Whether people have a faith or not, most are likely to have prayed at some point. Many of these prayers may be quick, fleeting, pleading types, a last resort when in desperation. And when they’re answered, more often than not we forget that we even asked for help!

Our pleads range from the simple things like when you’re late for work and you’ve lost your car keys, to more harrowing times, when a loved one is sick and we’re desperate for them to recover or be at peace.

My faith tells me that an active prayer life aids a closer relationship with my Lord and saviour, which, of course, is something I strive for. By ‘active’ I mean regular. I do not consider prayer a last resort, I pray throughout the day, including praising God, thanking Him, saying sorry as well as asking for things I desire, for others and myself.

The one I struggle most with is asking for things for myself. I also struggle to ask other people to pray for me. I don’t know why this is but it’s most likely something to do with not believing I’m worth it or that other people’s problems are far bigger than mine.

Recently I’ve been on crutches after an arthroplasty on my ankle. It’ll be hard for anyone who’s not been on crutches to fully understand the impact this has had on my life. Taking all my weight through my hands and arms causes a lot of pain, my ‘good’ hip is suffering, and I’m getting incredibly tired.

I planned to play a gig on my saxophone but it was a massive event so parking was going to be an issue. It’d been recommended that we use car parks further away, meaning a 10-15 minutes walk. But for me at the moment, 10 minutes feels like a marathon, I’d struggle to get there, have to find places to sit down en route and would arrive physically broken! Not to mention that my roady would have to carry all my kit (although he’s a very willing roady, I feel bad!).

So, I worked out which was the closest car park and left plenty of time in case we had to try other places. As we arrived, it was clearly very busy and the car park was packed. I simple said “God, please sort us a parking space”. I felt pretty rubbish asking so selfishly for something so small when there are people dying in war zones but I felt I needed to. But, would you believe it, there was a space in the corner of the car park? We didn’t even have to wait for anyone to leave. As I checked Google maps it turned out to the be THE closest car parking space to the performance venue, at just 30 seconds walk. I was very grateful and said a massive thank you to God!

Some would say this was a coincidence, Christians have another name for it, a God-incidence 🙂

I know God is omnipotent but it’s not his job to make our lives easy, an easy life does not make for a particular strong character. My life has been far from easy but it’s incidences like this that strengthen my relationship with him, knowing that if he’s with me in the little things, he’ll be there when I pray for the big things.

I’ve prayed for the big things too and you’ll see in my posts about mental health I’ve had some incredibly dark times. Please do continue looking around my site – I believe God has been with me every step of my journey.