The question of unanswered prayer

Why can't flowers bloom all year round?

I don't know about you, but I have so many unanswered prayers. Not just from today, but from yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. In fact, I have a life time of many unanswered prayers. From years and years of asking. From years and years of needs. And so, I look at all of these unanswered prayers and wonder, what does it say about me? What does it say about God? I am not sure, but I think it has to do with mystery.

Mystery is such a part of our lives that I doubt we think much about it. And yet, we are confronted with it when we think of faith, of prayer, and of eternity. So much unknowing. So much unanswered prayer.

The right kind of mystery offers us the chance to sit in wonder. And to sit in wonder, I think we must approach mystery with silence. These are not my original thoughts. They are thoughts shared with me yesterday when I met with a friend for spiritual conversation. 

I was asked about my experience of monastic silence. And I had to admit, at first I only practiced the imposed silence of the rule. I thought that kind of silence was good enough, would teach me what I needed to know. But it did not. I had to learn a different kind of silence.

That kind of silence came as a result of unanswered prayer, lots of unanswered prayer. When you are a cloistered nun, and your whole life is given over to prayer, unanswered prayer is not just an annoyance, it hits at the very core of your dedicated life. It brings into question everything you say you believe and the very life you live.

In that time, in a time of accumulated unanswered prayer, I gave up asking. I no longer knew what to say, I became dumb before God. It was not a kind dumb, like a lamb. But a desperate dumb, like a soul who is in despair. A silence imposed by God's silence. A silence that results from darkness. My unanswered prayers became a kind of dumb that knows not what to say.

In that darkness, in that silence, I learned a new kind of prayer. I learned mystery. I learned the prayer that listens.

Sitting before God in a stance of listening taught me a whole new relationship with God. It revealed a God I thought I knew was a God I did not. It lifted me up when I thought I was being cast down. It was the opening of the mystery that shrouded me, only to discover I was in clouds because my spiritual life was on a journey toward a new horizon.

Silence helped me to be open to the mystery, and learn. It was a blessing.

I still ask God for things. At present count, I have at least four huge requests out there waiting on God to give me an answer!

But I am also at peace. Because I know that waiting in mystery is not a bad thing. It is a time to be in wonder. It is a time to prepare.

For as Paul says  in Romans 8:28, For those who love God, all things work together for good. And that goes for unanswered prayer. That goes for silence.