Prayers answered in 2008
So, I was listening to an online sermon from a church we don't go to because we go to a more boring church where I have to teach sunday school.... anyway, this preacher was suggesting that we take a moment to think back to prayers that God answered for us in 2008, as a helpful way of encouraging us that some of this prayer stuff is actually working. I can think of a couple big and a couple little prayers that God answered for us recently, so I've taken a brief cross-section and arranged them in order of difficulty:
Difficulty level: easy
God cured my psoriasis.
About a month ago, I was brushing my hair in front of the mirror and getting annoying with my flakey scalp, which I recently learn was a result of psoriasis, which is like dandruff but incurable. So I was thinking about this annoying but not particularly dramatic condition, and I thought: "Hey, this sounds like something easy that God could solve. God, thank you for curing my psoriasis. I trust you to free me of this condition, in the name of Jesus Christ." The next day and since then, my head hasn't been itchy. It's not a big deal, but it's nice to know that God doesn't only care about you when you have cancer.
Difficulty level: medium
God got us pregnant as soon as we asked
Actually, I'm not sure of the difficulty level on this one since I have no past experience in the matter, but I do know that after several prep months of praying for the right baby at the right time (and getting off the pill and all that) we were immediately blessed with a very strong and healthy pregnancy the first month we tried.
Difficulty level: hard
God got Dan a job
The waiting for this prayer to be answered was pretty hard, although God did help us along the way with assurance that all would turn out okay. In the end, Dan snagged a job at the moment he needed (also the moment we needed health insurance) and it's been a positive experience for him, not only because it's a good school system but because everyone he works with is at different stages of pregnancy, so it puts a nice perspective on our own situation.
So that's a sampling of prayers answered in 2008. Also, lots of times I asked God to bring back an errant Rascal and He obliged, and similarly I have asked God to help me through a lot of things related to the pregnancy, from getting through a walk in the woods to helping me poop. So mostly God has been very faithful to us in 2008. Good prep for 2009... where I'm envisioning some whoppers coming.