Does God Really Not Answer Our Prayers?
All too often, we've heard the expression "Thank God for unanswered prayers." I've thought a lot about this saying and its subsequent song, and I wonder if it’s true, does God really not answer our prayers, or does God just not answer our prayers the way we want them to be answered? I equate unanswered prayers to having a relationship with someone who won't answer you back. If we have a relationship with God and one form of communication is through prayer, then would it be likely to just have radio silence from God? For God to ignore us or not respond to our prayers seems odd. I believe in my heart that just like every other relationship that we have, God does answer us, just in a way that we might not expect (kind of like when our best friend tells us the truth and we kind of want to tune them out :) Here is a story to illustrate this idea.
A while back, I wrote a beautiful song, "Gift from the Sea," inspired by a past relationship. I met a man who lived by the sea—or as close as you can come to it in California—and had a fling with him. I wasn't looking for anything yet we found each other. The improbability of this relationship was high; we were in two very different places in life, but I wanted to try anyway. Through back and forths and traveling long distances, I tried to evolve this fling into a relationship. I prayed for the relationship to work, asking God for a partner who also was on the same page and for this man to be ‘the one.’ A partner who wanted me and a relationship too, not just a fling.
The smoldering fling eventually fizzled out, and I was left alone at the sea. Walking along the shore one day, I picked up a shell and ceremoniously threw it into the ocean. I prayed that if the shell (representing this gentleman) came back to me, it must be meant to be. And guess what? That shell came back to me, and sure enough, after the walk, the gentleman came back too! But, when we tried to force what should naturally occur, strong opposing forces of nature led us to a broken relationship. I was left heartbroken and confused. How was it that I had prayed to God for this relationship to work, and ultimately it did not? God knew how much I wanted a companion after having been solo for so many years, so why was this gentleman not it? Where was God in this, and why was my prayer not answered?
Flash forward about two years later. While scrolling on eHarmony, I came across a gentleman that looked familiar in an “I think I know you, but I do not know you” kind of way. The gentleman even had the same breed of rare dog that I once had and lived in the Sunflower state (aka Kansas). Why not reach out? From that one exchange, my now husband and I built the foundation for our relationship, which has spanned a few states, buying a house, blending fur families, working through some pretty traumatic events, getting married, changing careers, combatting a wasp infestation and trees that have nearly crushed our house. And yet we are still standing. So did God not answer my prayer? This is one of the many mysteries of life, faith, and God. We are but small creatures in the grandeur of God’s works, and it often defies logic or reasoning. We can't figure it out, but we sure damn will try to. We try and try and think that God doesn't answer our prayers. And then we try some more, ending up deflated and defeated with our faith in the gutter.
Who knows how exactly God answers prayers? And if they do, I think they may lie to you and themselves. I believe that God is having a continuous and ongoing conversation with each of us in our own unique way. I don't even know if that conversation is linear, in spirals, or in an image you can't detect, but I know there is something there. Through whispers, the wind and the trees, and other people, God is talking to us— sometimes even through us. So even when we think God hasn't answered our prayers, thank God for responding. God’s responses are far too wise for us to comprehend. And even at that, my mortal mind might be deceiving me, but I have faith enough to believe.