I’m going to admit I have some prayer issues. This has been brought to the surface for me as I’ve gone through the book “A Praying Life” by Paul Miller. I’m glad I’ve been doing it as part of a study with a group of ladies who have such great insight and vulnerability. Seems I’m not the only one who struggles to know how to connect my unholy longings with a holy God.
My problems with prayer are pretty straightforward and maybe even typical for people who have been through pain. I became aware of them after experiencing two miscarriages and then having other women ask me for prayer when their pregnancies were in jeopardy. While I cherished the opportunity to pray for them and my heart yearned for them to experience healing and a preserving of life, I felt almost dumbfounded for how to express this to my God. I have found myself stopping before I even really get started:
“God, why would you hear me and save the life of this child when I cried out to you and you wouldn’t save my baby?”
I know I’m dealing with a common problem- interpreting God’s failure to do what I want as failure either on my part or on God’s part.
With my first miscarriage I was better at seeing God’s plan. I was honestly thankful for that positive pregnancy test and the ability to carry life if it was even for a short while. I think my heart was guarded and the loss came as less of a shock. For whatever reason, my second miscarriage broke me. I began to envision myself as a little tenacious dog with his jaws clamped on God’s pant leg while God tried to violently shake me lose. “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.” I read a lot of Job. And eventually- EVENTUALLY- I came to have peace that I might never understand God’s plan in taking the life of my child. While I had found comfort during my first miscarriage in seeing God’s plan to bless me with a pregnancy however brief, during my second miscarriage I only found peace in letting go of the need to understand.
While I have found peace, it has made prayer feel like an emotional minefield as I try to navigate constant submission to God’s will while also expressing my genuine desires. I trust God has my good in mind, but I have stopped expecting it will look like good when I see it. I feel like I’m seeing a small square of some impressionistic painting that really only makes sense when you see it in context.
I am reminded again of that struggle to submit myself to God as I pray for some friends of mine who are caring for precious foster children they long to keep. My selfish heart wants for those children to only know the love and stability of these wonderful homes and for my friends to never face the heartache of packing their little suitcases and sending them off on difficult journeys back to biological families. But I also think Christians should be the greatest optimists. We believe anyone can change and fervently hope to see and be part of change in the lives of others. As much as I might want to at times, I can’t root against the families of my children. So how should I pray? When other people would tell me they were praying my foster kids would stay permanently with our family, I had to think of the full implications- are we praying their biological parents would fail? I couldn’t bring myself to pray that way. Loving these children means loving their families and praying for their salvation and healing even if it comes at the cost of my plans and desires.
So I struggle with helplessness in my prayers. I struggle to believe in the power of a listening God who would make the sun stand still because of one man’s prayers. It’s hard for me to think God will hear me just like a loving father hears the cries of his child and offers comfort. I only want to pray right things and so sometimes I find myself not praying at all. The incredible feeling of loneliness and abandonment you feel when you are being wheeled back for surgery to remove the lifeless tissues that were coming together to form your child doesn’t leave you easily. It is hard to reconcile that with a loving God who never left my side. It is difficult to know how to pray when you realize the limitations of your own understanding.
But I am learning to trust. I am learning to ask God for His will to be done even when I can’t understand it, because I know it is for my good. And I’m learning to beg, to plead, to honestly express my heart knowing my Father wants to hear. I know Jesus cried with Mary and Martha even though he knew he was going to raise Lazarus again. I have seen the good he has worked from my hardest situations and I want to know the comfort of his weeping with me even when he knows how he will make all things right.
Prayer can be hard, but living without prayer is harder. So I will keep working through my prayer issues until the day when I reach heaven and we can continue these conversations face to face.
6 Comments
Leave a reply →