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Summary
- Psalm 130 opens with a one-line prayer for distress: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice.”
- Ten short prayers cover sudden bad news, being overwhelmed, being unable to pray, the middle of the night, despair, heartbreak, God’s silence, acceptance, courage and comforting someone else.
- Traditional prayers come from the Orthodox service of the Third Hour in Hapgood’s 1906 translation, Thomas More’s prayer from the Tower in The Garden of the Soul (1871), and Psalm 142.
- Jesus prayed in anguish in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:38–39; Luke 22:43–44) and cried out the first line of Psalm 22 on the cross.
- The Psalms keep honest complaints to God; Psalm 88 ends without a turn to comfort.
- Anyone whose distress has become thoughts of suicide can call or text 988 in the US or call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Psalm 13:1; 18:6; 30:5; 34:18; 42:11; 55:22; 61:2; 88:18; 130:1–2; 142:1–3; Isaiah 43:2; Lamentations 3:22–23; Matthew 11:28; 26:38–39; 27:46; Luke 22:43–44; John 14:27; Romans 8:26; 2 Corinthians 1:4; 4:8; Hebrews 4:15; James 5:11). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. The Third Hour, p. 46. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- England, John. The Garden of the Soul: A Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions. Enlarged edition. New York: D. & J. Sadlier, 1871. “A Prayer, Composed by Sir Thomas More, whilst a prisoner in the Tower,” pp. 315–316. https://archive.org/details/GardenOfTheSoul1871
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. https://988lifeline.org/
- Samaritans. “Contact a Samaritan.” https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/
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