May is Mental Health Awareness Month. We’ll have various bloggers writing about different aspects of mental health over the course of the next few weeks. We hope that what is shared will be meaningful and helpful to you.

Heavenly Father,

You know my heart, so you know I am struggling to find joy in this current season of life. I feel stuck, crawling through this wilderness with no end in sight. I look desperately for meaning and purpose in days that feel long and mundane. I have dreams for my life that seem bigger than the place where I wake up. I wrestle with the disappointment of both what is and what has not yet come.

I know in my head that Your plan is best, but my heart has yet to believe this truth. I open my phone and am blinded by the ways that my life pales in comparison to hers. Some days it feels like I live in a black-and-white world, all the color drained in this endless drudgery.

Lord, I know this is not the way You made me to live. Your Word promises that I can have joy and abundant life in You. But even on days when I do the right things, when I pray and go to church and spend time in your Word, I still carry this nagging ache in my soul. I am so weary I can feel it in my bones. I long to flourish like a tree planted by a stream, but all I can feel is desert sand beneath my feet.

Where are you, God? When will You answer my prayers? When will You change my circumstances? I’m trying so hard to be faithful, to trust in Your plan for my life when it doesn’t match my own, but if I’m honest I feel let down. Don’t You promise to bless Your servants? Doesn’t Your Word say that You reward those who follow You? Did you forget about me?

Am I doing something wrong?

Jesus, I come before You with empty hands and an aching heart. I look up at the cross and see Your bloody brow, Your labored breaths, Your palms pierced with iron. I see Your arms spread wide with love for me. I see the lengths You went to bring this wandering sheep back into Your fold, the sacrifice our Father made so I would never have to be the one hanging from that cruel altar.

Now I am tempted to collapse under the weight of guilt, embarrassed by these complaints that seem so small in the shadow of the cross.

But You reach down and lift my trembling chin, and all I see in Your eyes is kindness.

In this moment, You remind me that You are not a God who shames my sadness. You are a God who stands before the tomb of a friend You will soon wake from the dead, and You weep with his sisters. You are a God whose gentle and lowly heart breaks at the sound of Your children’s cries. You are a God who sees every great injustice and minor inconvenience, every broken bone and stubbed toe, every long day and lonely night. You are a God who says there is no care too small to cast into your waiting arms.

So today I cast these cares on you, my God who clothes daisies and feeds sparrows, who cares for me even more than these.

Give me eyes to see the abundant life You offer in this place, to behold Your glory even in the humdrum days.

Give me the strength to keep my eyes on your pillars of cloud and fire as I trek through this desert, knowing that You lead the way and that Your way is always good.

Give me the hope of knowing that there is an oasis at the end of this road, one where all tears will be dried and all wrongs made right and all things made new for the rest of time.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

ABOUT OUR BLOGGER

Kati Lynn Davis grew up in Chester County. After a brief stay on the other side of Pennsylvania to earn a writing degree from the University of Pittsburgh, she returned to the area and got a job working for a local library. When she isn’t writing, Kati enjoys reading, drawing, watching movies (especially animated ones!), drinking bubble tea, hanging out with her family cat, and going for very slow runs. Kati is pretty sure she’s an Enneagram 4 but is constantly having an identity crisis over it, so thankfully she’s learning to root her sense of self in Jesus.