Are You There God? It's Me Kristi

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."

Matthew 7:7-8

I have always prayed.  Even at 7 yrs old, I prayed that God would make ME sick, instead of my brother....and that my mommy would be happy again.  

Every night, I'd crawl into my small closet, in the bedroom that my mom and I shared.  I'd close my eyes and talk as quietly as I could to a God who my mother called a monster.

I refused to believe that God was to blame for all the problems....All the sickness that our family was enduring.  

So I prayed my prayer in desperate silence.  But things only seemed to get worse.  My brother's issues with Neurofibromatosis were progressing and my mother was spiraling into a deep depression.

Was God hearing my prayers?  Did He care at all about me?  Why wasn't He fixing my problems? This "all-powerful being" was ignoring me!  I wanted Him to take away the pain...the sickness, but He wasn't doing anything!

After my brother and I were taken away from my mother, I vowed to never talk to God again.  He was ignoring me...so I was going to ignore Him.  "Ask and you shall receive?"  Ya right!

It wasn't until I was an adult that I began to understand the way God works, but I still struggle with it.  I often pray prayers that sound more like demands, than requests.  "HEAL ME!"  "HEAL MY CHILD!"  And I find myself questioning the plans He has for my life.

Where is the trust?  The faith that I proclaim to have?  When God doesn't answer your prayers, it often means that HIS answers are not YOUR answers.  This has been a hard thing for me to accept and I find myself feeling as alone and helpless as I did when I was a child, praying in that closet.

When I pray now, even though I still want the answers that I WANT, I thank God for what I have, then leave the rest up to Him.  This is not to say that I don't send up requests....'Cause I send up many, It's just I have given up the control I THOUGHT I had to begin with.

The greatest reason that some prayers go unanswered is because many give-up praying and believing when the answer they expected never arrives, and they were so busy looking for their answer they never heard HIS answer. As long as we have the promise of God’s Word, be patient and persistent - keep believing, and don’t quit, no matter how long it takes! God has a “due season” when He will bring the answer to pass.