Oftentimes, God answers my prayers in a "perfect" way - for Him...but not necessarily for me! Sometimes there is a price to the answer, or a trial of some kind that must be gone through in order to answer the prayer. Someone of little faith may not even see it as an answer, some may even see it as the opposite, as God saying No or turning away...but perhaps they need to look harder. God works in mysterious ways! I have several stories of past prayers answered like this, with a twist or a "price", but here is the latest one, just happened today, and it blew me away! My husband and I been having a little rocky road lately, and it came to a head this last weekend, where I reached my limit and blew up at him about several things. Later that night, I prayed very hard for strength for me to better tolerate what he was doing and for my husband to see that what he was doing (or not doing) as wrong and unhealthy. His heath is concerning me along with the issues I am upset about. Then, I prayed a hard rosary for him, and only for him...to bring home my concerns to God and to ask Mary for her help also. In the past, God has answered some of my prayers in ways that solved a problem, but at a price of some kind. So often now when I pray, I add conditions to the prayers, like, "but not at the cost of harm to someone, or not at the cost of an added burden on someone"...that sort of thing. Well, on Sunday night, I remember thinking that I did not want any conditions on this prayer, I asked God to do whatever needed to be done - to please help with these issues (disregarding my usual words of caution or limitations on the answer). Well, God decided to take me up on this, once again. Last evening (the day after my fervent prayer) my husband came home from work quite sick to his stomach, and this to me felt like maybe God was answering my prayer in this way, like a little wake-up call for him. Well, little did I know He was just getting warmed up. Today, my husband had an accident at work, and it resulted in the thumb on his right hand almost being severed! (yes, he is right-handed) All the tendons and nerves are severed just above the upper thumb-knuckle. He is lucky his bone was strong, or he would’ve lost the top third of his thumb entirely. On Friday he has to have surgery on it to try to reattach the tendons and nerves. Now, it sure could’ve been worse, but this alone will cause some real issues for him, and for us, for quite a while. At the same time though, it answers my prayer in several ways! He will be off work for several weeks (it will give him some much-needed time to catch up on things at home, and will give him more incentive to start an exercise program. For a period of time he will need me to help him do MORE things! This is kind-of the opposite of what I thought I was praying for, but it will certainly give me added strength and patience with him (I’ll have to help him for real, not just because he is being lazy - talk about a lesson in humility for both of us!) Also, him being home will force me to get out and get to working my sales territory earlier (and maybe even help me get to daily Mass! In fact, maybe we can both go to daily Mass for a while!). See, if he is home, I can’t dally around the house until 9 or 10 like I sometimes do, because he will get on me for that (as he should). So it will help me to establish better morning habits. At the same time, it could help him to also develop some healthier habits as far as sleep and exercise…maybe? To cap it all off, on the way home from the hospital, he blew me away by saying, “God did this to me for a reason, and now I need to figure out why and use it to my advantage”. !!!! What? He went on to say many of the things I had been thinking…he said he needs to turn it into something good. So he FELT that it was something that God had a hand in! Then he told me that he had been praying for help with getting his life and health back on track the last couple days. So I confessed to him that I had also prayed for help, and that I thought this was one of those “be careful what you pray for” answers that I have seen before. He said, “Yes, I think this is somehow an answer to my prayers, and I have to use it to my advantage now.” And here I was thinking the same thing…… Hmmm. Wow, What a God we have, huh? To be continued…
A big Cross for you both MC. I'll be praying for you walking beside the sea today and at mass tomorrow. I think its really wonderful the way you both seek God's Will in this matter, so few people would have looked at this in such a grace filed manner. Sometimes when I pray I just leave it in Our Lady's hands. I suppose its silly but I always think that Our Lady will get me off lighter!! I think Our Mother is one tough cookie but I also think she is very kind and gentle. Its one of the things I love about her that I can trust her with my prayers not to be to hard on me. I learned this from my mother, when we were kids we always went to her first if we wanted things from my father. She was always good for hand outs. I suppose thats why I have always learnt to go to Mary.
