When I Couldn’t Pray

> “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what we ought to pray for,

but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26–27

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I. The Stories We Grew Up On

We grew up on stories with tidy endings — Junior Guide stories where faith always works, the angels always arrive on time, and every trial wraps up before sundown.

But life has a way of teaching you the parts those stories never told.

Because somewhere between the miracles and the endings, we discover that real faith isn’t clean or predictable.

Sometimes, faith just hangs on.

Sometimes, faith doesn’t have words at all.

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II. Kuwait, 1990

The boys always woke before dawn — cheerful, curious, unhurried. Those early mornings were a quiet gift, when we weren’t driven by anyone’s schedule but our own.

It was August 2, 1990, just three days before our anniversary on August 5.

We were staying at the Holiday Inn, near the airport — a modern, soundproof hotel that happened to be owned by an Iraqi. Our first choice, the Masila Beach Hotel, had been fully booked — a change of plans that would later feel like divine mercy, for it soon became the headquarters for Iraq’s southern army.

The boys woke us early, and I reached for the remote. The television flickered on to a voice that didn’t match the calm of the morning: “Iraqi forces have crossed into Kuwait City.”

I pulled back the curtains. From our eighth-floor room, I could see helicopters strafing planes on the runway and tanks moving down the highways through the city.

Inside the room, everything was silent — the kind of silence that hums in your ears.

Days turned to weeks. The sound of fighting came and went. The streets grew strange. We learned to live in half-light, between fear and faith.

Then came Saddam’s announcement: women and children would be permitted to leave Kuwait.

Relief and dread came together in the same breath.

Liz packed three small bags — one for the boys, one for herself, one with water, bread, and coloring books.

We stood by the door knowing that a convoy of buses would carry them toward Baghdad, then Turkey, then home.

And that I would stay behind.

That’s when she looked at me and said quietly, “David… pray.”

And I couldn’t.

Not because I didn’t believe, but because every part of me was already praying.

Every heartbeat was saying what my mouth could not.

I didn’t have words big enough for what I was asking.

That was Lesson One in Prayer —

when words collapse, and all that’s left is need.

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III. The Sound of Silence

That silence became my teacher.

Romans 8 doesn’t say the Spirit helps those who pray well;

it says He helps us in our weakness.

When my words failed, His began.

When I couldn’t find a voice, heaven still heard.

Prayer isn’t about getting the vocabulary right — it’s about staying in the presence of the One who already knows.

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IV. When the Storm Moves Indoors

Years later, another storm came — not with tanks this time, but with words.

Liz came to me and said she was making a change in her life that didn’t include me.

I wanted to pray with her — to reach for the one thing that had always steadied me.

She looked at me and said, “You always do that when we face something.”

And she was right.

Prayer had become my instinct to reach for control when I couldn’t fix the pain.

But that night, I learned again what I’d learned in Kuwait: prayer isn’t about me.

So I prayed alone.

Not to change her mind, but to surrender mine.

Not to make her stay, but to let grace stay in me.

Prayer didn’t bring reconciliation.

But it kept me from bitterness.

And sometimes, that’s the miracle.

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V. Ten Years Later

Ten years later, I finally understood:

Prayer hadn’t failed me.

What failed was my understanding of what prayer was for.

I thought prayer was a lever — pull hard enough and heaven will move.

But prayer turned out to be a lifeline, not a lever.

It didn’t change the storm — it changed me inside it.

In silence, He rebuilt me.

In loss, He taught me mercy.

And through every word I couldn’t say, He was teaching me that prayer was never about control — it was always about presence.

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VI. What Prayer Became

Prayer grew quieter.

A chair before dawn.

No script. No list. Just gratitude.

More listening than talking.

When I stopped trying to pray right, I started praying real.

And I discovered the Spirit had been carrying me all along.

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VII. The Sleep Prayer I Couldn’t Pray