Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your long and faithful prayer over these many years has been heard, and the pain and weariness you feel in waiting is understood. To carry the same request for fifteen or twenty years and to feel that nothing has changed can make the heart grow heavy, and it is understandable that you would begin to wonder about God's love for you.
God's love for you is not measured by whether He grants this one specific request, and His silence is not a sign that He loves others more than you. His love has already been shown most clearly in giving His Son for you, to bring forgiveness of sins, adoption, and an inheritance in heaven, even while we were still far from Him. That love remains steady whether the answer to a particular prayer is yes, no, or wait. If we think rightly, we see that we are always in need of His mercy, and even when we feel forgotten, He remains near.
Scripture teaches us that prayer is a great weapon and that we need it early and late, not only to ask for what we desire but to make our hearts ready to receive what God knows is best. Earnest prayer requires perseverance and trust, and it also requires that we search our hearts and bring our desires under His will. Jesus Himself prayed with thanksgiving and submission, saying in effect, not my will but Yours be done, and He did so to teach us that true prayer seeks fellowship with the Father and confidence in His one perfect will, not only a change in our circumstances.
For that reason I cannot ask God to simply bring about the reunion exactly as you have described it, as if any relationship apart from His design would bring lasting good. God has given marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and He calls us to honor Him with our relationships and with our bodies within that covenant. To ask Him to bless what does not align with that pattern would not be loving to you or to the other person. Instead, what is most loving is to ask Him to work in both of your lives for holiness, healing, and clarity.
So let us pray together in a way that honors Him. I will pray that God comforts you in this long waiting, that He lifts the burden of feeling unloved and shows you daily how deeply you are loved in Christ, that He gives you wisdom to see this relationship as He sees it, that He guards your heart from clinging to what may not be His best for you, and that He leads you into peace and trust in His perfect timing and provision. If restoration is according to His will and within His design for marriage, He is able to bring it about in His own way. If not, He is able to lead you into greater things than you have yet seen, and to use even this disappointment for your good and His glory.
Please do not stop praying, but as you continue each day, also ask Him to shape your prayer to His will. Bring this burden honestly to Him, study His Word, seek counsel from faithful believers around you, and ask Him to make His path plain to you. He hears you always, and He will not leave you without the grace you need for each day.
God's love for you is not measured by whether He grants this one specific request, and His silence is not a sign that He loves others more than you. His love has already been shown most clearly in giving His Son for you, to bring forgiveness of sins, adoption, and an inheritance in heaven, even while we were still far from Him. That love remains steady whether the answer to a particular prayer is yes, no, or wait. If we think rightly, we see that we are always in need of His mercy, and even when we feel forgotten, He remains near.
Scripture teaches us that prayer is a great weapon and that we need it early and late, not only to ask for what we desire but to make our hearts ready to receive what God knows is best. Earnest prayer requires perseverance and trust, and it also requires that we search our hearts and bring our desires under His will. Jesus Himself prayed with thanksgiving and submission, saying in effect, not my will but Yours be done, and He did so to teach us that true prayer seeks fellowship with the Father and confidence in His one perfect will, not only a change in our circumstances.
For that reason I cannot ask God to simply bring about the reunion exactly as you have described it, as if any relationship apart from His design would bring lasting good. God has given marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and He calls us to honor Him with our relationships and with our bodies within that covenant. To ask Him to bless what does not align with that pattern would not be loving to you or to the other person. Instead, what is most loving is to ask Him to work in both of your lives for holiness, healing, and clarity.
So let us pray together in a way that honors Him. I will pray that God comforts you in this long waiting, that He lifts the burden of feeling unloved and shows you daily how deeply you are loved in Christ, that He gives you wisdom to see this relationship as He sees it, that He guards your heart from clinging to what may not be His best for you, and that He leads you into peace and trust in His perfect timing and provision. If restoration is according to His will and within His design for marriage, He is able to bring it about in His own way. If not, He is able to lead you into greater things than you have yet seen, and to use even this disappointment for your good and His glory.
Please do not stop praying, but as you continue each day, also ask Him to shape your prayer to His will. Bring this burden honestly to Him, study His Word, seek counsel from faithful believers around you, and ask Him to make His path plain to you. He hears you always, and He will not leave you without the grace you need for each day.
