After a night spent with Otgoo, a friend who was struggling with depression, I got into bed and started praying. My prayers were desperate, fraught with worry and concern, as Otgoo had a list of problems as long as your arm and a catalogue of disasters to match. Understandably, she felt as though God had abandoned her.

I started listing her struggles, telling God about the pain she was experiencing and voicing my frustrations. Of course He already knew her heartache but that didn’t stop me. Like a torrent of water, words gushed from my mouth until my irritation was aimed at God and the seeming injustice of Otgoo’s situation.

Eventually words ceased. There was nothing left to say and I could not imagine how to rescue Otgoo. Exhausted I breathed deeply letting my pulse slow, and as my mind became calmer I asked the Lord, as I have asked him a hundred times before, to teach me how to pray.

Lying in the darkness, a picture of the Old Testament high priest came into mind. I imagined him clothed in his priestly garments moving around the Holy Place to perform his duties. The jewelled ephod that covered his chest sparkled as the light of the lamps caught the twelve precious stones. One for each tribe — the tribes of Israel close to the priest’s heart; each one remembered by him.

I placed Otgoo into God’s hands. With my mind I prayed, with my heart I felt her pain and calmly, remembering her before the Lord, I asked Him to work.

My perspective started to change as I realised that He could and would use the suffering in Otgoo’s life for His good if she submitted herself to Him. In our conversations together Otgoo had told me that she wanted to follow the Lord but that she couldn’t find a way to Him. Perhaps this was how the Lord was asking me to pray. I should be asking Him to show Otgoo how to find her way to Him. I listened and God began to work.

With foolhardy pride I had thought my prayers would help Otgoo and change her situation immediately. But God had to show me that, were He to release her from her suffering there and then, she would face grief that would last longer than her present pain. Of course it is good and right to ask God to fulfil our desires and my motives were good, or so I thought. But in my frustrations my prayers had been short-sighted. They were dominated by the desire to see Otgoo released from her pain rather than acknowledging that God might have a greater purpose. I had not asked Him to enable me to pray in accordance with His will. I had simply prayed envisioning things as I thought best and not willing to realise that God may want to do something different.

Jesus exhorts us to cast our burdens on Him. As we are able to do this we see that if God wills something different from our requests it’s because He knows best. Such truth calms my heart, bringing peace and a growing confidence in God. Slowly my prayers begin to connect with my deepening knowledge of Him. I still make my desires known but I rest in His wisdom, aware that God is far wiser than me and knows best.

In the midst of her struggles Otgoo did find her way to God. She found that He was right there with her in the midst of her suffering and she also found that His strength was sufficient to carry her to a place of peace in Him.