Answered Prayers

Originally, I began this blog to explore my feelings about prayer and its power. Some nights, I begin to write about something that bothered me during the day. By the time I am finished, I have figured out how to pray to resolve that problem. Do those prayers ever get answered? Yes and no.

They are answered but in strange ways. For many months, and well over a year, I’ve prayed about my new paperback, The Busy Person’s Prayer Book. At first, I had titled it Fast-Paced Prayers for a Fast-Paced World. I self-published it as an eBook. It sold one copy. I realized much later that people want to hold a prayer book in their hands, not fire up their computer when they need to find a prayer. So, I prayed that I could re-format it into paperback style and self-publish it that way.

Meanwhile, it seemed to stall and I couldn't figure out why. Suddenly, one day in July, I think, I decided that the title was a mouth-full. It made a great subtitle, though. I re-titled it The Busy Person's Prayer Book, and things seemed to move much faster.

Still, it costs setup money for the printing. The least expensive place is Lulu.com; it is also very large and very helpful. Still, I didn’t have the funds. The funds never did come, so my prayers were not answered in that way. However, one day, while browsing their site again, I noticed they had a promotion that waived the setup fee for a limited time. Setup was FREE. Amazing. I realized that if I didn’t take advantage of that, and fast, I would certainly be very stupid. I managed to finish the formatting and managed to get the paperback printed, free of setup charges. So, my prayer for funds for the printing was answered “no” for funds, but “yes” for the printing because the printing was free.

Now my major concern is publicity. I don’t have funds for purchasing review copies to mail around the country. So, I think my prayer should not be for “funds” - I’ve learned my lesson. My prayer should be for ideas for low-cost or no-cost publicity.

Father, you have answered many a prayer in amazing and creative ways; I trust you to answer this one as only you know how to do.