Unopened drawers and unanswered prayers

Our bathroom has quite a few drawers (definitely a selling point of the house for me!).  Alex likes to get into all of them that don’t have childproof locks on them (which is making us desire to put a few more locks on some – especially after he got into some makeup the other day!).  Sometimes I let him get into the drawers, sometimes I say no.  But today, he got it into his head that he was going to open the “drawer” under our sink – which actually isn’t a drawer at all, it’s just a solid wood panel that looks like a drawer.  He pulled and pulled at it, turning red in the face and getting quite frustrated.  He started banging on it and crying.  He kept looking at me and screeching, trying to get me to open it for him. 

“It doesn’t open, Alex,” I said.  “It’s just for show, it doesn’t open, sorry.  I can’t help you.”  Alex’s face puckered (and I could tell he didn’t really believe me), and he started to throw a little mini-tantrum.  Finally, sobbing, he banged on it a couple more times and sank down to the floor in abject misery.  

Eventually, when he had calmed down a bit, we looked in some other drawers and found some fun “toys” for him to play with.  He kept looking mournfully at the other “drawer” as if he just knew it held the most wonderful, magical things ever.  I opened the cupboard to show him it was just pipes behind there, but he really didn’t understand. 

So I was standing there watching my son bang on a door that literally went nowhere – and I thought, I wonder if this is how God feels sometimes, watching us bang our heads against a door we want Him to open that GOES NOWHERE.  “It’s not meant to open,” He tells us… but we don’t believe Him.  Frustrated, we wonder why He’s not answering our prayers, but the door we want opened doesn’t lead anywhere and the magical things we think are behind it simply don’t exist. 

Gives one a little food for thought at least.