Episode 99: Joel 2:25
Dear friends, welcome to Peace Prayers. My name is Juli, the creator and host of the podcast, and I would love to be able to spend some time with you today. Our goal is to take a few moments and dive deep into God’s word before meditating on it ourselves. I’ll read a scripture from the Bible, and then we’ll pray it together over our lives. Invite a friend to listen in and let’s start our day with God’s peace. I am so excited to get started; thank you for joining me today.
You’re listening to Episode 99 and today’s verse is Joel 2:25
I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
Let’s pray together.
Father, I need to be gut wrenchingly honest with You today. I feel like years have been taken from me, devoured and lost, and I am bereft. I am now a shell of a person. What I had to give is now gone. What have I to look forward to? Everything seems empty and meaningless or sharp and agonizingly bitter. I am deep in darkness, a fog of misery that binds me fast. I am alone, friendless, broken, and useless. Why?
I am left with questions. Is it because I did something wrong? Is it because You don’t care? Is it because I’m worthless? Is it because there is no hope?
I feel like I could have handled one thing, but I have a whole host of things. It is the loss of people leaving me grieving and lonely and aching inside all the time. It is the loss of health, my body ravaged by diseases I don’t understand and have no answer for. No one will tell me what’s going on or seems able to figure it out. I am without advocacy or support. It is the lack of relationships, people shunning me because I am too weak to give even though I do give all that I have. If they don’t shun me, they don’t understand me and criticize me and blame me and have no time for me. I make them uncomfortable. I am too much for them.
It is the broken world, flinging problem after conflict after catastrophe at my wounded soul. Wars and plagues and poverty and famine and violence and disasters and deception and division. I have no capacity to handle this when my own internal world is in shambles. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think, I can’t remember, I can’t control my own reactions. Those around me that I love are deep in trouble, floundering in a pool of need and loss and struggle and hardship and I can’t do anything to help them. I feel like I am just one more burden.
God, I know we all feel like this sometimes, but today, this is where my soul is at and I don’t know how much more I can take. I read these words and I try to think what living through a locust plague would be like. I try to remember I am not the only sufferer. I try to remember Your sacrifice. I try to remember Your promises. It is hard and I cannot do it on my own. I need You to keep Your word. I need You to show me that I will be repaid for the decades of my life that were ravaged by things outside of my control. I need to know I have not been forgotten and I will be restored.
Come to me, LORD. Shine down on me. Give me Your unknowable peace. I crave it, I am desperate for it. Jesus, help my unbelief. Be compassionate as I doubt. And give me the answers I crave. Give me even slivers of hope to cling to. Send me sleep, sleep without nightmares or panic or darkness. And widen my horizons, send me people for support. Help me to have a direction to go to and send Your joy to be my strength. Oh, please, please, I beg of You.
Your promises are sure and trustworthy, help me to believe this, not just know it to be true. I offer my gratitude and myself, such as I am, Your child.
I pray in Your faithful and generous name. Amen.
That is the end of our collective prayer, but don’t forget that you can keep praying and meditating on this on your own. Thank you so much for joining me and I hope you have a peaceful rest of your day. I’d love to ask you a favor before we go and that is to please subscribe and leave a review for the podcast if you haven’t already. That is the best way to invite other people to join us in our prayers and it helps me more than you can know.
And let’s get to know each other better. Follow me over on Instagram at thejulihernandez where you can DM me prayer requests or suggestions on verses you’d like me to pray on the podcast or just let me know what’s going on in your life. Another way to get in touch with what I’m up to is on my website at www.thejulihernandez.com. My website hosts a transcription of each prayer so that you can pray them whenever you like. You’ll also see monthly blog posts that detail my next writing project and I can’t wait to engage with you on that as well. Let’s connect, but for now, Shalom.
