When Suffering Strains Our Prayer Life

I am not a journal-keeper. I have a collection of partially-filled journals where I tried to force myself into the habit but gave up less than halfway through. Though my journaling doesn’t happen on paper, I could fill books with the thoughts and conversations I’ve scribbled inside my head. My frustrations, my pain, my questions, my fears, along with my friends and family, I worry about. 

 Sometimes these thoughts are rattled off to others in prayer requests. When difficulty (or even minor complications) arise, I’m quick to request prayer from my friends. Or in a visit with a friend, I might manage to express the jumble of thoughts in my head in an attempt to understand them, or to hear someone else straighten them out for me. 

 I can spend days mulling over thoughts and concerns in my head or one day blurt them out in a text to a friend, but how often do I bring these petitions to my Heavenly Father? In suffering, my prayer life can become wobbly. Why? Why, as a daughter of the King, do I still balk at bringing him my prayers? As one who has full access to him by being hidden in Christ, why do I still struggle to tell him my hearts’ fears? Why do I trust my concerns more quickly into the hands of fellow non-sovereign people? Why is praying for myself so hard when I’m suffering?

 Maybe you know this difficulty, too, and wonder at these same questions. Here are just a handful of reasons why prayer is hard during suffering and how God’s grace covers us even in those weak hours. 

Read the rest of this article on Servants of Grace.