Chateau Diaries: prayer
I’ve known Jesus for as long as I can remember. My dad was a pastor and my parents taught us about Jesus and raised us in the church. I remember going to prayer nights as a kid (hello church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Monday night, Wednesday night). As a teenager, Monday night prayer was honestly, probably a time to get to hang out with the boy I had a crush on or see my best friend, because even the Lord knew I wasn’t going to pray on Monday night with all the banners and quiet atmosphere. Nope, not happening.
But the older I’ve gotten, the more I wonder about prayer.
I pray for small things; for bad days to get better and boo boos to heal. I pray for better attitudes and more patience. I thank God for the good things coming and try to ward off the bad. I pray for anxiety to go away and peace to take it’s place.
And then there are the big prayers. I pray for a friend to be healed from COVID sickness. I pray for cancer to go away, hearts to be healed, or sick children to not die. I pray for addictions to break and families to be brought back together.
But what happens when those prayers aren’t answered? Isn’t this an eternal question?
Having grown up in the church, I’ve often heard that it wasn’t “God’s will,” or “He has a plan for your life” when prayers aren’t answered. These sayings, intended to wrap up the will or move of God with a tidy bow, make me want to vomit. Honestly. I remember a time in my life where I thought, “If this is the will of God, then I want nothing to do with it.”
But I don’t believe that God is ever wrapped up in a tidy bow.
Isn’t He full of truth and yet so nuanced?
Perfectly faithful, and still completely unpredictable.
It is easy to brush off the unanswered prayer of “Please help me have a good day today.” But what about the prayers prayed for a friend’s healing? The friend who got COVID, lived in the hospital for nearly 9 months and THEN died. Were there not enough people praying for him? Did we not pray the right prayers? Why the suffering? Was that really God’s will? Could we all have not ‘learned’ a lesson another way? Did the praying ever matter? What was it all for?
These are questions I don’t have answers to, but as I sit by the fire in this chateau, I can’t help but wonder about the prayers soaked deep into these walls. This chateau, built in the 12th century was a convent. That’s right, women whose lives were dedicated to prayer lived here for hundreds of years.
They felt the calling of prayer so important that they left it all; the intimacy of marriage, the joys of motherhood, the highs of consuming things, and many more. They chose to live a life solely dedicated to prayer and thanksgiving to God.
It must be sacred. Prayer must be holy AND necessary.
The older I get, the more I believe prayer must be for me. Its’ purpose has to be more than a direct request line to God. More than a list of good things I’m thankful for.
It is a mystery to me.