Answered Prayers

Hi!  My name is Annette McGarrahan, and I'd like to tell you a true story.

When I was about 20 years old, my father took a job in Baltimore, Maryland.

Since my family lived in the Midwest at the time, this was going to entail a big move, with a several-hundred-mile drive in the car.  My two sisters and I were all in college and working summer jobs - only my two brothers, who were 15 and 12, would be moving with my parents.  But my father had to leave to start the new job right away, so that left my mother to drive halfway across the country with my two brothers.

I hated the thought of Mom making that long drive by herself.  My brothers could keep her company, but they couldn't give her a break from all that driving.  What could I do?  I was working an hourly job that didn't provide for vacation time.  Finally, I just decided that I had to help my mom.  Even though it meant losing my paycheck for awhile, I just felt I had to drive over with her - it was the right thing to do.  So I went into my boss and told him I needed the time off, and explained why.  He kindly agreed to let me go.

I went home to tell my mom the good news, and she was very happy.  She told her parents (my grandparents) who lived about four blocks from us.  Of course, they were also very happy.  The next time my grandmother saw me, she said, "Annette, I'm so happy you're going to drive with Peggy (my mom) over to Baltimore.  I was so worried about her, and I prayed that God would help us out and He did!"  As she told me this, a shiver ran down my spine, as I realized that God had used ME to answer my grandmother's prayer!  I had never had that happen to me before - that awesome feeling that God had used me as His instrument.  It showed me in a very concrete way that the power of prayer is real.

God really does answer our prayers (though not always the way we want of course) and many times He uses the people around us to answer them.  So the next time I feel a prompting to "do the right thing" - I'm going to listen to it.  It may be God using ME to answer someone else's prayer!