Unanswered Prayers

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God:  that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him."  1 John 5: 14-15

WARNING: Today’s post will be decidedly female. It will talk about things that cause some men to run for the hills. If you are that man, please run for the hills and spare yourself the agony and gruesomeness of all things womanly. This concludes my public service announcement.



A teenage friend of mine is questioning whether or not God hears her prayers. Now I don’t know what she’s been praying about, or who, or why, but I’ve referred her to Garth Brooks’ words of wisdom.


Sing along now… “Some of God’s greatest gifts… are unanswered prayers.”


And I know this to be true because I, myself, prayed very hard about something for years and years, and my will was not to be.


It was about the time of fifth grade when they started showing us videos and such at school. We had to watch the boy version and then the girl version. Everyone got both sides of the story when it came to puberty.


I was aghast!


Yes, I knew about such things because I had a mother myself, but the thing she called Womanly Disease was not something I wanted any part of. I was already horrified that it had come into question at what age I should give up my tank tops for a full fledged BRA, and didn’t see that becoming a “woman” held anything good or interesting that I wanted to have a part in.


Plus, it appeared from the movies that the boys got the better end of the bargain.


I remember praying, and praying hard, each night that God had made me different. That I didn’t even have those parts they talked about in the movies shown at school. That I would never be able to have children. That the Womanly Disease would never visit me.


It began to look promising sometime around entering junior high. Most of my friends were wearing full-fledged boulder holders and mine still had the training wheels. Most of my friends had to start carrying a purse to hide the unmentionables necessary to take care of the dreaded Womanly Disease. It looked like I’d dodged the bullet. God had come through for me after all! I was different! I knew it!


But then, sometime in my seventh grade year, on the night of a lunar eclipse I remember standing out in the street to watch, I was made to realize I was just like everyone else.


Great.


No joyous celebration of womanhood here.


I kept up my opinion on the never having children for a decade more, but then changed my mind. I began to pray for children. I had come full circle.


So, in the end, I’m thankful that God’s will and my own didn’t line up when I was a teenager. My life would be quite different now. Maybe not worse, but definitely different. I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to become someone’s mother and see the world through their eyes. I’m thankful for all the exploration, discovery, and satisfaction that has come with the title, and the two-way love that we share for each other. I’m thankful that two little people in this world think the world of me. I hope never to disappoint them with my character. I feel that I do so much more good because of them then I ever would have without them.


Thanks be to God for unanswered prayers, and for already knowing me later in life when I was but a teenager! And to all you teenagers out there, as hard as it might be to take, sometimes the answer is “No!”