Comfort is not the same as cheering up. It is not being told the situation is better than it looks. Comfort is somebody staying with you in a thing that has not improved, and the prayers on this page are written on that understanding.
Some of them ask God to change something. Most of them ask God to be present in something that is not changing yet, which is what people usually need first. There are prayers here for grief, for a broken heart, for fear, for a friend you do not know how to help, and for the ordinary bad weeks that do not have a name.
Use any prayer as it is written, or change the words until they sound like you. God is not marking them.
Comfort and Strength Short Prayers Comfort and Peace God’s Comfort A Difficult Time A Broken Heart For a Friend Grief and Loss Comfort and Healing When You Are Afraid A Catholic Prayer Bible Verses A Week of Comfort Words to Send Questions
A Prayer for Comfort and Strength
These two are asked for together more than any other pair, and for good reason. Comfort is what gets you through tonight. Strength is what gets you through the month. Most people need both and are embarrassed to ask for either.
God of all comfort,
I am not coping as well as I am telling people.
Comfort me. Not by explaining this, and not by making me feel that I should be handling it better, but by being here in it with me.
Then strengthen me. Give me enough for today. I am not asking to see the whole road, only the next bit of it.
Where I have gone numb, bring me back gently. Where I am holding everything together by force, take some of the weight before something gives.
Be my shelter tonight and my strength tomorrow.
Amen.
When to use it: The end of a long day, or the start of one you are dreading.
Short Prayers of Comfort and Strength
For the moments when a long prayer is more than you have in you. Each of these is one breath, and a short prayer repeated all day is not lesser praying.
- Lord, comfort me. I have run out of my own.
- God, be near tonight.
- Jesus, give me strength for today only.
- Father, hold what I cannot hold.
- Lord, quiet my heart and steady my hands.
- God of all comfort, comfort me on every side.
- Jesus, stay with me in this.
- Lord, get me through the next hour.
- Holy Spirit, be the comfort I cannot find.
- God, carry me today. I will try again tomorrow.
A Prayer for Comfort and Peace
Lord Jesus,
You said You leave Your peace with us, and that it is not the kind the world hands out.
I would like some of that, because the peace I can manufacture lasts about an hour.
Settle what is churning in me. Take the loop out of my thinking, where I go back over the same conversation and the same fear and arrive nowhere.
Give me peace that does not depend on the situation resolving, because it has not resolved and I still have to sleep tonight.
Let not my heart be troubled. Guard it, as You promised to.
Amen.
If peace rather than comfort is what you came for, there is a fuller page of prayers for peace of mind.
Praying for God’s Comfort
Scripture calls God the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. It is one of the few places where comfort is given as a name rather than a favour, and it is worth praying into directly.
Father of mercies, the Bible calls You the God of all comfort. That’s who You are, not just something You do now and then. So I’m asking You to comfort me in this, especially in the parts nobody else can see. And then, like Scripture says, let me pass that comfort on. When I meet someone going through the same thing, help me be useful to them instead of awkward.
Amen.
A Prayer for Comfort in a Difficult Time
Lord God,
This has gone on longer than I expected and I have started to lose my nerve.
I am not asking You to explain it. I have stopped needing the reason. I am asking You to stay.
Give me small things. A night of proper sleep. One conversation that helps. An hour where I forget about it entirely and do not feel guilty afterwards.
Keep me from becoming someone hard. That is where I go when this lasts too long, and I do not want to come out of it as a different person.
And when it turns, and I cannot see how yet, let me be paying enough attention to notice.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Broken Heart
For the end of something. A marriage, a friendship, a hope you had been carrying for years. This is not a prayer to get over it quickly.
Lord,
My heart is broken and I am tired of people expecting me to be further along than I am.
You are said to be near to the brokenhearted. Be near now, because the room is very quiet.
I am not asking to stop feeling it. I am asking not to be destroyed by feeling it.
Keep me from the things I would do to make it stop faster. Keep me from bitterness towards someone I once loved, and from contempt towards myself.
Bind up what has torn. Take as long as it takes, but do not leave me here.
Amen.
A Prayer of Comfort for a Friend
Pray this with a particular person in mind, and then send them something. Praying instead of contacting them is the failure mode here.
Lord,
I am bringing You my friend [name], who is going through something I cannot fix and should stop trying to fix.
Comfort them where I cannot reach. Be with them in the early hours, which is when it is worst and when nobody is awake to text.
Send them practical help from people who do not need thanking for it.
And make me a good friend rather than a useful one. Keep me from advice they did not ask for. Let me be able to sit with them in it without needing to make it better so that I feel less uncomfortable.
Amen.
There is a fuller page of prayers of encouragement for someone who needs lifting rather than comforting.
A Prayer of Comfort in Grief and Loss
Grief is not a problem to be solved and this prayer does not treat it as one. If you have lost someone recently, take it slowly, and do not measure yourself against how anybody else is doing.
Merciful God,
[name] is gone and the world has carried on as though that is a reasonable thing to have happened.
Be with me in this. Not to hurry me through it, and not to explain it, but to sit in it with me.
