I was five years old when I prayed for the first time. I don’t know what made me do it. We weren’t a church-going family at the time, and it’s not like my five-year-old friends were talking about God. I probably saw someone do it on TV. I didn’t know what people prayed about, but it looked like something I should do. So that night I folded my hands together, squeezed my eyes shut, and talked to this magical Being in the sky.

I hadn’t started school yet, and I was nervous about taking the bus. School itself didn’t bother me, apparently, but the bus did. So I asked God for a very specific dream that night. About getting on a bus, and the adventures that bus would take. Maybe seeing a bus driver in a dream would help me be less nervous about seeing one in person. (Why else would people pray at night, if not for nice dreams?)

And wouldn’t you know, I had that exact dream that night.

I’d tried praying this way again later, but the dream magic didn’t happen. Rather than get discouraged, I understood: prayer wasn’t merely to have nice dreams, even though He’d answered the first time. He answered in a different way the second—No, He seemed to say. There’s more to this than that.

Sometimes I still don’t understand that simple concept—there’s more to this. But when He doesn’t answer my prayer in the exact way I wanted, He eventually shows me what this is really about. And it’s so much grander than simply a dream.