How often have you prayed to make the green light at the intersection, for a meeting to end early or for those vanity pounds to just fall off? I do this daily. But even though I would categorize it as a small prayer, I don’t put blame on God when I end up missing the light or staying late at work. It gets me thinking of all the times I have blamed God for bigger prayers that felt unanswered.
When I was 22, a close friends little sister was diagnosed with leukemia. I prayed and prayed and prayed. The type of prayer where you stand outside staring up at the clouds because it makes you feel closer to Jesus and you think maybe He can hear you more clearly. Several months later, that girl died. I remember getting the call while in my car and physically being unable to continue driving. I pulled over and I prayed. I didn’t even know what to pray for so I demanded that He take away the pain of the friends and family whom loved this girl. But the hurt didn’t stop.
A couple months later, my best friend, Lisa, who was born with cystic fibrosis suddenly became in critical condition needing a lung transplant. I prayed and prayed and prayed. For a miracle. For new lungs. And new lungs came! Five years later, complications arose when the new lungs rejected her body and she died. This time, I prayed for her to come back. I was in denial and looking at her in the hospital bed and then at the funeral home, I honestly bargained with God to have her pop back up to life. God did not raise her up.
Almost exactly a year ago, my friend went into labor at just 28 weeks. She was carrying twins, Isaac and Isla. Receiving that text, I collapsed into my pillow, grabbed my husband’s hand and we prayed and prayed and prayed. A day later, we got the word that Isaac only lived one day. This event jolted me like nothing ever before. Where was God? How could this happen? Recently, we just celebrated Isla’s first birthday. That joy was coupled with the memory that Isaac is not here with us.
Through the heartache, tears, celebrations and milestones of life, I pray. My prayers are not always given the result I want. I doubt I will ever understand why during my time here on earth. I do believe that through heartache, tragedy and hardship, that God is here with us feeling the pain with us. He is not standing off in the sidelines; he is in the midst of it with us. And that is why I pray. I believe in God’s work and in miracles. And while many of my prayers are not answered in the way I want, I have faith. I know this life is only a blink of what we have ahead of us in eternal life. And so I pray.
