By Shannon Whitmore 
My mother has prayed for the conversion of my father for most of their marriage. They began their relationship as lukewarm Catholics, but after my mom started taking the faith more seriously when she was in her 40s, she began to pray that my dad would follow suit. But he didn’t. For decades, it seemed like her prayers were going unheard and unanswered.
I remember my dad being an Easter and Christmas Catholic. He went to baptisms and weddings but didn’t go much in between. I don’t remember him ever praying in front of us, and he never spoke about his personal belief in Jesus. I assumed he believed something, but his actions didn’t shed much light on his internal soul. My dad didn’t regularly go to church when I was growing up, but I know my mom prayed for him the entire time.
I probably would have gotten discouraged if I had been her. How do you pray for something—and a really good thing too—and keep praying even when you don’t get the answer you want? How do you do that for more than two decades? Eventually, I would have just assumed God wasn’t listening, and I would have given up. But not my mom.
After more than two decades, my mom got the answer to her prayers. My dad went back to church. And it was through the prayers of a grandma and the actions of a grandson. My son invited my dad to go to church. With the naïve innocence of a child, a 7-year-old did what no adult could do. He didn’t know he could have been rejected. He didn’t fully understand the situation. He just wanted Grandpa to go to church with him. And how do you say no to a child, and your grandson, no less? So the relentless prayers of a grandma were heard, and God answered by using the innocence of a grandson.
My dad has been going to church for more than a year now, and he has only grown more zealous about his faith. He started going to make his grandson happy, but now he goes because it makes him happy. He goes because he believes. He goes because he likes the community he has found there. He goes because he found God there. And he goes because he loves to see the big smile on my son’s face when he sits down in the pew.
A grandmother’s prayers are relentless, and they are powerful. God heard the prayers of my mom all those years ago, and He began to lay the groundwork for the future answer to those prayers. He led me to DC where I met my husband. He gave us two beautiful children who are totally in love with the Lord. And he orchestrated the events that led my parents to retire and move south so they could be closer to their grandchildren. Then He inspired a little boy, who invited his grandpa to church with him. Because God knew what my dad needed in order to go to church. He needed his grandson.
God heard the prayers of a grandma, and He gave her exactly what she needed. Prayers are not answered in our time but in His time. God knows that some answers take time. Foundations need to be laid, decisions need to be made, circumstances need to be right. And then God answers. Because God always answers the relentless prayers of a grandma.
by Jennifer Vail 
