Not everyone is lonely, angry, overwhelmed, tired, scared, anxious or depressed, but too many than were before are. Knowing this helps you not feel so alone.
Because the overall level of mental health need has risen, and because individual needs can so easily be lost in the noise, many more than normal don’t get the attention they deserve, whether it be family or from mental health care workers.
This article is for someone in crisis, and it may just be for today or tonight. Sometimes crises emerge and stay for a while and sometimes they just crop up every now and then. Then there is that horrible beast of spiritual attack.
If you are lonely, angry, overwhelmed, tired, scared, anxious or depressed right now, or even if one or some of these describes you in your present season, I want you to know that I’m interceding for you; praying you will feel some connection of compassion through these words.
I have experienced all of these things, and enough of each of them regularly enough to know how perilous one can feel. It may seem bizarre when I say this, but I am actually of the strong belief that suffering these things is a gift, just not the kind of gift we would want. But afterwards, after the season of suffering has passed, we discover we have grown.
The gift of these things piques our spiritual awareness, creates depth of character, and refines our empathy of compassion.
If you are lonely, and especially if there are practical reasons for your loneliness, my heart goes out to you, because there is hardly a worse feeling than feeling alone in this world.
If you are angry, chances are your anger masks the pain of sorrow or fear. Or perhaps you are simply frustrated. Whatever the cause, I pray that you would be gentle with yourself and others, and that you would experience a peace that surpasses all understanding.
If you are overwhelmed and really don’t know where to turn, my prayer for you is for clarity, and for the ability of your mind to reconcile what is being required of you. If you simply do not know what to do, and that is a source of panic for you, I pray that the way would be made plain, the path for you to tread.
If you are tired, whether physically for lack of sleep, or mentally, emotionally, or spiritually because of burnout, I pray you would get the rest you need. It is normal to feel like you’ve got nothing left to give, so please do not judge yourself.
If you feel scared, because you sense you are out of control, or there are elements of your life that are controlling you, my prayer is for you to arrive at your necessary need of safety. I do pray for a physical sense of intercession, that the situation might change so you feel more in control over these scary elements of life. It is not your fault you feel this way.
If you feel anxious, and there’s nothing you can do about the physical symptoms you feel, I pray that cognitively you can think your way into moments of mindful peace. Granted that this is a practice that must honed, I pray that your anxiety would cause you to enter a spiritual search for strategies to manage it the best you can.
If you feel depressed, and most of your life feels out of your control, and you have no energy even for those things you’re passionate about, I pray most of all that you would be able to experience a moment’s hope. I pray that you don’t feel self-judged or judged by anyone. I pray that you feel that you are doing your best, because you are, and that you know that is good enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment