Evening Prayer: Mental Health and Spirituality

Gracious Father, tonight I bring You the parts of myself I've been carrying alone — the anxious thoughts that circle like birds refusing to land, the heaviness that settles behind my ribs on days when getting out of bed feels like an act of defiance against gravity itself.

Micah 6:8 asks what You require of me: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with You. But Lord, some evenings I can barely walk at all. And yet I'm learning that showing up honestly before You — admitting that my mind is weary and my spirit feels threadbare — that is the humble walk You're after. You never asked for a confident strut. You asked for an honest pace, even when it's slow.

Teach me that caring for my mental health is not a failure of faith but an act of stewardship over the life You breathed into me. When the prophet said "act justly," he included justice toward ourselves — refusing to shame what You created, refusing to call weakness what You call humanity.

And Father, open my eyes to the people around me fighting invisible battles. The coworker whose smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. The teenager at church who stopped coming. The friend who always asks how everyone else is doing but never answers the question himself. Give me the courage to sit with them in their darkness without rushing to fix what only Your presence can heal.

Tonight I rest in this truth: You are not disappointed in my struggle. You are present in it. You who knit together every neuron and synapse — You understand the complexity of the mind You made. Hold me steady, Lord, as I learn to hold space for others.

In the name of Jesus, who wept, who grieved, who understands. Amen.