Are our Thoughts and Intentions really Prayers?

So here's a random one.  Guy walks up to me at church last night, I have no clue who he is, and when he tells me, I'm just blown.  Wow, haven't seen him in 32 years - and let's just say - the years haven't been all that good to him. 

We used to be close.  He's spent a lot of time in prisons - when I was 17 I visited him in a couple of them.  I wrote him a lot of letters.

So we're sitting in church watching a video, and all these memories are coming back...

He says that he's a Christian.  But, yeah, everybody says that...  But then after it's over, he says to me 'isn't God good?'   Yeah, God is good, and I realize - people don't just randomly say 'isn't God good? unless they've experienced his goodness.  Maybe he does know who God is - even though his life isn't perfect (who's is?). 

Then I remember this:  I was living in Woodland, and had read in the Lodi paper that he'd been arrested again, and would be heading back to prison - again.  I can't tell you what year this was - but I know it was sometime between 1995 - 1998, because I remember where I was living.  I just read that article, and felt compassion, and thought - this guy needs to know about Jesus, how sad for him that he's living out his life in prison.  Mind you, I hadn't seen him since around 1980.  So I wrote him a letter.   I sent it to the county jail - 999 W Mathews Road, French Camp. (I'd sent a lot of letters there over the years.)  Thing is - it came back.  They'd already shipped him off to the big house.  Oh well.  I forgot about it until last night.

But then somehow, somewhere along the line - he did learn about Jesus.  And I just saw that little letter that I wrote that day as a prayer.  That even though it didn't get to him, it got to God.  He read it, and he felt compassion, too.  And he put people in Greg's path somewhere along the line that told him the Truth. 

And once again, God blows me away with His love, His compassion - the length of His arms.

So I think - that our thoughts and intentions really are prayers - God is bigger than that we have to preface it with 'Dear God' and end it with 'Amen'.  He hears our heart when it cries out.  He speaks the language of our heart, in addition to properly formatted English.