ask for things that are not to our benefit. God knows what we need, and He has also promised to give us the strength necessary to get through the difficult times.

There are three answers to prayer. Yes, no, and not yet. Silence doesn’t mean He isn’t listening. Even though it’s sometimes so hard to understand.

@PrachtStück love this ❤️

Yes @PrachtStück nailed it

No because they don't work

Hi @greenhi I'm sorry you are having a hard time of things. Your question is phrased about religion but you sound like you just want to get back with your DP. It sounds like there could be good reasons not to.

I don't think God grants wishes like a genie. He has answered prayers for me, some quite specific things have worked out although I wasn't technically asking God I still got those things and in a way that points to divine intervention (really bizarre things).

Anyway I'm praying for you tonight that you can get some peace about your break up and some support in the future and I especially pray that you feel a sense of hope. There is always hope.

I like these lines from T.S. Eliot's poem 'East Coker'' seem to counsel patience:

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."

I've had prayers answered many times. Sometimes my praying failed. I then turn to philosophy and Buddhism.
I am going to light a candle for your intentions now. 🙏💐

I prayed to God to help save my marriage; He opened my eyes as to what I was married to.

Possibly the first controlled experiment in the world asked whether intercessory prayer works.

It compared the life and health of kings to that of other nobles. Everyone in the country was supposed to pray for the king’s health every night, so if prayer worked you’d expect to see kings being healthier and living longer than other nobles.

It turns out that they didn’t. Prayer, it was shown, doesn’t have any effect at all on measurable outcomes.

If it brings you comfort then of course it’s with doing, but if you want something out in the external world to happen then prayer is not the way to go.

Yes. I have had so many prayers answered. In fact, my whole life today is an answer to prayers. I prayed for things and God gave me all the things I had asked for, in ways more surprising and beautiful and perfect then I ever could have imagined or hoped for myself.

I have also experienced absolute miracles including a man rushed to hospital and not expected to survive, and after he was prayed for by our church group the doctor was astonished to find that he had made a full recovery - not only would he live, but when he woke up, symptoms that he should have (by every understanding of medicine) had to live with, had totally gone.

Miracles DO happen. Pray and believe.

Do you go to church? As it is also really healing and helpful to have other people pray for you too. When I feel especially weak or worried I ask other Christians to pray for me, it provides no end of comfort and also I firmly believe that prayers are answered. Whenever they're NOT, it's because God is protecting us from something, or because God has an even better plan for us that couldn't come together if He answers our prayer for the thing we want at this moment.

So I also have a number of things that I prayed for but didn't happen, and at the time I was unhappy or confused about why, but when I look back on now, I'm SO overwhelmed with gratitude and happiness that the specific prayer wasn't answered because if it had been, I wouldn't have been led to this much better thing. God never abandons us, it's just that sometimes we don't understand at that moment what He's doing.

(When I say 'pray', I'm referring to praying to the Christian God, and as a Christian I obviously don't believe that prayers offered to other gods or 'the universe' are effective. In fact, the very opposite.)

There is no specific way to have to pray. No certain words you need to say. Just talk to God. Even just talk to Him as you'd talk to a friend or a family member! God loves you and wants a relationship with you. Obviously love isn't forceful, and love isn't controlling, so God won't force Himself on you, but He ALWAYS desires a relationship with you, He is ALWAYS there waiting for you to come back to Him, He is ALWAYS listening.

I also agree with a PP that God WON'T do what ISN'T best for us. If we pray for a return to a relationship with is unhealthy, or damaging to us, or to our children, or will separate us from Him, or guide us on a bad or dangerous path in life, then He won't answer your prayer, He loves you. It's similar to how you wouldn't let your child play with something dangerous - they might sob and scream and kick, they might feel like you're horrible and feel so upset and confused about why you won't let them play with this really fun thing that they're desperate to try out! But you obviously can't, because you love them and you have to do what is best for them.

So pray to God, but also TRUST Him.

Maybe you'll get back with your ex.
Maybe one day you'll look back on this moment and be SO grateful that He didn't answer this one prayer, because He led you to something so, so much better that you can't imagine your life without.

Either way, pray, and trust!

Some excellent posts @greenhi , god is not a genie. But through prayer you will find strength and you will grow from this pain, your child will have a wonderful Christmas and you will find love again with someone who deserves you.

Yes yes, yes, yes, yes and yes!

No, it's utter nonsense to think that a 'being' who allows all the atrocities of the world to carry on will give a fig about you wanting to get back together with your husband.

This is exactly why I have periods where I don't pray. It feels slightly narcissistic to pray for myself and a happy ending, when such huge things are happening in the world. How could God possibly care about my insignificant existence when the world is in such a terrible mess? It does screw with your brain if you think about it too long.