Spoiler alert!! So today on national television I will tell St Pam Rhodes that I cannot pray for a child for myself. My Songs of Praise interview actually happened a few weeks ago and as soon as those words fell from my lips I felt both pride and shame in equal measure as I sought to explain the complexity of faith in the context of disappointment. As the weeks have gone by, those words, the confident, defiant ‘no’ that I declared within the ancient walls of Liverpool Cathedral have stayed with me and they have begun to challenge me, inviting me to once again to wrestle with that last element of faith I still cannot resolve in the face of loss. Prayer.

prayer is the most complex and difficult Christian discipline to wrestle with in the aftermath of suffering

Over the years I have written so many blog posts about prayer but have published so few of them. In my opinion prayer is the most complex and difficult Christian discipline to wrestle with in the aftermath of suffering and nine years since my first miscarriage I know my understanding of prayer remains incomplete and my prayer life is still deeply fractured.

I now know it is not bad to want to have children and this desire does not mean I am less satisfied by a life with God than those around me

Over the years I have tried every different approach to asking God for a child and none of them seem to have worked. I know those verses about asking, seeking and knocking and I have persistently done this. I have prayed, I have gathered others to pray, I have created reasons as to why those prayers have not yet been answered, hoping I’d learnt those lessons and was now ready for my blessing. I have sought the prayers of those who declare themselves experts at praying for babies, I have begged and bargained and yet somehow, this thing, this rite of passage that seems to come so effortlessly to some has never presented itself in my life. For a while I felt guilty, ashamed of how much I longed to be a mother but now I realise that this desire is not wrong, whilst at times I know it has become an idol, I now know it is not bad to want to have children and this desire does not mean I am less satisfied by a life with God than those around me. But as the years increased and the losses continued I decided to take this longing into my own hands because I didn’t believe I could trust God with it. He had let me down and I felt humiliated in prayer. I’d had enough of disappointment and opening my heart to him and so I closed it, just that bit, just that one desire. I prayed for blessings for others but just not for myself. That part of my life was cut off from Him now, it was safer that way.

I genuinely believed the disappointment of persistent prayer had earned me the right to limit God’s involvement in my life

I have been angry with God for so long and for so long I have believed my disappointment had earned me the right to be angry with Him. It felt like He’d abandoned me, He’d moved away from me and at times I genuinely believed He didn’t care about this painful part of my life and so that’s why I took it from Him because I no longer believed I could trust Him with the longings of my heart. But although I’d thought I’d neatly severed just one part of my life from the reach of God, it didn’t stay that way. The distance continued to grow, the portions of my heart hidden from God increased and so did the distance in intimacy with Him.

I genuinely believed the disappointment of persistent prayer had earned me the right to limit God’s involvement in my life until in the past few weeks He began to show me I was focusing more on the mystery of unanswered prayer rather than looking to who He is, my limited prayers limiting my view of Him. And oh how I have missed the intimacy I once had with God! The joy of sharing in this mutual relationship of love and the freedom and expectancy that comes from an unguarded heart. I miss sharing my whole life with Him, of talking with Him about we’re doing together and working in partnership rather than me taking control. I miss worshipping with a whole heart rather than a guarded one, of letting God’s love and goodness consume me rather than holding it at arms length. I miss Jesus, I miss His friendship and the fullness of life He offers me.

God is showing me how stopping risking in prayer is affecting my whole person

In the past year as well as blogging (occasionally) and talking to Pam Rhodes about childlessness, I’ve helped set up a coffee shop in the centre of our community and now we’ve started a church in that coffee shop and it’s amazing and yet, I realise how my divided heart limits my faith for this project and my prayers. Each Sunday my heart is consumed more by worry and insecurities than prayers of faith. I lead worship on Sundays now and yet my fear and lack of skill dominate my thoughts rather than a heart that longs to praise my Heavenly Father and I think it’s because I stopped risking in prayer. God is showing me how stopping risking in prayer is affecting my whole person. Because when we risk in prayer we’re saying ‘I trust you this much’ and right now I know my prayers are saying ‘I don’t trust you’.

my determination to take control of what I’d once given to God has spilled out into the way I live

But this challenge of asking, seeking and knocking with my whole heart has not just reminded me of how weak my prayers are, it has also shown me how much it limits my relationships. In the depth of grief I needed help, I was fed and cared for beautifully by my community but now my body has healed and I have learnt to grieve and the strength I have grown into has slowly once again built a wall around my heart and the desire to show I am capable and that ‘I’ve got this’. But deep down I know I don’t, I’m weak and fearful and yet I’m scared to ask for help and I think it’s because my determination to take control of what I’d once given to God has spilled out into the way I live.

when we risk in prayer we’re saying ‘I trust you this much’ and right now I know my prayers are saying ‘I don’t trust you’.

Dallas Willard writes about how, in the first 12 verses of Matthew 7, Jesus shows the ways in which we try to manage our world on our own lead to disaster – greater or smaller, sooner or later. Thankfully verses 1-6 show how our tendency to ‘manage’ or control our world is a universal human practice, but in verses 7-12, Willard says ‘Jesus shows us a truly effective and gracious way of caring for and helping the people we love and it is in the way of request. Of asking, which naturally progresses into Kingdom praying. It is a way that actually works, because it draws people into the Kingdom rather than into the web of our devices and plans for them. It creates the community of prayerful love.’

I stopped asking a long time ago and I realise now how I am living outside of this community of prayerful love both with my God who loves me and my community and I want to move through my kingdom of control and back into the Kingdom of God. I still don’t know why the same prayers appear to be answered neatly and others remain unresolved. It doesn’t make sense but I know I want to stop managing my world and my faith because it has hardened my heart to God and to those around me.

God came to bring fullness of life not wish fulfilment and I realise now that fullness begins when I let go of control and ask for help, even if it scares me.

Instead I am choosing once again to believe in God’s goodness and His love for me, for the wealth of promises He declares over me and the fullness of life He offers to me. I know my life may not look like I want it to but I know I want my heart to be free in His love rather than hidden from Him and I know I have to start by asking with my whole heart not just portions of it. I also want to experience that joy and freedom and intimacy with Jesus once again because I miss it so much and I realise now it wasn’t Jesus who left me, it was me, protecting my heart that created this distance.

God came to bring fullness of life not wish fulfilment and I realise now that fullness begins when I let go of control and ask for help, even if it scares me.