Prayers : Part Three : Prayers of Supplication - Cicumstances

This is where I pray my heart out.

The prayer for Altered Circumstances.

-- praying for peace, for global abundance, for religious tolerance around the world, for ecological sanity -- I pray into the Big Messes We Have Made freely.

-- praying for the health of another, for a family in mourning, for the safe travels of a friend, for relief to someone's crisis.

I can even pray for my own circumstances - to better discern G0d's will for me, for example, or to lift from me some current sadness or burden at least long enough for me to see what the world has to offer other than that.

Then, after prayer I start wondering -- what does it mean that prayers for someone's good health were not met with favor, when prayers for someone else's were? The glib answer is that God has something in mind and that it is part of His plan and that is that. I don't buy it. I do not think everything is part of God's plan. I don't think the Holocaust was part of God's plan. I don't think Darfur is part of God's plan. I don't think the female genital mutilation of millions of women is part of God's plan. I do not think rape or incest or cold-blooded murder is part of God's plan. I do not think that slavery was or is part of God's plan.

Could it be -- with the health prayers -- that illness and death are random events? How does a faithful person explain prayer that does not heal?

Could it be that some things we take to prayer (like war and injustice) -- we should also be taking to the streets?

I pray for Altered Circumstance most easily, but question it most deeply.

Please, chime in....