This reminds me of a story I heard on TV about a famous lady in Ireland, Mona Hanafin, who promotes Padre Pio devotion. She met with the padre when he was alive. Her husband Des was a hotelier and unfortunately he had developed a bad drinking problem and was an alcholic. She wrote to Padre Pio and said can you do something to stop him even it is breaking his leg. Well soon after Des was driving whilst under the influence and crashed. Guess what he broke both legs and ended up on traction in hospital. During his hospital stay he gave up the drink. A year later Mona and himself went on pilgrimage to meet Padre Pio to thank him They arrived in San Giovanni to find that the padre had just died. They met with one of Padres confres in the monastry who was an american monk. It turned out his parents had come from Ireland and the locality where Des had crashed his car was where they were from. So they took it as a clear sign from Padre Pio and you would have to say padre Pio had a sense of humor. Mary
There's no doubt that God often writes straight in crooked lines. I suppose we'll have to wait until we get to heaven to unstraiten the crooked bits and understand what God has been up to!! Something to look forward too!!
Wow, all this is so interesting to read! Padraig, I think maybe I should go through Mary more often...maybe our prayer-answers will have lighter crosses attached! So he had the surgery today. Last night I prayed for a miracle, I thought it would be so great if he went to the hospital and the doctor found the tendon reattached and healing on its own! I even used Fr. Rookey's "Miracle Prayer". Funny thing is, Dave also read the Miracle Prayer earlier yesterday, and I didn't know that till today. Anyhow, he had the surgery. Before the surgery we said a rosary together to pass the time, and I said three more while I waited through the surgery, which went long. BUT - instead of the wound being better, it actually was worse than expected. The surgeon said it was quite nasty, and that he had to remove some mangled tissue and almost had to do some skin and nerve grafts, but that he managed to get everything reattached without any skin or nerve grafts in the end, so that was good. However, he did say that his healing time will be 10-14 weeks! That is twice as long as I thought. (Well, more time for daily Masses and walks around the lake, maybe.) He also said it will be 9 months before the nerves will be fully healed, but that they will heal. He will lose some mobility, but should be able to get most of the use back. But wait, there's more. So, as I was waiting to see him in recovery, I left a message on my mom's machine about the results, mentioning that I guess my prayers didn't help. Wrong...just a few minutes later, a nurse walked out, saw me sitting there and asked if I was Dave's wife. We started chatting, and she told me the detailed story of the surgery. She told me that the Dr. had a lot of trouble getting the tendon reattached, it had retracted way down into his arm, and that the nerves had formed a very large gap and that the Dr. insisted that he needed to do a nerve graft. The nurse began frantically calling area hospitals looking for some nerve-grafting material that he needed, but no one had any. The next alternative was to remove nerve material from Dave's foot and attach it to his thumb. So the nurse began prepping his foot for this. “But”, she said, “As he finished repairing the tendon, suddenly the nerves ‘came together’ almost perfectly”. She said that everyone was amazed at this. Then she casually added, “Well, I was praying for him…and so was Jim, the physician’s assistant.” WOW! I beamed, and held up my rosary, saying, “So was I, the whole time!” We talked for a few minutes longer, and she seemed convinced that the prayer caused the small miracle that she witnessed. He should’ve had a skin and nerve graft, but suddenly it wasn’t necessary. Hearing this from her was so amazing, as she sees these operations every day, so she should “know”, you know? Praise God. We are home now, and Dave is sleeping peacefully, with what looks like a boxing glove attached to his arm! Our new life adventure awaits! I wonder where it will lead us?
] Thanks so much much for sharing this, MC, it made me so happy going out to Mass this morning. It seems to me that there were two miracles here. First in the Operation and secondly that the nurse came to you and explained what had happened!! I suspect she must have been a person of some faith herself, bless her. Also the Doctor. Yesterday was the Feast of Saint Bernard, a great child of Mary and who gave us that wonderful prayer , 'The Memorare' ;so lets go the whole hog and amaze the nurses and doctors even more and pray for a much more rapid healing than they could ever expect and say, 'The Memorare', together!! How wonderful on this Faith Journey you started out on it with faith and at the end our faith has been added to. Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.
What a great thing! I didn't know that. I love this prayer, and just recently learned of it because many people like to say it at the end of their rosaries. Perhaps it is time I add it too!
