crimson

prayers... how often do you reach for them... how often do you ask help, and how often do you believe...

i remember this one movie where the answer to a prayer is defined as such:


when you pray to God...
He never gives what you expect to recieve...

does God give the person money
when he asks for money?
does God give the person courage
when he asks for courage?
doe God give the person love
when he asks for love?

or does He give him the opportunity,

to make money
to seek courage
and to find lnd love?

what you ask is never what is given
what is iven is the opportunity
to reach for what you ask


how often are your prayers answered?
or have you even payed any attention to whether they actually have been?

one thing is cetain... all you need to do is believe!


i remember this one time when i had a problem with all my relationships... my family was having fight after fight after fight... my girlfriend and i had a very long cool off period, my "barkada" (filipino term for a group of friends, sort of like a clique) was somehow falling apart, and my very close friend was doubting my loyalty and trustworthiness...

and a week before that i thanked God for a healthy relationship with all of my closest people and that he make it even more stable... haha! boy was i frustrated!

but you know what? a week after that with patience and work, i got to somehow find strength to try and mend everything together... just when everthing was about to cruble and fall apart... i'd have to thank one person who never really stood out until then... my new friend... she was a freshman then, and i, a senior.

she helped me flatten it out... and thank the Lord, it as flattened... and we are closerthan ever now! haa... what a really tiring week that was all right!

how about you? have any story to tell?

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i'll choose to love whoever i wish to love and nobody can stop me from doing so ----

crimson

BrokenLover101

My dad was in the hospital when I was young and he didn't have a great chance of surviving. He had to get surgery and the doctors said that there was only like a 10% chance of him surviving it. So we stayed at the hospital and prayed, over and over asking god to let the surgery go smoothly and all of this. In the end he survived. I was a very strong religious person then.. I was until a few years ago anyway..

I was walking home with my friend one day and there was a drive by shooting, she didn't see the car in time to drop to the ground and was shot.... ... after they sped away I crawled over to her, holding her in my arms praying that she would be okay. When I thought it was safe to leave her, i ran to the nearest house and called 911, I prayed to him the WHOLE entire time.. and she still died....

I haven't been religious since.

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crimson

ouch... i eally feel for you... i've lost a friend once... you know the philippines right? ant there's a war going on in the southern side, well, i belong to one of the cities in that side in a chaotic time about a few years back, our international airport was bombed, and i lost two of my friends in tht bombing... they were very religious, twins in fact... a boy and a girl... i believe 've never seen one without the other... (except maybe in some of the classes... we were sectione by the administration... and they were separated back in grade 2, 4, 5, and on 1st year high school), they were on their way to manila (our capital city) to meet with their parents forthe first time since 2nd grade... boy was i so disheartened... i mean, they never missed church! they died too young... 1st year... 1st year high... 13 years old... 13...

sigh...
i still miss them terribly

that was so bad... ihate common day violence you know... it sucks, they havetoo many innocent victims!
i hate it! i really do!!!

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i'll choose to love whoever i wish to love and nobody can stop me from doing so ----

crimson

divine_punishment

Ha, that reminds me of a country song (I HATE COUNTRY!) called "I Thank God For Unanswered Prayers . . ." It's cute.

As for me, I have a little miracle to tell. My first year of teaching I had this really great student named Jacob. He was so sweet and bright; he told me that he was going to be the first American pope. The week after he left my class, he was at the park. A group of older kids were throwing flat fence tensioning rods at cans and he would help pick them up. One kid threw a rod at another kid, missed, and the rod went into Jacob's head. DEEP. It shattered part of his skull, took out a huge chunk of his brain.

In the hospital, the doctors said that he wasn't going to make it. He was EIGHT YEARS OLD! Everyone was devastated. I visited him and he was so small and helpless . . . We all prayed for him.

A week later he had woken up. The doctors still said that he would never be the same. The part of the brain he lost controlled his memory and personality. He would just be a vegetable. He occasionally parroted phrases like "I love you" if someone spoke with him, but there was no hope. I went back up to the hospital. When I stepped in the room, his mother said, "Jacob, do you know who that is?" He croaked out, "Bhrett. From Church." HE REMEMBERED ME!!!

Two weeks after that, he was out of the hospital and I hadn't heard any updates. I was kneeling, praying, before Mass when I heard my name called. I looked up . . . and Jacob was running toward me, laughing. He sat next to me during Mass and remembered all of the responses, sang like a bird, everything. The only signs that anything had happened were a slight shake, a scar on his forehead, and an eating disorder (brought on by his parents' divorce). That's IT. MIRACLE!!!

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Billum256

I've had a few experiences when my prayers have been answered. I've prayed alot for a friend of mine when she went to college. She isn't very social and has problems making friends. I prayed that she would get along well in college almost every night. After a short while she found a group of friends and became more social. I was also praying to help me with my friendship with her. After a little effort on my part we started going out. Were still dating now and I pray that we will stay together. Its worked to this point.

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Abu Dhabi

*^_^* aww! you guys are making me cry here!

anyways, i'm always praying to God... a lot of times i feel like He's not listening... but i KNOW in my head and heart that, a lot of the times, i'm not listening...

i know God has answered a lot of little things that seemed really big at the time... you know, the kinds of things that give you hope to God and in the world? like one time, my Darling lost his wallet on the bus (my fault) and we had been freaking out about it. i mean, driver's licesence, credit cards, address, a whole bunch of money... everything, we thought, was lost and gone for good. we even starting planning on canceling the cards and thinking of when to go back to the DMV...

but then he got a call from his mom... apparently someone RETURNED the wallet to the driver (mind you, this is LA so we were super surprised) and the driver returned it to the MTA station! but the funny part was is that the attendent was Filipina! and she recognized the names and pre-fexes in front of the phone numbers (things like Tita Bing and Ate Ileen, Tita=aunt and Ate=sister/close female cousin... or, really any girl you're close too)! so she made certain Darling got his wallet back!

i know it's nothing compared to the other stories people have... but for me, little things mean a lot, so that really blew my mind! i'm sure i have other good ones, but i can't remember them right now!

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Tetsanosuke Kirikami

In all of my utter experiences from when I was a young Christian.. None of my prayers were ever answered. And none of the ones that were of significant or out of the norm were answered either in our family. Sure we all lived when we prayed for good health, but we got sick anyway. Just not to the point for us to die. ( I got close a few times in the past.)

Basically, I stopped praying to God when I found out it wasn't my way. When I could just feel that God didn't truly have a place in his heart for me, I just left it. I knew it because I could feel it, that he wasn't what everyone told me he was.

After a while I tried my hand at the Wiccan faith, which utterly spawned my interest in Magic (in part) and Polytheism. I started to name my own spirits and a head avatar of the Pentacle. Then I moved on to just growing, growing and nurturing my faith into the things I believe today.

God never once answered my prayers, nor did he ever give the way to obtain them. Not that it made me angry, I could just feel that sort of thing leave me. Sure it was nice to be a part of a group but I just couldn't take that. He was not my lord and savior, he didn't answer my own prayers (or nearly all my families, though that can be debated about whether he actually 'answered' them or it just so happened luck was on their side).

Sometimes I wonder how people cannot open their minds, though I can feel them all be comforted by their faith it at times proves to myself that what I believe is in fact right. It's in my reality.

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Astaroth

I used to believe in God a lot.......and i mean A LOT!!!!!
But something in my life happened that made me loose my faith in him and from then on I do not believe in God anymore......and probably never will..........
Actually, for a long period of time......i used to hate hod so much.....that my friends called me Satan......but the anger and hatred passed away and now, I have no feelings left for him nor faith or compassion.

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