This drug overdose prayer for victims of overdose can be used a memorial or funeral services or by grieving family members and friends when a loved one dies of a drug overdose.

Drug Overdose Prayer for Victims and Families

Dear God of All,

We come to you grieving with broken hearts over our loved one who has become the victim of an overdose.  Our sorrow knows no depths as we consider the preciousness of the life lost and the cruelty of the addition and the terrible accident that robbed them of a good life and cause their death.

Those of us left behind feel victimized ourselves.  We feel helpless because we have been robbed of huge pieces of our own life and our future by this merciless disease.

daffodilDespite our sorrow, we pray for the strength to choose life.  We choose to affirm the goodness and sacredness of the life of our loved one.  We acknowledge their worth in your sight and we hold onto our love for them even through the pain.  We pray that you will remove all traces of regret, guilt and shame from our hearts and minds.  We pray your forgiveness and mercy over every difficult incident between us and our loved one that was caused by the addiction.  You know the road we have walked and how often we have felt that we should be doing one more thing to help, prevent or rescue.   We lay this entire journey at your feet and offer it up to you as our baptism into the suffering of Christ, believing that we did the best we could and that this is all that you ask of us.

We pray that you will give us the ability to honor the memory of our loved one and that we might celebrate their victories big and small.  Help us to memorialize the enormous accomplishment of their ability to live under the heavy burden of addiction.  Please welcome them into your Kingdom as the whole, healthy people you created, now restored to peace, wholeness and joy in your presence.  We believe your Word that says, “no one dies to themselves.”  (Romans 14:7,8)   We stand on the promise that at the time of this terrible accident that you were there with them in their final hours in supernatural ways that go beyond our understanding.

Although we cannot bring our lost loved one back, we pray for the future time when you will show us how to honor them by somehow taking up the good fight against  addiction so that other might live.  Right now we’re not ready.  Right now we pray that you will help us to take the time to grieve and to heal.  Simply place a small glimmer of hope in our hearts that one day You will show us a healing path that will be unique to who we are and who our loved ones are.

And so dear God, heal all of our yesterdays, strengthen and sustain us today and enlighten all of our tomorrows with your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

About this drug overdose prayer

This drug overdose prayer was composed after several young adults in our community died of overdoses.  According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, opioids such as heroine are the “leading cause of accidental death in the U.S.”  According to the Society, addiction is a “primary, chronic and relapsing brain disease.”

As I was trying to write a sympathy card to the mother of an overdose victim, I found it extremely difficult to think of what to say.  Having lost touch with her after our sons graduated from high school, I could only imagine the challenging times she must have gone through with her son as she tried to help him fight his addiction.  I also realized that such family journeys are often done alone because society as a whole has yet to view addiction as a disease.  We do not rally around families dealing with diseases of addiction in the same way they rally around families dealing with other serious illnesses.

My hope is that this drug overdose prayer will help the healing begin.  Please pass it on to those who need it the most.

Other helpful articles

Losing Hope Prayer: Restoring Lost Hope through Personal Prayer

Depression Healing Prayer

A Prayer for Hope and Assurance That Death is Not The End

Copyright Karen Barber 2016.  All rights reserved.

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