Unanswered Prayer Part 2 -- When God Is Silent

Part 1 is kind of valuable to read before going on here.

Last Spring (mid April) God began to lean into my on my personal prayer life. It really launched out of a trip to Colorado where the book Red Moon Rising by Pete Greig and Dave Roberts was recommended to me. It's the story of the worldwide 24/7 prayer movement that birthed out of Europe.
As I read it, it began resonating with me for two reasons. First was there was something in me that sensed a deep need for the youth and our church to recapture a heart for prayer. Second, I sensed a need to relearn what prayer is all about.
Through May and June, I began to dive back into times of personal praying. I found myself turning off the radio more often to simply listen to and talk to God. My journaling was to God. I was thinking with God. It was a refreshing reintroduction to an intimate interaction with the Almighty.

All along, there was one subject I would not approach in my prayer... the baby situation. Again, I didn't even realize it, but I would no longer ask God for anything when it came to Janelle and I having a child. I would allow and even ask others to pray, but I wouldn't.

In late July, a very cool family in our church allowed us to stay at their lake house for a little relaxation after a crazy trip-filled Summer. I used this time to do a significant amount of. I also began to read Pete Greig's (24/7 guy) most recent book, God On Mute. It was about his personal journey of dealing with unanswered prayer in his life concerning significant life threatening and changing illness in his wife.
As I was reading and journaling, the blindness toward a specific area of my prayer life began to get some life. I realized that I had become convinced that God was listening and interacting with me in most of the areas of my life, but he wasn't listening in one particular area of prayer... my prayers for a child.

Why? Simply because the prayers, both specific and general were being met with silence on His side.

No answers.
No real explanation as to why.
Just silence.

In God on Mute, Pete Greig reference to The Magician's Nephew from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (that's a lot of titles and authors). It's the story of a young boy named Digory whose mother is sick. He finds himself in a land containing magical fruit with healing powers. Digory approaches the great lion Aslan, and asks...

"May I - please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make Mother well?"
He had been desperately hoping that the Lion would say "Yes"; he had been horribly afraid it might say "No." But he was taken aback when it did neither.

As I read this passage, I felt like Digory. I had gone to God with a sense of trembling and uncertainty only to be met by silence...
My conclusion for the past few years has been that he must not care. He has more important things to worry about in this world than granting my request. Although I saw it as a huge deal, maybe He didn't. And I was externally willing to say that I was ok with that. Internally, I saw it as a load of B.S.
But here's my "a-ha" moment... and maybe if you're wrestling through a situation where your prayers have been met by silence.
Later in the story, Digory approaches Aslan again.

He thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out:
But please, please won't you - can't you give me something that will cure Mother?" Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in despair, he looked up at its face. What he was surprised him as much as anything in his whole life.
For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself."

God's silence does not mean he doesn't care. God's silence does not mean he doesn't hurt and wrestle alongside me. Most importantly God's silence does not mean he is saying no to my prayer.
This brings me to where I'm at now...
understanding I need to embrace the silence,
willing to dive in to the fact that my prayer has gone unanswered.
Open to crying out to God, "Why"?
Willing to look in His face and understand. He knows my pain better than I could ever.
Recognizing that the silence may have much more meaning than I initially think.

That brings me to the past month and a half, which has been a exciting, frustrating, incredible roller coaster ride of re-engaging with God in all aspects...
both trusts and doubts
Noise and silence
Answers and Questions
Yes and No

From here, we'll take some time to look at what we can learn in the midst of the silence and unanswered prayer, as well as some of the whys behind our unanswered prayer.