Matthew 7:7 is a verse familiar to many. How assuring it is to know that there is an all sovereign God who molded everything into being, and yet, still delights in listening to and answering our prayers?

However, what if that door we knocked on minutes, hours, or days ago still feels very shut? Has God turned away from us? Or, is anyone even there to answer?

Taelor Farrow struggled with these very thoughts.

“I started questioning things whenever I became more interested in science. I’d always loved science and always wanted to know more, or the questions to why. It brought me to the question of ‘Well, who is God? Where did he come from’? From there I looked for more questions, didn’t get the answers I was seeking, and I just kind of fell off after that. I didn’t agree with it.”

“I thought, ‘Why am I believing that there is a God that I can’t see, I can’t hear, I can’t feel, you know, and nothing, like there’s nothing?’ I thought it was a figment of the imagination that people drew on for support that they couldn’t find in people here on earth.”

As she continued through high school and college, Taelor described how those around her would offer up their own personal revelations. However, “they weren’t gearing their answers towards my mind and the way I think. They were saying, ‘Well, the Bible says this, the Bible says that,’ and I was, like, ‘Well, I really don’t believe the Bible yet.’ I needed to start from the source and then work my way out.”

Taelor was first introduced to New Life by one of her friends: “He was very persistent with me coming to church, and there were days when I was, like, ‘Ah! I don’t want to go to church!’ But, I went because of him and his enthusiasm with it.”

One Sunday in particular stood out to Taelor, “I was driving to New Life and I felt the strongest urge that I couldn’t even describe to just pray—I had never felt that before. I was blown back by that, like, wow, is that how he communicates with us?”

“I had always been waiting for this big answer from him. I always use the analogy that I was knocking on the door, but no one was answering. It became frustrating. It had been ten years, that I’d been battling this. And, that one moment kind of shined a little hope in my life, like, maybe there is something going on here.”

God continued to reveal himself to Taelor in many ways, whether be through the church community, an increased enthusiasm to revel in his Word, or other life experiences. However, it was not until the birth of her son, James, that Taelor said she greatest understood the love of God.

She described her love for her son as “this nurturing feeling, like this mama bear type of love that you just want to protect and love your child, and do everything possible for them. No matter what they do you will always love them.”

Then, it came to her. This was exactly how God loved her and his people.

“It was this explosion of love, understanding, and appreciation, like, ‘Thank you for having me wait this long to understand this.’ It was the best way that I think God could have presented himself in that light. It wasn’t that God wasn’t answering my knock or my prayers or questions, it was just that he was waiting for the perfect time.”

Waiting, however, is a challenge that we all often struggle with. In asking Taelor what she might have told herself ten years ago, she replied with a sly and glowing grin, “Be patient and know that God is working in your life. You may not see it now, but you will feel the grace and the love that he gives. Just wait. Just wait. You have no idea.”