A painful loss
Opening the email app in my phone one morning. Kind of in a hurry. Skipping over the promotions and the daily news feeds. Spotting a note from my church. These don’t come often, so it must be important. Reading it.
“Francine died today.”
Crashing. Aching. Burning. Crying.
No, God, no. No, no, no. Not Francine. No. This can’t be. The pain is too great.
I’m not hurting for myself. I barely knew Francine. I’m grieving for her two children, both in their early twenties, one with special needs. Her mom was her advocate.
Francine’s husband just died three months ago. In their fifties, without any life-threatening health issues that they were aware of, both losses were unexpected.
How can their daughters possibly cope with their deaths? How can they possibly live with the trauma?
Trying to pray
I’ve never met the two of them. It sounds like they have plenty of support. Trying to contact them might be more intrusive than helpful.
The best thing I can do is to lift them up in prayer. But how do I pray? My words feel too shallow, too sterile. Like giving God a to-do list. Words seem too small to cover the enormous breadth and depth of their heartbreak and shock.
The news affects me physically, not just in the intellectual and emotional realm of words. I cry. My stomach tightens up. My breathing becomes sighing. I need something more than mere words to pray with.
But I don’t have anything more. Words are the highest form of expression that God’s provided for us. How do I go beyond that?
For the next few days, I use whatever words I can in my prayers for these two dear young people. Although I don’t do it to be selfish, it also helps me. It’s a good outlet for my own grief and horror and anger. I need to bring my emotions to God, rather than letting them come between us.
Today, as I try once again to pray, and once again feel helpless in finding the words to express my greatest concerns and desires for Francine’s daughters, I feel a certain freedom to forget the search for words and simply sit before God with an open heart. Could there be anything wrong with that?
Maybe.
The importance of words
There’s a danger in praying without words. The threat of laziness. Especially in a lazy culture where we’re always looking for shortcuts and conveniences rather than depth and meaning. Avoiding words lets me avoid the struggle.
If I don’t have to struggle to find words, then I don’t have to struggle to understand and come to terms with the tragedy that’s hit these two young women. I don’t have to struggle to deal with and work through my anger and confusion. I don’t have to struggle to understand how God can be present in this situation. Without words, prayer can become a time to just sit and wallow in my feelings, in my self, rather than turning to God.
My friend Kyle, who was one of the best pray-ers I’ve ever known, once asked me if I thought it was possible to pray without words. (Posing the question, as usual, before even hinting at his opinion. And, as usual, I responded without stopping to ask or wonder what his opinion might be.) I immediately said yes, but it should be rare so it doesn’t become a cop-out.
Because of the dangers and pitfalls that can occur, Kyle stated very strongly that we should never attempt to pray without words. Such an exercise couldn’t even be labeled prayer.
In response, I cited my first depressive episode. There were times when I was completely mentally unable to string two words together. But I needed to pray. And I did. Without words. And somehow I knew that God heard me.
God sees into the depths our hearts. Even when we do use words, they’re not enough to convey the fullness of our experiences. They’re so inadequate that we need the support of the Son and the Holy Spirit, as they pray to the Father for us (Romans 8:26 and 34). Our words are so inadequate that the Holy Spirit “intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
And yet the Bible is full of prayers written out in words. The Psalms contain many examples of working-through prayers. They start out in anguish or fear or anger. But as the prayer continues, it becomes praise to God for who He is and what He’s done. Without the words used in the early part of the psalm, could the writer ever reach the joy or comfort expressed at the end?
Some might argue that using words can be just as shallow as praying without them, and I would agree. Repeating the same phrases without thinking. Simply saying, “Lord, I pray for John,” without mentioning what John needs.
I once sat in a Bible study where the leader asked for prayer requests. We brought up some very specific concerns. Instead of laying each of them before the throne of God, the leader just went down the list name by name, and asked for His will to be done in that person’s life. It felt so empty.
These types of prayers cater to our laziness as much as praying without words does. Words need to be backed by thoughtful awareness, and sometimes even struggles. They need to be spoken (if only in our heads) with the recognition that we are in the presence of the almighty God, the creator of all that exists, the One who is above and beyond all that we can comprehend. A big God who expects and encourages us to go deeper and higher in our communication with Him.
Words are important to God. He created all that exists through words (Genesis 1). The Bible is called His Word (e.g. Matthew 15:6). In John chapter one, Jesus Himself is referred to as the Word. Words aren’t just a human construct that we can dispense with or rise above in our prayers. They relate very intimately to the triune God.
Praying
And so I usually make every effort to put my prayers into words. Sometimes it takes a very great effort. But, as with the psalmist moving from anger and depression and disappointment to joy and praise, it’s well worth the work.
Right now, in this moment, though, I don’t know how to express all the anguish and fear that I feel for Francine’s daughters.
Right now, while the wound is so fresh, I sense that it’s okay to spend a bit of time simply praying without words, letting my grief for those two young people touch the heart of God and leaving the rest up to Him.
Later, I’ll return to the struggle to find the words, because that’s the example God gives us in His Word. But I’ll also trust Jesus and the Holy Spirit to pray more deeply and effectively than anything my puny words can express.
