Oh I understand that much. False hope. Still, you don’t have to hope if you want relief from pain.
think about it: if it really didn’t mean anything and you _want_ to do it, then do it. If it’s JUST A WORD, why restrain yourself? Who are you trying to impress? It’s just a word. Athough to be fair, I don’t use the word God much even to myself for a similar reason: the societal baggage attached. So I just “Thank You” in general, specific to the people, unspecific to whatever else I don’t know about. No religion required. Just gratitude.
Saying, “It is what it is and I accept it. It will pass in its due course.” accomplishes a lot for recovery and has minimal false hope.
But even when I was religious, I never prayed for God to take away something. I believe that everything _can_ teach you something and learning to accept the stuff that you really _can’t_ control goes a long way to giving you the power to discovery what you CAN do with the tools you have at hand at the time.
The Universe is big. We’re small. Lots of stuff happens we can’t predict or control. But it’s possible to fight what you an fight, and accept what you can’t fight. Takes practice but it’s worthy. Of course there’s a lot of things you can fight and a lot of things you can accept. But now I’m sounding like a broken record – sorry tongue emoticon