When you want to give up, don’t stop praying.

Hi everyone, please meet Kathleen O’Malley Taylor, my good friend and writing critique partner of three years. We’ve grown so much together as writers and as friends.

I’m at the Blue Ridge Christian Writer’s Conference this week and asked Kathy if she would be my guest blogger. Kathy is a fantastic fiction writer, working on her new website and loving her garden. Please welcome her.

When you want to give up, don’t stop praying.

Jesus told the crowd during his Sermon on the Mount, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7. It sounds so simple, yet we rarely see an instant manifestation of our prayers.

When I pray for something that lays heavy on my heart, I feel faith-filled, patient, and confident at the beginning of the journey. I know Jesus is by my side. I’m hopeful it is only a matter of time before He answers, even though my experience has taught me prayers can take years, sometimes even decades, before there is a response. When the wait is long, impatience and frustration creep into my prayer life. What I discovered recently is when we grow frustrated in our prayer life, God offers us encouragement if we are open to hearing from him in ways we don’t expect.      

One day, I was riddled with self-doubt and a sense of hopelessness about my future. I had recently moved, was new to the area, and was feeling lonely. Driving in the car relaxes me. I enjoy the sights. I took a ride down an unknown side street while sharing my discouragement with God, and on the front lawn of one home I passed was a wooden sign, almost as tall as me, with the words spray painted in large, black letters: Don’t Give Up. I drove back and forth a few times, rereading the sign, wondering if I imagined it. Each time I passed, the words stared back: Don’t Give Up. The message was clear.

Recently, while praying in my car for something I had been petitioning God for years, I poured out my disappointment to the Lord and wondered if He had heard me. What did I have to do to see my request align with God’s will and timing? I need advice, I pleaded and turned on the radio, adjusting the station to Klove Christian Radio, and Matthew West’s Christian song hollered back at me, “Don’t Stop Praying, Don’t stop calling on Jesus’s name.” I sat back in the driver’s seat, feeling rather stunned. He really does hear me, I thought as I drove home. For a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpbZqMJ-B44

Sometimes, if too much time passes without a response to a prayer, I give up. But I can tell you God doesn’t. For years, I prayed for the opportunity to purchase a small house with a garden, even though I knew it was beyond my financial means. After a decade, I stopped praying and surrendered to the idea that it was not meant to be. However, I’d still drive by houses that looked so pretty and say, ‘Oh, Lord, isn’t that lovely and Oh, what a marvelous garden this home has,’ and thank Him for letting me enjoy viewing the homes of others.

Last year, I bought a house fifteen years after I began praying for one and five years after I decided God’s answer was no.

So don’t give up, and don’t stop praying.

Kathleen O’Malley Taylor is a former journalist and has published in local and national publications. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers. Her most recent work is a devotional, “God’s Not Through with You Yet,” published in The Courage to Write, edited by Lucinda Secrest McDowell and Rachel Britton. Kathy lives in Massachusetts.