Why didn't things change when I prayed?

I don't know.

And no I am not answering your questions, or attempting to explain away your burden of disappointment, even disillusionment at the power of God to change things that you called on but never came.

 

I am saying "I don't know" to the disappointed believer in my heart seeking for answers I don't have.

I don't drive as well as I think I do in my head. Behind the wheel I'd like to thing I am badass but I'm not- I still pull my seat as close to the steering as I can and lean forward like I couldn't see the road if I relaxed in my seat. I have a few things to work on here and there so when Haruna is in the car with me he becomes the back seat driver- guiding, correcting.

One such day, I got to a fork in the road where I was meant to join traffic and paused at the turn to look back into the new road I was joining to ensure there was no oncoming vehicle. As I tensely negotiated the turn, looking then waiting then moving then looking, Haruna stopped me and said "look in front of you and see" and lo, I was already on the road and all I had to do was keep moving forward!

If I kept looking back I would just have kept waiting because all I could see were moving vehicles meanwhile I was already on my path and even blocking those directly behind me!

Like the rear view mirror of a car, the questions why - Why did it happen to me? Why did I go through that experience? Why did God let it happen?  Why didn't God answer my prayer? -  suggests that it has already happened and reveals that we are still looking backwards, and if only we turn our eyes forward we will realise that we have moved. We are not there anymore- not exactly, no.

We've moved an inch, a mile, a day, a month, a year or two or three away from where we used to be. The pain is a little less, more time has elapsed, there have been changes- we aren't in the same degree of heat as we were when it happened.

When we look at those changes however small they may be and change our focus to how we can make them bigger or more meaningful, we find we can ride them out of our disappointment to a better place.

We can continue with that move forward.

While I can't answer the questions that explain the past, this is just as well because the questions that help me change the present and lead me to the future are ones I can answer-ones that matter.