Unanswered Prayer

I am by no means a country music fan. Not even by a long shot. But having made that bold statement, which I believe if it were divulged might get us ejected from the heart of West Texas, I will say that some time ago, a song by Garth Brooks struck my fancy.  Odd that it should, as I don’t agree with what he is saying, but I believe in its essence. Perhaps you are familiar with the chorus:

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

Maybe it’s the catchy melody or the crooning of the singer; I found myself enjoying a song that doesn’t talk about a man’s woman leaving him or his dog getting shot in a hunting accident by his best buddy who happened to be cheatin’ on him with his wife. I even found myself singing along–maybe it was just humming.  I am, however, diametrically opposed to the concept of unanswered prayer. I believe God answers all of our prayers.  Every single one.

His answer just doesn’t always have to be yes.

Think about when your children ask you for something… is your answer always in the affirmative? If you are a very purposeful parent, the answer to that should be no.  Children are prone to ask for things that aren’t always very beneficial to them.  As responsible parents, we have to say yes as often as we reasonably can, but sometimes no is a more prudent response.  But it doesn’t stop there.  What about when you say, “We’ll see”? I remember that when my parents said that, my siblings and I would gleefully announce to each other, “That means yes!” and oft times it did. Oh I am sure there are times that it fell through for us, but more often than not, by my recollection, it did mean yes.  We expected it to. Sometimes, though, “maybe” takes another form.  Sometimes we have to do what is unthinkable to a culture obsessed with immediate gratification–we must WAIT.  There is a four-letter word if I ever heard one.  Wait? Wait for what? But I want it NOW! “I want an Oompa-Loompa, Daddy and I want it NOW!” Chad is very fond of jokingly admonishing our children with this phrase.  But it’s not so fun for adults either.

Take our adoption.  Or don’t take it.  Because it’s not happening.  We don’t know why.  We asked the state of Texas, after going through their longish and often rather tedious training course, to give us a teen-age girl.  Yes, that is right–not a baby or a cute and charming toddler but a teenager who was about to exit the system.  I am sure that many of you have thought (but were too polite to say) we had lost our minds! But we kept our eyes on Him.  We wanted to keep one young lady from being in the world alone–with no place to go home on break between college semesters and grandparents for the children she would someday have. We felt sure this was a calling from God. I have always felt called to adopt.  My brother is adopted, a couple of my cousins are adopted, my niece is adopted. Really if anyone should be at the top of the list to be allowed to adopt, it should be me.:)  Every time I read an adoption story, I choke back the tears. But year after year, it just wasn’t time.  The last time we began to pursue adoption, we ended up pregnant with Alex, so it got put on the back burner for a while.

But now here we were at last and we were ready.  Or so we thought. We selected a girl we felt sure the Lord wanted us to have but she didn’t want to be adopted, it turned out.  So strongly felt we the voice of God that we asked our social worker to call her social worker and ask her to tell the lady to please let N know that we wanted to adopt her. We feared she had given up hope… thinking she was too old and nobody wanted her.  But we were assured that she wanted to remain in foster care and we needed to pursue another child.  And so reluctantly we did. And another and another and another… We never heard back from CPS. And in CPS world, the catch-phrase is unequivocally, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Meaning if they want you for a child, you will hear something sooner rather than later, but don’t pursue it because you will get nowhere fast!

“How could it be so hard to adopt a teen?” we wondered.  And then our lady asked us to consider Lucy. Actually there was Lucy and Lisa. sisters who were more than a few years apart, and the state had decided to separate them for reasons we didn’t understand, (we never did feel resolution with this issue) but we told our lady, “We’ll take both!”  We told them, not only will we take them both, but if Lucy changes her mind, we’ll still keep Lisa.  We would not give her back simply because she wasn’t a teen.  We made a photo album, we stalked face book (ok, there, I said it), we prayed, and in the end,  Lucy decides she “wouldn’t fit in with our family”.   She never even met us.  She decides to stay with her foster family. And we’re okay with that. We totally get that sometimes maintaining the status quo is easier than being rejected–again. And besides that, we would never want an older child who didn’t want to join our family voluntarily. Happily Lisa did get adopted into her forever family.  I’m sure she is doing well. And by the way, I did not use their real names.

Chad and I finally agreed maybe God was trying to steer us in a different direction.  We were approached about a tween girl and her preschool age brother. Foster parents wanted to adopt the younger but not the older and in this case, as in most, the state was unwilling to separate them.  We never really wanted one younger than our youngest, but we decided to consider the pair. That also fell through. How did we know? Silence. We didn’t hear anything. Again.  And then I started to think, after a good friend suggested it to me, ” Jen, maybe God is saying no.” What do you mean?? Why would God tell us no? We are a good, God-fearing family with a stellar home study and 3 pretty amazing kids–why would he say no?  Why indeed?

We could speculate from here until forever about why he has not chosen us to parent any more children than our 3 but the truth of the matter is, He doesn’t owe us an explanation.  He is the sovereign God of the universe who knows everything about us down to the number of hairs on our head and He has the exclusive right of saying, yes, no or not now.  And if we will please Him, we must accept that He is acting in the best interest of our family and any child that might be placed in our home. Has it confused us? Yes.  Has it put into our minds doubt that we are unable to discern the voice of God? Yes. But we have been obedient and though we don’t understand, we don’t need to. It’s not always part of the plan. God owes no one an explanation.  For anything. Not popular thinking in the Unites States these days.

And so we are moving on.  It hasn’t been easy to understand, but I think we are all learning to rest in His love and care for us.  He is so faithful even when we are not. And He is always good.

In the meantime, there is an extra dresser in my daughter’s bedroom that has remained empty for months. I have dared to start using it for storage of school materials.  But we are prepared to empty it at a moment’s notice, should God whisper in our ears, “Now.”