Unanswered Prayer

This week marks the anniversary of my most devastating unanswered prayer. 

Six years ago, I was in a hospital room living someone else’s nightmare, pleading with God to make my son’s heart beat again. 

I mean, he was perfectly healthy only 48 hours before this moment. Laughing and enjoying his happy little 6 year-old life. How could we be at this point now?

As I walked out of the hospital without him, watching life all around me continue in a completely normal way, the heaviness of my loss sat on my heart like a ton of bricks. 

Did I not pray hard enough? 

I had a peace that met me in that hospital room and has carried me through every day since, but that peace never erased the pain. Never erased the reality that to my most desperate prayer… God said no.

Have you been there? Praying and pleading for a healing that never comes? For deliverance, a movement, a change, softening of a heart?

It is a hard thing to reconcile, to take the promises of God’s word and line them up next to a shattered life and say, but… wait. What happened? Did I not pray hard enough?

Abraham once pleaded before God with great faith. Negotiated with humility and earnestness for God to spare Sodom on Lot’s behalf.

Up on a hill, overlooking some seriously wicked cities, He fervently sought the Lord in a series of requests. In spite of the wickedness running rampant, God said he would spare the city if 10 righteous people could be found. (Genesis 18:16-33) 

Of course 10 righteous people couldn’t be found. Genesis 19 gives a pretty descriptive account of the extent of the depravity of Sodom. The city was basically begging for fire and brimstone. But in spite of their lingering, God did save Lot and his family. He rescued him from the city before he destroyed it. He did it because “God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow.”

But did Abraham even know? The next morning, Abraham went early to the place he had pleaded with God and looked over the valley, over the cities he had petitioned God to save. And he saw utter destruction. To Abraham it could have very well looked like his prayers had burned up in the furnace of destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

God saved Lot because of Abraham’s prayers. But there is a chance Abraham never knew. The Bible never mentions that Abraham saw Lot again. And based on Lot’s daughters desperation in the rest of chapter 19 it certainly doesn’t seem like they ever saw another human again.

Sometimes God answers our prayers in ways we will never know and never understand on this earth. 

I once sat in the ICU and prayed from the depths of my soul.

And my prayers went unanswered. I wanted one result. I wanted my little boy to breathe again. I wanted his heart to beat. I wanted his eyes to open. I wanted him to live and walk out of that hospital and back to our happy little oblivious life where everything always worked out ok.

But heaven felt silent to my desperate plea. 

Yes, I felt God’s presence in so many ways and trusted his sovereignty over everything in spite of the searing pain and haunting grief. But the big prayer I prayed went unanswered.

And yet, I know in faith that even though God doesn’t always answer prayer in the way we expect, he still answers.

If, like Abraham, you have stood and stared out over what looks like a wasteland of your unanswered prayers, smoke rising from the destruction where you desperately prayed for hope, know your story isn’t finished yet. God moves in ways we never understand on this earth, especially when we accept his sovereignty with great faith. 

Abraham is listed in the great roll call of faith in Hebrews 11. Abraham lived looking forward. To the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. He died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. And when things didn’t go the way he expected or wanted, when his prayers were unanswered and he looked at destruction, he kept his heart focused on the better country, the heavenly one. 

So I choose to keep praying. Like Abraham, humbly yet fervently. With great passion and intention. I will keep pursuing God for his hand of intervention in my children’s lives. In my country. In the girls at Mason’s Place and children around the world who live in desperate places. 

Because even when it looks like destruction is rising and hope is fading, God is still on the throne. And he honors the prayers that we pray. And he answers them in ways we may never see. 

And someday in heaven I believe it will be played back for me. Answers. Deliverance. Movement. Great hope that abounds because of prayers prayed in faith. 

Even the ones that seemed unanswered. I believe that my biggest prayer, the one I prayed over Mason’s life, will have great ripple effects throughout eternity. I believe it was answered. In some way I don’t yet understand and certainly not in the way I wanted. But like Abraham, I believe God honored the heart of my prayer, and that he still does. 

The pain and the suffering of this life will fade away in the glory of that realized faith. And so, I keep looking forward. Longing for that better country. 

And praying with faith until I get there.