How God Answers Prayers: "A Prayer from the Heart"

In my storybook, 'A Prayer from the Heart’ Chris has been praying for a friend along his road. During the night someone moves into the house next door. Chris has no idea who has moved in, though he thinks that he can hear a child giggle. Back at school the next day, it is the last day of the summer term and he meets a new girl from India. He is drawn to her but finds it difficult to strike up a conversation with her. When he finally has a breakthrough, they start to chat and laugh. But just as they are getting to know one another, Shani is picked up by her mother and has to go home. The next day, Chris meets the new neighbours and is surprised that it is Shani’s family! Things haven’t been plain sailing for Chris. It took effort on his part to step outside his shy comfort zone to talk to Shani. Isn’t this how we often experience God’s answers to prayer? We have to co-operate with grace and circumstances and then God does the rest.

The Story behind the Story

I think that my story will give children a realistic example of how God might answer prayer. My brother, Chris, whom the main character is based on, met his wife in England. She came from halfway across the world, from Africa, while our family came from Sri Lanka. It’s a beautiful real-life story that has found its way into my book. I hope that children will see that God’s ways are beautiful too. I also hope that they will see that sometimes God’s answers can take time. This goes against our ‘instant gratification’ society and it will hopefully help them stay in ‘God’s lane’ rather than taking the ‘fast lane’.

How God answered my prayers..

When I realised that it was God’s Will for me to start on this mission and to get my story published, I thought, naively, that it wouldn’t take too long! ‘Surely, God will make it to happen soon-children need to hear this!’ How wrong I was.

I swung from one rejection to the other. None of the traditional Catholic publishers were interested in my story. I even hung out for 2 years with a Catholic publisher who said ‘my request was still in process’! I believed them. It took another author to finally make me realise that they were stringing me along.

After that I was taken under the wing of a boutique Catholic publishers and I thought I was home and dry- but no! That dream ended as the organisation went through a crisis. I was at a loss to know where God wanted me to go next!? In prayer I sensed that God wanted me to be ‘equally yoked’ with my co-workers. So, I assumed that God wanted me to work with Catholic’s alone. However, it turned out that the team that I am currently working with are Christian as opposed to Catholic Christians. Still equally yoked. Just when I thought I understood what God was saying! So, finally, after an 8-year period of ups and downs this little book-baby is going to be born in April 2023!