Here’s another prayer that may help you to find words to articulate some of your thoughts and fears when you’re struggling to pray during these dark days of the coronavirus pandemic, reminding you that, however much it may feel like it, you are not alone.
Am I going to die, Lord?
Am I going to die, Lord?
I might do.
And though, as the years have passed
and age has crept up on me,
I’ve learnt,
in theory at least,
to live with my mortality,
I’m finding the realisation that death could actually come hard to handle.
Up to now it’s been something ‘out there’,
a grim truth I can push away,
deal with tomorrow,
but suddenly that’s no longer an option:
the possibility is real,
hovering over my shoulder like a vulture eyeing its prey,
and it’s frightening,
not just for me but for my loved ones.
Help me, Lord, to fight off this infection,
should I succumb to it.
Yet help me also to be realistic;
to set my affairs in order,
and do what needs to be done,
should the worst come to the worst.
Put your hand in mine,
and help me to hold firmly to yours,
whatever the future might bring.
Amen.