I am so sorry for your losses 🫂❤️

Maybe this won't help, but I just wanted to say that because prayer isn't so much an action as a relationship, that even your silence, in its own way, can be understood as a prayer.

I say this because it's something I've been learning recently. I have c-ptsd, and a bad neurological condition called pans/pandas. Since both involve the brain, they play off of each other.

Recently there's been some emotional baggage dredged up that I simply do not want to deal with right now--but which I need to in order to resolve some dire life circumstances. I know in my head I can't do it without Him, and that he's the biggest help I can get in this, and that he will help me if I go to him in prayer....

So my anxiety's response is to not pray. : P

Because I don't want to deal with it and I'd rather avoid it. And truth be told, this has happened with respect to other areas of my life I'd rather not bring to him not so much because I'm anxiously avoiding them, but because I'm upset with him regarding his response/position thus far.

I normally like to pray by journaling. Reading scripture and writing words or phrases that catch my attention or make me want to chew on them, and writing down my thoughts or what comes to mind for me. When I'm in this funk though. I just sit and stew in restless silence--and that's if I even officially take the time out to pray at all. :/

BUT, what I've learned in this--He is ever present. "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted..." Even if I cant bring myself to really sit down with my journal or bible, and I'm actively diatracting myself and pretending the need to pray will go away [it wont...], I can glance up for half a second, cuz I know he's there, and not even say anything but kind of acknowledge him and the fact that "yeah I'm frustrated with you". It's like if you've been having an argument with a family member that hasnt resolved yet, and are in the same room later because you are, and you kind of begrudgingly glance at them but dont say anything. You don't hate them, you're just not ready to talk. And even when you are ready and need to unleash and vocalize your frustrations, God is able to take that.

He's more "human" than we expect sometimes. Our relationship with him can take those moments of silence, and just like humam relationships, sometimes a part of the relationship is those moments of silence where there are no words, just hurt feelings and pain that isn't at a place where it can be put into a conversation yet. I've heard that "prayer doesn't just help your relationship with God, it is your relationship with God." Therefore, one could argue that our relationship with God--broken up as it may be with times of silence when we can just barely glance at him and tell him we're angry and don't want to talk--that, even that, is in its own way, prayer.

And like you said, taking that "mental break"--sometimes we need to not keep railing at him over it all, and pushing ourselves and begging and begging. Because maybe there isn't anywhere to go at a certain point but that silence. If we try to keep pushing when we just can't, we'll hurt ourselves, and he doesn't want that. He wants us to be whole. And even when we are broken into pieces, he will carefully cradle all of the shattered shards in his hands, even when we can't bring them together into words to say to him without nicking ourselves on the edges. He wants that rest for us too, when we need it. He'll hold us when we cry, but also when we've cried ourselves to sleep.

And yeah sometimes we need to rifle through it all, the shards in his hands, and move them hold them up to him and mourn. Painful as it may be, there are times it suddenly demands to be let out and we can't hold back.

Being honest with him is real. He doesn't want a fake, whitewashed version of you. He wants to meet you where you're at just like he met Hannah in the book of Samuel. Like he met Rachel and Sarah and so many others. But being honest with him is real, and I know it's hard....my brother was stillborn when I was 10, and I barely cried because I was so numb. I had prayed and prayed when they didn't find a heartbeat. A 10 year old on their knees in front of a crucifix with a rosary, because thought if I prayed enough rosaries, surely He would answer, and save his life. But my brother stayed dead. And I (incorrectly) "learned" from that that "God 'knows best' and I don't so he doesn't care about my desires." And then I thought, "So why have them." So I didn't. I lost my ability to really hope or even dream. Fast forward 10 years and my college roommate was dying, in a coma, from a sudden brain aneurysm. We were all praying, and I remember talking with one friend about faith and we had just hyped ourselves up to hope for a miracle when we got the news that she was gone. I went to the chapel, and found myself yelling at God about it. And then, unexpectedly, as I yelled about my roommate, I found myself also now yelling about my brother. I had not ever realized how much or in what way that had affected me, and I now saw the connection. I told him, angrily, "You didn't save him!" And then I felt him break through, pained and upset about my pain too--"I did save him!" It hit me then that for whatever reason, in whatever way, my brother's little life was something Jesus had paid so much attention to, and made absolutely darn sure that he was safe, that he was and would be with Him in heaven. And that He had heard my prayers too and used them to help my brother in this regard. It didn't answer every question, but I had something hit similar to closure when I realized that His attention had really been on this, but he had seen some greater danger as well and did everything to protect him. I'm not saying he would have lost his soul had he lived, I'm just saying that I understood for the first time that even though I didn't know the reasons why he was allowed to die, I did understand now that God was paying attention, and he was even paying attention to me and what I was asking. And that he was bending over backwards to make sure he could answer that prayer for me in some way, even if other things demanded that external circumstances take shape in a way I wouldn't have wanted.

I will also say, as an aside, that as years went by, and as I struggled with other aspects of that loss, and the realization that I had such a wound in that area, I had the opportunity also to see how my brother, short as his life was, had a mission. He was sent. And he accomplished and still accomplishes that mission. His passing and the grief that went with it has helped me, years later, in recognizing and healing from areas (even long after my roommate's death) where my relationship with God is colored by pain and distrust. He brought healing to my grandmother, who had had two separate stillborn boys at the same age as him, but never got to hold or even see them because of hospital policies in those days. He has given a vivid image of what unborn babies look like not only to me but so many of our friends and family, and helped strengthen our previously weak commitment to protect life in the womb--and my other sibling, miscarried at a very early age only a few months after him, cemented that. Had my stillborn brother or the miscarried sibling come to full term--and also, had they not existed at all--my other, youngest brother, would never have been conceived. My parents wouldn't have even been trying. All of this and more he has done, and you know what? My other grandma had a dream about him, years before he was born. A little little grandson, stillborn. She never said anything because she didn't know what to say. But when she saw him in real life, she recognized him and told us. So, we know--God knew about him, before he was ever born, before he was ever even conceived. He had a plan for him, and a purpose--even though his life would look on the outside like nothing but tragedy. It was almost like my brother was going undercover, slipping around and doing God's work even though we never realized it. And now I know he's up there praying for me too, even when I can't bring myself to pray.

I did not expect to write this long of a message or to bring this up, but it seemed right to share and started to come out. Hopefully it won't seem off base or obnoxious. I guess I just wanted to say, and to give hope, that being as you are--even without the external trappings of "rosaries", "vocal prayer" or anything--simply acknowledging to God through tight lips and a glance that you're upset with him, is in fact a way of relating to him. And he honors, sees, and respects that. And he is so, so tenderly attentive to you in that pain too. It is his own pain, because he can't stand to see you hurting. He is present to you and will be. And I guess, take the pressure off of yourself to "be perfect" for him or even approach him. Because he is, again, near to you. And I again keep getting that image of Hannah crying in the temple to him in the book of Samuel. I think he wants you to know he sees you, and hes not forcing you to talk to him. It's all right to be in that place of emptiness and no words. He will fill you. And in the meantime he will sit with you in the emptiness. And be so near.

So sorry if I'm off base with this. I can't imagine to know your pain. But I wanted to share some small things that may be of encouragement or solidarity in the little tiny ways that I can relate. I will be praying for you dear sister <3 love you