A Morning Prayer in Sickness and in Pain
Written for an ill person - making the main thing the main thing
A dear friend of mine is going in for surgery tomorrow morning. And four other dear friends have been struggling with chronic illnesses for years now.
For some of us, mornings bring sunshine and the promise of a new day. For others, mornings punctuate the ends of sleepless nights, and lead to worries about how to get through another painful day.
So what can I share?
I look around and see my great-aunt’s pre-WWII songbook. Does it include any prayers that can still be meaningfully spoken today?
As a child, my great-aunt spent many months encased in some kind of metallic brace that was supposed to fix her scoliosis - a severe curvature of the spine that traced back to multiple vitamin deficiencies in her childhood years. The family’s poverty during the Great Depression and WWI and the ensuing lack of nutrition sure left their mark on her body. The “treatment” readily undone once the brace was removed, leaving her permanently with a hunched back.
Quick-witted when I got to know her in her senior years, I can sense that she would have been so impatient to get on with living life to the fullest instead of being restrained in some kind of medical institution for children back in the day. And that at some point, she would have accepted her lot in life and never let a postural malformation get in the way of her dreams for her life.
Flipping through the pages of the church songbook that someone embossed with her name and gave her as a confirmation gift likely when she turned fourteen, I find a number of prayers to be prayed in illness or in pain.
I am sharing one of those today, roughly translated from German:
A Morning Prayer for Someone Ill
(Morgengebet eines Kranken)
Faithful God and Father, I praise and honour You, that Your goodness has brought me through this dark night and that I can once again see the light of the new day.
Oh, my Father, enlighten me anew with Your mercy, and help that I do not receive Your mercy in vain. Hold my heart in Your holy nearness, so that I may not feel despair due to my pain and my weakness. Rather, let me seek and find solace and strength in You.
Keep me from becoming impatient and complaining against You and Your actions. Let all my thoughts and meditation focus on the one thing that is necessary—Let me place myself under Your merciful protection and let me seek rescue for my spirit and my body under the wings of Your love.
Be my Physician and grant me an obedient heart so that I may yield to You and Your will, especially now in my time of illness. Please hear me, dear Heavenly Father and do with me as You in Your merciful compassion see fit.
Amen.
On a related note:
God holds us in the palm of His hand, surrounding us with His mercy, compassion and love. A little like this…
Australian poet Beverley Joy was inspired to paint a word picture based on hen & chicks imagery in Psalm 91.
https://simplystorypoetry.com/2023/11/16/mother-hen-psalm-911-4/
And here, a modern day prayer specific to an upcoming surgery, a reminder that God is with us in EVERY moment of our lives.
Father, in the name of Jesus, I am facing a surgery that makes me feel anxious and afraid.
As I lie down on the operating table, I ask for your protection.
Guide the surgeon’s hand, so they know what to do. Guide them through their decisions, give them wisdom, and help me rely on You for strength.
Fill me with Your presence. Go with me as I walk into the doctor’s office today.
You have promised never to leave nor forsake me. So stay with me when I wake and go through the healing and recovery process.
Thank You for being with me. Thanks to you, I have nothing to fear.
Let me serve You all the days of my life after this successful surgery.
Please help me to endure through the hardships of life until Jesus returns.
God, I trust you in every season and every minute.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
from: https://christianpure.com/learn/prayer-before-surgery/