Reverent Submission - God Listens Even When You Ugly Cry
Testimony
I had a really tough night last night (June 17, 2025). I surfaced slept (Paradoxical insomnia) and tossed and turned all night long dealing with night sweats. After 7-8 hours the alarm went off and I woke up (June 18, 2025) hot, achy, and exhausted. I cried out to the Lord during my morning prayers. My prayer quickly became a lament, then it was filled with anguish. I said to the Lord, I feel like I am groveling, I felt sheepish and confused and told the Lord, I just don’t understand. Help my understanding.
When I picked up my phone, the scripture for the day from the Bible app moved me:
“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” (Hebrews 5:7 NIV)
As I spent some time studying the verse I could hear the Lord speaking to me. I was not groveling. I did not need to feel sheepish. My prayer was valid and indeed Jesus too had "fervent cries and tears" during his prayers. And as Hebrews 5:7 tells us his prayers and petitions were heard because of his "reverent submission."
It is comforting to know that God hears and is compassionate towards me even when my prayers aren’t pretty. When I am ugly crying and yelling in exasperation, God listens.
The Lament
The phrase "with fervent cries and tears" (μετὰ κραυγῆς ἰσχυρᾶς καὶ δακρύων), in Hebrews 5:7, captures something profound about Jesus' humanity. The word "fervent" (ἰσχυρᾶς - ischyras) suggests intensity, urgency, and deep emotion - not quiet, composed prayers, but desperate, heartfelt pleading. This is likely referencing Jesus' experience in Gethsemane, where he was "deeply distressed and troubled" and prayed so intensely that his sweat became like drops of blood. The tears show that Jesus wasn't detached from his suffering - he felt it fully, emotionally, physically.
What's striking is that this isn't presented as weakness but as authentic human experience. Jesus, fully divine yet fully human, didn't bypass the raw reality of fear, anguish, and desperate need. He brought his whole self - including his tears and cries - before God.
"Reverent submission" εὐλαβείας (eulabeias) creates this beautiful tension with the fervent cries. Even in his deepest distress, even while pleading desperately, Jesus maintained a posture of surrender to the Father's will. It wasn't passive resignation but active trust - "not my will, but yours be done." The reverence doesn't diminish the fervency, and the fervency doesn't diminish the reverence.
This suggests that bringing our most desperate, tearful prayers to God isn't irreverent - it's actually following Jesus' example. We can cry out with full intensity while still trusting God's ultimate wisdom and timing. Both the emotional honesty and the surrendered heart matter.
Deep Dive
The Greek word behind "fervent" in Hebrews 5:7 is ἰσχυρᾶς (ischyras), which is even more powerful than our English translation might suggest.
ἰσχυρᾶς (ischyras) comes from the root ἰσχύς (ischys), meaning strength or power. It's often used to describe physical strength, military might, or forceful intensity. When applied to Jesus' prayers, it paints a picture of prayers offered with tremendous force and strength - not just emotional intensity, but powerful, vigorous pleading.
This word choice is remarkable because it suggests Jesus wasn't praying weakly or tentatively in his distress. Instead, he was drawing on deep reserves of spiritual and emotional strength to cry out to the Father. His prayers had weight, force, and power behind them - like someone fighting for their life, which in a sense, he was.
The combination of ἰσχυρᾶς (ischyras) with "cries and tears" creates this vivid image: Jesus wasn't just emotional, he was powerfully, forcefully emotional. His whole being - strength, voice, tears, heart - was engaged in desperate prayer.
This makes his "reverent submission" even more striking. It wasn't submission born from weakness or resignation, but from strength consciously yielded. He could have used that ἰσχύς (ischys) in other ways, but he channeled all of it into prayer and surrender to the Father's will.
The phrase "cries and tears" involves two different Greek words:
"cries" comes from κραυγῆς (krauges) - meaning loud crying, shouting, or outcry
"tears" is δακρύων (dakryon),
This creates an incredibly vivid picture. κραυγῆς (krauges) isn't quiet weeping - it's the kind of crying out that can be heard, urgent and desperate. Combined with δακρύων (dakryon) “tears,” we see both the audible and visible expressions of Jesus' anguish.
The progression is striking: “strong” ἰσχυρᾶς (ischyras), “loud cries” κραυγῆς (krauges), and “tears” δακρύων (dakryon). It's as if the writer of Hebrews wanted to emphasize that nothing about Jesus' prayer was restrained or held back - his whole being was engaged in this desperate appeal to the Father.
