My Unbelief

Please Lord, don’t let Monster take his first steps while we’re on the missions trip.

Comfort Kelley and Matt- they are hurting and they’ve lost a child. I don’t know how you recover from that.

Help me find my cell phone.

Don’t let my dad die before he gets to see Monster grow up.

Help me to be kinder to Tommy today.

Lord save a place for my family in heaven.

Please let Monster’s nap be extra long today.

Thank you for Charlie’s recovery from surgery. Please guide Megan and Chris on the windy road of raising him.

Lord love Candice extra clearly today. Give her peace about her mom and the house. Just let her feel safe and loved today.

Don’t let Monster have autism. Give me some signs he’s not going to end up unable to make relationships.

Help my unbelief. I don’t know if you are even listening. Or if you are even worth all this.

These have been my prayers lately. They run the gamut from sort of silly and trivial to heavy with the weight of other’s sorrow to deep with fear and worry. And at the very heart of all these prayers whispers a voice that is getting louder and more unsettling all the time. Is God even capable of doing anything? Have you seen him working lately? Is this life you’ve given yourself to worth it? Do you even believe what you’re selling?

I have felt heavy lately with the sorrow of others’ pain. It seems the world blew up for those I love in the last few months. One lost a nephew, just days away from being born into this world with all the joy and wonder that is supposed to carry. Another found out her mother is dying and then had to endure painful conversations highlighting the years of hurt in their relationship. My husband’s best friend has just been told the cancer is spreading and to start living his last days well. A month later his mother passed away. Another couple we love dearly waited patiently to get pregnant and after years of worry and fear that it wouldn’t happen they gave birth to a beautiful baby boy with a hole in his heart and downs syndrome. Instead of coming home with their sweet boy they had to leave him in the care of doctors and nurses at the hospital and then entrust him there again just 2 months later for open heart surgery. It just doesn’t seem fair.

And all of this has left me wondering where God is? Why are you throwing more stuff on the shoulders of people who are already about to break? And selfishly I wonder, when is my other shoe going to drop? What do you have in store for us? I want deeply to believe in the power of Christ. I want to love him more than anything else. But I’m stuck on the doubts. I’m stuck in the pain and the hurt and the seeming absence of God. I’m stuck in my unbelief.

“I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief!”

Oh how that has been my anthem. Since I read that passage I have echoed the man’s prayer. And ten years into life with God I still want to believe. I’m still asking for help to overcome my disbelief.