Your urgent cry for help has been heard, and I want you to know that God has heard it even more clearly. When the heart is overwhelmed and words are few, even a simple Help me, Lord is a real prayer.
You do not need many words or a loud voice for God to listen. He already knows what you need before you ask. Prayer is not giving Him information He does not have, and it is not trying to wear Him down until He gives in. A short, honest prayer from the heart, even one that is never spoken out loud but only rises in your thoughts, reaches Him. What matters is not the volume or the length, but the heart that turns to Him.
That is why Jesus taught His disciples to begin prayer with Father. Effective prayer flows out of relationship. Through faith in Jesus Christ we are brought into the family of God and can come to Him as our Father. If that relationship is not yet settled in your life, the first and most important prayer God wants to hear is simply, God be merciful to me, a sinner. That prayer opens the door to every other prayer, because it brings you into fellowship with Him through Christ.
The purpose of prayer is not to get our own will done, but to see God's will done on earth as it is in heaven. Prayer moves in a circle. It begins with God and His purposes, He lays them on our hearts, we speak them back to Him, and He then works to accomplish them. For that reason the wisest prayer any of us can pray, especially in a desperate moment, is Lord, work out Your perfect will in my life. Have Your way. Do what You know is best. That prayer keeps us from asking for things that might actually harm us, and it opens the way for God to do freely what He has wanted to do all along without forcing our will.
Scripture shows us this kind of trust. David often prayed, You are my help and my deliverer, make haste to help me, out of a deep sense of his own weakness and need. Asa, facing a vast army, prayed only help us, O Lord, for we rest in You. He understood that it is nothing for God to help, whether our problem is great or small, whether we have many resources or none at all. God does not need our strength to act. He is looking for hearts that are fully turned toward Him and willing to rest in Him.
Prayer also brings comfort while we wait. Often the Spirit of God ministers assurance and peace in the very act of praying, even before the answer comes. Many of the psalms begin with a cry for help and end with praise, because the one praying has met with God and found strength to trust Him.
So bring your urgent need to Him just as it is, in the name of Jesus. Tell Him honestly that you are poor and needy and cannot help yourself, and ask Him to be your help and deliverer. Surrender the outcome to His will, trusting that He loves you and knows what is best. And as you pray, also take the wise and practical steps that are before you, for prayer was never meant to be an excuse to do nothing, but to go hand in hand with trusting action.
I am praying for you now, that God will meet you in this desperate place, draw you close to Himself through Jesus, give you His peace, and work out His good and perfect will in your life.