A Prayer for Faith When Prayers Go Unanswered

Father, I have prayed for this so many times that the words have worn smooth in my mouth, and still the answer has not come. The silence after all that asking is its own kind of ache.

I confess I am tempted to stop. Part of me wonders why I keep bringing You a request You seem to keep setting aside, and whether my prayers were ever doing anything at all.

But I do not believe a single one was wasted. You have heard every word, gathered every tear, and You are doing something with this even when the answer looks like no.

Give me faith to trust the answers I cannot see, the slow yeses, the loving nos, the not yets that are protecting me from things I do not understand.

Your ways are higher than my ways, and Your thoughts higher than my thoughts, so far above me that I cannot always trace them.

I release my grip on the outcome I demanded. I trust the heart of the One who hears, even when His answer is not the one I asked for. Keep me praying anyway. Amen.