Someone Else's Answered Prayers

Sometimes God puts us in situations or places we find difficult or even unbearable. We experience great pain and terrible loss as a result of that place. In our despreration, we pray for God to help and to reposition us, to give us an answer that will give us peace or comfort, to show us a way out. But it seems that He has just abandoned us and there is no place to turn, no place to hide away from our distress.

We are often told that this is how we grow, how we find strengths that were hidden. Other times we are told we have done something to deserve God's anger, that this is our punishment.

But perhaps, the reality is much more important than that. Perhaps our position or situation is the direct result of a prayer prayed by someone else, also in straits worse than our own, someone who has prayed for a miracle for themselves or for someone they love. God heard their cry and in his infinite wisdom, looked around for an answer to that prayer. His eye fell on you and he smiled and said, “Ah, this is the solution, this is the miracle. This one will be willing to step in and help when the time comes. This one has strength they will discover in this situation and will move the mountain of another. But… that will mean I must allow them to experience heartache and grief of their own. Still, they are the only person for the job and they won't give up.”

So, only by putting us in an uncomfortable, even painful place can God answer someone else's prayer.

How scary to think that I may be the answer to someone's prayer. Even scarier to realize that God thinks that much of me.