Waiting for the dawn

I'm playing catch-up in my Tuesday night Bible study so I just ran across this.

Psalm 130
A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.

8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

Have you ever waited for dawn to come? The image here is of the watchmen, who sit at the city wall and watch for enemies through the night. Dawn means safety and success. For some reason, this really hit me with a couple of different memories in my life where I literally waited on the sun to rise, believing that sunrise meant safety and success. The first time was after a sleepless night with a very sick father, watching with my mother. In my mind, the changing of the nurses which coincided with the end of the first chemotherapy treatment around 7:00 a.m. was a goal, something to aim for that meant safety and success. Of course, at that point, on that night, in my youth, I knew that God was going to answer my prayers in just the manner I intended them: miraculous healing if that was what was required.

Just before that goal, when the sky was brightening, my father died. I don't remember sunrise or really much of anything until that afternoon, sitting on my mother's patio, stunned at how God seemed to have ignored my prayer. I really don't think I'll ever forget that night or the feelings of expectation...sunrise meant a new day, another reason to hope. And I completely understand the feeling of expectation the psalmist describes. We are to anticipate God's answer in exactly that manner as it means safety and success.

So then...why do prayers go unanswered? Are they unanswered? This was a hard lesson and it's one I'm still learning. In that case, that prayer was answered, not in the way I intended, but in the best way. It just took a few more times of watching for the sun to rise to understand it better, to understand why and how I can put my hope in the Lord.