Making Sense of Prayer and the Scriptures

This is a big topic. It is something that has consumed my life for the past several years, and I still don’t have all of the answers. That being said, I have learned a lot about prayer through all of my research, discussions, and prayer. While I may not be able to explain everything, I think what I have learned is worth sharing.

Allow me to explain how this became such a big topic in my life. I have pretty much always believed in God, and I have always believed in the power of prayer. I knew that God heard ALL of our prayers. I also knew that sometimes He’d answer our prayers with an amazing YES! That was the easy part and requires little explanation.

Over the years, I realized that sometimes God would answer with a “wait.” Like when I prayed for a husband at the age of 20 or when I prayed for a child for 2 years before my husband got on board and then eventually got pregnant. I think most of the time, the “wait” prayers make sense once you look back and see what God was doing in between. So I really didn’t feel the need to explore this much more.

Occasionally, I noticed God would answer with a “no.” The “no” prayers, I found, come in a couple of different categories. The most obvious category is when we ask for something that is not good for us, like praying to get a certain job that we later find out would have been terrible. Or praying for a good grade on a test that we didn’t study for. It can be heartbreaking, but eventually, we understand that God is telling us no for a reason, and it’s always for our good.

Then there are prayers that are answered with a “no,” and the reason isn’t exactly clear, but we can understand that God’s will may be different than ours, even though we don’t really know the specifics. Like when an older person has cancer and God, for whatever reason, doesn’t answer our prayers to cure it. Or when God doesn’t stop the hurricane or the war or the famine and allows people to suffer or die. It’s heartbreaking and causes us so much pain, but we know that there must be a reason, even though we can’t even begin to imagine what that reason might be.

I’m not talking about any of the prayers I’ve mentioned above.

I’m talking about the “no” prayers that don’t seem to make any sense no matter how hard we try. The baby who dies in utero or shortly after birth or in the NICU. The addict who dies of an overdose. The loved one who dies and never accepts Jesus as their Savior. In these situations, we are given a very clear “no,” and there is literally nothing that can be done to reverse what has happened. It typically involves death, although it may be something else that is clearly an end or a final decision. We pray and we pray and we beg and we plead and we wrestle with God. “God, save my baby.” “God, save my loved one from their addiction.” “God, make my loved one believe in You!” And then they die. And it is over. They will not come back to live. They will not be raised from the death like Lazarus. They are gone. God answered our prayers with a firm and definite “no,” and there is absolutely no way to reconcile the situation we are now facing.

I experienced this a few years ago. A little girl, I’ll call her Bella, who went to my son’s preschool, was diagnosed with cancer. She was a couple years older than TJ. TJ was 3, and Bella was 5. The type of cancer she had actually had a pretty high cure rate. It seemed as though she’d have to go through chemotherapy for several months, but she’d likely be just fine and living a normal life a year or two later. Her mom posted about their journey on Facebook, and I followed along to see how she was doing. A lot of it was probably what you would imagine – bad side effects, multiple surgeries, lengthy hospital stays, ups and downs. But it seemed as though she was on the path to a full recovery. About a year after she was diagnosed, the cancer spread to her lungs. A few months later, Bella passed away at the young age of 6.

It still brings tears to my eyes. I have been very fortunate to not have many people close to me pass away. My grandparents died when I was younger, but to me, it was just a normal part of life. We cried, we grieved, and we still miss them, but it made sense to me. This, however, did not.

I had been praying earnestly. Several of us held prayer vigils. The whole community, it seemed, was praying for Bella to be healed. Even when things took a turn, we all just prayed harder. I remember sending the mom several Facebook messages full of hope and bible verses that would SURELY be true. Things like “faith as small as a mustard seed” and “knock and the door will open” and “anything you ask in prayer will be yours” and “parting the Red Sea” and “all things are possible with God.” I searched the Bible all over to find every single verse that told me everything would be okay and Bella would be healed. I knew that the Bible was true. Every single word. I believed it with my whole heart. I didn’t have faith as small as a mustard seed – I had faith as big as at least a whole city!

I want to take a minute to acknowledge that I was not Bella’s mom. I was completely consumed and invested in this journey, but it wasn’t my journey. I was invested in it for purely selfish reasons. It came from a place of overwhelming fear. Bella was just a couple years older than TJ. This same thing could happen to TJ. As a mom, I just couldn’t let that happen. If Bella pulled through, that meant all I would have to do if anything like this ever happened to TJ was pray like I had for Bella, and everything would be fine. The thought of TJ suffering and eventually passing away from something like this was more than I could bear. I needed to know that God would answer our prayers. Not for Bella, but for TJ. Not for Bella’s mom, but for me. And like I said, this is completely selfish, and I’m sorry to even admit it. But I’m human. And I’m a mom. And I think just about any other mom can relate. I think any mom’s biggest fear is losing one of her children. Of course I was sad about Bella. She was so cute, so happy, so full of life. I felt absolutely terrible for her and her family. But I need to be honest. Deep down, I was thinking of myself.

