Your Cry Has Been Heard

 

Last Spring and what feels like a lifetime ago, I wrote about the time I jumped out of the car with wet hair and an outfit I didn’t plan on leaving the car in. You know the one. We’ve all been there. 

I thought I saw a girl I had lost contact with. I worried she had fallen back into the evil grasp of addiction after weeks of text messages met with silence. And as the truth would later unfold, my intuition was right. So across two lanes of traffic and with my wet hair and pajama bottoms I went, only for my heart to sink at the realization that it wasn’t her at all. 

There are a few things I think you should know. 

Today, she is sober and very pregnant with a son. She has her first job and is rebuilding what has been fractured with her family. She is in process, working towards healing and wholeness, as we all are over the course of our lives. And she is smiling a lot. 

I didn’t know if I would ever see the day. 

There are prayers you have uttered a thousand times and have stopped praying because they have remained unfulfilled. There are hopes and dreams that have seemingly died, like an echo  of what we see right now as the colors fade from the trees and everything beautiful seems to die for a time. You have tried your best to move on, focus on what is right in front of you because the heart can only carry so much at once, letting go of what might have been or the hope of a better outcome. 

But God does not forget. 

There was a prayer I prayed countless times many years ago. I only half-believed that it was even possible or that it would ever really happen and I knew it would be nothing short of a miracle if it ever did. And then, on one ordinary morning in early September before I was even fully awake, the message came. It will be an entire chapter in my book, so no spoiler alerts here. 

But know this. When it seems that God is doing nothing, when it seems that He is indifferent to your cries, He is not. He hears. Over and over again we are told in scripture that He hears our cries. How could He not? I could never ignore the cry of my children, and I am a mediocre parent at best. 

He is also a seeker of lost things. He runs towards you and nothing you could ever do will make Him stop.

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