A prayer for preventing self-harm

 

Refrain: Healer God, cut through my fear and let your love flow freely. 

Help me God. I come to you overwhelmed by life and on a precipice of unbearable pressure. So many worries assail me and stress surges within me. I need you to be near me. 

Make me strong enough to resist the urge to reach for the sharp tools that will help me find release. 

Healer God, cut through my fear and let your love flow freely. 

Spoken words are not enough to save me. They don’t reach me in this private place I’ve built just for me. 

I cannot bear the vulnerability of sharing my innermost thoughts, for they leave me exposed and raw. So now I turn to you instead of relying on a ritual that only brings me harm. 

Healer God, cut through my fear and let your love flow freely. 

I come to you alone and throw myself upon your mercy. Only you can comfort me. 

Guide me towards strategies for coping so that I shall do no harm. Make me intentional and wise in my choice of friends and help me fill my social media feeds with positivity and optimism. Let me not stray once more down self-defeating pathways, where I only end up more alone than before and soaked with shame. 

Healer God, cut through my fear and let your love flow freely. 

Amen. 

By Jayne Manfredi 

This prayer was written with the help of my daughter, whose experience I've written about here