31 December 2012 - How Does God Answer Prayer?

I've been wanting to write this on here for a couple of weeks now, but haven't gotten the chance... I really would love to hear from you all regarding this, as I've been struggling through it myself.




Back in August when I was about 10 weeks pregnant I had a huge amount of bleeding and was in the ER thinking we'd lost the baby. I bled all of August. A friend of mine is pregnant with her first and is due 3 days before Judah was due. That same weekend she ended up in the ER, too, with what they thought was a miscarriage, too. Both of us were on almost bedrest for the next few weeks, and careful monitoring of our bleeding/babies. I started praying then that if God was going to take one of our babies, that He would take mine, not hers. I just felt strongly that while it would hurt more than I could say, I have two babies already. But for her to lose her only baby would be much worse. We both seemed to do better until I unexpectedly lost Judah three months later. I see now that God answered my prayers. But I keep having these questions... I know God answers prayers, so does that mean that if I hadn't prayed that God would take mine if He was going to take one, that He might have taken hers and I'd still have Judah? Does my praying that mean that I somehow killed my baby? Or (and I think I've been leaning towards this side) does it mean that God already knew the outcome of both of our pregnancies, and my praying was not going to change which baby God took home, but how I handled the pain of losing my baby? That God answered my prayers in a different way? In the way that He answered my prayers before anything happened, because He was preparing me to be the mom that lost her baby by making me willing to let go? Does this make sense? I'd really like to hear your thoughts...