This prayer by Holly Grantham helps us express ourselves to God when we have been on difficult life journeys and feel that we are stuck in despair.

The Hammock of Hope

Lord,

The road has been long, the journey difficult.  More often than not, I have found myself dipping my toes…my legs…my body…into pools of self-pity, mistakenly believing that a short stop there wouldn’t undo me.

But the truth is that those temporary places of respite too easily melt into lakes of languor, lulling me into a suspended state of “stuck-ness”.   And it seems that the more I fight these powers that conspire against my soul, the farther down I sink.

Oh how I long to fall into your hammock of hope.  If I could but pull away from that which devours and, instead, fall into You, who delivers.

Then, I could rest in the curve of You, tracing the swelling belly of pregnant trust that cradles my broken places.  Knit me together again, Lord, sewing peace and grace, one over the other, into my inmost being.  Hem me in, Lord and lead me in the way everlasting.

Amen.