One of the biggest struggles I have faced in this trial is not being able to pray for the outcome I want. What I want is for Madelyn to be here. I want to watch her grow up, to care for her, to be her mommy. To be able to do all the things I was so looking forward to doing with a little girl. I want Madelyn to be alive. But, this is not an option now. In the past, when I’ve faced a struggle, there has always been an outcome to pray for. Part of the reason I’ve always been able to stay so positive is because of this. I always knew that in hard times, I could pray for what I was hoping for. For instance, praying a job interview would go well, healing from a sickness, traveling mercies, or protection from storms. In all these prayers, there was always an outcome that I was hopeful for.
Even if things don’t always go our way, isn’t there always hope that at some point they will? At some point, you will get the answer you have been praying for? But what do you do when the outcome has already happened? What do you do when you don’t know what to pray? This is something I am trying to sort through. I can’t pray that Madelyn would be healed, saved from death, or that she would come back to me. These are no longer possible outcomes. So, I can only pray that God’s strength would sustain me. As I walk around in a fog most days, I pray for strength just to make it to the next task. I am still alive, but there is a part of me that has died that will never be the same. I can only pray for God’s mercy to help me through, one day at a time. I’m not coming to God with a request. For me, prayer these days is a place simply where the hurt and the healer collide. MercyMe describes it so well:
So here I am, what’s left of me
Where Glory meets my suffering
I’m alive, even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I fall into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide
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