A Prayer for the Battle That Won't End
By Rachel Wojo
Bible Reading:
"I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: 'Lord, save me!'" Psalm 116:1-4
Listen or Read Below:
I had been sleeping with one ear tuned to hear any little noise for twelve years. That night, the seizure barged into the dark, and I knew what it meant.
My daughter, Taylor, had been diagnosed with a rare metabolic disorder for eight years at that point. We had found a seizure medication that worked, and for a while, it really did work. Relief from the terror of unpredictable seizures came, and I started to breathe a little easier again. The word “stable” felt like such a gift.
But then her body adapted. The drug that held her last month didn’t hold, and if you’ve ever encountered this kind of medical roller coaster ride, you're back at square one. Now you start the new medication, and it’s a wait-and-see issue that feels like an awful game. Under all of it, the truth you never allow to leave your head and come out of your mouth is that the list of medications is limited. One day, we will have tried them all.
After the seizure passed, I sat down beside her bed and turned the lights back off. And I wept.
I wanted to trade places with her. I remember wanting that very clearly. I would have taken it, all of it, the whole disorder into my own body if someone had offered me the chance. I wished her portion could be mine. I wished mine could be something other than sitting in a dark room watching my daughter's brain betray her on a schedule neither one of us could predict or stop.
If you're in a fight that resets every time you think you're gaining ground, you know this place.
Maybe yours is a diagnosis, or an addiction that keeps circling back, or a marriage that heals just enough to break again. The details change, but the exhaustion never ends.
Psalm 116 opens with a man who has been there. Check out how he says it: "The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me." This isn't a man reflecting on a hard week from a comfortable chair. This is someone who has been in a dark room. Maybe lying prostrate on the floor.
I appreciate what he did in the dark. He cried out, "Lord, save me!"
I find it interesting how he opens the psalm, because he tells you the end result before he tells you the story. "I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy." Heard. He doesn't begin with what God fixed. He begins by noting that God listened.
"Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live."
Picture in your mind what turning His ear looked like. It's the motion of someone leaning. It’s a focus on a voice they don't want to miss. It's not the posture of a king on a high throne receiving a formal report. It's the place of a parent in a dark room at 3 a.m.
I couldn't fix Taylor. I sat in that room with empty hands more nights than I can tell you. Thankfully, I wasn't sitting there alone, and I wasn't talking to the ceiling. God could have stopped the seizure, but didn't. But He was leaning in the whole time.
I want to be honest with you. His answer wasn’t the one I wanted.
But we treat God hearing us like it’s a consolation prize, don’t we?
Hearing is the promise. He turned His ear to me. He was there in a way I can’t fully explain and couldn't measure, and the psalmist tells us what that does to a person: I will call on him as long as I live. Not because I got what I wanted in the moment. Because He listened.
Friend, you may not get the rescue you're asking for in the way you're asking for it. I need to share that plainly, because you've probably been told otherwise, and it didn't turn out to be true.
But you are heard. Right now, in the dark, mid-sentence, before you find the “right” words. He is already leaning in.
His presence in the battle is a gift.
Will you pray with me?
Let's Pray Together
Heavenly Father,
You know the room I'm sitting in. You know the thing that keeps coming back. Just when I think it’s handled, I'm starting over. And I’m so tired of starting over.
Your Word says You heard a man who had nothing left but a cry, and You turned Your ear toward him.
God, turn Your ear toward me. Not because I've prayed well or believed hard enough, but because that's who You are.
Father, I confess I've measured Your love by whether You fixed my problem. Forgive me. Help me hold the truth that You are listening even when nothing changes and that You are leaning in when the room is dark and quiet.
I don't know how this ends on this side of heaven. But You do. Let that be enough for tonight.
I love You, Lord, because You hear me.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
If you're still praying and starting to wonder if it's working, I wrote Praying Through Life's Battles: 90 Days to Strengthen Your Faith for you. You can preorder it now at battleprayers.com. Until next time, remember, God sees you, hears you, and He knows your needs.
Photo Credit: iStock/Getty Images Plus/Simotion
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