Everyone will face moments of disappointment or disillusionment; no one is immune. We may have someone treat us like scum on their shoe--they don't necessarily want to get rid of the scum but they enjoy walking all over it. (Maybe because they enjoy the squishy noise it makes with each step.) We may have someone do something that hurts so badly we don't know how to trust anyone anymore and that feeling of distrust is extended to Heavenly Father.
For me, when I hurt, I tend to shut down and lock all access points into my life. And, irrationally, I get angry with God. Mostly because it's hard to make the decision to love another person as a friend, a sibling, or a potential friend with perks. When we do things to serve another or to show our love for them and they throw it back in our face, it doesn't feel like it was worth the energy or effort. Even though we are taught in the scriptures that when we serve our fellowmen we are serving God, it sometimes doesn't really feel like it made any difference to Him or that He was paying attention.
When it feels like no one is listening to you, you wonder if it's worth the effort to attempt conversation. Prayer can feel like that. At those times, I've been told it means we need to pray harder. This is difficult for me. If no one is listening, why should I talk? Even though I know that Heavenly Father would never ignore me, my experiences with other people in my life ignoring me or treating me as unimportant to them have made it difficult to trust anyone, including my Father in Heaven. Because if the people who profess to love or care about you don't want to talk to you, why would Heavenly Father want to talk to you?
But, He does hear you and answer prayers. The tricky part is this thing called "agency." Since each individual is allowed to freely choose for themselves, sometimes the things that we want or pray for cannot be given to us because another person also has the right to choose. They can choose to return your offer of love or walk away from you. They can choose to talk to you or ignore you. They can choose to work hard at maintaining a relationship or they can let someone else talk them into walking away without a word. Either way they choose, you have to deal with the consequences of their actions. Sometimes those consequences can immediately bring blessings; other times they cause your heart to ice over to protect itself, just like an orange in danger of an early freeze.
Our relationship with Heavenly Father is exactly the same way. Except we are the ones making the choices and He is the one dealing with the consequences of our choices. We can either work to communicate with Him or not. We can choose to show our love or not. Et cetera....
Heavenly Father allows all of these things to happen to us because He loves us perfectly and without limitations. These heartaches and heart-rejoicings cause us to draw closer to Him and teach us how to become like Him. Sometimes we don't go to Him with the heartaches because we are not able to function if the ice cracks even a tiny bit. To talk to Him about the heartaches would cause the ice to shatter, leaving us broken and in pieces. And we may not know how to put the pieces back together because there isn't enough duct tape in the world to fix certain things. The trick is letting Heavenly Father's love for us into our hearts despite the hurt and pain. His love is the most magnificent duct tape in the infinite expanses of eternity and heals all hurts. But we have to trust Him first and go to Him with that broken heart and ask Him to fix it. And sometimes, that is the hardest decision to make.
But He is always there and we have the ability to hurt or heal our relationship with Him.
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