In my recent trip to my homeland, I found another reason to dislike prayer: people take credit for what they pray about.
As it turns out, I owe my wonderful husband to my mother. Yeah. To her.
Why? She prayed about it, she claims.
Never mind that it was me who asked him out. That it was me who chose him among others. That it was me who pursued him. No, she prayed about it, and I owe him to her.
Why should a woman, then, bother swifting through the riffraff to find a good man, if the decision doesn’t belong to her?
What my pious mother seems to forget is that my sisters married less than awesome guys. What happened there? She only prayed for me?
Also interesting is that I know non-religious women from non-religious families who are married to great guys. Nobody prayed for their prospective husbands, yet they, through good sense and discernment, met and wed excellent partners. My sisters, however, were devoted, dedicated-to-god girls who were naive enough to marry, well, losers.
Single women out there, whatever you do, keep your head screwed on when looking for a life partner.
Well, you obviously do not understand how prayer works, Lorena. You can tell when God answers a prayer by whether or not something good comes from that prayer. And if there is no answer, then it is the fault of the parties involved, not God. Your sisters were obviously not following God’s will. But if your mom had not asked God, then He wouldn’t have helped you out, even though it was His will to grant you a great husband. You see, it all makes sense!
Seriously though, you make a great point here. It’s a shame that spiritual feelings/obligations can ruin otherwise healthy discernment skills. I hope women heed your advice!
My husband’s parents told us that they were really worried about their shyest children and prayed that there would be someone unique enough to marry them. (Unique was their word.) Those two children got married first. They were apologizing to another child who isn’t married and *gasp* approaching 30. ::eye roll ::
It kinda bothered me, but now I see that it was because the parents were taking the credit for the work their shy offspring did in their relationships.
And they were taking the blame for another child’s tendency to attract users instead of good partner material by lack of prayer instead of, say, confidence or circumstances.
PS: Or God wanted to give your sisters nasty spouses so they could suffer as Christ did and so be purified. What a blessing it is for them after all. You obviously weren’t chosen to suffer that way because you weren’t strong enough.
Sarcasm done.
I second the “suffering as Christ did” hypothesis.
LOL, people! You’re good Christians, aren’t you?
Wait — so prayer *does* in fact control the outcome, and God *is* like a vending machine?????? Where’s my winning lotto ticket!!!!