Orphanages can be shockingly quiet. Infants and toddlers won’t cry if no one ever responds to their cries. I learned this from a story about how an adoptive father spent a week with the young children he and his wife were adopting but needed to leave for a few weeks to complete the adoption process.

As he was leaving and was struck again by the silence of the orphanage, he turned back and read to the children Jesus’ words from John 14:18: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” As he then turned to leave, one of the children started to cry, and it was both the most heart-rending and beautiful sound. Heart-rending because the child, even if only briefly, was being left, but beautiful because the child understood that his cry was heard and in ways he didn’t yet understand.  

All this got me thinking about prayer. Prayer, among other things, is our cry to our Father in heaven. Some stop praying when they feel their prayers are not heard or answered. But the good news of John 14:18 is our prayers are heard, and while we often don’t understand, they are wonderfully answered.

So friends, in prayer, cry out to Jesus. He hears.