A Prayer for a Friend Who Is Hurting
When someone you love is in the middle of something you cannot fix, and you have run out of things to say.
Romans 12:15 gives the shape of this prayer — “weep with those who weep” — and Galatians 6:2 the instruction: carry one another’s burdens. Praying for a hurting friend is mostly asking to be useful rather than eloquent.
Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.
Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. For if one falls down, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to help him up!
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
The prayer
Lord, I cannot fix this, and I have stopped pretending I can.
Be near her. Nearer than I can get. In the hours I am not there — the early morning, the drive home, the moment the house goes quiet — be the one who stays.
Give her sleep. Give her one ordinary hour where it does not hurt as much.
And show me what to actually do. Not the impressive thing; the useful one. Keep me from saying something clumsy in an attempt to make this better. Make me willing to sit and say nothing.
Hold her when I have to go home. Amen.
What to do as well as pray
Job’s friends got it right for exactly seven days, when they sat on the ground with him and said nothing (Job 2:13). It went wrong when they started explaining.
Practical love reads better than a verse right now: bring food that can go in the freezer. Text without needing a reply. Say her person’s name out loud — people are often more afraid of the name being forgotten than of hearing it.
Avoid “everything happens for a reason.” Romans 12:15 does not ask you to interpret her suffering. It asks you to weep in it with her.
When you are tired of carrying it
Being the steady friend has a cost that nobody sends a casserole for. If you have been holding someone up for months, you are allowed to be worn out by it, and saying so does not make you a worse friend.
Galatians 6:2 asks you to carry one another’s burdens; two verses later it says each will carry his own load. Scripture holds both. Ask someone to check on you this week.
Praying when she cannot pray
There are seasons when a person has no words left, and this is one of the plainest uses of prayer there is: you hold the rope while she cannot. Romans 8:26 says the Spirit does the same for all of us — interceding when we do not know what to ask.
Tell her you are doing it. Not as pressure. As company.
If what she is carrying is beyond what a friend can hold — if she is unwell, unsafe, or talking about harming herself — help her reach a professional rather than carrying it alone on her behalf. Asking her directly whether she is thinking about hurting herself does not plant the idea, and it may be the most useful question anyone asks her this month. If you are thinking about harming yourself, please reach out now: in the US, call or text 988 (the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), and call 911 if there is immediate danger to life. Outside the US, use your local emergency number. The National Institute of Mental Health has plain guidance at nimh.nih.gov.
Where these words come from
Romans 12:15 and Galatians 6:2 give the instruction. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 is why you are there at all — one lifts the other up. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 explains the strange economy of it: we comfort with the comfort we ourselves received.
Praying this for someone specific?
Light a candle for her — and come back to tend it tomorrow.