Prayer

There is a lot of prayer whirling around my head lately. I hear it in requests between friends. I hear it in conversations about people's personal lives. But, what prayer exactly is or does esacapes me. I have uttered prayers before. I have read statements by Jesus asking his followers to pray. But in my lifetime, I never have been able to wrap my mind around the concept. Sometimes, I see the correlation between prayer and requests, but many times I don't see this correlation. Sometimes, I see God's intervention in a situation. But many times I see God's answer in the same light as the Supreme Court deciding on whether to take a case or not. Only about 3-5 % of the time does the Supreme Court take a case from an appellate court. So, I am left with many years of finding the patterns behind prayer. So far that endeavor is a dead-end road.