Prayer of the Liberated Woman
Deliver me from stress and worry and fear. I’m ready to let go. I don’t want to be in charge. I want to do the work that is mine and let go of what belongs to everyone else.
Deliver me from poverty and famine into Your provision and abundance. The burden of financial responsibility is too much for me. The burden of perfect economic decisions is too much for me. The burden of knowledge, responsibility for things out of my control is wearing me down. Take it. Tie my hands before I try to take it back.
Deliver me from the silence and solitude I create, from this striving after independence, from this pride and isolation. Bring me into the right place of dependence on You and on my husband, and my friends, and my family. Open my mouth to speak. Open my heart to be vulnerable, honest, childlike, trusting, resting. Help my mind to believe, rest, to see what is, to be undeceived.
Deliver me from the trap of trying to supply everything for everyone. I am not the source. I am fresh out of everything. I swing back and forth, hitting self-pity on one side and uncontrollable anger on the other. I resent the freedom I think other people I have. Free me from the myth of balance and perfection. Help me to accept my own limits.
Deliver me from pride. I’m tired of having no one to look up to or lean on because I’ve put myself on a pedestal. I declare to the world that I am not enough. I am ready to say the things I try not to say: I can’t, I won’t, not now, not today, not ever. I’m done. I need a break. I’m not superwoman today. I’m not the source. I don’t have the information. I can’t help you. I don’t know.
Deliver me from my own stupidity. I say I want simplicity and independence, but really I just get hurt when no one calls, no one comes. I say I want to be self-sufficient and capable, but really I want to be a little more high-maintenance, a little more pampered, a lot better at asking for and receiving help, a lot more honest.
Deliver me from trying to give what I do not have.
Deliver me from not knowing how to change.
Deliver me from the habits that keep me defensive, scared, and lonely.
Deliver me from a liberation that only enslaves me to the ideals and expectations of others.
Give me true freedom.