So after Bella passed away, I was angry. How could God allow this to happen? I prayed all the right things. I read all the right Bible verses. She was GOING to be healed. That was the only answer that made sense. But here we all were, facing the reality that God said “no.” And it made absolutely NO sense to me. Why would God ever allow something so terrible to happen? Why would God give someone a child at all if He knew that they’d be taken away just a few short years later? What was the point? And why does the Bible say all of that stuff if it apparently wasn’t true? What was the point in praying if it wasn’t going to change anything anyways? God had apparently already made up His mind, so all of my prayers were just in vain, completely useless, a waste of time. And what about all the things I had told Bella’s mom? I was so embarrassed. And ashamed. I wanted to be the person to give her hope and a reason to believe in God. But instead I had just given her false hope. And probably a reason to doubt God’s existence. I was a complete failure in all of this.

I started trying to rationalize it. Maybe they would start a foundation in Bella’s name and it would save other children from dying of the same thing. Maybe this experience would change them for the better and they would go on to talk about God’s great love for them and bring other people to Jesus. Maybe the community would be so affected by it that it would create some sort of amazing change. Maybe her organs would be donated and save other people’s lives. Maybe her parents would create a new bill that would require better medical treatment or more paid leave for parents of sick children or ban a chemical that caused the cancer.

But that wasn’t good enough. Those weren’t any sort of consolation. A beautiful, wonderful, young child had DIED. Who cares about a foundation or bringing other people to God? Wasn’t God able to find other ways to make people believe in Him? I certainly wouldn’t want to be that person who was lead to God, knowing that it was at the expense of someone else’s child. And what about the organ recipient? Of course I would be extremely grateful to receive one of her organs, but is that really supposed to make Bella’s mom feel better? Doesn’t it just seem cruel for God to save someone else’s life at the expense of another? Isn’t He more powerful than that? Can’t He just save the dying organ instead of killing a child? Can’t He just cause one rich person to start a foundation instead of starting it after a child dies? Can’t He make a politician pass a bill instead of using the anger from the child’s parents? Don’t get me wrong – this stuff is all great. But it’s just not “good.” It’s not enough. It doesn’t make up for the fact that a CHILD has DIED. It doesn’t erase the gigantic hole that her parents will now carry with them the rest of their lives. It doesn’t make up for all of the birthdays, graduations, friendships, marriage, and children that Bella should have had. No, this would not be an acceptable answer. I needed something else.

So I started thinking about it the opposite way. Maybe God allowed her to die because He knew that her life was going to be bad otherwise. Maybe He knew that she would die tragically in a car accident one day or she would be sold into human trafficking or that she would become a heroin addict and eventually die of an overdose and at that point her organs wouldn’t be fit for donation. (By the way, I am SO incredibly sorry if this comes across as rude or crude or upsets anyone in any way. I am in no way suggesting that Bella would have been in any of these situations. I am simply trying to express my reasoning during all of this.) So maybe God was just trying to save Bella’s friends and family the heartache that He knew they would experience. But how did that make sense? They were still suffering heartache, probably even more so than they would in the other situations. That couldn’t be the answer either.

Then there’s the explanation that’s basically a creative way of saying “I have no idea.” The explanation that says I don’t have an explanation. That is – we will never understand all of God’s ways here on Earth. This is actually kind of the answer I’ve come to, but I’m not just going to stop there. I know that for pretty much everyone, that is not a satisfactory answer.

So allow me to explain. Imagine for a minute that this was your child. Or for some of you, maybe you’ve gone through this extreme heartache yourself. (If so, I am so, incredibly, unbelievably sorry, and I wish I had better words of comfort for you, but unfortunately I don’t.) Is there anything that anyone can tell you that would make you feel 100% better? In other words, is there anything here on earth that could happen that would 100% make up for the loss of your child? I’m going to assume we can all agree that the answer is no. Children are irreplaceable. Even having another child after the first one passes would not fill that gaping hole in your heart. Even winning the jackpot in the lottery would not be enough money to erase the memories and erase the pain of what will never be – the wedding, the graduations, the grandchildren, etc. You not only lost what you had, but you also lost what you never got to experience with that child. There is absolutely NOTHING that could make it all better short of bringing that child back to life. And even more than that – cancer free and completely healed.

