The stigma around prayer

I've realized something recently, I have a hard time asking for prayer for really anything in my life.

I am a Christian, I believe in the power of prayer, in fact I have experienced and seen the power of prayer.  Prayer and being able to rely on the power and strength of God helped to carry me through two years of chemotherapy as a teenager.

But somewhere along the line I started becoming cynical. I started recognizing that asking for people to pray for a miracle was perhaps going against God's will.  I like to pray for God's will to be done, but not my own.  So when I see a friend going through cancer and going for treatment after treatment plan in hopes of a miracle I start to question where God's will is in all of the pain that the family is experiencing. 

When I pray for someone now I pray that they will experience God's strength and have comfort in whatever the final outcome is.  I praise God for being there through it all.

But these are big things that I am talking about where people ask about prayer.  I am also extremely cynical when someone posts on Facebook asking for prayer because they know they have a stressful week coming up.  To me it is just a cry for attention.  I mean why should I be praying for their stressful week when I have one coming up of my own. 

I'm realizing that this is not the attitude God wants me to have.  I may give side eye to someone asking for prayer because they have a test coming up, but I shouldn't.  I should be praying for everyone in my life whether they are asking for the prayer or not.  I should be praising God that they are in my life and praying for them to have strength and joy as they go through their day to day lives.  I don't know the struggle of my neighbor. 

All this to say, I need prayer but I'm afraid to ask for it.  I'm afraid to ask for it because there is an accountability for my actions once I ask for the prayer.  It means I would be drawing attention to a struggle that everyone can see but no one talks about. 

I desperately need to lose weight and I am struggling with making the healthy food choices that will help to make this happen.  There is too much added sugar in my diet and the healthy choices I have been able to make in the past are starting to slip.  I need to learn to give it up to God and rely on His strength to get through this once and for all.  I'm tired of the scale going up all the time.  I'm tired of the roller coaster of numbers the scale will show.  I'm just tired of this being an issue and it needs to stop.  And in order for it to stop I need to learn to put myself out there.  So this is me, putting myself out there in the quiet way I am comfortable doing for now.  I will push myself out of the comfort zone when I am ready.

SIDE NOTE: There is a lot of controversy in social media regarding offering prayers during national tragedies.  I believe that offering prayers is part of offering support, but really we all need to learn to take a stand to help prevent tragedies in the future.  God answers prayers by showing us where to take action so we need to take action after praying.