When all else fails and your family and friends are out of suggestions, there is always Google. I'm not gonna lie. Throughout my life when I'm alone and confused, I type random things into Google such as, "What should I do with my life?" Then I spend the next hour or two scouring through the suggestions reaped by the trusty search engine.
Recently, I found myself on Google doing some "research." I was having a particularly bad night and typed in the following: "I need a miracle." To my surprise, I immediately found several websites that offered to pray for miracles for free! "Need a miracle?" one site rhetorically begs the question. Though some of the webpages asked for donations, most did not. Most of the sites happily obliged prayer requests without any mention of monetary compensation. Just check out Prayers Online.net. This page simply asks that you spread the word about their site so that others may find them and request miracles too.
I left my prayer request in the comments section where the web host individually prays for whomever leaves one. I wasn't going to stop there, I needed a miracle, I was no amateur and this was serious; I knew that if a miracle was to occur, I needed to hedge my bets. So I went back to my Google search and found another site, Blessed Miracle.com. This site has a very nice post about miracles on its homepage. On another page you can write your prayer request and send it to them. "Please send your prayer requests to us. We would like to pray for you!" Well you don't have to tell me twice, already sent!
I waited a few days but nothing happened. I decided to revisit the site to find out if I did something wrong? Sure enough, per usual, I forgot to read the directions, well in this case, I forgot to read the disclaimer:
My dear friend, sometimes the answer to our prayers is not what we ask for specifically. This is because God knows better than us what we need, and he gives us what we need, not what we want. So, we may find ourselves beating our heads and pulling out our hair because we have not gotten what we wanted, what we thought we needed.
That reminds me of a song...
I will admit to you the sad truth: I was playing dumb, and I'm sure God saw right through my antics. I already knew that sometimes the answers to your prayers come in the form of no answer or nothing happening at all. It is not until months and sometimes years later that you realize why not getting what you wanted this or that particular time was really a blessing in disguise.
I am still pretty bummed about my prayer not being answered in the way I hoped or my miracle not being delivered in the way I envisioned, I know that this too shall pass. Until then, I have my friends, family, and trusty search engine, Google, to rely on and most importantly I will try to remember something a very wise man once said:
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" -- The Rolling Stones
Do you have any examples in which you did not get what you wanted and it ended up being a good thing in the end? Please share in the comments section!
Thanks,
Hayley
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