I awoke one night from a bad dream and lay scared in my bed, mustering up the courage to run across the hall to my parents’ bedroom for comfort. I finally darted out of bed and arrived at their bedroom door. My dad immediately sensed that I was there and called me over to his side of the bed. I ran over to him, tearfully explaining that I had had a nightmare and was afraid. “Do you want to say a prayer?” Dad asked quietly. I said yes, not really knowing how that would work out but I trusted my dad and I wanted to believe that the prayer would work and that I wouldn’t be scared anymore. He took my hand and walked with me back to my bedroom. Kneeling by my bed, we reverently folded our arms, closed our eyes and bowed our heads and asked God that I not have bad dreams anymore and that I would be able to go back to sleep that night and not be scared.
I remember ending the prayer and feeling a subtle sense of calm and peace inside of me. My dad helped me climb back into bed, tucked me in, sat on the edge of my bed for a moment and then went back to his room. And then I remember quickly falling back to sleep, not encountering a nightmare again that night, and feeling peace, feeling calm.
How could this be?
God answered my prayer. He heard the plea of a young, 6 year old girl asking that she not have bad dreams anymore. That was not the last time I had a bad dream as a child and it was not the last time God answered my prayer for peace. He answers.
Through that experience as a young girl and many others since then I came to know that God exists. He is real. He is our Heavenly Father and He loves us. He is our loving Heavenly Father.
Prayer, talking with Heavenly Father, provides us this great opportunity and blessing to communicate with our all-knowing Father in Heaven who wants the best for us, who loves us eternally and perfectly. Why would we not want to communicate with such a Being? With our Father?
As we pray we will receive specific blessings in our lives. As I have prayed, I have personally been specifically blessed to perform well on tests in school, perform well at work, enabled to make challenging decisions, to love others more fully, to feel comfort at the loss of a loved one and to forgive others among many other specific blessings. These are unique and individual blessings for me that have come through prayer. I have also generally been blessed with greater peace, happiness and comfort through prayer.
When we pray, we pray to God, our Heavenly Father. We thank Him for those things which we have and we can ask Him for things we are in need of. There is no limit to what we can pray about. Answers to prayers come through the Spirit. The Spirit helps us to feel feelings of love, joy, peace, patience and goodness. When we feel these feelings it is the Spirit helping us to know that something is right and good and we should move forward with it. If something we are praying about is not right, we will not have these good feelings from the Spirit, we will not feel understanding and enlightened.
I know that prayer is real. I know that through prayer we really can communicate with our Heavenly Father. I know He listens to us. I know He answers us. Let’s use this wonderful opportunity to talk with Heavenly Father. To talk with Him about our joys, our sorrows, our hopes, our fears, about everything that we would like to. He will answer. And His answers will guide us through life.
Will you take the opportunity this week to pray to your Father in Heaven?
I know that when we pray, we will feel the feelings that come from the Spirit, even joy, peace, patience and/or goodness. I know our lives will be blessed through prayer.