Prayer changes things

I was moved by a story by Kevin Kling on All Things Considered. He was talking about how his prayers had changed from childhood through young adulthood to the present.
His childhood prayers went something like this: “I prayed to God to ask Jesus to ask Santa for that Squirrel Monkey that was $9.99, in the back of the Spiderman comic.”
His young adult prayers were prayers of desperation. Like the time he and a friend were hunting wild boar at night and the friend tried to shoot a cow at close range, missed all six shots, drank a bottle of something strong, and passed out. Kevin prayed to get out alive, and he’d never do anything that stupid again.
Later in life, Kevin had a serious motorcycle accident and went through months of painful rehab. One day he was walking with his girlfriend outside the hospital and she asked him to take a bite of an apple. He demurred; his had lost his sense of taste. But she persisted, “come on, try it.” For some reason that was the day taste returned and as the tears burned his cheeks, Kevin blurted out, “thank you, thank you, thank you for this life.” His prayers had changed again.
Blessings started to emerge from the curses, and Kevin's habit of giving thanks changed his outlook on life. Now, he says, “I pray to God to ask Jesus to tell Santa that if there’s one thing I want, it’s to say ‘thank you, thank you, thank — or, a Squirrel Monkey.”
Prayer changes things. Our prayers change as we experience life.

The thankful heart is close to the Heart of God.
Listen to Kevin tell his own story. It’s worth the 5:34 minutes!

Your unconscious mind (or the Holy Spirit, working within you)

Our thoughts generally become self-fulfilling prophecies. You say to yourself, “I think I’m coming down with a cold,” and your unconscious mind takes this thought as marching orders. Voilá — you’ve got a doozy of a cold! The unconscious mind is a powerful tool for good or for ill, depending on what we tell it.
So consider these words: “I have done those things which I ought not to have done, and I have not done those things which I ought to have done, and there is no health in me.”
Do those words become self-fulfilling prophecies, or is “confession good for the soul?” When we confess our sin, does our unconscious mind take that confession and make it even more true? When our unconscious mind hears “there is no health in me,” does it carry out this marching order? I hope not!
I still believe in confession. But I don’t live in a state of constant confession.
Honesty compels me to reject such statements as “I’m no good at …” If I were honest with myself, I would have to admit that I’m not no good at something; in fact, I’ve gotten better over the years at whatever that something is.
So I stop the negative thought and substitute a more honest thought: “I’m getting better at …”
Voilá! My unconscious mind — the Spirit of God within me — makes that prediction come true.