How to pray when you can't find the words

Hannah works as a bank teller in Imus, Cavite. Her mornings are a race: two kids to wake, baon to pack, a uniform to iron, then the jeepney to work by eight. She grew up in church and used to pray every night, kneeling by the bed the way her mother taught her.

Last year her husband's contract abroad ended early and money got tight. Her youngest was sick on and off for months. Hannah started waking at three in the morning with her heart pounding, running numbers in her head.

She tried to pray the way she always had. She would close her eyes, and the worries crowded in before she finished the first sentence. She would start over, lose her place and fall asleep feeling guilty. After a few weeks she stopped trying.

She would close her eyes, and the worries crowded in before she finished the first sentence.

"Parang ang layo ko na kay Lord," she told her friend Joan at work. "Hindi na ako makapag-pray nang maayos."

Anxiety fills every quiet moment with noise. Sitting still to pray can feel like opening the door to every worry at once. So people who love to pray often find, in anxious seasons, that they can't.

Hannah also believed prayer had to be done a certain way: long, in order, with the right words. When she couldn't pray that way, she felt like she wasn't praying at all.

Then came the guilt. A good Christian should be able to pray, she thought. If she couldn't, maybe something was wrong with her faith. The guilt became one more thing keeping her up at three in the morning.

She didn't tell anyone at church. Everyone there seemed so sure of God. She smiled through the Sunday service, sang every song and went home feeling further away than before.

Joan didn't argue with her. She said, "Ako, minsan isang sentence lang. 'Lord, tulong.' Pwede na yun."

The next morning, on the jeepney, Hannah tried it. Squeezed between a student and a man with a sack of rice, she looked out the window and said in her head, "Lord, I'm scared about money. Help me today." That was the whole prayer. It took five seconds.

She did it again on the ride home. "Lord, salamat kasi okay ang araw." And again at three in the morning: "Lord, hawakan mo ako."

Over the next weeks, the jeepney became her prayer room. She started praying for what she saw: the kids in school uniforms, the driver, the woman crying quietly in the back seat. Her prayers were short and honest, and for the first time in months they felt like hers.

Over the next weeks, the jeepney became her prayer room.

Joan asked if she could pray for Hannah too. Every Monday she sent a text: "Prayed for you today. Kumusta si bunso?" Knowing someone else was carrying her in prayer made Hannah feel lighter on the days she couldn't pray much herself.

Hannah wrote Philippians 4:6-7 on a card and kept it in her wallet, behind her ID. She read it while waiting for the jeepney. Some days it was the only prayer she could manage, and that was enough.

She also dealt with the worries themselves. She and her husband sat down and made a simple budget. She told her supervisor her youngest was sick and arranged a schedule that let her take him to checkups. When the three a.m. heart pounding didn't stop after a month, she saw a doctor, who checked her health, talked with her about anxiety and suggested a counselor.

Her problems were still there. Now she had a place to put them, every morning, on the way to work.

If you used to pray easily and now you can't, nothing is wrong with your faith. Anxiety makes stillness hard. God hears short prayers, tired prayers and prayers that are only a sigh.

Try one sentence today. Say it on the jeepney, in the CR, while the rice cooks. "Lord, help." "Lord, salamat." "Lord, I'm scared." Each of those is a real prayer.

Let someone pray for you too. On Prayers you can send a prayer request, and someone will pray for you.

If anxiety keeps waking you at night for more than two weeks, or gets in the way of your day, talk to a doctor or counselor. Faith and good care go together.

If you would like more support, HopeBegins is free. Pick how you feel and you get one small thing to try today, calming tools, someone to pray for you, and an e-coach you can message on Messenger. For verses to carry with you, see Bible verses for anxiety.