Part 2 - Waiting On A Whisper
- Hampton Law Firm ⚖️
- 10 hours ago
- 4 min read
This 3 Part series is not meant to be a neatly packaged testimony with a perfect beginning, middle, and ending. It is an honest reflection on adult faith: the kind that still believes, still aches, still remembers, but sometimes forgets how to speak. It is about the distance that can grow between a person and Jesus, not because love disappeared, but because life became heavy, complicated, disappointing, and loud.
If you haven't heard the song, I encourage you to listen to it. Some of the lyrics that touched me were:
"I used to kneel beside my bed at night when I was small, it was easy as breathing, believing wasn't hard at all, I knew that you were there, close as my next prayer. The word will break you down, break your heart and shake your faith, but now you feel so far away I don't know who's to blame, I don't talk to you as much, maybe that's part of growing up"
And
"I carry on this one way conversation, I'm listening but you don't say a word, if your answer's in the silence, I'll be patient, but its hard to know my prayers are being heard, i'm waiting on a whisper, just something to confirm, that you and me are still on speaking terms" "I mostly come around now when things aren't working out, I show up with my questions, my stumbles and my doubts, always thinking of myself and always asking you for help"
Before faith became complicated, it was simple. That is one of the things I keep coming back to. When I think about childhood faith, I do not think first about doctrine, church debates, disappointment, or unanswered prayers. I think about innocence. I think about the kind of trust that does not yet know how much life can hurt. I think about a little girl who could talk to Jesus freely because she believed, without needing proof, that He was there.
There is something sacred about the way children pray. They do not over-explain themselves. They do not worry about whether they sound spiritual enough. They do not edit their words until every trace of honesty is gone. A child will thank Jesus for a good day, ask Him to protect the dog, tell Him about a fear, and then fall asleep believing heaven heard every word. There is a purity in that kind of prayer that adulthood often trains out of us.
As adults, we learn to complicate everything. We learn to measure our needs. We learn to compare our suffering to other people’s suffering and decide whether ours is serious enough to bring to God. We learn to sound composed, even when we are falling apart. We learn to say, “I am fine,” so many times that eventually we try to say it to Jesus, too. Instead of coming to Him like children, we come like attorneys presenting evidence, trying to make our case for why we deserve help.
But Jesus never asked us to perform for Him. He never asked for polished prayers. He never said we had to understand everything before we came close. In fact, the tenderness of childhood faith may be closer to what He wanted from us all along. Not childishness, but trust. Not immaturity, but dependence. Not ignorance, but the willingness to believe that we are loved before we have earned it.
I think adulthood makes faith harder because adulthood gives us more reasons to question. Children may pray for comfort after a bad dream. Adults pray over marriages, courtrooms, diagnoses, children, finances, grief, betrayal, and loneliness. Adults know what it feels like to ask God for something and not receive the answer they wanted. Adults know what it feels like to pray with tears and wake up to the same problem the next morning. That changes the way you speak to God.
Sometimes I wonder if I stopped talking to Jesus so freely because I became afraid of being disappointed. There is a vulnerability in prayer that we do not always acknowledge. To pray honestly is to admit desire. It is to admit need. It is to place hope somewhere outside of your own control. And if you have lived long enough to be hurt, that can feel dangerous.
So we protect ourselves. We pray less specifically. We expect less openly. We say we are surrendering, but sometimes we are really numbing ourselves so unanswered prayers will not hurt as badly. We call it maturity, but often it is self-protection wearing religious language. The little girl prayed like someone who expected to be heard. The grown woman sometimes prays like someone bracing for silence.
That is what I want to understand in this season of my life. Not just whether I still believe, but whether I can become tender enough to speak again. Can I return to Jesus without pretending I am not wounded? Can I pray without making my heart hard first? Can I believe He is listening even when He does not answer in the way I hoped He would?
The little girl who talked to Jesus is not gone. I believe that. She may be buried under responsibility, heartbreak, disappointment, and years of being strong, but she is still there. She is the part of me that still wants to believe that Jesus is close. She is the part of me that cries when a song says what my heart has been afraid to say. She is the part of me that knows faith was never supposed to be merely something I defended intellectually. It was supposed to be a relationship I lived inside.
Maybe returning to faith is not always about learning something new. Maybe sometimes it is about remembering what was true before the world got loud. Before heartbreak. Before adult disappointment. Before shame. Before silence felt like rejection. Maybe it is about remembering that I once knew how to talk to Jesus, and that maybe, by grace, I can learn again.
I do not want to romanticize childhood as though children never suffer or doubt. But I do think childhood faith can teach adult faith something important. It reminds us that prayer does not have to begin with eloquence. It can begin with honesty. It can begin with one sentence. It can begin with tears. It can begin with, Jesus, I miss how close You used to feel.
And maybe that is a prayer all by itself.
Judith L. Hampton
Attorney At Law
Hampton Law Firm
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