A Liturgy for Unanswered Prayers

words for your heart when you lack your own

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A Liturgy for Unanswered Prayers

O Christ, what have I to offer in this moment but my yearning heart? A heart that reaches for its Abba, Father. I have little more to show than

my impatience,

my confusion,

my frustration,

my discouragement,

my grief,

my exhaustion.

All of which, I am also a steward.

Instead let me offer something greater in this place, O LORD. A hallelujah amidst my questions, a quiet song of praise amidst my aching knees and clasped palms. As I come before Your throne amidst my unanswered prayers, meet me in the collision of my brokenness and my flesh, in the place where my human mind cannot understand your higher ways.¹

I bring to you the well-worn fragments of my hopes, the chipped and fallen pieces of my expectations, the frayed patches of my desires, and even the bruised skin of my pride, which can sometimes believe it has a better plan for me than You do.

Let your grace fall upon me, Jesus, and remind me that there is nothing that can separate me from Your love, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—indeed not even unanswered prayers.²

You are the King of my wreckage, sovereign over my disappointment, the collector of my tears.³ Your face, O Jesus, meets me in my repetitive requests and Your glory stands on the other side of my surrender.

I do not know the answer to this “why”,

I do not know the way out of this valley,

I do not know what must be done now,

but You do.

Teach me O God, what I need to be taught. I am Your student. Guide me O God, where I lack holy guidance. I will obey.

Lord, lead me into prayer and fasting, if that is your will. Lead me into worship if it will help my wilted hope. Lead me to Your Word, to Your wounded hands and feet, always. Or, lead my soul to rest, if that will surely be best.

Remind me Jesus, on days when it is especially so hard to see, that You, in fact, are always the answer.

Hallelujah.

Amen

I’m lying here next to my sleeping baby, an answered prayer after many unanswered ones to keep the life of the one who first called my womb “home”.

I have prayed countless times for her to sleep through the night over the last eight months, prayers which, mostly, go unanswered.

I could spend an hour listing off all the requests I have made to God that have been met with gentle or hard “no’s”. Likewise, I could do the same for everything God granted a miraculous “yes”. Sometimes I look at my friends and I wonder what afflictions they have exhausted with prayer, and I weep on my knees as I join them in their pleas to the Father.

I don’t know the prayers made in your secret place, Reader. But I know the Lord would rather we wrestle with Him than run from Him.⁴ I know He’d rather help our unbelief than hear our lack of faith.⁵ I know He’d rather catch our tears than be met with cold shoulders.

You are loved by Jesus. Fully seen. Fully known. Always heard. I am too. My goodness, praise God.

Katie Donohue Tona

If you liked this post, feel free to browse the Faith section of The Little Library of Writing with Jesus:

The Little Library of WWJ & How to Find Your Way Around Here

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1. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

2. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

3. “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalm 56:8

4. “So, Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So, Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”” Genesis 32:24-30

5. “Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’” Mark 9:24

“You of little faith…” Matthew 6:30, Matthew 8:26, Matthew 14:31, Matthew 16:8, Matthew 17:20, Mark 4:40, Luke 9:41, Luke 12:28