I grew up with the story of Paul and Silas singing while chained in the Philippian jail. Even though they had been beaten up and unjustly incarcerated, they were rejoicing in the Lord always, as Paul later told the Philippians to do. These men were my heroes; who I wanted to imitate when I faced troubles. 

So I was disappointed in myself when I spent 45 days at the Mayo Clinic in 2020 for a stem cell transplant.

I was there because I had been diagnosed the previous October with the blood cancer multiple myeloma. During the preliminary chemo I was able to keep rejoicing in the Lord. But about nine months later the ”shock treatment” of the transplant arrived. First, they harvested stem cells from my body, and then later, after destroying my immune system with a nasty drug, they put my own stem cells back into my body to build me back up. 

The hospital had warned me that it would be rough going, and it was. It didn’t hurt in the sense of causing me any sharp pain. However, it sure made me feel more blah and exhausted than I’ve ever felt. As we stayed at a local motel and went for my twice-a-day check-ups at the clinic, I struggled. Eating, drinking, sleeping—it all came hard. I had no energy and for a time needed my wife to take me around in a wheelchair. 

That’s when I was disappointed in myself. I didn’t keep up with Paul and Silas singing in jail. I didn’t feel like rejoicing in the Lord always. I didn’t feel like praying at all. The best prayer I could come up with was, “Ugh.” 

It was during that time I heard a song on Christian radio by Rend Collective, a group I genuinely like. But when the song was over, I said to my wife, “That song makes me feel like a complete failure.” The verses talked about facing various troubles, and the chorus concluded with the defiant vow, but 

I choose worship…I will praise You through the fire, through the storm and through the flood. There is nothing that could ever steal my song. In the valley You are worthy, You are good when life is not. You will always and forever be my song. I choose to worship, I choose You now.

I can’t criticize those lyrics, for they seem to contain the same attitude as Paul and Silas. Still, there’s another side to this, namely, prayer is not a human achievement, something for spiritual heroes who “choose to worship.” If prayer depended on human strength, we’d all fail. I needed God to pray for me when all I could do was groan.

In Romans 8, Paul shows that he not only knew about singing praise songs, but also about groaning. He knew, for instance, that we’re not alone in our groaning: “The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” News about crime, political ranting, accidents, war, racism, plagues, abuse, even all the recent disasters—these are all forms of creation groaning. 

Paul also knew that Christians are groaning too: “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). God does not exempt Christians from pain, confusion or sorrow. 

Now this all might sound like depressing news, but fortunately, Paul tells of one more groaner who makes all the difference. The Holy Spirit: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words.”

And that was my good news while undergoing the stem cell transplant process. When all I could do was pray, “Ugh,” God didn’t say, “Why aren’t you praising me like Paul and Silas?” No, God counted my groans as a prayer, with God’s Spirit joining me in that “ugh.” When my spirit was too weak to pray, God’s Spirit took over and did the praying for me, giving me strength until I could get back to it later.

Maybe you’ve had the experience of talking to a troubled friend on the phone, and they hurt so badly, they couldn’t even speak. And then, someone else with them on the other end takes the phone from them and talks to us for a bit until the hurting person regains their composure. That’s how it is with the Spirit. When we hurt too much to talk to the Father on the phone, we don’t lose contact with God. Rather, the Spirit keeps the line open and prays for us until we regain our strength to get back to praying. 

Now when I think about Paul & Silas singing in jail, I no longer imagine them only singing the upbeat songs of praise from the Psalter Now I can also hear them singing the laments of the Psalter, like this one: “I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble…Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name” (Psalm 142:1-2, 7). 

Since that stay at Rochester, I recovered from my stem cell transplant, and for the past four years have done well with a chemo injection every two weeks. I can testify to God’s goodness with singing, but my playlist has been expanded to include even that one-word song called “Ugh.”

Telephone photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels