a prayer to refocus

 

God, help me not to be preoccupied with earthly worries, instead of heavenly hopes. Help me to rejoice in Your Sovereignty.
Help me not to be obsessed with temporal details, instead of eternal realities. Help me to rejoice in Your Truth.
Help me to serve You, as I am, right now, according to my state of life, realistic abilities, and admitted handicaps. Don't let me despair over what I cannot be or do. Take my attention away from my ego, and fix it firmly on selfless service. May charity & mercy define me, not appearance or status. Help me to keep my heart and eyes so ardently set on You and Your Kingdom, that I will be freed from any and all worldly anxieties.

To be less vague... I don't want to be freaking out over my continually worsening health, my fadng strength, my failing intelligence, my lack of talent, my ugliness, my gender dysphoria, my unbearable creative losses, my pervasive mental illness, or my popular status as a worthless, loathsome, scummy, disgusting, cringe-worthy, delusional, stupid, abusive, loveless, purposeless waste of cells. The fact that this world sees me as garbage, as a nobody, as an aberrant freak meant to be crushed underfoot & eliminated, has been driving me to despair.
But... that's only because I'm looking AT this world. Heaven, Your Kingdom, does NOT see me as such. You LOVE me, honestly & entirely, You WANTED to create me, You are GLAD I exist, and You see me as PRICELESS. That staggers the mind, and I struggle to believe it, but deep down I KNOW it is true.
So... help me to reprioritize. Fill my mind with remembrance of You, and Your Love, and Your Words that assure me of it, even in the darkest places of my life. Help me to stop stressing out over all those negative things, by reminding me that they don't exist in Heaven. Redirect my life towards You alone. Help me let go of every distraction. May I be so enamored by and attentive to You, that serving You and loving You and learning about You is ALL I think about. Lord, help me to forget "me," because YOU are my true Life. That alone is the greatest possible hope & joy, and if I remember it— the reality of Your Presence in me, as part of Your Body, for Your Glory— no mortal fear can hinder me from living as a Christian anymore, because it Won't be about Me anymore.

I ask this by the grace of Jesus, Who gave His Life so that I might live through Him. That is the core of my prayer: that His Will of Salvation be done in me, always. Amen.