Unanswered Prayers
Those who’s loved ones battled illness for a time before their death know what it is to pray as hard as possible. It seems like a gut-punch when that person you have prayed so desperately for God to heal passes away. We fall so easily into the belief, or feeling, that God does not hear or doesn’t care about our prayers. If that’s the case, why bother praying?
This topic is personal to me right now. When my husband died 2 years ago, I had no warning. No indication that my last time seeing him would be my last time seeing him. While I prayed for him daily, there was no desperation in my prayers to spare his life. On the contrary, my family recently suffered a loss of someone very special to all of us. Covid hit home and took away one of our own. She was hospitalized for almost a month, with 12 days of that being intubated in ICU. In that month, her husband and children were only allowed to see her three times. From the moment we found out she was positive for covid, we were praying. Working the medical field, I knew what covid could do. To say we were worried would be an understatement. Not only was our family praying, but her entire church, and the churches of her siblings, and churches of her nieces and nephews, and all across the nation in churches of extended family and friends. While we were unable to visit her room, her church organized several nights of gathering for prayer in the parking lot of the hospital. Friends and family gathered in the cold to plead to God for healing.
But it didn’t come. At least not in the way we wanted. In her case, God chose eternal healing and welcomed her into Heaven. While we theologically know and are grateful for this, it doesn’t make it any easier for our hearts to accept. I can’t speak for my entire family, but I know of some who are angry at God, some who feel more peace about her death, and some who still cannot accept she is gone. In the midst of whatever emotions each person is dealing with, the question of whether we believe God heard our desperate prayers remains.
Does God hear our prayers? Yes. Does He always answer them? Yes, but perhaps not in the way we would prefer. The hardest answer to accept is a no. The times when God has other plans, like when we so desperately want someone we love to live, but God seems to say no. Does this mean He is cruel? No. Does it mean we didn’t pray hard enough or have enough faith? No. Many people were praying as hard as they could, and some of those people are the most faith-filled people I have ever known.
There is some theology out there that believes God only answers prayers when the person praying has prayed hard enough. My answer to this is: Since when does God’s movement depend on us? Does this mean we shouldn’t pray? Absolutely not. Prayer is the way we maintain relationship with God. A parent loves their child, but doesn’t always give the child whatever they ask for. While the child sees only what they want in the current situation, the parent sees the impact far beyond the present. We may never know or understand the reasons God may choose to say no, but we can trust that He knows what He is doing. That definitely doesn’t mean we always have to like or agree with it, but it is a truth we can hold onto when grief seems to have us free-falling into nothingness.