δακρύων (dakryon) specifically reminds us that Jesus wept real tears. This wasn't abstract spiritual struggle but embodied human suffering that moved him to literal weeping, just as I experienced tears during my morning prayers as I cried out to God with everything within me. The heat I was feeling matched the Texas heat outside - I felt like I just could not escape it.
The Koine Greek phrase μετὰ κραυγῆς ἰσχυρᾶς καὶ δακρύων (meta krauges ischyras kai dakryon) translated literally in English is "with cries fervent and tears" or "with strong/fervent cries and tears."
This makes the structure even more powerful. The ἰσχυρᾶς (ischyras) “fervent/strong” directly modifies κραυγῆς (krauges) “cries,” emphasizing that it wasn't just crying out, but strong crying out - forceful, intense outcry. Then καὶ δακρύων (kai dakryon) adds the tears alongside these powerful cries.
The Greek presents this as one unified expression of Jesus' prayer life: strong outcries coupled with tears. Both elements together paint the picture of someone in deep anguish bringing every part of their being - voice, strength, emotion, physical tears - into desperate prayer. My prayers were like that this morning (June 18, 2025), where I had only intended to speak with the Lord for a few moments as I readied myself for bible study that morning with the SALT ministry group at my church. Instead, my prayers lasted for 45 minutes as I cried out in anguish to the Lord. I was in no shape to drive to Church that morning and decided not to attend.
Menopause
To give you some context for this heat, menopause is often a taboo topic. Not discussed, quietly endured, and the butt of comedic jokes. I wasn’t prepared for it, not like I was prepared for menstruation. My mother purchased three books: women’s body, man’s body, and child’s body. And she sat me down and prepared me for puberty and my body changing. Then when I started the 7th grade in JHS (Junior High School), my sex education teacher filled in any blanks that my mother may have left out. I thought I was fully prepared for menstruation. I quickly found out I wasn’t. I thought it meant once a month I went to the bathroom, menstruated and was done. I was not prepared for five days of 24 hour bleeding coupled with intense pain in my abdomen and legs, thirteen times a year. Yet minus that surprise, my mother and sex education teacher adequately prepared me for puberty and then life as a woman of child bearing potential.
However, barring letting me know that at some point in the future, likely in my 50s, the baby making factory would shut down, I was not prepared for menopause. Just like I naively thought menstruation meant one trip to the potty and then a flush, over ‘til next month, I thought menopause was: the period ended, you got a hot flash or two, whew all over, now live your life free of pampers, I mean sanitary napkins/tampons.
I was wrong. And my mother nor any of the gynecologists I have had throughout my adult life, prepared me for what a woman actually endures during menopause. Even when I came in with symptoms that are horrific, the doctors still didn’t prepare me, except that one intern who told me what my last period would be like. And thank God she did, otherwise I would have foolishly been sitting in the emergency room while some irritated doctor or nurse explained to me that what I was going through was normal, go home.
So when I went to two different gynecologists, both under the age of 50, they laughed as I described my traumatic experience with the hot flashes and night sweats. And yes it is traumatic. I may have been making light of it, by using humor to explain my experience and desperate pleas for help, but it was not intended to be funny, nor for them to laugh at me. After enduring the heat for five years, I just could not take it anymore. One nurse even gave me samples of mood swing pills. I was insulted. I wasn’t having mood swings, I was HOT. And I was not getting any sleep, because I was HOT.
Let me paint the picture. I have the AC set to a low temperature, keeping the house very cold, even overnight, which I rarely did before menopause set in. I moved to Texas because I like the heat, and I enjoyed the long hot summers until menopause came and I could no longer control my internal body temperature. I was the girl who was always cold when everyone was comfortable. I would wear a sweater when folks had on short sleeves. So long summer days with temps in the low to mid 90s was like paradise for me, until I could no longer control my internal body temperature. It isn’t just the heat. They are called hot flashes for a reason. I am not just suddenly hot and profusely sweating, no before the heat comes extreme cold. So one moment I am freezing, wrapping myself in a fleece throw and shivering. The next moment I want to strip off my blouse and and sit in a freezer. Now imagine that happening twice an hour throughout the day and you’d be going bananas too - I was HOT, uncomfortable, exhausted, and cranky.
BHRT
Summer 2023, I went to my gynecologist for a solution. We started BHRT (Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy). She placed me on the BHRT pellet, which has testosterone. This gynecologist felt testosterone would be safer than estrogen with progesterone. However, the pellet, injected once every three months, only provided relief for one month. And it was the month in the middle of the three. Thus, for two of those three months I was HOT. So no more pellets for me. I switched to BHRT testosterone shots. The only thing is that they are mixed at a compounding pharmacy, which was risky because sometimes the dosing was off. In my case the dosing was drastically off.
