I pray a lot. Sometimes my prayers are answered in the way I hope they’ll be, but often they are not. But still I pray, talking to God as if he were a friend of mine, conversationally.

Know that old Garth Brooks song, “Thank God for Unanswered Prayers”? Well, I could give you some examples of times where I later realized that something I desperately wanted, and didn’t get, turned out for the best.

There are other examples where I prayed so very hard for something, and was denied. Why? Only god knows.

I don’t generally pray for frivolous things. When I reach out with a request, it’s generally something pretty important to me or someone else. But we have to realize that we are all God’s children, and sometimes prayer requests may come at cross-purposes.

If you’re praying to get that new job or promotion, it’s likely that someone else is, too. You can’t all get it, so only one person will feel that her prayers were answered. But what if they all are?

Sometimes the answer is no. It’s hard to accept, but there’s no choice, so on I go.

Harder to accept are ‘no’s’ that seem to make no sense. You pray for a child, or any loved one, to overcome an illness, and they die anyway.

Or you pray to find a job so you can feed and house your family, and no job suddenly appears to bail you out. Why? Only God knows.

But today I heard wonderful news – a young man who was told yesterday that he had metastatic pancreatic cancer – a terrible diagnosis – learned today that the diagnosis was wrong! He does have tumors in his body, but they are isolated, not metastatic, and not originating in the pancreas.

I prayed hard for this young man, in his 20s, newly married, to get a miracle, and I know a lot of other people were also praying for him. And he got that miracle!

Now he has a good chance to see old age.

Does this mean that God loves him more than the ones who don’t get a miracle? I don’t believe so. Does this mean that more people prayed for him and that’s why he got his miracle? I don’t believe so. For some reason, it isn’t this young man’s time yet.

So at a time when there’s a lot of hard news – and when are we ever in a time when there isn’t, really? – this is good news that I wanted to share.

I don’t know this young man. You probably don’t either. But you can feel a little bit better today knowing that out there somewhere in America is a young husband who learned today that he won’t be leaving his wife in the next couple of months.

Thank God!