Prayer Mental Health Awareness
A compassionate pastoral prayer for the National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding, giving voice to those affected by mental illness — individuals, families, and caregivers alike — and calling the church to open its heart, home, and community to them.
Loving Creator,
We come to you on this National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding, because we know that you are a God of love and compassion.
We come as people of all creeds and all nations seeking your presence, comfort and guidance. We come as consumers, family members, friends, co-workers and mental health professionals. We come this day because we believe that you, Divine One, love each one of us just as we are and walk with us on our individual journeys through life. You see ignorance and injustice that divides and separates persons struggling with mental illness and you weep with us.
Give us courage to face our challenges and open us today to the many ways you are already working in our midst. Help us to identify mental illness as the disease it is, that we might have courage and wisdom in the face of ignorance and stigma. Inspire us as we seek to overcome fear, acquire knowledge, and advocate for compassionate and enlightened treatment and services.
Lead us as we open our hearts, homes, communities, and job opportunities, our houses of worship and communities of faith. Enable us to find ways to be inclusive of persons living with mental illness in our everyday lives. Be with doctors, therapists, researchers, social workers, and all those in the helping professions as they seek to overcome ignorance and injustice with care and compassion.
UMWomen/Flickr
Sometimes, Divine Spirit, we feel discouraged and hopeless in the face of so many challenges. Help us to see ourselves as you see us…persons of value and worth…persons of creativity and potential. May we come to understand the interconnectedness of mind, body and spirit in bringing about health and wholeness. And may we go forward into our communities with a renewed sense of vision, hope and possibility for the future.
Amen,
Reverend Susan Gregg-Schroeder
The Disability Ministries Committee of The United Methodist Church is a partner ministry of the General Commission on Religion and Race