Lord, our mental health knows many shadows. 

Anxieties that rush in, large and sudden, expanding worries into paralysis.

Sadness that creeps up unnoticed until we despise ourselves and regret the life you give.

Activity that overwhelms and takes us so high we doubt we will ever touch the ground again, only to find ourselves cast into the depths like Icarus collapsing into an abyss.

Thoughts and voices that we know are lies move from being far and quiet to near and loud. Visions and sounds come to accuse and deny us rest.

Addictions conquer us, waiting for tiredness or a frail moment before they move in with full force, promising to bring back a memory of a moment that felt good but is now unobtainable, bricked in and fading with soiled regret.

And then, Lord,  we simply forget. Our memory is frail and goes through shock, weariness, preoccupation or age, and we feel ashamed we can’t recall who and what we loved and who loves us now. We forget you. We forget ourselves.

So we fight and we fight and we fight until we are wearied from arguing with emotions that are too strong for us,

Thoughts that are louder than our sanity,

Doubts and darkness in a locked room.

So to you, our dear, patient and faithful God, we lift our limping belief.

Like so much that is ajar and distorted in our lives, our trust in you is frayed. 

But Lord, you are much bigger and better than us. You are more merciful to us than we will ever be to ourselves.

You have proven yourself faithful and good for too many generations for us to name or know. So we turn to you for help. 

We turn to you for the words to say or, at least, the sighs, groans and tears we need when our words fall. Just to pray from where we are… as we are. Just to be lifted from who we imagine we are… so we may become just a bit more like your son. So we will know and understand more deeply your grace for the life you have given us.

Help us to treat our treatment as a spiritual discipline – a way of honouring you and therefore serving ourselves and others.

Help us to begin to want what is good for us, the diet, the exercise, the rest, the interests, the work, the friendships, the prayer, meditation and reading that will sustain our souls.

Help us to place aside the things that overwhelm, the things our world wants us to be anxious about, but are unnecessary, beyond us or untrue.

Help us to have the courage to face the forest of challenges ahead of us by removing one tree at a time, at a pace we can manage.

Help us to find a regular oasis of rest with inklings of your joy, purpose and glory that we may long for what is right and true and eternal in you.

Help us not to dishonour you or ourselves in our weakness or our strength, but to live increasingly useful lives in your service.

Help us to keep growing in Christ, to see the work of faith, the labour of love and the endurance of hope forming in us. Fill us with your spirit and grow us in the sane and beautiful fruits of the spirit of Christ.

Help us to know how you are pleased, how you rejoice, how you welcome, love and long for us.

Lord, like so many of your servants in the bible, we do not see the purpose or end of what we are going through, but you do. Help us to trust in your hold on us, even when our hold on many things seems so uncertain. Glorify yourself in and through us, and let us see part of what you are doing so our obedience may be encouraged and we may be assured that all is well and all manner of things will finally be well in you.

Heal us, Lord. Make us wise with your wisdom, Lord.

In the name of your healing, present, incarnate and life-giving son, Jesus.

Amen.