Lord, Help Us.

When we pray there is no doubt in my mind that God hears.  I am of the persuasion that no prayer goes unheard.  It is hard to perceive of God calculating our prayers as being worth hearing, or worthy of the trash pile.  So, I guess the real personal issue is not whether or not God hears our prayers, but why some seem to hang out there in some spiritual space where prayers go when the response is not immediate.  There have been prayers I have prayed for decades which are still on going prayer concerns.  I keep going back to them from time to time, but still they linger as one of the unsettled prayers of my spirit.   

And, what I also know is that so many of my prayers have been heard and I have been blessed to see the desires of those prayers come to pass.  To say that there are more unanswered and unresolved prayers than there are those of the other category would not be true.  I suppose what is true is that those which hang out there as if they are not being heard are the ones which touch our hearts more deeply and which are desired with more intensity that most.  I must confess to not understanding.    

But, I must also confess that my lack of understanding does not turn me away from praying.  Jesus said to pray.  Jesus prayed.  The people of faith about whom I have read prayed.  My mother prayed.  Prayer is embedded in who I am.  When I do not know what to do, when I know what is being faced is beyond my ability to manage, and when I know divine help is the only answer, I am going to pray.  What God does with those prayers is up to Him as it always is.  But, I am going to pray.  And pray.  He will just have to deal with my persistence and my lack of understanding and sometimes anger about His response.  One day maybe what is unclear in these days for us will be clearly seen which sounds like a heavenly prospect.  "Lord, help us,help us.  Amen."