Praying When There are No Words

This fall I started a prayer list for those dealing with chronic illness or pain. When I penned the names, I wrote down nine.

Two months later, the list has grown to nineteen, nineteen people in my circle.

I remember them in prayer when I sit with a cup of chai or Earl Grey and greet the day,

when I walk the dog,

when I drive between here and there,

when their names come to mind.

My dad is on the list, my mom, a daughter, many friends,

women I've met in an online community,

and a stranger who sat next to me in a mammogram waiting room in October who the tech asked if the woman had brought anyone with her that day because the radiologist wanted to talk with them and the tech led them to the very room where I once received bad news.

Last week I opened an email from someone on my list.

No prayers came to mind, only a bend-at-the-middle groan as if someone punched me in my solar plexus. I laid my head right on my keyboard and wished I could land on the backspace key.

Sometimes prayers have no words.

O Lord, hear me as I pray;

pay attention to my groaning.  -Psalm 5:1

There are times when words fail us, when our struggle can't be defined by mere syllables. In those times, I believe, God hears the very groans of our deepest being, that place that cannot be defined with language.

Psalm 5 continues in verse 2:

Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God,

for I pray to no one but you....

Prayer is more than annunciating words, of lining up neat and orderly sentences. Prayer is turning to the One who hears us, even when we are not speaking, of admitting our gaping-open need.

It's not so much the words, but the destination, the direction, the listening ear who awaits our cry.

This too is prayer.

What do you do when you can't find the words to pray?