I suffered with infertility. I prayed incessently for a child. We were turned down at the adoption agency due to our stand on the blood issue. We had a private adoption fall through. 12 years went by all the while i was praying my heart out and seeing a fertility specialist. Finally I decided to stop praying for a child and appreciate what I DID have and stop obsessing about what I couldn't. I stopped praying for a baby, got a job, took up several hobbies and slowed down my Jdub activity. In time, I was actually GLAD for my freedom and so was my husband. Well, guess what? Within a few months I was pregnant. My husband was mad about it. Isn't that ironic? Science has shown that being uptight often interfers with fertility. My prayers were answered. Or were they? Oh ,BTW, this most special awsome child died in his early 20's while awaiting babtism into the Borg.
Prayers that God answers. Any examples?
by punkofnice 259 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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EntirelyPossible
So, not a single concrete example.
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punkofnice
Wow. I wanted to respond to everyone of you but haven't had the time.
I appreciate all your input whether you believe, believe not or remain uncertain.
As EP points out (Doctor not Dr ) there is nothing concrete in proof. The jug of milk vid is brilliant.
Now...
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Ultimate Axiom
Have you heard of the Great Prayer Experiment? As prayers are commonly asked for sick people an experiment was set up in which 1802 patients in six hospitals (all of whom received coronary bypass surgery) were divided in three groups. Group 1 received prayers but didn’t know it, group 2 received no prayers and didn’t know it, and group 3 received prayers and did know it. The prayers were delivered in three churches (one each in Minnesota, Massachusetts and Missouri). End result – no difference in the recovery rates for groups 1 and 2, while those in group 3 suffered significantly more complications. Conclusion - don’t have people pray for you – it makes no difference if you don’t know it, and if you do know it, you’ll be worse off.
I’ve had many good and fortuitous thing happen to me in my life, and I didn’t pray for a single one of them. If I had prayed, no doubt some here would say my prayers were answered. I would say, get real.
Finally, as plenty of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus etc etc pray to their Gods and get their prayers answered, it must mean God doesn’t give a toss what religion you below to.
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humbled
As I said a couple days ago, had to work and couldn't respond. I had a good day at the market-- sold all my spoons and got more orders. (I don't pray about that sort of thing, btw.) Now I'll tell my experience with a prayer God answered.
when I was 12 I prayed to God to get a black kitten. And I got one!
Just kidding. My prayer story isn't easy telling and isn't so short. And as I am a poor typist and my cheap computer drops whole paragraphs into a void from which they never return, I will punch "submit" from time to time.
In 1974 I was 22, I fell in love with a married man. I was fresh back in the U.S. from Ireland where I had examined my Irish Catholic roots for near a year, working/stranded in Dublin. I had not been a good Catholic girl except in the sense that I had plenty to confess to the priest whenever I went to confession which had not been for some long time as I didn't really want to say who I had been sleeping with.
But I had some real compunctions about getting involved with a married man--as with most women who have a "friendly skirt", I thought it wrong, very wrong, to touch a marriage, even a troubled one. But I got over my reservations.
The experience was troubling. It was one thing to be a "free" woman of the 60's-70's, open in what you said and did, and very much another to meet clandestinely and dishonestly. Lying, cheating, stealing for all practical purposes. I have never felt good about lying. This was a bad matter.
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Laika
I know quite a few people who have been prayed for and had certain long term pains or ailments disappear instantly and never come back.
I don't know if that's holy spirit or something psychological but at the very least I find it quite an interesting phenomenon.
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humbled
The truth of how sordid things had become was brought home to me when my lover told his wife who lived in another state with their children that he wanted a divorce to marry me. She resisted and moved back with him to try to resolve things that winter. I decided to clear out completely. Disgusted with myself. I moved to the neighboring state, found a job.
And found out I was pregnant.
Over the next months until the birth of my baby girl, I experienced a lot of misery. Yes, I had brought it on myself. And though that misery is not precisely what this story needs to dwell on, it is materially important to know how I viewed God and my own situation regarding talking to him about my wants and needs.
