New one? Not so much.....

So I've been thinking I need/want to post a new blog. But not much about my faith and my God-journey has been on my mind except what I blogged about most recently. Prayer. Not just prayer, but the power of prayer. What it does. What God does.

We all know that prayer usually has two purposes: to say to God, "Pretty Please" or "Thanks Man!" I try to say thanks more than I say please...well...just because. It seems like the right thing to do, right? Jeremy and I pray before every meal, something my family never did when I was growing up, with the exception of Thanksgiving. I don't like to be the one in charge of the praying because I'm not sure what to say, I'm worried if I'll sound stupid in front of Jeremy and think that I could never pray as well as him. I'm taking baby steps with the out loud dinner praying. Presently, I'm only in charge of dinner-praying when we eat out at Valentino's, my fav. guilty pleasure Italian buffet. However, since it's my fav. we go there about once a week.

When he and I both pray, we always first thank God for our meal. Jeremy does it because he believes God provides us with all our food, I Thank God for our food because that's what Jeremy does. :)

God didn't make that pizza for me, he didn't made the dough, cook the tomatoes, brown the meat. He didn't even grow the vegetables on his farm. Yes, some of you may say, OH YES HE DID! HE GAVE US THIS EARTH TO GROW FOOD!....Whatever. Why I am not thanking God for Earth before breakfast then, instead of for my pancakes?

All this babbling comes down to a few small thoughts: The reason why I am on this journey; seeking, asking, studying, reading, is because I want to KNOW why I believe what I do, I want proof, I want reasons behind it, I don't want to praise God because that's the norm, or because I'm afraid to go to hell or afraid to do anything else, I want to praise God because I have learned about God and talked to Christians and decided that's what I believe.

That's my little issue with prayer: I don't want to pray just because that's what good Christian people do. I want to KNOW why I pray. I want to KNOW why I thank God for things that God may not give me, directly, indirectly, in any way.

I imagine that my asking this question is becoming a bit redundant, my apologies. I suppose I am just not hearing or seeing or finding a sufficient answer to my questions. Yet.

How do I know?

Ever since we found out that my mom had a tumor in her lung the massive amount of prayers began. From me, my husband, immediate family, extended family, friends and people that have never met my amazing mother.

We were hoping for the best but preparing and thinking about the worst. It's hard not to think of the worst when symptoms she was having (chest pains) usually are indicative of late stage lung cancer. Assuming because if your tumor is big and bad enough to cause you to have chest pains, it's bad news. This was verified by the research I have done online saying chest pains are signs of late stage cancer. With this, and the fact that during the first meeting with her oncologist, he was worried her lung fluid might have cancer, which would put her in stage 3-B, pretty much a death sentence....it is safe to say we were terrified.

So, we prayed. Everyone did. I made several facebook and email requests for everyone and their dog to pray for her and our family. Good news! We need good news! We prayed for a small tumor. We prayed for an early stage. We prayed for no spreading. We prayed surgery could remove it and cure her. We prayed for the doctors and the nurses to take care of her. We prayed her heart was healthy enough to handle removing her tumor and we prayed for a successful surgery and recovery. So far, against ALL odds, all of our prayers have come true. (Lung cancer is the number one of cancer deaths and the has the second worse prognosis after pancreatic.)

Since I am on this Faith-journey, prayer has been a central part of my life, so has the question of prayer. I desperately want to believe that all of our prayers to God has helped him help her. But a part of me wonders if we just got lucky. I know this is a conversation we all have, I had it a little while ago in a blog as a matter of fact. I feel like if I attribute this amazing news to God, I'm being naive.

Maybe us getting such great news time after time is God trying to shake me saying, "Sara! Look! I'm trying to show you! I'm trying to prove to you! Open your eyes and pay attention! You ask all the time to see me and know me and want a sign that I am here and listening, here it is!" But how do I know?