does prayer really work?

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

James 5:15-17 (NIV)

There is a blog I've been following for some time (thanks M, for posting about it) that has been a tremendous blessing to me. If you have the time grab a box of tissues and read from the beginning. If not, the blogger's husband has conveniently just posted and it includes a bit of a recap. This story demonstrates a hard-to-understand element of how God answers prayer. Sometimes, it's not the answer you hoped for. But He can still use it.

Through the previous blog, I found this blog: another amazing story, this time, an awesome demonstration of prayer being answered the way you can only dream of, and it's happening right now.

I see prayers answered in my own life - sometimes in big ways, sometimes small - sometimes the answer I ask for, sometimes the answer that comes from His Bigger Plan... in any case it is encouraging:

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NIV)