The Fear of Asking: Praying as an Adoptee

One of my dear friends texted me something along the lines of “You HAVE to read A Praying Life. I think it may have changed my life.” She has a rich relationship with the Lord, reads more books than anyone I know, and has read just about every significant Christian book you could name. So I took her recommendation seriously. However, I found myself looking at the cover, indulging one of the most pervasive sins in my life (pride), and wondering what this book could possibly teach me about something I have been doing for most of my life. My pride lasted about five pages. There are many things I could praise about this book, but one take-away was particularly unexpected: the fact I’m adopted has impacted the way I pray. A Praying Life acted like an abruptly opened window—it shined light on something I hadn’t seen before and left me standing there, blinking, wondering how I hadn’t even realized I was in the dark. 

Part One of the book is titled “Learning to Pray Like a Child.” The author describes how little children ask for anything and everything without caring whether the ask is reasonable and how they ask repeatedly without considering whether they are annoying their parents. (p. 25). He gives examples of how Jesus encouraged this type of asking: the parable of the persistent widow who bothered the judge until he conceded to her request (see Luke 18:1-8) and the parable of the neighbor who rudely disturbed his friend’s sleep until he gave him 3 loaves of bread (Luke 11:5-8). These people had no regard for how “appropriate” their requests were and they refused to give up, even when their persistence was socially unacceptable. These audacious and rude askers are the ones Jesus gives us as examples of how to pray.

I don’t pray like that. Despite my intellectual understanding that God wants us to cry out to him, my concern that I am being presumptuous or disrespectful consistently trumps my theology. Intellectually, I know that God will never abandon me, that he’ll never turn his back on me out of annoyance or offense. However, I pray like a child who does care about whether the request is acceptable and who is afraid of bothering a parent with persistent requests. Like a child who is afraid of asking for too much. Like a child who has been treated like a burden before they had a chance to ask for anything at all. 

The truth is that my birth mother saw me as a burden. I have been told that my birth mother was very courageous. I have heard how she advocated for herself and the unborn me. I have heard the common narrative that she did what she thought was best for me and my future. I’m sure those things are true. However, when push comes to shove, her decision meant that she didn’t prioritize parenting me. Whether or not she would ever frame it that way, I was a burden. Something about me—my unplanned existence, the strain I would put on her financial or relational situation, something—made me too hard to keep. 

Before this book, I had never connected my adoption with the way I pray. The realization hit me like a truck. Even though I intellectually know it isn’t true (and isn’t even possible), I’m afraid of being a burden to God, afraid of being an annoying little human who asks for too much and who is too obnoxious to keep around, afraid of God deciding I’m too hard to keep. 

By repeatedly teaching that we are instructed to approach God boldly in prayer and to cry out to him for everything, A Praying Life revealed the serious barrier that was driving my prayer life—fear of rejection or abandonment. I was afraid of praying repeatedly because I worried God would see me as an untrusting, selfish, and annoying child. I worried that God would see me as ungrateful and demanding. I managed to be a burden before I was even born, and my fear kept whispering that I’m even more of a burden now that I’m out in the world, calling for help. I had been a burden to my birth mother, and she had abandoned me. Without recognizing it, I had applied that rationale to God. As I read, that twisted ball of lies started to unravel. A Praying Life tapped me on the shoulder, pointed out my fear, and kept handing me truths to combat the lies that I had been telling myself for years. How audacious of me to think that I could be a burden to the King of the Universe, that I could bother the Father who loves me beyond measure, that I could annoy Him out of loving me by doing the exact thing He wants me to do—pray persistently, hopefully, and honestly.

My fear hasn’t just disappeared overnight. It’s still there, but now I am aware of it. When I take things before the Lord, I know that it is lurking in the corner. I can identify it, fight it, and pray for it to be removed. When I catch myself falling into fear driven habits, I remind myself of the woman hassling the judge and the neighbor’s nighttime knocking—parables of people who did things that were annoying and socially unacceptable—and who Jesus gave us as examples of how we should pray. I’m not as bold as the woman or as persistent as the neighbor, but I am slowly becoming less like a child who is so desperate to please, so desperate to be kept, that they end up being silent. 

A Praying Life isn’t perfect. There are things I disagree with, and even things I found hurtful. But I’m thankful I read it. I’m thankful for what it taught me, and I encourage you to pick it up and see what insight and encouragement it might have waiting for you. 

Elizabeth