There's a name you used to bring to God all the time. And somewhere along the way — without ever really deciding to — you stopped.

Maybe it's a child who walked away. A sibling who went quiet. A friend on the same loop you've watched for years. Someone who hurt you. You prayed for them, you really did… until somewhere in there you quietly concluded they were never going to change — and the prayer went quiet right along with that thought.

This week, Melissa sits with the prayers we stopped praying for other people — and asks the question underneath the question: Did you stop praying for them… or did you stop believing they'd change? Because sometimes what we call acceptance is really unbelief wearing acceptance's clothes.

Through the story of Samuel — a man rejected by the very people he'd led, who still called quitting on them a sin against God — and the greatest commandment Jesus ever gave, this episode reframes what intercession was always about. You weren't praying to fix them. You were praying to obey a God who told you to love your neighbor — and who has never once given up on you.

You're not praying for them to change. You're praying because you refuse to stop loving them the way God never stopped loving you.

Bring a journal. There's a name waiting to be picked back up.

🎧 Part 4 of the series The Prayers I Stopped Praying.

🔗 Take the next step at myquestionforyou.com — and join the free weekly email, A Quiet Invitation, for a short word of encouragement each week. Or just visit: https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/1717098/165207819752047949/share

✨ Encouragement for your spirit. Wisdom for your walk.

You ever look at your phone, see who's calling, and just… let it go to voicemail?

Not because you don't love them. You do. But you knew the second you saw the name on the screen — if you pick up, they're going to ask you for something. And you don't have it in you to say yes right now.

A lot of us have been doing the exact same thing with God.

In Episode 3 of The Prayers I Stopped Praying, Melissa asks the question we don't always want to ask out loud: What if you're afraid of what He'll ask?

Together, we'll sit with a man in Mark 10 who ran up to Jesus and asked the boldest question a person can ask. He got an answer. And the answer touched the one thing he wasn't ready to hand over.

This isn't the prayer that didn't get answered. This is the prayer that did. And what we do with that might be the most honest conversation you've had with God in a long time.

🎧 The prayer that scares us most isn't the one God ignores — it's the one He answers.

🔗 Take the next step at myquestionforyou.com — and join the free weekly email, A Quiet Invitation, for a short word of encouragement each week. Or just visit: https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/1717098/165207819752047949/share

✨ Encouragement for your spirit. Wisdom for your walk.

You ever apply for a job you really wanted?

You spent hours on it. You tailored the resume. You wrote and rewrote the cover letter. You hit submit, and you waited.

A day. A week. Two weeks. Nothing.

And the worst part wasn't getting a no. Because at least a no is an answer. The worst part was the silence.

A lot of us have been praying like that.

In Episode 2 of The Prayers I Stopped Praying, Melissa asks: Did you stop praying because He didn't answer? Together, we'll sit with Mary and Martha — two women who felt completely ignored by Jesus when their brother was dying — and with Jesus Himself in Gethsemane, asking honestly if there's another way.

Because both stories tell us the same thing: the silence on a specific prayer isn't the same as God being absent from the asking. He may not have changed your circumstances. But He has never once left the room.

🎧 Six weeks. Six prayers worth picking back up.

🔗 Take the next step at myquestionforyou.com — and join the free weekly email, A Quiet Invitation, for a short word of encouragement each week. Or just visit: https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/1717098/165207819752047949/share

✨ Encouragement for your spirit. Wisdom for your walk.