A Prayer for the Weary Soul

[this is my fourth blog for the month of July for the Society for Christian Psychology]

Lord, I am exhausted. I feel fractured and strained. I feel myself coming apart and degrading into something that cannot continue. Pulled apart and left to rot.

If you don’t intervene, I will end up a pile of goop on the floor.

Please, Lord, have mercy on me.

Restore my soul. Restore my fractured sense of self. Heal my fearful and ravaged mind. Bring calm to the chaos I feel inside. Bring rest to all my restless places. Breathe life into all my barren places.

I despair of my ability to restore my sense of self or any feelings of calm. I have tried this on my own, but only end up making it worse, like pouring gas on a fire. I am utterly insufficient.

My only hope is Jesus and his all-sufficient grace which surrounds me, permeates me and fills me. Jesus, take me from the pit and place me in your kingdom of love and light. In my loneliness and fatigue I seek refuge in your Trinitarian fellowship, your all-sufficient loving fountain of reverberating pulsating life, life, life! Surround me with your sufficiency and lift up my gaze from the floor. Lift me up from the dust and draw me into your lap so I can hear your heartbeat and see your delight.

Please, Lord, have mercy on me.

I praise you for your sufficient grace which covers and fills all my insufficiencies, fractures, corruptions and wounds. You pursue me, fill me, saturate me, go before me and walk beside me. I trust in you; your joy, your light, your sufficiency, your life, your strength, your guiding and teaching presence through all dark valleys. I trust your joy. Continue to reveal your heart to me as I walk this dark and weary road. Grant hope and comfort so that I might share these gifts with other weary travellers on their way to you.

Thank you, Father.