Hannah is the mother of Samuel the Prophet. She was one of two wives married to a good man named Elkanah. Elkanah's wife, Peninnah gave birth to several children. Hannah was infertile. "Penny," rubbed Hannah's face in her inability to conceive. It's likely she assumed that Hannah's sterility was a just judgment of God, thus justifying Penny's contempt toward Hannah. We can imagine Hannah's pain.
Hannah brought her trouble to God. We are told that she was in deep anguish and cried bitterly as she brought her desire to have a child to God (1 Samuel 1:10). She did not "take it on the chin." She didn't try to muscle through her pain. She leaned into it and let it motivate her to cry out to the One who could help her. God heard her cry and gave her the ability to conceive.
Some prayers come from places of deep longing and desperation, from places of great pain. There was nothing superficial about Hannah's prayer.
I'll bet you wouldn't need a whole lot of time to identify the place of your greatest pain. Have you, like Hannah, wept bitterly about it? Have you let yourself grieve? Have you invited God into it? Christian and non-Christian alike face pain- it is part of living in a fallen world. Yet each of us has the chance to cry out to God. His greatest gift to us is His comforting presence. Ask Him what He wants to say to you about your pain. How does He want to meet you in it?