Prayer when words fail us

There are specific names for different kinds of prayers.  I knew them all once but not anymore.
It doesn't really matter because we can figure out the different kinds of prayers ourselves, and give them our own labels if we want to.

"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 sighs too deep for words."  Romans8.26

This is the kind of prayer that begins and ends in the heart because we cannot give shape or name or voice to our experience.  We moan with deep sorrow, overwhelming joy, unutterable fear or love that fills our very being.  These are the prayers of the extremes; they go beyond our feeble vocabulary or require an energy we no longer possess.  Sometimes the situation is so dire, so impossible, we have no idea what could or should be asked of our Lord.  So the Spirit prays for us.

Soon after my husband's death, when the stress and grief were overwhelming, I took a walk along the tree lined roads of the Gettysburg battlefield.  I walked there often but on this day I made it clear to God that I simply could not go on, it was all too much for me, I couldn't even pray.  God said to me (yes, I know how odd that sentence is, but the message was a clear as a voice speaking aloud) "Fear not.  Even the trees are praying for you."  And they must have been for I was comforted and strengthened.

"And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."  Romans 8.27

There is powerful comfort in those words.