I personally have experienced this in my life.  At age 11 I would pray to God that he would take me to heaven rather than let me suffer abuse at night.  My prayer was never answered as a child but at the age of 30 I came to the realisation that there was a God who loved me so much he sent his son to pay the price..for me. I was admitted to hospital with a severe infection in my leg and as dr’s came and went and marked my leg whenever the infection spread slowly up…I put my leg in HIS hands..I really did!!  I was prepared for the worst outcome, but God saved my leg.   As my marriage started to founder I turned to my God and prayed.  It has been a while..but God has answered my prayers and my marriage is renewed.  Things are still hard, but less so..I have finally learnt to really, really trust God..to leave it in his hands.   There are many other unanswered prayers, and I especially pray for my church fellowship.,,.I love each and every member..and it pains me when prayers go unanswered and I see my brothers and sisters in Christ crying out to the Lord..on their knees, praying with tears streaming…

I used to ask God …well, I used to shout at God..”DON’T YOU CARE? DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER MY PRAYERS? ARE YOU EVEN THERE..FOR ME?”  and I would harden my heart and think to myself..God has left me so I will leave him.  Except I can’t..I can’t leave him.  Jesus has saved me, I KNOW THAT!…so I had to some-how seek God out, and find out what his purpose was for me…What does God want me learn from all this?

Well, I had to learn surrender..how to really surrender..Oh I could walk the walk, but could I talk the talk? Could I really, truly surrender these situations to him? It’s been a bit of a learning curve, but God is truly faithful and I love him!  He IS there!

I would recomend the book ‘Knowing God’ by J.I Packer. I’ve only been reading it for the past three weeks..yes I’m a slow reader, but listen to this ” We should not, therefore, be too taken aback when unexpected things happen to us now.  What do they mean? Why, simply that God in His wisdom means to make something of us which we have not attained yet, and is dealing with us accordingly.

Perhaps  He means to strengthen us in patience, good humour, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice in exercising these graces under specially difficult positions.  Perhaps He wishes to break us of complacency, or unreality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit.  Perhaps His purpose is to simply draw us to himself in conscious communion with Him; for it is oftehn the case as al the saints know, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest when the cross is heaviest.  Or perhaps God is preparing us for forms of service of which at present we have no inkling.

You know when I came across this paragraph (and I strongly urge you to read this book) my eyes just about popped out of my head!  I had gotten to that point in my life and like Mesach, Shadrach and Abednego I said to God…”I can and I freely trust you Lord to work all this out for your glory, but if not, I will still praise you, despite what I see and feel, even if you never answer my prayers (that was hard)  I surrender all to you…

That was the turning point.  God had been waiting for me to confess my complete helplessness.  Now it’s one thing to say..”I trust God, no matter what” and quite another to do it, to live it.

Wherever you are in your walk with God right now, He is there, he does have a plan, but he wants your heart, your whole being for himself.   As Paul says “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12: 7-9) This attitude of Paul is a model for us.

You may be suffering in ways no-one else can understand,  I can only say that in the dark night of my soul, God was there.