Prayer- What is it good for?

That's a serious question. I'm sitting at the computer, creating birthday cards, and the blinking light on my phone alerts me that I have once again forgotten to switch from silent mode to regular phone mode. And that I have a message. It's a message from the cruise line I'm taking my little sister on in a week, and I immediately am stricken by panic.  I have so many ambivalent feelings about this cruise. What if it makes me look superficial? What if it makes people feel I'm not taking their money seriously? What if I get hurt, or sick, or randomly die? Some of those are valid questions, but I don't know how to handle them very well.  Usually I 'do something' to keep the fear away. But not this time. This is my Christmas/Birthday/Promise fullfilment present to my little sister and my last chance to spend two days alone with her. This is, to put it mildly 'a big deal' and I won't allow my neurotic people pleasing side OR my independent, serious, save the whales side destroy the fun I aim to have with her. Yet one phone call and my insides feel as if someone sharped them (That's a new word Parker came up with earlier today. He jabbed himself with the sharp end of a toy jet plane and proclaimed that he had just sharped himself. I like it. It's got the benefit of being very distinctivly descriptive)  I'm tasting steel in my mouth, and my head hurts. I take a deep breath, and embrace those feelings. once I do, I can see them stretch their silver tendrils out in a web across my very existence. 'what if I get ripped off?' merges with 'What if Haiti is a big mistake?' and 'what if I die alone'.  Big...scary... and irrelevant. Once I could see what I was afraid of, I was able to separate out what was the immediate problem from what were tomorrows issues and what were simply part of the pain of existence.
And then, I prayed. Only after knowing what was going on, could I do any real praying. Once I prayed, I felt relief, and  a calm. Maybe facing an eternal being puts a cruise in perspective.

A timely reminder, as QCS (the school I'm teaching at) has just sent me the list of students per grade. They asked me to pray for them. At first I panicked, thinking - I don't want to spend my evenings and spare moments staring blankly at a card and reciting a litany of 'keep them from harm. make them learn, keep them from drugs'. Now, I'm rethinking praying for them.