Are tears prayers, Lord?
Are screams prayers,
or groans
or sighs
or curses?
Can trembling hands be lifted to you,
or clenched fists
or the cold sweat that trickles down my back
or the cramps that knot my stomach?
Will you accept my prayers, Lord,
my real prayers,
rooted in the muck and mud and rock of my life,
and not just the pretty, cut-flower, gracefully arranged
bouquet of words?
Will you accept me, Lord,
as I really am,
messed up mixture of glory and grime?
by Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle, (Philadelphia: Innisfree Press, 1984), 69.
One of the ways in which we process grief is sighing. It is a physiological response to distress; when we don't know how to verbalize our feeling we often sigh. And we can take comfort from the scriptures, especially when our hearts are heavy...
"Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing." (Psalm 5:1)
"The Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words." (Romans 8:26)
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