Sometimes, when you pray for something to happen, you wait so long, that the prayer seems more like a force of habit or an obligation rather than an everyday renewed fresh hope and trust that things will come to pass.
And sometimes God listens but doesn’t grant the wish, too. In His infinite wisdom and mercy He knows better what is best for us from the perspective of eternal life.
However, praying for somebody’s conversion is always something that God wants to grant – can’t be otherwise. Yet, it’s just sometimes the souls, like St. Faustina wrote in her diary „bounce the prayers back”. I’ll never forget the short anecdote from St. Charbel’s story about a man he was praying for, and yet the man chose Hell… So, one of the greatest saints of our times told us this, but we should never give up.
I have been long praying for the conversion of two (most strongly anyway) of my family members. And perhaps the conversion is still out there in the distant future, but yesterday there was a sudden, and unexpected turn of events. And that was the Feast of The Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Unity and Reconciliation. I have experienced that. I’m filled with hope anew.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ll continue to trust, hope and pray.
Christian Pearls 