As I said, I was miserable. And as happens mostly with us, that is when we remember the Divine Helper.
I thought of HIM but reasoned that unless I was sorry for what I had done, he really had no obligations toward me.
In fact, I found myself entrenched in a conscious resistence to repentence and God when I had to get a TB test in relation to my work. Next to the clinic where I had my TB test I walked into a small streetside chapel of St. Mary the Magdalene. I entered because I felt an affinity with her (I had bought the catholic story-untrue-that she was a prostitute). But as I walked past lovely modern carvings of a reformed Mary, I reflected there was this critical difference: she had repented and I did not. Miserable months were to follow but I was not softened by the experience of it.
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humbled
By the time summer was ready to commence, I told my boss what was up and that I needed to go back home, tell my parents and many siblings that I was expecting. and who the father was. The father and his wife had not resolved the troubles of their marriage--especially now that I was expecting a child. They nevertheless continued together all summer almost to the fall when my baby was due. I found work in the town where my profoundly disappointed parents and younger brothers and sisters lived. I rented an apartment and didn't ask God for ****.
Interesting that, Catholic as we were, no one but my youngest brother talked to me about my actions and God. When I went home and told my family what the situation was and the room cleared out, he stayed. Just 9 or 10 at the time he had a smattering of catechism and the curiousity and openness of the very young. He just looked at me and said , really matter-of-act: "you sinned, didn't you?" And I told him, yes I had. And he left. I kind of felt relief just to have someone say it like that and to answer like that. funny.
Near my apartment was a Catholic church. Seven months pregnant I went to mass and was pleased to hear a sermon by a visiting priest (the regular one was on vacation I found out). He seemed smart and sincere and being a "temporary" priest I thought I'd see what arrangement I could make with God to be a Catholic and proceed with my plan to eventually marry the baby's father and be a Good Catholic.
Note: I'll hit submit button. I realize this is kind of a strange answer to Punkofnice's question, but I either have to answer this way or not at all. In small bits like this you can skip it as a nuisance if need be. For me, I either have to answer his question or not post on the forum any more. As I've said elsewhere, the answer I got to my prayer changed my life. So not to write is not an option for me even if you have an option not to read it.
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tec
I'm listening, Humbled!
Peace,
tammy
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humbled
Maybe I wanted to talk to a priest because one of my co-workers had been trying to "save" me. This was a moment when race made me tolerant.
Al was black and I guess kind of evangelical. He learned I was Catholic, pregnant, unmarried and involved with a married man. He asked if I would mind if he came to see me after work to talk with me about God. This did not make me happy. But I didn't want him to think I was prejudiced so I said "okay".
When he arrived he talked about his own conversion--which didn't move me--he explained the way of salvation which I could have if I would only "claim Jesus Christ" as my personal savior. And I became acutely embarrassed when this great big fellow knelt down in tears and invited me to give my life to Jesus.
I couldn't. It was just strange. The whole thing was foreign to all my experience and thoughts about God and religion. It did move me that he cared enough to come and make a spectacle like that for my sake. He left without any results, promising to pray for me. Maybe it was a factor in my going to mass and talking to the priest.
So the priest. I knocked on the rectory door that Sunday afternoon and got to tell him that I was pregnant(in case he had not noticed) and intended to marry the baby's father as soon as he was free to marry me. I told him that my intended's present marriage wasn't really a marriage anyway, in my-not-so-humble-opinion. So my question to him as the mouth of the Church-and-God was this: for a person who was this kind of situation and eventually married, what provision was there to be a full-fledged Catholic?
I remember this long silence after I said my piece. He then repeated back to me the salient points of my case and then told me that--when I had done as I intended and married this man-- then I would be free to enjoy all the sacraments of the Church, bar none---as long as I lived with this man, my husband as a sister lives with her brother.
!!!!!!????? I looked at him and realized that he really was an educated true believer and probably on firmground in saying that. Also he wasn't open to negotiation. And neither was I. So I left.
That was the last counsel I got from the Church on the matter for years--until after I took it to God about 4-5 years later.