Why I Stopped Asking God to Take the Pain Away—And What I Started Praying Instead

What do you do when healing doesn’t come? When the pain stays, the fatigue lingers, and your prayers feel unanswered?

In this honest and deeply spiritual episode, Shelby shares how years of chronic illness changed the way she prays—and ultimately, changed her relationship with God. With biblical wisdom and personal testimony, she walks through the shift from praying “Take this away” to “How can I honor You in this?”

If you've ever wrestled with silence from heaven or wondered if your pain has a purpose, this episode will meet you right where you are—with truth, comfort, and hope.

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Hello and welcome back to the fearfully and wonderfully diagnosed podcast. I'm your host, Shelby Payne. If you join me last week, you know we went deep. I opened up about how my diagnosis with PCOS and endometriosis challenged the way I saw myself as a woman. If you haven't heard that episode yet, I encourage you to go back and listen. It really lays the foundation for what we're diving into today. Because today, we're going one layer deeper. 

We're talking about prayer, but not just prayer in the pretty, polished way we sometimes think about it. I'm talking about the raw, middle of the night, tear soaked kind, the kind of prayer that comes from the pit of pain, and more specifically, how I stopped asking God to take the pain away, and what I started praying instead. This shift in my prayers didn't come quickly or easily. It was born out of years of silence, confusion, and wrestling. But I can say with full honesty, it changed everything. 

So if you're someone who's been crying out for relief, begging God to change your circumstances and wondering if he's even listening, I want you to lean in. This episode is for you. I used to pray a lot of rescue me prayers. The God make it stop. God, I can't live like this. God, please take it away. Those prayers felt like the only lifeline I had, and I believed, truly, that healing would come, that if I prayed hard enough, believed deeply enough, waited long enough, God would fix it. After all, I knew without a shadow of the doubt that he has that kind of power. 

But just because he can doesn't mean that he will. I think this is a good time to address some thoughts on healing prayers. I used to know some Christians who fully believed and taught that if you were sick, it was because of your sin or because your faith was weak. If someone has ever made you feel that way, let me address this first by going to the book of Job. If you're familiar with the story, you know that Job was sick simply because he was faithful to God, and his faith was being tested, not because it was weak faith, but actually because it was strong. But Job's friends came to him. They did not give him encouragement. They did not lament with him. Instead, they told him he was the problem, that it was his sin causing his sickness, and then they left. 

My dear friend, allow me to encourage you in saying that just because you have not been healed does not mean that your faith is weak, it might actually mean that you are strong and that there is a plan to use the pain for something good. and if those sound like your friends, allow me to sit and lament with you. because there have been many times that my prayers were simply tears and cries of pain. and in those moments, I am reminded of Romans 8:26 The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, and he intercedes for us with wordless groans. When I am too weak to pray, he intercedes and he understands. It is this thought that perhaps I was not being healed for a purpose. 

Perhaps there was something more, something better for me, that started to shift something inside. not because I stopped believing in God's power, but because I started discovering something even deeper about his presence. and one of the hardest, holiest questions I had to face was this, what if God is good? and I still hurt? That's not easy theology, but it's honest, and it's biblical. 

There was a moment when I was reading about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was the night before he was to be crucified. The weight of what he was about to face was so intense that Scripture says he sweat drops of blood, and in that moment he prayed. "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done. Luke 22:42. That verse undid me. Here was Jesus, the Son of God, asking for relief, asking for another way, but also surrendering. That one verse taught me something I hadn't fully grasped. It's okay to ask God for healing, but it's also holy to surrender when the healing doesn't come the way that we expect. 

If the cup hadn't passed from Jesus, maybe our suffering isn't meaningless either. And if the cup had passed from Jesus, I would not have a Savior, and I would be sick with something much worse than my illness my sin. Perhaps there was a purpose for my suffering, too. Maybe pain doesn't always mean punishment. Maybe it means purpose. Eventually, my prayers changed. Instead of saying, God, please take the pain away, I began to pray, God, how can I honor you in this? That small shift turned my pain into something sacred. 

It shifted my eyes from the earthly to the heavenly. And that's when my real healing started, not the physical kind, but the spiritual kind. That's when I stopped seeing my diagnosis as a curse, and I started seeing it as a calling. Suddenly this wasn't just about my body. It was about my story. It was about learning to say, God use me. God, meet me here. God, don't waste this. And let me tell you, he hasn't. One of the most powerful results of that shift in prayer is that it lifted my eyes. Before, all I could see was my own suffering. All I could see was the weight of what I had lost, and what I desperately wanted to get back. But as my prayers changed, my perspective changed. I began to look around. Who else is in pain? Who else needs hope? Who else is praying for relief and wondering if God hears them? And suddenly I had purpose, even in the pain. I wasn't praying for escape any more. I was praying for endurance. I was praying to reflect Jesus, not just in the easy, joyful moments, but in the hard hidden ones, too. God wasn't asking me to be strong. He was asking me to let him be strong through me. And when I began seeing those around me suffering, that's when I found my ministry here with all of you. You see, often God doesn't pick the people who are perfect and put together to speak on his behalf. 

2nd Corinthians 1:29 says, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And there are days when I feel weak, and there are days when I feel completely unqualified to speak to all of you. But it's not about me. It's about God and what he can do. So if you're still in that place, still crying out, still praying for the pain to stop, I want to tell you something. You're not doing it wrong. Even Jesus prayed that kind of prayer. And it wasn't weak. It was worship. But if you've ever felt like heaven's silent, if you feel stuck in the same pain, the same prayer, the same unanswered place, maybe, just maybe, God is inviting you to pray something new. not instead of asking for healing, but in addition to it, Jesus prayed both prayers. 

Ask Him, God, what are you doing in me? What are you teaching me? God, how can I glorify you here? God, who are you shaping me to be? Because your diagnosis does not disqualify you. Your pain does not prove that he has left you. It might be the very space where he is growing something beautiful, and he is with you in the flareups and the fatigue and the waiting, you are still fearfully and wonderfully made, even in this. 

If today's episode touched something deep in your heart, we love to hear from you. Find us on Instagram or TikTok and share your story with us. This podcast is more than a monologue. It's a conversation, and I want you to know you're not alone in this. Next week, we're diving into something I've wrestled with for years, surrendering my fertility dreams to God. It's tender, it's vulnerable, but it's also one of the most freeing things I've done. 

Until then, remember this, you are not forgotten, you are not broken, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, even in the middle of unanswered prayers.