This week’s blog post is a little late because I’ve been at a women’s conference the last few nights and I was hoping to write something based on my takeaways from the event. And that’s still what I’m doing even if it won't look like the kind of post I thought I’d be writing.

This women’s conference is an annual affair that I’ve been going to pretty much my entire motherhood journey. And every year, I walk away having experienced God’s goodness and faithfulness, so it’s not surprising that I always go into the conference with high expectations. It was the same this year, except after the first night, I walked away for the first time feeling defeated.

Don’t get me wrong. The speaker was great, and her message touched on destiny and the power of prayer. It was a powerful message that would have been intended to bring hope and inspiration to the many women in the room. And I know many women would have walked out of the room with hope restored and faith encouraged; energised to keep praying for their situations.

But not me. I walked away wrestling many negative emotions and questions, none of them unfamiliar because it’s a cycle every time the topic of prayer and miracles is brought up.

Whether you’ve grown up in faith or you’ve just come into it, you’d probably be more familiar with the version of faith that is certain. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, miracles can happen. Believe, and your prayers will be answered. Trust God, and you’ll have peace that transcends all understanding.

But nobody tells you about the version of faith that feels more like questions instead of answers. That there will be seasons where prayers feel like you’re just talking to a wall. Where you’ll read Scripture and walk away with just more questions. Or moments like I just had, where you’ll be at church surrounded by people, but it feels like everyone else is having a completely different experience of God than you are, and you’ll feel like the loneliest person in the room.

There was a time when my faith felt like something solid that I could always rely on. I knew what I believed, I knew who I prayed to, and I was confident that my faith was strong enough to fuel my prayers so that God would always come through for me. And I genuinely (although cynics would say “naively”) believed that nothing truly bad could ever happen to me because I loved God and God was good.

But then the thing I prayed hardest for in my entire life didn’t happen.

Maybe you know what I mean. Maybe you’ve got unanswered prayers too: a diagnosis that remains unhealed, a relationship that’s still broken, a baby you’re still begging God for. Or like me, a child (or loved one) you’ve lost, and now, no amount of prayer can ever bring them back.

Once you’ve experienced loss or unanswered prayers, suddenly, your whole foundation of faith has a giant crack running right through the middle. Doubt moves in, and it’s never quiet; it bombards you with questions – big, difficult ones that you might be ashamed of because they feel “dangerous” to mention in Christian circles:

Why would God let this happen? How could He let this happen if He’s meant to be good? Did I do something wrong? Am I being punished? What is wrong with me? Was I not worthy enough? Did I not have enough faith? Why did He answer so-and-so’s prayers but not mine? Did I not pray hard enough?

These are all the questions that have run through my head many, many times since I lost my precious boy, and these were the questions that were running through my head again from the first night of the conference. And along with those questions, came doubt, anger, resentment, and self-condemnation.

But I told you at the beginning of this post that I always walk away experiencing God’s faithfulness, and this year was no different. Because God will always meet you where you are, even if that’s in the darkness, the depths of despair, and all the questions and negative emotions.

And God met me back at the conference the very next night with some very clear messages:

1. If the voices in your head are keeping you away from God rather than drawing you to Him, that is not the voice of the Holy Spirit.

2. God has a plan that is working all things for good whether you understand it or not; you just have to keep trusting Him.

3. Things that have been sent to break you will become your source for a breakthrough.

4. Unanswered prayers are not proof that you didn’t pray hard enough or that your faith was too small.

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.""

-2 Corinthians 12:8–9

Paul was not a man lacking in faith, and yet even when he prayed multiple times, the answer was still “No”. He didn’t get the answer he wanted but he got something else instead. And I’ve come to realise that actually, God always answers prayers – it’s just that sometimes the answer isn’t what we want, so we think our prayers have gone unanswered.

I won’t pretend that the “No” or the “something else” that we get will feel like enough because sometimes, it won’t. Sometimes, we won’t want grace or strength; we just want our loved ones back, our relationships restored, the diagnosis reversed, a child to love and raise.

If you’ve been in a season of questions and unanswered prayers, if this blog post has been resonating with you, then I just want to leave you with this:

I know that at many times, keeping your faith will feel like the hardest thing to do. And I won’t tell you that faith after loss and unanswered prayers will look the same as before, because I know it doesn’t. And honestly, I don’t think it’s meant to because it’s faith that has gone/is going through the fire.

But what I really want you to know is that faith doesn’t mean you won’t have questions or that your questions need to be answered before you can come back to God. Faith also doesn’t mean that you won’t ever feel doubtful, angry, or resentful at God. Faith just asks that you keep showing up and trusting God, even when you don’t understand, and even when you don’t feel like it.

And I can promise you that God will meet you right where you are. Because even with my endless cycles of doubt and questions, He has met me there every single time to remind me that even if He can’t answer all my questions, He still hears me, He sees me, and He will never leave me. Because even in the depths, He is there.

"Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there."

-Psalm 139:7-8