A better way to pray

“Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?” my first-grader recently asked. It’s a question I’ve heard from my children before. A decade ago, when our 17-year-old son, Gabriel, was also in first grade, he faithfully asked God to help his little sister, Ruth, who had cerebral palsy, to walk and talk. I did too. Day after day, it was crushingly painful to see those prayers seemingly go unanswered, and I struggled with what to say.