What's the point of prayer?

When I'd finished the laundry, the same amount had piled up again. How many times had this happened? Only able to do one load of laundry per day after my fulltime job, it seemed like more of a cycle than a progression. I stared at the pile. Should I keep doing the laundry? I could imagine the same sized stack replacing the one I would be dragging downstairs today to cycle through the laundry.

There seems to be a pile of endlessly repeating tasks that the typical woman faces every day. Dinner is demolished minutes after preparation, clean rooms become messy as soon as the last bit of clutter is removed, floors need to be re-mopped as soon as the dirty water is dumped. So what's the point?

I used to feel the same way about prayer. God already knows the outcome of every situation. Why pray about it? We can't possibly hope to change the future that God already knows, nor can we change His will for any circumstance. Yet the Bible commands us to pray.

There was one sunny afternoon that I finally began to understand God's purpose in asking us to pray. I had been talking to him about my concerns for my husband who suffered from a long-term illness. I had prayed for my husband to be healed, for my own strength, and finally for God's ultimate will to be carried out. When I finally stood up, and the usual feeling of refreshment washed over me like warm sunshine, I understood what kind of gift God had given us in prayer. I had gleaned some needed truths from my conversation with him that served as reminders to my worried heart:

1. I didn't have to worry about the future, because God was taking care of it
2. God would never leave me or my loved ones
3. God was more powerful than illness, fear, and human weakness
4. Everything that happened now would be part of His will

Perhaps prayer was not meant to change circumstances; it was meant to change us. Just as reading Scripture refreshes our memories on the truths God's given to us, prayer reminds us of the basic truths meant to comfort, encourage and direct us on a regular basis. I stepped away from my time with the Lord having exchanged my worry for a proper sense of trust, my hopelessness for a Biblical sense of direction, and my fear with comfort. The time had indeed worked a change upon my heart. Better yet, it had gotten me spending one-on-one time with my Creator, allowing me to develop a relationship with my one true best friend.