Five Prayers for When You're Too Mad to Pray

From “An Angry Prayer for Somebody Losing Their Neighborhood to Crime”

“Confuse the gangbangers, O Lord;
still their tongues;
stop them from recruiting our babies to be their foot soldiers.
For there is violence and pain in my city.
Day and night they prowl about its walls like vermin;
malice and abuse drive slowly through our neighborhoods.
with loud stereos pounding;
and the police are no match.”

If it were an enemy insulting me, I could endure it;
if a gangbanger were raising himself against me, I could hide.
But when somebody you love-
a friend, a family member, a neighbor child,
somebody with whom you once enjoyed sweet
fellowship in the house of God -
becomes part of that evil, I cannot bear it.
O Lord, help us;
shield the children who have yet to be corrupted."

From “An Angry Prayer for Somebody Suffering with Depression During the Holidays

“The joy of the holidays became my enemy,
and holiday decorations mocked my soul.
I am hanted by the difference between what I once had
and the way I live now.
Where shall you go, O my soul, until the New Year?
Why are you so disturbed within me?
I yell at myself, “Put your hope in God!
Remember when God did great things for you!”

I once heard God calling me from the roar of waterfalls;
waves and breakers swept over me once.
Now I can no longer hear God through the fog of my depression.
I saw to God, “Why have you forgotten me?
Will you ever break me free of this?”

But you are God and I am not.
I fear I am nothing.”