Chapter 35: Sitting in a Rocking Chair...I Thank God for Unanswered Prayers

I saw Joyce Meyer a few years ago and one thing that she said that stood out for me was that there are some things that we do that we may feel like we are sitting a rocking chair...moving, but going nowhere. Sometimes I feel like that. I'm searching my mind and I'm thinking about things and while I know that I am doing the very best that I can, I feel like I'm going nowhere. Today, I decided to say good-bye to a lie and to thank God for unanswered prayers. In this life we can sit at jobs and move, but figuratively never move in mentality or move financially. We can sit in relationships and move, but never grow spiritually or romantically and feel so helpless and lost and unloved even in our relationships with people of the same gender. What I find interesting is that those of us who are believers tend to pray about situations such as these in faith that they will get better and that God will mend the brokeness within some of our relationships. I have rediscovered today that I truly do thank God for unanswered prayers. There have been days where I have prayed that God will heal my heart or change the way that I look at a situation and He consistently does that. But I have also prayed and asked God to help me to grow closer to another person in my life and I know that God heard me, but I'm certain that what I wanted then was not of his will for my life. It hurts so badly to be disappointed, not by God, but at another human or at a situation that didn't go my way, but I thank God for not answering some of my prayers because I know if he would have, I would feel so sad and hurt inside about the outcomes. I sit at this computer crying knowing that his ways are not like my own and that he knows what is best for me even though in the human sense I don't really understand. But I thank God for his way and his will.

Today, I say goodbye to a lie. I can't live anymore praying and thinking that some things will come to pass and I know that they won't because they shouldn't. I can't continue to live and wish one man should love me and I know that he shouldn't because he can't. It isn't my fault, it's just the way it is supposed to go. I remember one instance with one of my boyfriends from high school when I realized that he thought that we had an understanding that I didn't quite understand. I overheard him tell his friends that "she (I) knows that I see other girls, but we have an understanding." When I heard that, I didn't act out of order or throw a fit, I just got in may car and left and never returned. I have not been there to his mother's house to this day. From that point on, I never felt any need to call him or to see him. I had prayed and prayed and prayed that my feelings for him would go away and I knew that that day was the day that God allowed my prayers to be answered according to that situation. The unanswered prayer was that we would get married some day. I'm so thankful that we didn't. I say that to say, we can sit in a rocking chair all day shooting the breeze because it feels good, but it can all be a silly lie. Today, I want no more of it. I'm so glad that God sees my future because if I concentrated on all that I see right now, I would be sad or insane some days. Thank you Jesus for being there when everyone else was too busy or too self-centered. Thank you for loving me when it seemed like no one else did. Thank you for seeing the good in things that I cannot. I thank you for knowing and understanding the method to all of the madness and making it all right in the end. I'm sick of sitting in the rocking chair. I want to walk now and possibly ride on a bike or in a nicer car. I've learned that unanswered prayers lead to even bigger blessings.