This is the same as any of the other circumstances I mentioned. The addict who dies of an overdose. The baby who is born as a stillborn or who dies shortly after birth. The only thing that would make it all better is having that person back in your life, completely healed of their addiction or any other illness, etc.

But as far as I know, that is not possible.

Except, it kind of is. It’s just that, it won’t ever be here on Earth. But here’s where it gets even better. See, God promises that if we believe in His Son, and if we believe that He died and rose again, we too will rise again and live for eternity with Him in Heaven. I know that isn’t exactly a satisfactory answer for a lot of people. It wasn’t even satisfactory to me at first. I think it’s just hard to appreciate because it’s nothing tangible. It’s not something we can exactly imagine. I don’t know about you, but when I think about Heaven, I often picture millions of spirits floating around in the sky around a big light that represents God, singing worship songs and smiling. I mean, that sounds okay I guess, but it doesn’t exactly make me excited or anything. It certainly doesn’t help fill that hole of losing a child or a loved one.

But all we know is our home here on Earth. And all we have as a reference point is how our loved ones and our relationships are here in the flesh. What we know about Heaven is that it is, for lack of a better word, perfect. That means perfect joy, perfect bodies, perfect relationships, perfect peace. It is something so so good that it is even better than what we could ever imagine here on Earth. It is something so SO good that it will not only erase the heartache of this life, but it will MAKE UP for the heartache, pain, and suffering that we experience in this fallen world.

So now, let’s go back to imagining what would make up for the loss of a child. We said it could only be that child coming back to life, cancer and illness free. It would be getting back all we lost in that child, as well as experiencing everything that never was – the graduations, the weddings, the grandchildren. And I don’t know about you, but thinking about all of that actually gets me excited! And Heaven will not ONLY be all of that, but it will be SO MUCH MORE. More than we can even think or imagine.

I read a book not too long ago about people having near-death experiences. I’m not here to debate how true these stories are. That’s a completely separate topic in itself. But in the book, several different people experienced going to a “light” which they believed to be God or Jesus. And after they saw that light, they actually didn’t want to return to their life back here on Earth. It brought them so much peace and happiness and joy that all they wanted was to go to the light. Again, who knows if this is true. But when you think about we I just described in the previous paragraph about Heaven, it kind of makes sense. Who would want to return to all of the pain and suffering of this world when they could go to a light that brings more peace and joy than they have ever experienced?

Anyways, all of this is to say, if this is what God promises, does it really matter what His reason is? I know, I know. That’s kind of a non-answer. But, it’s true. This life is full of things that we can’t explain no matter how hard we try. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe we don’t need to know. Maybe the hope we have in Jesus and in our future in Heaven is enough. I have never been to Heaven, so I can’t really say exactly what it’s like. But I know for a fact that it will be better than anything we can ever experience here on Earth. There will be no suffering. There will be no heartache. There will be no pain. There will be no illness. There will be no addiction or drugs or alcohol (or at least none that would be damaging to our bodies or our relationships). There will be no fighting or arguing. There will be no poverty or hunger. There will be no competition at the expense of others. There will be no bullying. There will be no idolatry. There will be no pride in a negative sense. There will be no depression or anxiety or burnout or fatigue. There will be no stress, no worry.

So, that answer doesn’t help us in the here and now. It won’t bring our children back here on this Earth. It won’t take away the pain and the suffering. It won’t make it any easier to live each day with that gaping hole in our hearts. No, there is nothing in this life that will make it better. Not even organ donation or new legislation or more kids or food trains or sympathy cards will make living here on Earth any better. And I think it’s important to acknowledge that. There is NOTHING that can replace the loss of a loved one. Not here. Not now. And trying to make sense of it will just leave us bitter and confused. It doesn’t make sense. And maybe it SHOULDN’T make sense. Because we live in a fallen world full of sin. Things will never be perfect. They will never be “good” or even “good enough.”

But we know that in Heaven, we will see our loved ones again. Not just their spirits floating around in a big blob in the air. Their actual bodies and minds and spirits – all in perfect splendor. We will be able to touch them and hold them and hug them and kiss them. And we will be with them, forever, in the presence of God. It will be PERFECT. It will be BETTER than ANYTHING we can imagine. It will be BETTER than anything we could have experienced with them here on Earth.

So that still doesn’t answer the question about prayer. Since this is such a big topic, I’ll save that for part 2.

Until then, to God be ALL the Glory!

Love, Grace

P.S. I’ll give scripture references in the comments, just so you know I’m not just making all this up 🙂