When Prayer Doesn't Work

Sometimes I pray. Hard. Like this last week at work. It's been heavy and weighing me down. I asked God to take it away. He didn't. 
So prayer didn't work. 
Or did it?
Last night my kids wanted to go to Daddy's softball game. One more hash mark on the list of things to do. I didn't want to go. In fact I had very good reasons not to go. But in the name of being a good mom, I loaded them up, grabbed fast food for their dinner and headed to the softball game. 
"I Facebook stalked you," she said. That friend who appeared out of nowhere. "I saw you were here. I wanted to see you." At 31 weeks pregnant with twins plus her two kids in tow, she adopted mine and walked them off to the playground affording me twenty minutes of silence in a crowd of softball viewers. 
I made my way to the playground and we sat. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes running sentry on four kids. Often sharing our woes. We had something in common: heavy weeks. We laughed. We snarked. We shared. It was refreshing. Like a cool drink of heavenly water. 
God does answer prayer. Just sometimes not how we expected it. And we are blessed beyond words. 
Has God ever NOT answered prayer only to for you to realize after He is far more creative than you are? How?