How did you know God answered your prayer?

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Struggling1

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I’m really struggling with the argument that God answers prayers in his own way and time. It seems like perhaps wishful thinking like people focus on their prayer and make the answer fit the prayer. How do I distinguish the difference between God and coincidence? How do you know he answers prayers if often the answer is no or not in the way you want?
 
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I’m not trying to be bull headed or difficult sorry. Just trying to figure this all out.
 
In an odd way last night as usual I prayed for my wife’s endometriosis and today she’s pain free so maybe that’s something!
 
Dear Struggling1,
I can provide a few answers from when I’ve known He’s answered my prayers. If that is not what you are looking for, let me know and I will try to give a satisfactory answer.
  1. I was having a rotten day. Like, the type of day where everything is horrid and goes wrong. So I collapsed to the ground and prayed for God to have pity on me. Immediately after, I open my daily devotional to the correct day, and found that the reflection was Jeremiah 31:3. Everywhere else I have looked, this verse is translated as something along the lines of “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued to extend faithful love to you.” However, in my devotional (which has the imprintur and nihil obstat), it is translated as “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have taken pity on you.” Not the way I expected an answer, but it worked, curing my bad mood immediately as I burst out laughing.
  2. I had a friend who was in trouble, medically speaking. I was texting them, and then they stopped responding. I was worried they had died, due to the problem they were in the hospital for. I had a prompting to pray the Rosary, and, when I started, had the feeling that they would be okay once I finished. No sooner had I finished the Rosary, then they texted me back, telling me they had fainted for a couple minutes due to exhaustion from surgery.
 
It absolutely is something.

Keep praying “God, I want to believe, help my unbelief - Lord Jesus please reveal yourself to me if you really do love me and I will give myself to you.”

Who knows? Jesus could come visit you in the flesh. It’s happened before.
 
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I really appreciate the response. I really struggle with this and if I were God I’d be so mad at me for continually doubting and needing signs I don’t even know why I need them I feel foolish trusting in something that by all my senses seems intangible. I have such fear and doubt and I don’t want it I want to believe with all my heart and to have that personal relationship with God! Maybe I am being too skeptical and too afraid and just need to trust but it’s like my mind won’t let me. It terrifies me! I want him so badly I need him so badly my life is so horrible and I have done and experienced so many poor things and I need to be happy and fulfilled and have peace and I can’t find it anywhere! I don’t mean to vent so much and I’m sure people hate me for being difficult and posting so much but it is done because I want so desperately to believe and love God and serve God and more importantly I want him to use me! I would dedicate my life to helping other millennial and skeptics if that’s what he wants! Idk why I’m doing all this but I’ll continue to pray and seeing testaments like yours have literally been the thing giving me the most hope. Thank you.
 
Honestly I don’t know that I matter that much to him. I’m sure he’s tried to send signs and I’m blind and ignore them because of coincidence or fear or whatever is holding me back. At some point I assume that it’s not worth sending signs to me. I just need one sign that’s impossible to explain! Many people I know have had a prophetic experience where someone tells them something they don’t even know yet and I guess for some reason that’s what I so desperately want! Idk I’m sorry to vent but I’m just trying so hard to figure all this out!
 
Peace my friend. I have nothing to do but offer you my help, and I am sorry that your mind is so tormented. I remember suffering with such struggles as well.
I will keep you in my prayers, and, if I may, I have a suggestion:
Just sit in silence in a chapel/church and imagine just holding Jesus’s Hand, or giving you a hug, or just looking at you with Love. it won’t be easy to do, but it helps.
 
Thank you and again I’m sorry I have posted so much and commented so much. Clearly I’m not in the right mind and I need God. Thank you for not hating me and still commenting to help me!
 
Here’s another thought for you @Struggling1

Even though I had my intense mystical experience which was the definitive moment that converted me from atheism to theism, it didn’t convert me to Catholicism - just a sort of generic Christian theism.

The experience I had happened in October 2010 - since then the memory and impact of the event have both faded significantly - to the point where when I read the account I wrote about 4 months after it happened today, I doubt that the experience even happened that way.

However, that doesn’t bother me since I’ve moved on from there - I am now convinced of God and the truth of Catholicism on a purely intellectual, theological & philosophical level. My experiential conviction of God still plays a part in my overall belief system, but ultimately I am now a believer because of the knowledge and wisdom I have learned of and found in Jesus and His Church.

Keep seeking and knocking at the door. Jesus will answer in one way or another so long as you persistently keep knocking and don’t turn away.

He may answer miraculously tonight, or he may answer naturally over the next two decades - but I assure you, he both hears and listens, and will answer, for his mercy endures forever.
 
I will continue to pray relentlessly that’s God and specifically the Holy Spirit will help me through this. Clearly I can’t do it on my own and I need outside inspiration. I’ll also include you in my rosary tonight do you have anything I can pray for? Any intentions?
 
Struggling1 said:
I’ll also include you in my rosary tonight do you have anything I can pray for? Any intentions?
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That the Lord increase my faith and yours, and that Mary intercede on our behalf.

Also, Romans 8:26-27

“In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.”

Have you spoken to a Priest? Are you baptized?

The Graces of the Sacraments will help you tremendously.
 
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A few years back during a very difficult time in my life I asked Jesus for a sign … a very specific sign … that He was there and was listening to me … I got my sign … I was shocked and astonished … since then I feel bad that I had to ask for a sign … but apparently it was in our Lord’s plans … I doubt I would have received it otherwise.

Don’t fret so much about not receiving a sign from God … He does things in His own time … try to believe in the many signs so many people have received throughout the years that have been written about … He is there and He does hear you.
 
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This is the embarrassing part I am baptized, and confirmed in the church. I’m really not trying to dis respect God! I don’t want to test God nor am I trying to control God. More specifically I just want to firmly belief and have faith and not be worried about what happens when I die constantly. I wish it was as easy as a mystic mailing me a letter saying I exist! Or something even someone telling me something about me they couldn’t have possibly known. Just something that my mind accepts as irrefutable proof. Which I know isn’t likely and isn’t what we should be seeking but I am afraid and don’t know how else to beg God.
 
I know and I have heard such amazing testaments and yet I want so desperately something personal and something I won’t miss. Something like someone telling me something I haven’t expressed to another living soul. That’s why I wish we had a living St. Padre Pio who I could visit and see God’s miracles through or something. Maybe I’m putting God unto a box but that’s the furthest thing from what I want. I just wish he could once verbalize and say I love you and don’t hate you or soemthing.
 
Struggling1 said:
This is the embarrassing part I am baptized, and confirmed in the church
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If you are baptized and confirmed, the only requirements for going to Confession and Communion would be contrition for your sins, a belief in the Church’s teachings on the Sacraments, and at least an intellectual assent to the belief in God and His Christ - you don’t have to be 100% convinced of his existence, but rather assent intellectualy as in saying “Lord, I do not know whether you are truly there or not, but I am going to choose to trust that you are and do my best to believe and cooperate with your grace.”
 
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I will do so. I feel so frustrated at my current state and mad that everyone else seems to be so easily able to believe and here I am a stick in the mud just being a bother. Maybe there’s a take away from this something I need to learn. It’s funny I heard a story on the radio that a lady asked God for a shooting star and it happened and she doubted and she asked God for another and it happened! Just once I wish I could have that! Maybe it’s not meant to be or in Gods plan. Maybe I’m not supposed to see the signs and have to belief on faith only. I’m not going to lie that’s what scares me most!
 
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