A prayer awareness exercise for depression

Father, lover of all your creation, open me to your love. Jesus, knowing the joys and sorrows of a human life, walk with me. Holy Spirit, giver of gifts, fill me, empower me, use me, even in my brokenness.

There can be pressure from other Christians to not be depressed as if it must be sign of a lack of faith. We can internalise this judgement too. It becomes a lack of acceptance of my condition and of myself. This can make me more depressed! So, how about I let myself feel what I feel . . . . . Even if it is very little that I am actually in touch with, so numbing is this depression, I sit quietly with it and allow it to be whatever it is just now . . . . . then, just as I am, I let the God who loves me, look at me or be with me . . . . . as I breathe out I can breathe out into God something of how I feel . . . . . as I breathe in I can breathe in something of God’s love . . . . .

I might find comfort in these words from Psalm 34:


‘The LORD is near to the broken-hearted,
and saves the crushed in spirit.’


If these words resonate with me, can I become aware of God drawing close to me, here, now?

If I can’t feel it, I might try resting with that promise, speaking it out over and over: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Father, Son, Spirit, you know me through and through; you love me as I am; you touch my life with healing; you call me to bear fruit. I give my wounded self to you, to be a channel of healing to others, to be a wounded healer, with Christ, who died, and rose, and comes again. Amen.