Part 2 The unanswered prayer that broke me

The unanswered prayer that broke me.

When I was 22 years old, I met Cici. She was also 22.  Cici suffered from a spinal cord injury that left her unable to move from the neck down. She depended on care attendants to help with basic activities like eating, cleaning, using the toilet, and getting dressed. I’ll never forget the moment I regrettably reached out my hand to try to shake hers upon meeting her. Or how she talked me through in great detail the steps in making the perfect sandwich.  I will never take for granted simple tasks such as putting socks on or using the toilet. My time with Cici changed me deeply. 

As I spent time with Cici, I couldn't help but compare her life to my own. Her story broke my heart, and I prayed earnestly that God would change the course of her life. When Cici was still an infant, her mother left the family to drug abuse. Then at the age of 16 years, Cici was in a severe car accident while sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle that her friend was driving. They hit black ice, the car spun out of control, and Cici was the one who ended up with a spinal cord injury. Then at 21 years old, 9 months prior to my meeting her, Cici’s father passed away to cancer, leaving Cici and her older brother. Cici’s brother was there for her as much as he could but he was also busy living out his young adult life often leaving Cici alone in this large house with only care attendants for company. I was one of them.

I know the setup sounds like a heartbreaking movie where the main character has a tragic past, but then a redemptive story unfolds. Unfortunately, this isn't one of those fairy tale endings.

Despite doctors telling Cici it was impossible to walk again, Cici believed that there was a possibility. She refused to accept her condition as permanent and even exercised regularly on a cycling machine that used electrodes to prevent muscle atrophy, preparing for the day when she could potentially walk again.

At the time, I believed that this must’ve been why I was placed in this situation as her care attendant. I believed that God wanted Cici to meet Christ and be healed. I was more charismatic at the time so I prayed for Cici’s physical healing daily and had my trusted Christian friends pray for her too. I had conversations with Cici about God, spirituality, healing, and Jesus regularly. 

My prayers to God often sounded like the following. 

"Dear God, you desire to make us whole and heal us in Christ. I pray for your healing power to be upon Cici. Cici desires to walk again. May the restoring power of Christ who makes all things whole again be upon her spine. Even though doctors and people tell her it is impossible, may you tell a different story through her life. By the power and authority and name of Christ I pray, Amen" 

I prayed and took whatever actions I thought were necessary to make this vision come true; however, I mostly prayed for her salvation. For what good is physical healing and the ability to walk if she does not become a Christian and spend eternity in heaven? What is physical healing if her soul would burn in hell? I couldn't bear the thought.

I invited a charismatic pastor who also believed in physical healing to pray for Cici one day at her request, but despite our efforts, she was never healed physically or spiritually. Sadly, Cici passed away from complications related to pneumonia at the young age of 25. Her death left me questioning the purpose of my presence in her life. I had prayed fervently and had even experienced visions, but I couldn't help but wonder at the time if I had done something wrong. Was I not faithful enough in my prayers? Should I have taken a different approach? Did God not want to save or heal her?

I was less upset about unanswered prayers related to Cici's physical healing than I was about her spiritual salvation. This experience made me question the value of prayer and why we should even bother praying if God has already determined the outcome. How often do our prayers change God’s mind? The most distressing thought was whether Cici was currently suffering in hell for eternity because she did not confess her faith in God or have a relationship with God. What if someone had a condition where they could not confess with their mouth? What if they rejected a distorted version of God, rather than God for who God is? These questions began to flood my mind, and I struggled to reconcile them with my beliefs.

What is the nature of this salvation? It seems so arbitrary, conditional, situational, unjust and most of all incompatible with the God I seemed to know in my heart. If I had Cici's hand dealt to me, I knew that I would be the one suffering for eternity in hell. I didn't choose my family, and in many situations, I would have rejected Christ. Can salvation be merely luck of the dice? Did I simply get lucky because I was born to Christian parents and met the right people under favorable conditions?

Is this really what God is like? Is this the God I know and love? The answer at the pit of my being was a resounding no. However, this contradicts everything I learned about being a Christian, and I had no rails to rely on. I was falling and I couldn’t stop it. Little did I know, I was falling into a sea of grace and mercy.

I had a long prayer hiatus because I couldn't see the purpose after what happened with Cici. The idea of hell tormented me. Whenever someone at church talked about God answering their prayers, I had the following thoughts run through my mind:

You mean to tell me you’re going to give someone a new job, but send Cici to hell because she didn’t say the sinner’s prayer in the knick of time? 

You mean to tell me you are going to help someone get a parking spot but not heal Cici’s legs or arms? 

You mean to tell me you’re willing to send Cici to hell after what she was born into and everything she’s been through but that arrogant person who grew up with all their wants met is A-okay simply because they believe the right set of doctrine?

After sharing my struggles with some close friends, one of them mentioned they had a vision of Cici running in the fields of heaven, suggesting that maybe she had accepted Christ before passing away. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. Unfortunately, visions like this no longer provided me with any comfort because I was already swimming in deep water. Even if Cici had accepted Christ in the knick of time, what about all the other people who did not have the chance to hear about Christianity or accept it before passing away? Too bad, so sad? According to the version of Christianity that I grew up with, the majority of the world is doomed to suffer in an infernal everlasting hellfire, while only a few are saved and rejoicing in heaven, seemingly ignoring the plight of the rest.

The thought was unsettling, but anytime I got into my inner rants like this, an all too familiar and comforting voice inside me reassured me time and time again, “I am not like this”.  I couldn’t piece it together. It would be a 13 year journey of reconstructing everything I once held dear. In the meantime, what was I to hold onto?