He hears you.
Usually, I am a reckless optimist. I’ve often been told that I wear my heart on my sleeve - for better or for worse.
But, lately, I’ve found myself more reserved to hope. In some areas I feel more like doubting Thomas than Mary, with her unwavering faith. So, I’m writing this as an ode to the doubters, the Thomases, and the ones reserving hope.
I started following Jesus in the fall of 2011. I was entering my senior year of high school and had just moved in with a family of 5 strangers. Pa, as I would come to know him, was and still is a pastor. At the time, I had no idea what that meant and it certainly didn’t mean anything to me.
One day, a few months after moving in with them and going to their church, I accepted Jesus sitting on their couch with tears streaming down my face. I remember feeling free for the first time in my entire life. Not free to do whatever I want, like our hyper-individualistic culture applauds, but free FROM so many things like fear, anger, loneliness, resentment, insecurity, perfectionism, striving.
It wasn’t long after that day that I began praying that my mom and younger brother would experience the same encounter with God that I had. Even as I prepared to move from NC to VA for college I believed that if God was capable of saving me, He could save anyone - including my family. I had a passionate, fearless faith during those early years. I believed in the Jesus of the Bible who could heal the blind and lame, save the lost, and raise people from the dead.
Year after year, I prayed and pleaded with God to save my mom and my brother. I remember those prayers so vividly because they took an incredible amount of boldness and faith. You know the kind I’m talking about. It’s the kind of prayers I have to believe David prayed as he looked in the face of Goliath. The prayers of Moses as he asked God to part the waters and rescue His people. The prayers of Mary and Martha as they watched their brother, Lazarus, become sick to the point of death.
And just like David, Moses, Mary, and Martha, my situation seemed to have a few impossible obstacles to overcome. Not only that, but in the years of praying, I was often met with disappointment and doubt. And in those early days, I hadn’t truly experienced what it felt like to be disappointed with God. I only knew excitement and hope. But those years of unanswered prayers began to erode my faith.
If God was going to save my mom, why didn’t He do it by now? If He was going to answer my prayers, wouldn’t He have done so already? His lack of action didn’t make any sense and it left me with a lot of questions. And on top of all of that, I came face-to-face with a really hard question when I began counseling a few years ago. My counselor asked me, “If God doesn’t save your mom, is He still good?” I looked at her with my jaw on the floor. I was stunned into silence. I had never once considered the fact that God might not save my mom. It seemed like the only possibility, the only reasonable answer, but…what if He didn’t?
Disappointment has a funny way of sneaking up on you and making a home among your hopes and dreams. That’s what happened to me. It has been 11 years of inviting my mom to church, to lunch, to read the Bible with me, to pray, to heal, to have a thriving and healthy relationship…and disappointment met me at every turn. Every time, I dared to hope it would be different and every time, it was the same. That took a toll on the reckless faith of the 18 year old girl who encountered Jesus for the first time. 11 years of disappointments add up. Somewhere along those 11 years, I traded in my hope that God would save my mom for the heartbreaking reality that He might not. There is a vital difference to believing that God can do something and believing that He wants to do it. I believed He could, but I also believed He just didn’t want to.
Despite those disappointments, despite my failures and shortcomings, despite my selfishness and pride, God performed a miracle yesterday that proves He is bigger than all of those things. After 11 years of prayers, my mom began a personal relationship with Jesus yesterday.
My brother accepted Jesus as his Savior in 2020 in that same church with a prayer led by the same man. I began following Jesus in 2011 with a prayer that was also led by that same man. And, if I’m convinced of anything today, it is this: God hears us. He hears us. He hears me. And He hears you. And, He is so much bigger than our disappointments.
He heard the 18 year old girl who prayed with a fearless and reckless faith.
He heard the 21 year old young woman who prayed with a few more disappointments and a little fear.
He heard the prayers of the 25 year old woman who had faced and seen so many things that tried to persuade her to give up hope.
He heard the desperate plea of a 27 year old who tried to hold it all together as she helped her mom bury her oldest son.
He heard the tear-soaked prayers of a 28 year old who watched her mom get older every year and wondered how much time they had left.
He hears us. He really, really does.
And what’s even more mysterious and beautiful than that is the fact that He responds. I don’t know why or when or how. I won’t pretend to have the slightest understanding of the mechanics behind it all. But, I do have hope and I do have proof that He hears us.
So, here’s to the doubting Thomases. The ones gripping onto their hope with clenched fists and fear. The ones desperately wanting to believe that the nail marks are real and the Savior has risen. May you continue to hope, to pray, to wait, to get back up, and to believe in the God who hears you.
