How to Pray Honestly About Your Pain

The version of me from fourteen years ago wants to share a story. I had three miscarriages amid postpartum anxiety after the birth of our son. Looking back, I remember feeling like I was perpetually being kicked while I was down.

After the first miscarriage, an old ACL injury left me no choice but to get surgery when a bucket-handle tear in my cartilage left me with a catch that would not release, preventing me from straightening or bending my leg after playing a game of “horsey” on the floor with our then two-year-old.

Following the second miscarriage, my appendix ruptured. I couldn’t breathe for the pain. Despite explaining that I knew with one hundred percent certainty I wasn’t pregnant, I still had to endure navigating giving over a urine sample before they would do the CT scan.

After several weeks of wound management, I was cleared to return to work. I was greeted there with a performance review threatening my employment. The overarching reason cited was attendance.

A week later, I learned my program’s funding source was dropped, and my benefited, salaried position was being reduced to part-time, but the performance review requirement that I could not miss any work for any reason, including doctors’ appointments, would still stand (mind you, I was having an infected wound cleaned and packed by a PT once a week). I left that job.

My next job would be too strenuous for my body and my anxiety, and in the middle of chasing my tail to keep up, I got pregnant. The miscarriage that followed was the farthest-along loss we experienced and resulted in a D&C.

My husband was struggling at the time, too. My mind never stopped racing during this season. My heart pounded so loudly I could feel my pulse without touching my carotid, yet my smile was practiced and forced. From the outside, I seemed fine.

Prayers during all this pain could have been recited like Sunday morning church-ready prose. They were flowery, dare I say pretty even… The bottom line is: they were “safe,” but not real.

Below is a prayer that might have served me better during that time, when the whole world felt like it was collapsing on me.

God, everything hurts inside and out. I’m failing, I’m angry, and I want it to stop… I don’t know what to do. Please take this pain from me. I know I can’t change the outcome; I am placing this burden in Your hands and choosing to trust You. Your grace is enough for me. Amen.

How did I learn to pray honestly about my pain? It was easier than you might think. We can get there in three steps, but first we have to address a myth and reprogram our brains a bit.

The Need to Mask is a Myth

We raise girls to be polite and nurturing, never to show “ugly feelings.” We internalize this as a mandate always to look picture-perfect, no matter how we feel, even when we’re a mess inside.

I think we get so used to wearing this mask, feigning an ideal of being okay, that we even extend that performance into our quiet times with God.

He doesn’t want to see us polished for the world.

Let your pain and any other emotion in the rainbow bubble over like a pot of water on the stove as you pray.

Sanitizing pain creates an emotional distance between God and us. He can’t heal the version of us we pretend to be; He can only heal the person we truly are.

Once we take off the mask, we can hand our pain over and trust Him. He wants us “to pour out [our] hearts to Him” because doing so opens the door for Him to be our “refuge” (Psalm 62:8, NIV).

Step 1: Name the Discomfort

Naming the pain lessens the power that the specific emotion holds over you.

King David explains it well in Psalm 142:2, NIV. “I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble.”

Prompts to try:

“God, the exact thing that’s causing me pain right now is…”

“The ugly emotion I’m trying to hide from everyone else today is…”

Step 2: Surrender the Outcome

Now, for my fellow Type A ladies, let me hold your hand as I say this. Surrendering the outcome is the hardest part of the equation.

I’m terrible about telling God, “Here…take this thing,” then proceeding to pick it back up and attempt a spiritual tug-of-war.

Once the pain is on the table, it’s tempting to tell God how we want it fixed or to pick it back up and keep carrying it. The next step is to loosen your grip. After your white knuckles return to pink, take a deep breath and hand God the pen.

I promise, the conclusion He writes is better than anything you can imagine. Sometimes, this means accepting an alternate timeline.

I have three kids and am a stay-at-home mama now. Fourteen years ago, we weren’t ready for that.

Remember, surrendering control isn’t giving up; it’s placing that burden in far stronger, more capable hands. Consequently, those hands belong to someone whose eyes can see the full picture in a way we cannot.

In Matthew 26:39 (NIV), Jesus gives us a great example of this Himself when He “fell with His face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.'”

Prompts to try:

“If you choose not to change this situation, I choose to trust that…”

“The specific outcome I’m terrified of losing control over is…”

Step 3: Rest in His Sufficient Grace

You don’t have to be strong enough to carry pain or any other suffering because God’s strength picks up where our abilities run out.

God rewards us with rest.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV).

Prompts to try:

“Lord, I’m completely out of strength today, so I need to rely on Your promise to…”

“Right now, I accept that Your grace is enough for this single hour…”

Coming as You Are With Confidence

Friend, it is okay to come to God as you are. He doesn’t expect you to, nor does He want you to, sanitize your conversation with Him. There is such power and beauty in having real dialogue with the Lord. He’s not fragile. You can’t say anything shocking. He’s not intimidated by pain, heavy grief, raging anger, or the deepest doubts you might never voice out loud to another human out in “the wild.”

By naming the discomfort, surrendering the outcome, and seeking rest in His sufficient grace, there is a confidence that only He can instill. Praying honestly allows you to “receive mercy and find grace to help [you] in your time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, NIV).