Q. A woman who has a good job and reasonable looks feels that God has not answered her prayers. She wishes to be married and to have a family, but she has past 30 years of age and feels that she is missing the boat. Does this mean that God has not accepted her prayers?
(Name and address withheld)
A. We have to look at life, in its entirety as a test, which we all have to go through. The test takes different forms for different people. Some of us are tested with what seems to others to be a great blessing for which they would sacrifice much. But they do not know whether when they have that very thing they covet, they would be happy or more miserable. But we all yearn to have what we believe to be better than what we already have. This is part of human nature. However, a believer should always look at life as a passing stage and that the important thing is to pass one’s test with good results, because it is on the basis of his or her results that their status in the life to come depends.
Take the case of a childless couple. They may look at their relatives or neighbors who have children and think that they are much happier. They pray hard for a child, believing that having a child would bring them greater happiness. Yet if they imagine for a moment that they could have a child who will be a source of misery for them, they would revise their attitude. I knew a couple who did not have a child for more than 15 years of marriage. They sought medical help and after trying so many devices had a daughter whom they loved so much. But from the first month, the child was ill. They hardly spent a month without taking her to a doctor once or twice. She seemed never to be in good health. When she was seven years of age, she died. What happened next was that the couple seemed to have endless arguments that resulted in their divorce within a few months. The woman married again, but she had no children, and the man never married again until he died some 15 years later. Do you think it was better for them to have a child, or would it have been better for them to remain childless? Only God knows.
Other couples might have several children, but each of them gives his or her parents a different type of worry. Would it be better for such people to be without children? Only God knows.
One woman might get married and lead a very happy life with her husband, while another would give half her life to return to her parents’ home as she were before marriage. Who can tell at the moment a couple gets married if either of them will be happier for getting married?
What we need to understand is that every aspect of our life in this world is part of the test we have to pass. Accepting what God gives us, trying to make the best of it, is a step toward achieving this pass. This does not mean that we should not hope for a betterment of our lot, or that we should not pray to God to grant us what we desire. What it means is that when we have prayed Him for something we dearly desire, we should leave the matter to Him, knowing for certain that He answers our prayers. But His answer takes one of three forms: 1) He gives us straightaway what we have prayed for as it actually is; 2) He does not give us that thing, but replaces it with something that He knows to be better for us; or 3) He delays it for a short or a long while, or indeed until the Day of Judgment when He rewards us for praying Him. He does this as one aspect of our test so that we would prove whether we will remain patient trusting to Him or we will give up to despair. If we remain patient, not hastening the fulfillment of our prayers, and we do not have it answered in this life, we will, on the Day of Judgment, wish that He had kept all our prayers to be answered then rather than have them answered in our present life.
So, the first thing I would urge you to do is not to despair, and to trust to God that He hears your prayers and answers them in the best way for you. You should continue to pray to Him for all that you wish, but you must not hasten the result. It will certainly come, or what comes will be better for you.
