The Answer to Our Prayers

"I want more than anything to be a good mother--the best mother I can be," the pregnant woman said. Several months later, she gave birth to an autistic child.

"Why?" she cried out. "Why did I have to have an autistic child?" 

Someone said to her, "What better way to learn how to be a good mother than to have a child with special needs."

And who is more in need of a loving and attentive mother than a child with autism?

When we put a request out into the Universe--a prayer to God--the answer that comes back to us is not always what we would want or expect. But we have to trust that the Universe knows what is best for us and what we want and need at the deepest level of our being.

If a situation has come into our life that is painful or seems unfair, we must ask: What is our desire at the deepest level of our being? Then we must consider the possibility that this situation or challenge is God's way of providing us with the tools, lessons, knowledge or wisdom necessary to achieve our goal or desire. We must trust that it is part of the plan for our long-term, greater good--something that may be difficult to imagine in that moment.