Encouraging Women to Pour Out Their Hearts to God

I speak regularly with Christian women who are wading through some measure of sorrow or suffering in their lives. Sometimes these sisters are navigating heartbreak and discouragement. Other times, they feel disillusioned because their knowledge of God doesn’t appear to align with their lived experience. Whatever the cause for their anguish, they often want to know what to do in order to feel or think differently about their situation—and understandably so. Who among us wants to wrestle with distressing thoughts and emotions? Does anyone enjoy feeling stuck in the muck of their inner world?

If you minister to women, you may also find them seeking guidance on how to change their thinking, or what they can do to “feel better” when they’re anxious, angry, or afflicted in heart. While Scripture teaches how God produces Christlike change, we need to remember—and teach the women we care for—that sanctification is not a self-help program but a lifelong process of divinely enabled change (Philippians 2:12-13). Our aim in biblical counseling is not simply to help women feel or think differently about their troubles, but to help them turn to the Lord more readily in the midst of them. One way we do this is by counseling them to pour out their hearts to God—to cry out in faith with both authenticity and reverence.

Recognize Two Common Responses

As we help a sister to bring her cares honestly to God, it can be wise to ask how she typically reacts when difficult emotions start rising to the surface. As I’ve looked back on my own journey and surveyed the counseling conversations I’ve had over the years, I’ve noticed two common ditches we can fall into in response to our inner turmoil: we may bottle up in avoidance or blow up in opposition. Those of us who are prone to “bottle up” do what we can to silence our grief, ignore our pain, numb our conscience, or even erase our memories. On the other hand, some of us are prone to “blow up,” allowing grief, pain, conviction, or a sense of injustice to harden into an angry stance against others—or even against God. We might even find ourselves vacillating between the two, at times. What is bottled up may eventually spill out, be it in emotional outbursts, destructive habits, or addictive behaviors.

Learning which of these responses resonate with her can provide valuable counseling insights. Not only can you get a better feel for her understanding of the role of emotions in the Christian life[1], but you also get a springboard for meaningful gospel conversation. In Christ, God has provided us a third way to engage our distressing thoughts and emotions. Through biblical lament, we are invited to cast all our cares, questions, and concerns upon the Lord (1 Peter 5:7). Instead of bottling up or blowing up, we are invited to bow down before God in prayer—to unburden our hearts without fear of rejection or reproach (Hebrews 4:16).[2]

Show that God Invites Humble Honesty

Scripture doesn’t tell us to live as though troubled thoughts and emotions are unimportant, but they’re not meant to become all-important, either. As David Powlison writes, “When the Bible teaches how to voice distress to God, it teaches a cry of faith, not a roar of rage.”[3] For those who bottle up, we want to show them that God’s Word does instruct us to talk honestly to him about our turmoil. For those who blow up, we want to show them that God graciously hears the complaint of the contrite, but opposes the roar of the proud (Psalm 51:17, James 4:6). This prayer posture is reinforced by King David when he writes,

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” (Psalm 62:8)

Notice how David connects pouring out our hearts to God with trusting and taking refuge in him. This posture is what distinguishes biblical lament from pretense or grumbling; pouring out our hearts neither diminishes our felt reality nor indulges it. The woman who bottles up needs to be shown that the Lord welcomes her honest cry. The woman who blows up needs to be shown how to bring God her humble complaint. Both need refuge outside themselves. Neither can experience divinely enabled change apart from dwelling “in the shelter of the Most High” (Psalm 91:1). In our distress, we seek first communion with Christ, trusting he will sanctify our thoughts and emotions over time as we abide in him (John 15:4-5).

Encourage Honoring God Through Lament

I don’t know any Christian woman who enjoys living with “great anxiety and vexation” (1 Samuel 1:16). And yet, as we care for those who want to feel better or think differently, we need to be careful not to latch onto immediate change as our primary counseling goal. In his book, Transforming Grace, Jerry Bridges observes that

“We want the pain to go away. We want to feel better in difficult situations, but God wants us to glorify Him in those circumstances. Good feelings may come, or they may not, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not we honor God by the way we respond to our circumstances. God’s grace—that is, the enabling power of the Holy Spirit—is given to help us respond in such a way.”[4]

As we seek to help troubled women, clarifying this ultimate goal is important. It’s not that we don’t want to draw out the heart for the purposes of pursuing conformity to Christ. (We do!) It’s that we want to discern whether the heart that we’re working to draw out is being regularly poured out before God in prayer. We want to help her bring the whole of her inner experience—however distressing it may be—before the Lord in faith. Biblical lament gives her a way to do that: rather than bottle up in avoidance or blow up in opposition, she can bow down before the God who invites her honest cry and offers himself as her refuge. In this way, her progress isn’t measured by perfect thinking or feeling. It’s reflected in how readily she seeks fellowship with Christ in the midst of what remains to be sanctified.

The next time you meet with a sister who is looking for support, you may feel pressure to help her feel better or take away her pain. But while that goal is understandable, it may not be realistic. What you can offer immediately, however, is a safe place for her to take her anguish. Encourage her to cry out in faith through lament. Show her the grace of God’s invitation to pour out her heart before him through prayer. This isn’t the only step she can take, but it’s one she shouldn’t bypass when change seems slow and sorrow endures.

[1] This is an area that can easily be overlooked in care and discipleship conversations. Not all distressing emotions and difficult thoughts are ungodly—some can be appropriate responses to life in a fallen world. For a helpful conversation on this topic, listen to my interview with Brian Borgman on the Hope + Help Podcast here.

[2] For a thirty-one-day exploration of how the Psalms teach believers to bring their anguish to God through biblical lament, see my new devotional, Lament: Crying Out in Faith (P&R Publishing, 2026).

[3] David Powlison, “Anger at God,” Journal of Biblical Counseling 30, no. 2 (2016): 53.

[4] Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), 175.

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