Sometimes the answered prayer comes as a surprise. Unexpected, but not for lack of faith, lack of confidence in God’s ability to answer; rather, the surprise comes from the forgetfulness I so easily slip in to. It’s a semi-conscious state that I live in for much of the time: the mundane and urgent tasks order my day and fill my head and my heart, leaving little room for anything that does not demand my attention now. Conversation with God — a heart that swells with praise and instinctively cries out for help — does not happen naturally in this robotic state. Prayer is the most undemanding, when it appears on my to-do list at all. Intentionality, recognition of my dependance, my superfluousness, in a sense — these requirements are not easily come by.