unanswered prayers
on brokenness and belief
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” - Luke 18:1–8
I am trying not to lose heart.
I am doing as I ought—praying, asking, seeking, knocking. Bothering.
My requests are not quite for justice, mind you. It is not the judges of the world who are holding out on me, but the Capital-J-Judge of All the Earth. At least, that’s what it feels like. A long delay.
My adversary has never been a flesh-and-bone foe to grapple with. Oh, how I wish there was someone I could punch, grab, drag, force.
Instead, the enemy I’ve battled in my prayers has been faceless, fleshless, shadowy but certainly there—a force that broke forth in that first garden, now seeping, dripping, spreading, all the way down into every crack and crevice.
My unanswered prayers all trace back to that one rotten root: sin, and it’s shattering of everything. “Brokenness” sounds abstract—but its effects are concrete, clear, cellular.
First, my mom. Cancer, spread everywhere. Nothing to be done—except pray, and try not to lose heart.
Please, God. Please, God. Please, God. Heal. Save. I know you can.
Every day, throughout the day, for a year and a half. I’d certainly classify it as “continual coming.” Begging, nearly as often as breathing.
And then her breathing stopped. It was hard not to lose heart when her heart went quiet.
Fast forward ten years. I am praying for a baby.
Granted, I have one already. She’s radiant, filling my life with such light and delight that I can’t help but want more. I don’t think it’s greedy. I am trying to be fruitful and multiply, like God told them in that garden, before the mess.
But the mess did come. They took and ate, and the ramifications ripple all the way here, to my hormones, my womb. I pray and pray, and month after month am met with not this time. Not yet. No. No. No.
Then, suddenly, joyfully, yes.
And then, almost as suddenly, blood. No, no, no.
Please, God. Please, God. Please, God. Stop the bleeding. Keep my baby safe.
I can’t help but wonder, did I pray wrong? I asked to get pregnant. I should’ve specified, maybe: a live, healthy birth.
I try not to lose heart. I never got to hear a heartbeat.
It’s not all life or death. There are smaller prayers, too.
Fast forward a few months, and we are opening the door at 2 am to welcome a new foster placement. She is set in my arms: a precious baby girl. She has been through much in her short life.
She is safe, but it’s hard for her to fall asleep here. Why wouldn’t it be? She doesn’t know us from Adam.
Adam, who should’ve slaughtered the snake the second he saw it slither in. He didn’t. And the fallout of that first failure has surged and swelled into a cascading, crushing wave of brokenness, casting this baby’s family against the rocks. I am trying, tenderly, to hold the pieces.
She needs to sleep. I need to sleep.
Please, God. Please, God. Please, God. Give her peace. Give her rest. Let us both sleep a few hours.
But her eyes stay open. Maybe she is the persistent widow? I am learning something new about being beat down, about crying day and night.
Sometimes, I am tempted to gather up all my unanswered prayers in a heap. To stomp into the throne room and dump them at his feet.
You want me to keep bothering you? Here I am. What do you have to say for all this?
I hurl down each “why didn’t you” and “you could’ve,” dashed hopes crashing. Each splintering is a strike against him.
What
are
you
doing?
He does not stop me.
When I am done huffing and puffing, grieving and groaning, he gently draws my eyes up.
I came here to count strikes and lash out. But I take him in—the scars from where he was stricken, where he was lashed, all because his prayer was not answered: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”
Please, God. Please, God. Please, God, he begged, in a different garden. Sweating blood. Left alone, friends asleep.
I look past the shards of my fractured hopes and lost loves, and I take in his face. My lips fall silent. I breathe out.
It is all true:
My unanswered prayers hurt. The ache is real, and deep. And, somehow, there are deeper things at work. I don’t know what God is doing. And, somehow, God is here. I feel like he is holding out. And, somehow, he has already freely, lovingly, painfully, given all for me.
Will he delay long? It surely feels like it some days.
Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, he will find me, as ever, beating back against the brokenness. Asking Please, God. Please, God. Please, God.
He will find me trying to pray and not lose heart, trying to continually come and cry out day and night.
And, he will find me trying to yield to the thing beneath the thing: nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
The fall in that first garden shattered everything. But there was another garden, where through surrender to an unanswered prayer, the better Adam was strengthened and went on to shatter the power of sin itself. And at the end of it all, a new garden city is promised, where “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.”
No begging, no bothering, no weeping, no questioning, no losing heart in heaven.
Hannah, this is beautifully written. I know intimately the grief of hopes being dashed month after month each time your period comes, and the pain of an ER visit to confirm that, indeed, the pregnancy is no more. I also know that advice and the well meaning, "it will happen at the right time" sentiments don't actually help. Just know - I see you and your pain, and far more importantly, God does too. This part of the story won't be wasted. :)
Hannah, I feel all of this so deeply. Reading this essay is like breathing a poem, like saying a prayer, like finding myself in your words. You understand the pain of unanswered prayers and still believe that he is worthy. Thank you for giving voice to this.