Lately, I have been thinking a lot about prayer. Asking myself if my life shows that I believe that prayer has the ability to change things. The biggest question being this: when do you stop praying for things that seem like they won’t be resolved? As I’m writing this out, I feel like the answers are coming to my mind, which is unexpected since my mind has been wrestling with this all week and the answers eluded me.

Here’s the thing, twice in my life I have been healed of a chronic illness and twice it has returned. Often, my mom will encourage me to pray for healing and honestly I just don’t anymore. I’m settled with this being my reality, and I have seen how there has been good that has come out of living with this. I have met so many women with the same illness, and have been able to resonate with their fears in a way I couldn’t have before. I see that as a good thing. Yet, even with the good it doesn’t negate the hard days that are plenty. So here I am asking God if I should keep praying for healing and suddenly I’m thinking the answer is yes. Could I be praying for this for the rest of my life? Maybe. Does that make God any less faithful or loving? No.

A verse that comes to my mind when thinking about all of the things or people in my life that I have given up praying for is this: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” Proverbs 13:12

This verse has affirmed the feeling I have that continuing to hope for something that’s not happening over a long span of time seems like a bad idea. It sounds like having hope in certain things leads to sadness and disappointment. I don’t want that, so to me it makes sense that if I stop hoping for healing, or for people in my family to change, or to be a biological mom, or to be a wife, then I won’t have to grieve unfulfilled dreams.

Here’s the part I missed. When I brought to mind the verse in Proverbs, I forgot about the second part “…but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Here’s the whole thing: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

By trying to choose not to hope for the things or people my heart longs to see restoration in, I am robbing myself of experiencing the goodness of God. On the other hand I’m also robbing myself of the intimacy that comes with trusting God with my deepest desires, and learning how to still follow him and believe in His faithfulness and goodness even when things don’t happen the way I want them to.

Next week my church is going to begin 21 days of prayer, where we spend time individually praying for the same things. A lot of the people around me have been talking about things they want to remove from their life for those few weeks to help them focus more on the Lord, and I have been mulling over what would help me connect with God in the ways I so desperately need.

As my heart has been convicted of giving up on myself and others in the areas I mentioned earlier, I am committing to 21 days of praying about the things I am scared to hope for. Will I keep praying for those things after the 21 days? I don’t know honestly, but this is a good start considering I wasn’t praying for these things at all.

I pretty much listen to music all day every day, so for 21 days I am committing to either silence or worship music.

The last thing is that I think I’d like to spend time reading for myself what the Bible has to say about prayer, perhaps reading a book about spiritual disciplines alongside it.

My hope is that at the end of the 21 days I am left knowing even more how good, kind, and Holy God is. That the cold and bitter parts of my heart would be torn apart and new life would be rooted there.

What are the things or people in your life you’ve given up praying for? Perhaps, this has helped give you the courage to wipe the dust off those hopes and go through the box with the one who sees it all.

As always, thanks for reading