God, help me.

I came across this prayer today in Hope Lives by Amber Van Schooneveld. It is a prayer I need to keep praying.

God, help me.

I need you. I can’t care anymore. I don’t want to care anymore. I hear these things, these numbers. I see these children’s faces. I see the mothers’ hollow eyes that don’t even ask for help anymore, and I’m broken. My soul is tired of shuddering.

I’m not you, God. You’re infinite – you can keep looking at this world and still love it and still bleed for it. I’m finite . . . but I know you haven’t asked me to be you. You haven’t asked me to heal every wound. That’s not like you. I look at the way you’ve ordered the world, and I know you’ve given me just one little piece, one little corner of the world to care for. I don’t have to do it all.

But I need your help. I need your strength, your eyes. I need your love that keeps on loving. Mine has dried up and run out. I need your Holy Spirit to fill me and dwell in me and be what keeps me standing and going and loving when my heart fails. I can’t soften my own heart. I need you to soften it.

God, I need you.

(p. 34)