Hi I am fairly new here and just wondering about prayer, we are all part of gods plan and gods will is done everywhere everyday, so what I am asking is, if what I am praying for is part of gods plan my prayer will seem to be answered , but if I didn't pray it would have happened anyway, so is prayer a waste of time?
Never a waste of time and let me give you one example of a prayer that was just answered for me.... I am posting two posts from my Please Pray For My Sister Linda Thread... Please note that I am 60 and Linda is 72...This unacceptance from her has been going on my entire life.
First post dated 10/22/2014
~So I am cleaning out a record cabinet that is the size of a night stand that I have repurposed for cook book storage and I run across my sister Linda's address and phone number that I had lost track of in one of the cook books.
I think this is not an accident maybe God wants me to call her and I mention this to tourist who is typing on CC but I am afraid to make the call because my sister and I did not grow up together as my Dad was married to her Mother before and divorced her. Linda has never wanted to have anything to do with me and throughout my life (I am 12 years younger) I have made attempts to connect with her and they have all been miserable failures.
At any rate I was afraid to call her because of the rejection, but tourist said go ahead and make the call. I say I don't know what to say to her and he says the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. So I make the call and it rings many times and I am kind or hoping that she will not answer but then she does.
I say is this Linda and she says yes and I say this is Darlene, Harold's daughter, we have the same Father, but I can't say I am her sister as this has caused many problems in the past so I just don't go there. She says What do you want? I say nothing I just wanted to try to connect with you. And then she hung up on me....
I have never understood why she doesn't want to have anything to do with me and over the years God knows I have tried and since I am 59 add 12 she is now 71 years old and I just want to help her if she needs it...Anyway my heart is broken at this riff that I don't know how to fix and God does know I have tried.
Please pray for her, as I don't really know her even though we are half sisters, I am a person that loves my family even her even though I don't know her. Somehow she has been really hurt by someone or something in the past and has never accepted me but it bugs me now knowing she is so much older and we even live in the same area and I could help and have a relationship with her if she would allow it. I don't know if she knows God, but I would like for her to. I sent a Christmas Card a couple of years ago and it was not returned so she got it.
I don't really know what to request for her so lets just go basic.... Pray for her salvation please as I will be doing, I wish she would consent to meet or talk to me, but I will just pray for now. God did not let me find her address and phone number for no reason today I know He has His reasons, so please pray with me for her. Thanks Darlene
Second post dated 12/5/2015
~Just got off of the phone after about an hour and a half call with Linda who made the call to me!!! Christmas has come early for me and Praise God He hears and answers prayers.
I picked up the phone and she said is this Darlene and I said yes. Well this is Linda and what I have to say is hard for me to say and so I just listened and let her talk.
She said she had anger for my mother because she made her feel like she didn't want her to see our father when she came to visit dad.... She said I realized that I was holding on to that anger and transferring it to you. She said when I called last year that she had hung up on me because it brought back all the anger she had held for my mother and she realized that she had taken it out on me.
She apologized for hanging up on me and said it wasn't right and I accepted her apology and we proceeded to talk and work some things out. She called me today because she got the Christmas card that I sent to her today and thought about how it was wrong of her to have hung up on me like that.
At the end of the call I told her I had to give credit where credit was due that I had prayed for her a lot and that God was the one at work. She said she was here if I needed her and I had written that in the card and given her my phone number.
Isn't God good? I don't know where this will lead, but at least I know that if I give her a call she will answer the phone and talk and maybe we will be able to build a relationship we have never had a chance to have before. So I ask that you please continue to pray for her and me that God will make something good out of the bitterness she has harbored over all these years and we can get to know each other.
Thanks Dad for the connection....Amen
Forgive as I know this post is long but another reason to pray is to get closer to God because you are pouring your heart out to our Creator and He loves you. If nothing else it is helping to build your relationship with Him.
praying for you and Tourist 