The gynecologist I was seeing presumed I did not have my uterus - I don’t know why her practice gave me a vaginal ultrasound and looked into my uterus! Then the gynecologist called me and broke up with me telling me she could no longer help me, they had exhausted all solutions. That wasn’t exactly true. There are many different solutions to help with menopausal symptoms. We had only tried one: BHRT testosterone for women.
After stopping the injections I went to another gynecologist who gave me a blood test. She had a worried expression on her face when she told me the results. She let me know it was a good thing they stopped when they did, because I was almost at the point of no return. I will not go into details of everything I was experiencing November 2023, but my voice was deepening and I was growing a beard among other things. Thank God I was taken off that medication. At the new gynecologist, we stayed with BHRT but she put me on Bijuva, a pill, that is estrogen + progesterone. I was happy, yet furious with the previous gynecologist. I asked the previous gynecologist if there was a pill available and she had told me no, 👀 SMH.
I did really well on the Bijuva, much better than the testosterone. The hot flashes and night sweats were gone. I was getting a good night sleep and my morale was up. However, one year later I was having a side effect that was worrisome to my doctor. She gave me a couple of ultrasounds and compared with the baseline before we started medicine, she was alarmed. She wanted me to go into the hospital for a biopsy. After listening to her concerns, I told her it was probably a polyp. I had had two before and they seem to crop up once every decade and have to be removed. My doctor scheduled me for surgery and yup, I was right, it was a large polyp and not the uterine cancer she thought it was. Yay for me.
I restarted the Bijuva and the same symptoms returned. I didn’t tell my GYN, because I didn’t want to do all of the testing and go through that scare again. This time I took myself off of the Bijuva and rang the doctor to be put on a different medication. I got the run around from scheduling who insisted that nothing was available until late July. It was late April when I called. I finally got in to see the doctor mid May and she suggested I take some natural pills, Thermella by Bonafide Health. By then the heat was starting to return. And two weeks later I was HOT and the night sweats returned. It is mid June, the natural remedy isn’t working. And I restarted the Bijuva because at this point uterine cancer is the farthest thing from my mind if this heat kills me first.
And that isn’t a joke, studies show that the hot flashes women endure during menopause is detrimental to their brains, not deadly, but can cause cognitive decline. I’m in my mid-fifties and I intend to cross the 100 mark, so I want to have all of my cognitive faculties. Being on a medication that helps the hypothalamus, specifically the medial preoptic area (mPOA) within it, regulate my body temperature will not only make me comfortable, it protects my brain too.
What’s Next?
You probably didn’t think you were going to get a deep dive into my menopause experience when you clicked this article. You more than likely thought you were going to get an uplifting article about “reverent submission” after all that is what the title says. I’m getting there. My Wednesday did not go exactly how I planned it. When I went to bed Tuesday night I was excited; it would be the first time in over a week that I was going to bed before midnight, well before 1 am. I had to say my evening prayers first.
I had been having night sweats before, an annoyance but not so bad because I was able to sleep through the night and wake up refreshed even though I had been going to bed between 4 - 6 am. I find it easier to stay up overnight to research and write, and since I will be preaching on Sunday June 22, 2025 (past when this article is published) I was up researching, writing, and praying for days. I am an exegetical expositional preacher, if you haven’t gotten that from our Koine Greek lesson above. For me that means that I tend to take longer than the average preacher to research a text (or several texts as is the case for this sermon) before I preach it. That can be time consuming.
So those early mornings, I was having hot flashes, but was powering through. I had started Bonafide Thermella and was patiently waiting for it to start working. My tossing and turning wasn’t too bad and I hadn’t accidentally kicked the cat out of the bed. However, last night I knew I was in trouble when it felt like I hadn’t fallen asleep for hours, surface sleeping aka Paradoxical insomnia. On top of the surface sleeping, I was extremely hot, I haven’t been this hot since 2023 before I went to the GYN to start BHRT. It was awful. One moment I am freezing and have the sheet, two blankets and a fleece throw on me. The next moment I have no covers on me and dripping in sweat. Between tossing and turning, feeling like I am not getting any sleep and then when I did dream, I was having bizarre dreams. Needless to say I was fit to be tied when I woke up.
But this is where God’s grace comes in. The Apostle Paul learned when the cup of his suffering was not removed that God’s grace was sufficient for him:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
“Reverent submission” εὐλαβείας (eulabeias) refers to a deep reverence, an awe-filled, careful grasping of God’s will, even when that “will” leads through pain.
