Answered by people who lived it
Does God hear the prayers of sinners?
The classic test case is a man with nothing to recommend him: Jerry McAuley, river thief, praying in prison precisely as a sinner — no reform yet accomplished, no credit to plead. His account of that night is the plainest first-person answer to this question in American religious literature, and the mission he founded afterward filled with men who prayed the same way.
McAuley says he felt exactly like the old hymn — praying without any assurance he would be heard:
“Perhaps he will admit my plea, Perhaps will hear my prayer, But if I perish I will pray, And perish only there.”
And the answer, as he recorded it:
“All at once it seemed as if something supernatural was in my room. I was afraid to open my eyes. I was in an agony, and the sweat rolled off my face in great drops. Oh, how I longed for God’s mercy! Just then, in the very height of my distress, it seemed as if a hand was laid upon my head, and these words came to me: “My son, thy sins which are many are forgiven.””
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T.S. Baker — testimonies in their own words, free sources linked.