Jesus' unanswered prayer

“I’m fine.”

If you ask someone how they’re doing, that’s going to be a very common response. Asking how someone is doing and hearing that they’re fine has become such an automatic part of our everyday conversations that it’s often reduced to a formality before we move on to what we really want to talk about. For many, “I’m fine,” is the most common lie they tell. I’m one of those people who always means it when I ask how someone is doing. In the interest of honesty, let me be real about the other half of that question: I am not fine right now.

I’ve opened up about this on the GPS before, but I have very bad depression. This, much like the thorn Paul mentioned in yesterday’s passage, is a lifelong medical condition I have, and one that I’ve accepted will never be taken away. The serotonin and dopamine receptors in my brain are fried, so the chemicals my body releases to give me feelings of happiness, contentment, and achievement just don’t always work. Now is one of those times when I’m really feeling the lack of serotonin and dopamine in my body. I cried on my way home from the gym today. That’s my thorn in the flesh.

In my years talking about this, mostly online but with some conversations in person too, I’ve heard a variety of statements that suggest that my condition is my fault. I’ve heard that I’m suffering from a demon attack, and when I tell them that it’s actually a medical condition, I’m told that I just don’t want to get better. I’m told that God will heal me if I just have the faith—with the implication that my continued suffering is due to a lack of faith. I’ve heard that God won’t heal me because of unconfessed sin in my life. On some level, I know that each of these people was trying to solve the problem of my condition; but their responses were thoroughly unhelpful.

As a society, we are very uncomfortable with problems that do not have an easy solution. People will often ignore systemic injustice and complex social issues when someone offers a simple, albeit incorrect, explanation to take their minds off the issues. Deep-seated relationship issues are often avoided in polite conversation, with much of the advice people receive on those issues being simple platitudes that do little to address the situation. In my experience, any conversation about pain or suffering is often met with an attempt to resolve the source of that issue in a single conversation, which is, of course, impossible—and then, frustration when the problem is not easily fixable with a few simple phrases.

In 41 years of living, God has not taken away my pain. I don’t hold this against him, or anyone—in fact, to me, depression is just as much of a warm blanket as it is a curse, because of how used to it I am. I don’t say this to garner sympathy; I just want readers of this post to know that sometimes God doesn’t answer prayers, and that is not the fault of the pray-er. I don’t have an answer for that—and believe me, I’ve searched for one. Unanswered prayer in the face of suffering is something we all experience in life, but all too often, we talk about it as an abstract concept or a theory that we speculate on. I just wanted readers to know that I am intimately aware of this issue, and continue to be. It’s part of my life. And that’s OK.