This year many people have faced unusual and challenging circumstances. Today, I heard from one of them. One of our followers wrote to us and asked how God can be real when we pray over and over for years without answer. I happen to have walked through this very question all year as I battled resentment around unanswered prayers. Earlier this year I lost my dad unexpectedly to a complicated death. This caused me to sit back and ask the Lord, “when will this pain be over?” “Did you hear me for the past 16 years?” “What were you thinking?” Often, we cry out to God, and He answers. But, sometimes it feels like He does not answer. Sometimes His answers are quiet. Sometimes they are hard. Sometimes they are not what we want, so it feels like He doesn’t answer. This leads us to ask how God can be real.
When my dad passed away, it felt like years of prayer did too. For 16 years I begged the Lord to heal my dad from his battles with mental illness and addiction. I asked for restoration. When he died, my trust in the Lord wavered. I learned that God hadn’t answered my prayers the way that I wanted, and it made me doubt that He was real. After all, how could my good God take my dad before the restoration I had begged Him for? Surely God didn’t answer me that way. Instead, He must not exist. Could God just ignore me? I expected my prayers to be answered with the healing of my dad and a beautiful life watching him as a grandfather. Instead, he was gone. In an instant. No restoration to my knowledge. So, perhaps, maybe no God?
Because he died before I got to experience his healing, I closed myself off to God. I didn’t open my Bible for months unless it was for church or work. My personal communication with the Lord felt like a desert. I refused to dive into God’s Word believing it would bring pain, and the Lord would make me work through my despair. In my mind, God either was cruel or not real. It is funny the realities about God we can so easily craft. God is real and kind.
God is kind. He did not force me into grief. When I finally faced the reality of my unanswered prayers, the Lord quietly walked beside me. He simply gave me comfort. He didn’t teach me a lesson in mocking anger like I anticipated. He allowed me to set the pace with my grief, my processing, and my newfound trust in Him. He showed me that He heard every one of my prayers.
It took time, but I finally processed my unanswered prayers and saw that they were in fact answered. Though the answer was not what I wanted, God knew that my dad needed to be called to Heaven. First, I learned that my dad’s death was an accident. This was a gift to me. I had always felt immense fear that my dad would take His own life, but the Lord graciously brought Him home before that point. Second, I found out that my dad had been struggling financially much more than I knew. When he passed away, I discovered he had just run out of money. He would have been destitute - increasing his emotional and physical struggles. Of course, I thought that God could have fixed that rather than call him home, but God knew better. God removed the burden of money and gave Him perfect provisions in Heaven. Third, my dad was battling addiction at the time of his death. It was affecting his life secretly and causing him to isolate. When he died, God restored him through death and ended his addiction. So, although my prayers were not answered as I wanted, they were answered.
When God called my dad home to Heaven, He rewrote my dad’s legacy. Instead of a broken human filled with despair, my dad was a broken human that was set free. His battles were completely removed, and he became perfect and complete in Christ. Then my dad’s death was used to tell others about Jesus. This would have been the greatest joy to him. Although he struggled a lot during his time on earth, he had a gift of evangelism. This gift continued through his memorial service. I stood in front of hundreds of people and told them that my dad loved Jesus. I spoke about how Jesus is God who came to earth as a man, lived a perfect life, and died to pay for our mistakes. Jesus defeated death by rising from the dead and offers every one of us new life if we simply accept it. My dad amidst his struggles understood the Gospel, and His death is being used to proclaim it over and over.
Overall, I learned through my grief that every prayer is answered. Sometimes we must pause and really look to see that answer though. I had to be willing to hear the answer. My dad is in heaven now, and my broken relationship with him is healed. I did find restoration. God did answer my prayer. My dad is never going to hurt again. He will never struggle. He will never feel like a failure. I will never again feel like I wasn’t good enough to fix the situation with my dad. Instead, I will remember the wonderful times I had with him. I will tell his grandchildren about how funny he was and how dearly he loved them. I will tell them how he is restored.
Every prayer was answered and all conflict was resolved in February when my dad entered the gates of heaven. Jesus looked at him and said, “well done.” “Well done” because my dad had in his broken and confused life chosen to follow Jesus. For that reason, I will declare my dad’s legacy as this, “Broken people are never enough, but Jesus is.” Like all humans my dad struggled. His life was messy, which makes the fact that He knew Jesus even better. All the mess my dad made Jesus fixed on the cross. Nothing my dad could do would fix his mistakes, but everything Jesus did restored them. My dad’s struggles after giving His life to Christ did not affect His salvation. The Lord knows that our world is filled with sin, and we will never be perfect. Jesus doesn’t expect perfection from us even after we accept His gift. He simply wants our love. Jesus will make us more and more like Him as our love for Him grows. And if we struggle our whole lives, like my dad, Jesus’ love will never waver.
I know that I will sometimes struggle with why God couldn’t have restored my dad on this side of Heaven. But, I now see that God knows everything and knows what was needed to heal my dad. God knew that there were specific people who needed to have a reality check when my dad passed away. God knew the people who needed to be in the church and hear the Gospel at the funeral. God knows who needs to read this and be reminded that even the most broken people can take a breath of relief knowing they don’t have to fix themselves. My dad didn’t, Jesus did. Jesus is enough. He is the Savior, and He answers every prayer.
Written By: Elizabeth Keith
