Returned

I am kept unto prayer
Returned again to unbelief
- Kazim Ali, "Well"

I sat by the goalpost, cold in the October wind, crying well past midnight. My girlfriend of 4 years had finally said officially that we were on a break, and my heart was tearing straight out of my chest. The damp, dark grass wet the side of my face as I ran out of energy to sit up, and had to simply fall and curl on the evening earth. Why?

As I walked the streets of Chicago, nervous and fearful, my cell phone going off at pre-programmed times to remind me that my beloved grandpa was undergoing major surgery. Unexpected surgery. Life threatening surgery. I was on a trip to celebrate my anniversary, and he was unconscious under the harsh hospital lights. Why?

Thunder cracked through the summer air in Romania. The lightning briefly illuminating the small cell where my roommate and I fight fear by pulling the covers up to our chins and talking senseless nonsense until it doesn't even feel right anymore. Is it right to talk about girls he likes when thousands of babies, helpless, sweet, babbling babies are laying alone in orphanage cribs as the powerful storm beats down the city night? Is there an abandoned child crying under a wooden bench at the park tonight, waiting to be picked up in the morning, feeling the extremes of his unwantedness? Why?

These are heavy questions that I've asked of God throughout my life. These terrible times of stress and anxiety, injustice and doubt... these very times have occasioned my strongest and most passionate prayers. Yelling at God, pleading with God, crying with God... comforted by God.

In the opening quote, Kazim Ali's poem "Well" had two lines, one about prayer and one about unbelief. As I learn about the wonders of prayer, as I've contemplated the topic for two weeks now, something is clear to me. I think that I'd say Ali's poem backwards:

Returned again to unbelief
I am kept unto prayer

It seems to me, that in my deepest times of doubt and yes, even unbelief, I truly find my voice of prayer. This week, I am reminded of that. Faced with my weaknesses and failures as a husband, my response has been prayer. Faced with classes that are unruly, beginning to unravel, my response has been prayer. Faced with deep misunderstandings of my Heavenly Father, hurt and pain and unanswered prayer, my response has been prayer. Faced with temptation and sin, my response has been prayer.

When faced with doubt in all its forms, I am kept unto prayer. Difficulty is a bonding agent. In the story of Elijah, Queen Jezebel threatens his life, chases him into the desert and Elijah becomes so despondent that he asks the LORD to take his life from him. But notice, he asks the LORD. In other words, he prays. And then comes the beautiful story of God's reassurance, as he passes by Elijah in a gentle whisper.

I know that God is passing by me now, and all of time. This prayer thing is more about relationship than it is about my answers. That is why every time I am returned to unbelief, returned to difficulty, returned to doubt, returned to loneliness I am at the same time returned to prayer.