Have you ever prayed desperate prayers and felt as though God wasn’t listening? I know I have. Today I want to share with you a little of Esther’s story. Esther has a Master’s in piano performance. She is a piano professor at Drury University and her husband is a college and young adults pastor.
In 2012, right after getting her Master’s in piano performance, Esther was diagnosed with Lupus. All of a sudden she couldn’t move, let alone play the piano. Esther said she saw God amazingly show up in her life day after day. She knew every morning she needed Jesus in order to be able to even get out of bed. Esther said there is no logical reason her hands can do what they do on the piano except that Jesus does a miracle every time she plays.
Esther knew what is was like to see miracles in her life and she knew how to hear from God… until she didn’t.
Esther and her husband walked the difficult path called infertility. After 15 years of marriage and still no children, she said, “God, I need you to show up again.” She went through surgeries and a lot of poking and prodding. Esther was on fertility meds and they began to mess with her hormones and she became so depressed. Every single month she was disappointed. It became harder to pray because the disappointments kept mounting.
In the midst of this, when they started the process, the doctor told Esther had little to no chance of getting pregnant. After her last surgery, she had a slight chance. The doctor said, “If this doesn’t work, we can keep going and try other things, but I don’t want to keep subjecting you to this forever. So you will need to determine your cutoff point.
They decided to do six rounds of a specific treatment. On round six, Esther prayed all the faith-filled prayers she could. Her body began to show signs of a possible pregnancy. Ladies at her church had shared their miracle baby stories with Esther and told her that God was going to give her a miracle baby too. She had high hopes.
Early one morning, a few days before Mother’s Day, Esther took the pregnancy test, and it was negative. She crawled back in bed and told her husband she wasn’t pregnant and wept and wept. It felt like God didn’t show up. She asked, “God where are you?” Esther said it felt like a sick cosmic joke.
Esther determined to be strong and go to the Mother’s Day event at her church. They had a guest singer and she shared Psalm 84:11 about the Lord not withholding any good thing from those who’s walk is blameless. Can you imagine how confusing that must have been for Esther? She thought, “God you have withheld good from me.”
Esther began to question if she had done something wrong. She was a good Christian girl and had always tried to do everything she knew to please God. And yet, she didn’t get her miracle baby like many told her she would. She determined to be strong and hold on to the scripture that says God won’t withhold good. In this, Esther suppressed a lot of emotion and she didn’t bring her true feelings to God because she wanted to be reverent. In doing this, it became very hard for her to pray and read her Bible. She went months where she would even try to touch her Bible and it was too painful. A good prayer for Esther was, “God, I just can’t today.” There were some Sundays that she couldn’t even go to church. She felt she was failing as a Christian.
After several months of being fed up with feeling the way she did and being fed up with God, she woke up one morning and said, “I want a break through today, I don’t care what needs to happen, I’m getting my breakthrough today!”
Esther began to pray and read her Bible that day. Finally, she gave herself permission to tell God, “God, you disappointed me.” She told Him over and over. She also told him how He had disappointed her husband and all the people that had prayed for her miracle baby. She let God know about all of her fury, her anger, and all the dark thoughts she had been harboring in her heart for all of those months until she had nothing left to say. Then she sat in silence. For the first time in a long time, she began to feel God’s comfort, not His anger. She was afraid God was going to reprimand her. He spoke to her heart to reread 2 Corinthians 1:3-7. These scriptures talk about God being the God of all comfort and how He comforts us so that we may comfort others. That day, Esther not only found comfort from God, but He gave her a plan as to how to move forward.
Does God really disappoint? At times, He does. If you are walking through a dark and desperate time, you are not alone. Tell God exactly how you feel. He already knows, but it will help you to express your thoughts and feelings to Him. His shoulders are big enough to handle whatever it is you tell Him. And He won’t reprimand you. He will comfort you my friend.
If you would like to listen to the video where Esther shares her story, click here.
For more from Esther you can check out her blog site at: estherguy.com
Silently Bleeding 