Unanswered prayer

Today's message was about unanswered prayer, a subject which is painfully relevant to the life of my heart over the last few years.  It was the third in an ongoing series titled "[Crap] Happens," just to make it fully clear that the entirety of the messages seem to knife through me each week.  (The previous series was "Faith and Doubt."  I'm sensing a theme here.)

The number 211 had seemed to be a repeating and glaringly obvious theme in my life over the last three years, at least.  The number came up everywhere I turned.  On the clock, the odometer, random addresses, bible verses that would show up in my inbox, a particularily applicable paragraph on page 211 of several books, license plates...my God, it was everywhere.  Any crazy place you can imagine.  It seemed to especially show up when I was praying what has nearly become my exclusive heartache over my life - being unpartnerned for almost 5 years.  The secondary prayer (my attempt at being obedient or gracious - ha!) is always that if it be my forever-reality to be alone, that at least I find the answer to what might be my meaningful work or purpose for being here. 

I came to believe (i.e. convinced myself) that if no one arrived in my life, if no one already in it spoke up, and that if I clung to my faith and hoped against hope, that an answer or at least an understanding would show up in my life by Feb (2) of 2011 (11).  In fact, the singles ministry at my church met on the 11th this past February, and I traded my shift at work so that I could go as an act of faith.  I truly, truly believed that God was in fact answering me by saying "Wait...wait...I will come through for you."  I believed I had reason to hope.

I am truly embarrassed, even ashamed, to admit all this here - that I let myself believe in this craziness.  What I mean is that I insist upon faith, insist upon hope, insist upon the lunacy of sensing and pursuing "signs from God," and other similar ideas.  Well 211 is past now.  No one arrived, there were no answers, but worst of all, not one sliver of understanding.  (Truly, I would have settled for that.  I would have settled for anything.)  I have tried to reinterpret, reevaluate, pray more, pray longer, pray for less.  I've worked at lowering my expectations and hoped for less, in an attempt to be good, obedient, or faithful.  I've tried all kinds of self-deception, to guard my hope that God will make things clear to me if only I would do a better job in the meantime. 

It is clear to me now that my imaginings were just that.  My mind in its desperation and my heart in its despair created a whole bunch of nonsense it their attempts to convince me, Amanda, that there is in fact some kind of divine plan (or any plain old plan for that matter), and that I do in fact have reason to hope.  Or, that if I just stay open and try hard enough, I can make it happen for myself.  I thought the answer was to find that balance between asking for God's guidance and being proactive in my own life.  I haven't wanted to admit it to myself, to my fellow despair-ers on the path, nor my closest and most trusted friends, but at least I can see the insanity now, of the imagining, the hopes, and the prayers.  I find a small comfort in knowing that if you're sane enough to ask yourself if what you're doing or thinking is crazy, you're probably not.  So yay for one thing - I'm not psychotic.  I just desperately wanted to believe.  A sadness this deep can make you believe some crazy shit.

If there is a Him, and He does listen, and He does care about some people's joy, I hope God understands why I'm running out of things to say.