Have you ever wondered if God is still listening?
I do.
When I'm wondering if He saw what just happened, or if that little twist of events surprised Him as much as it did me?
I know that He has plans (Jer. 29:11) and that my name is engraved on the palms of his hands (Isaiah 49:16). How then could he forget me? How then could I even wonder if He's forgotten me?
I do, though. I wonder and I question, but I still keep praying.
I've learned one thing and that's that he never stops listening; never plugs his ears and says, "Please stop talking." No, instead he bends his ear closer.
Sometimes the answer is "when you're older..." and at other times the answer is in a way we wouldn't expect.
I write my prayers in a journal, but there are those prayers that I'm so afraid to whisper that I don't dare jot them into the cellulose; to imprint them on the page would mean they are real and would mean that there is a flicker of hope that the answer might be yes and so I let them flit through my head, barely a breath.
And one day he answers one of those prayers. Not one of the safe prayers written in script across my journal for my children to one day read (or more likely misplace and eventually burn), but one of those risky prayers, the scary prayers, the petitions made with a whisper and a breath...and He chose to answer that one. The one no one else will see.
Where do you keep your prayers?
