Do you know how to pray?

Back in 2001 when my first born Matthew was diagnosed with a heart condition I thought I was prepared and I thought I knew how to pray. I was told the he was have surgery and live to be a normal healthy baby boy and that was what I expected. All my life it seems that when I prayed that God answered my prayers and gave me just what I wanted and I expected the same with Matthew’s condition. I knew that if I prayed and had faith that God would answer my prayers. I had every reason to have faith so I did when I prayed. The night before Matthew’s surgery when I prayed I even told God that I put Matthew in his hands and at the time I meant it. So to my surprise, Matthew died shortly after surgery. Can you imagine the shock? I did all that I was suppose to do in terms of prayer and trusting God – yet my baby didn’t make it. What do you mean? Although I knew God and still trusted him, I told my mom if I had known he was going to take Matthew I would have never told Him “Lord, I give you Matthew”J. Although I suffered for seven long months, I still knew enough about God to continue in prayer for myself and to trust Him and on what would have been Matthew’s 1st birthday (November 26th 2001) that day that I was REALLY going to have a pity party, God took all the hurt and pain away! I learned how to pray and really mean it one Sunday evening at Baptist Training Union (BTU) when my pastor taught us the 4 key elements to praying: Petition the Lord for what you want (Just as of Him the desires of your heart) Pray in the name of Jesus Believe that God can and will answer all prayers Pray in God’s Will (know that some desires of your heart may not be God’s will) Of the four elements the most important to me is praying in God’s will. That means if God doesn’t answer your prayer the way you wanted that all is well. For some reason it just was not meant to be. To pray in God’s will mean that if the outcome was not favorable God will help you to deal/cope with it. God knows what is best for us! To pray in God’s will is hard because we don’t always know the outcome but we must believe that God loves us and cares for us better than we can do for ourselves. So once again, when faced with a tragic situation the diagnosis of cancer with my daughter (at the age of 16 months), I was able to pray using the four elements above and truly mean every word of it. Ken and I gave Lauren to God shortly after arriving at St. Jude and although she was given a 30% chance of survival of treatment. My baby is with us today (CANCER-FREE) and just celebrated her 5th birthday. I’m glad that I trusted God yet again. Although I couldn’t keep Matthew, I know that God had a divine plan for him and that he was mine for short period of time. I often ask myself the question, what if it were me with the diagnosis could I give myself to God and I pray that daily to be able to do that. I’m thankful tonight for learning to trust God no matter what. I pray that if you haven’t gotten to element #4 in your prayer life that you will because some things we don’t have to claim…they claim us. I love you dearly and remember pray everyday! Benita