What if some prayers require more preparation than you can currently see?

Angel 1: She thinks her prayers aren’t being heard.

Angel 2: How many does she have in the waiting room right now?

When the answers arrive, she’ll look back at the waiting and understand.

– Jacqueline Whitney

Angel 1: Years worth. Some she’s been sending since she was a teenager. Some she whispered last night and assumed disappeared.

Angel 2: None of them disappeared.

Angel 1: None of them. They’re all here. Every one. God has read every single one.

Angel 2: Then why does she feel like she’s talking to silence?

Angel 1: Because she’s measuring the answer by whether the circumstances have changed yet. She doesn’t see all the ways he’s been responding that aren’t the specific thing she asked for. The protection. The redirection. The strength that arrived when she needed it. The people he sent. The doors he quietly closed.

Angel 2: She’s been receiving answers she didn’t recognize as answers.

Angel 1: That’s exactly it. And the prayers she’s been waiting longest on-

Angel 2: What about them?

Angel 1: They’re the ones being prepared most carefully. The ones that required the most alignment. The ones where God looked at what she was asking for and said “yes, but better than this, and not yet.”

Angel 2: She should know that.

Angel 1: She will. When the answers arrive, she’ll look back at the waiting and understand. She’ll see how every unanswered prayer was being held with more care than she knew.

Jacqueline Whitney is the author Held: A 50 Day Devotional For Parents and All That You Deserve.