AOSHQ Prayer Site?

AOSHQ Prayer site, FS says? Hm.

Lemme see if I can get this in before the next thread.

I've read that prayer is best when it's a pattern of request, followed by thanksgiving, leading to worship.

Honestly, despite a slew of troubles, I'm good with the thanksgiving part - even in pain and turmoil, so much of life is beautiful and been ver' ver' good to me.

I'm not real clear on what worship even is, to be honest. Sort-of personal and beyond defining for me. Like love itself. But leave worship aside...

Prayer's my subject here. I'm not good at it, faith so meager that it makes a mustard seed seem mountainous, but every time someone asks for prayer here, I answer, if not overtly, at least in mind and heart. Whether it's for successful surgery or just a job interview. FWIW.

But for me, prayer is more simply "just" a way to ask to know God's will and adjust to it, than anything to genuinely, "magically," alter circumstances. Prayer is kinda like homeopathy for me in that regard - if things do get better, you can't tell if it was the prayer working, or if things would've got better anyway. But, still thankful, whatever the outcome, because we're still living in the Lord.

So, see, even though I'll help pray for good things, on the "just in case" principle, nevertheless, I rarely ask, because I just am not entirely sold on what good prayer-by-others and at-a distance really does. There's several severe situations I'd ask for prayer, if I did ask. Circumstantial, familial, and health, generally.

So, crawling out on a limb, here's something of a "test." (Not that I think one should test the Almighty!) A prayer request test.

♥

Milady, my wonderful wife, has been afflicted for over two decades - a health problem that is disfiguring, disabling, and dangerous. Sometimes we think, oh, it's getting better, then it's the same again.

Doctors' prognoses have been like the old saying about asking three Jews and getting at least four opinions. They don't know what the cause is, but suggested solutions amount to cosmetic surgery which would leave her hardly any better, trading one set of problems for another, and cure nothing.

At least, amen! she's not been getting worse. Just staying messed up. For years and years.

I love to hear her singing in the kitchen as she cooks. She smiles and carries on happily, as a rule, despite her trouble, and all our troubles. Sometimes I almost get mad at the Lord, like, why can't you love her as much as I do and heal her? Which is silly, yet it is kind-of baffling. If faith can heal, how can she still be afflicted? Keeps me praying regularly, but I'd rather be thankful for a positive answer!

I don't want to say more, or go into more detail. She'd probably be embarrassed that I talked about it. But now that I have, please spare a prayer for her full health, physical, mental, and spiritual, as it's all one.

Thanks. Sorry for the wordiness and rambling.