It’s not passive surrender. It’s not fatalism. It’s an active, reverent obedience that says:
“Even if You don’t take this cup from me, I will still drink it. I still trust You. I still bow.”
This is the posture Jesus had when the Father didn’t remove the cross.
And He was heard—even though the answer was not deliverance from suffering, but resurrection through it.
What Does “Reverent Submission” Look Like in Your Pain?
It is not silence. It is not hiding your emotions. It is laying them bare with awe.
It is trusting God’s character even when he hasn’t removed the source of your pain.
It is crying out, “How long, O Lord?” and still believing that He is near to the brokenhearted.
After my morning prayer I shared the following with a research partner:
Part of my cry to the Lord was for understanding. I'm like a child when it comes to the scripture. I just believe it is true. So it is confusing to pray for healing and feel like I'm being ignored. I believe, have faith, why no change? It feels hypocritical to preach: “trust God,” “believe God.” “have faith in God,” “God will deliver you,” “God will bring you through the storm,” and yet no change and no answer for the petitions I've had before him.
I understand and I know how to: hold the course and to stand in faith, stand in trust, and stand in belief, which is my position. That is where I'm at and I'm not wavering from it. But I still feel helpless and I don't like to pray and I feel like I'm groveling.
That part → this is when the light starting shining through, as my research partner said to me:
Feeling Helpless Is Not the Same as Being Faithless
Jesus in Gethsemane sweat blood. That wasn’t groveling. That was trust expressing itself in anguish. There’s a reason Hebrews 5:7 shows Him crying with loud cries and tears—because even the Son of God experienced what felt like silence.
And what did He do? He kept praying.
You don’t have to perform stoicism to prove your faith. God doesn’t need you to sound strong. He just asks you to stay.
And you’re staying.
“Why No Change?” – Let’s Sit with That
We often read about miracles in the Gospels as though they were the norm. But remember: the Gospels condense three years of Jesus’ ministry into a handful of chapters. There were many more people Jesus passed by who were not healed in that moment (e.g., the man at the Gate Beautiful whom Peter later heals in Acts 3—Jesus surely passed that gate too).
So what’s happening when there’s no change?
Sometimes God is doing an inner work before the outer changes.
Sometimes the suffering is shaping a ministry of compassion and authority that cannot come through ease.
Sometimes the delay is not a denial—but a preparation.
And sometimes—hard as it is—the answer is simply “not yet,” and He offers His presence instead of the miracle.
That doesn’t mean He’s ignoring you. It means He’s trusting you with a harder assignment.
You’re Not a Hypocrite. You’re a Prophet in the Fire.
You said:
“It feels hypocritical to preach: trust God, believe God… and yet no change.”
That’s not hypocrisy. That’s prophetic faith. Prophets declare what they believe even when they haven’t seen it manifest.
It’s what Habakkuk did:
“Though the fig tree does not bud… yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” (Hab. 3:17–18)
It’s what Paul did:
“We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich.” (2 Cor. 6:10)
Faith is not proven by the absence of pain—it’s proven by your stance in spite of pain.
Groveling Is Not Required. Surrender Is.
You don’t have to grovel. Groveling is not reverence.
God does not ask His children to beg as slaves. He asks us to stand as daughters—even with trembling knees.
And from that posture—broken, but standing—comes the most powerful prayer you can offer:
“I don’t understand, Lord. I feel helpless. But I still trust You.”
That is the deepest form of reverent submission. Not groveling, but yielding.
A Gentle Reminder
“Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God.” (Isaiah 50:10)
God sees you walking in a kind of night. But you are still relying, still trusting, still calling His name. That’s what this verse praises.
And He will answer. Not always how or when we want—but He will. Your tears are not forgotten. Your groans are heard. Your reverent submission is recorded.
He is with you in the fire, even if the healing has not yet come.
Understanding
I prayed for understanding and the Lord provided some of it. My prayers, my deep laments, my anguished outcries, they were not groveling, they were “reverent submission.” When my cat Milo died, I posted a scripture from Job 13:15a on my front door:
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him… .
It ministered to me in my time of mourning, as does the scripture from 2 Corinthians 12:9, that God’s grace is sufficient for me. I hope that whatever brought you to this article that you know that if you Draw near to God…He will draw near to you. (James 4:8a). That it is ok to cry ugly tears to God. To cry out to him in anguish, even in your confusion or rage. God hears our cries and answers them in His appointed time.
My Grace Is Sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9 - NASB): Scripture Memory Songs
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