Comfort me in the specific moments: the ones nobody warned me about, the ordinary things that undo me without notice.
Let me talk about them without other people flinching. Let me laugh about them without feeling I have betrayed something.
And hold me on the days when grief comes back at full strength months later and I thought I was past it.
Into Your hands I commend the one I have lost, and myself.
Amen.
There is a fuller page of prayers for the dead, and if grief has settled into something heavier that is not lifting, please speak to your doctor or a counsellor as well as praying.
A Prayer for Comfort and Healing
Lord Jesus,
I am asking for healing, plainly, and I am also asking for comfort in the time before it comes.
Where there is pain, ease it. Where there is fear about what the results will say, quiet it. Guide the people treating me and give them clear sight.
And in the waiting, which is most of it, be near. Let me not spend the whole of this frightened.
Amen.
Fuller pages of prayers for healing and Catholic prayers for healing. Prayer and medical care are not alternatives to each other.
A Prayer for Comfort When You Are Afraid
Lord,
I am frightened, and saying it out loud has not made it smaller.
You are called a stronghold and a strong tower. I am running into that now, because I have nothing better.
Take the fear that is doing nothing useful. Leave me the caution that keeps me sensible, and take the rest.
Where I am afraid for someone else rather than myself, comfort me there too. That is the harder one.
You have not given me a spirit of fear. Remind me of that tonight, when it will be less obvious than it is now.
Amen.
A Catholic Prayer of Consolation
God of compassion,
Look kindly on Your servant in this hour of sorrow.
You did not spare Your own Son from grief, and You stood beside His mother while she watched. You know this from the inside.
Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, comfort of the afflicted, grant me consolation that is not a distraction but a presence.
Give me the grace to accept what I cannot change, the patience to live through what I cannot hurry, and the hope that does not depend on my mood.
Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
Bible Verses of Comfort
These are the passages people return to, and any one of them is worth sending on its own.
Blessed be the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.2 Corinthians 1:3-4
The passage the phrase God of all comfort comes from. Note where it ends up: comfort received is described as comfort to be passed on.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.Psalm 34:18
The verse to send when somebody is at the bottom and anything cheerful would be an insult.
You shall increase my greatness and comfort me on every side.Psalm 71:21
Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Matthew 11:28
An invitation rather than a reward for finishing first.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.Psalm 23:4
Notice it says through. Nothing in the verse suggests the valley is avoided.
You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.Isaiah 26:3
Be strong and courageous. Do not fear, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.Deuteronomy 31:6
Cast all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.1 Peter 5:7
The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.Proverbs 18:10
God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.2 Timothy 1:7
Give me a sign of your goodness, for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.Psalm 86:17
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.Psalm 147:3
A Week of Comfort: Seven Short Prayers
One prayer on a hard day helps. A week of them does something different. If you are in a long stretch rather than a bad afternoon, pray one of these a day, in order, and start again the following Monday for as long as you need to.
Monday, for getting started
Lord, I do not want to begin this week. Go in front of me into it, and let me only have to do today.
Tuesday, for the middle of it
God, nothing has changed since yesterday and I am still here. Meet me in the sameness of this.
Wednesday, for the people around you
Father, bless the ones carrying this alongside me. Give them what I have not had the capacity to give them.
Thursday, for honesty
Lord, I have been pretending to cope. I am telling You the truth now, and I am asking You to take some of it.
Friday, for what is still good
God, show me one thing today that is still whole. I have stopped being able to see them on my own.
Saturday, for rest
Lord, let me stop. Not collapse, stop. Give me rest that reaches the part of me that sleep does not touch.
Sunday, for hope
Father, give me back some expectation. Let me believe, for one day, that this will not always look like this.
Words of Comfort You Can Send Someone
If you came here looking for something to actually write, these are short enough to send as they are. A message sent today beats a better one you never send.
- Praying for you tonight. You do not need to reply to this.
- The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He is near to you.
- I do not have anything wise to say. I am just not going anywhere.
- Asked God to give you comfort tonight and strength tomorrow.
- Thinking of you at 3am as well as at 3pm.
- No need to update me. Still praying, still here.
- I am leaving something on your step Thursday. Do not answer the door.
What not to say
Everything happens for a reason. God needed another angel. At least you had them for as long as you did. They are in a better place. These arrive as explanations when the person needed company, and people remember for years who said them.
How to Pray for Comfort
Say the true thing. If you are angry, or frightened, or have stopped believing this will change, pray that. The Psalms are full of it. A prayer that leaves out the real thing does not last more than a week.
Ask for today only. Comfort for the whole situation is hard to pray for and hard to notice arriving. Comfort for tonight is neither.
Attach it to something you already do. The kettle, the commute, the walk to the car. Prayer that depends on finding spare time does not survive a hard month, and hard months are exactly when this is needed.
Use Scripture when you have no words. Psalm 23 and Psalm 34 were written for this and you do not have to improve on them.
Let other people pray too. Tell somebody. Most people wait far too long, and comfort usually arrives through other human beings.
Do not grade your own praying. Praying badly while distressed still counts. There is no version of this you can fail.
Sending a Prayer for Comfort to Jerusalem
Everything above you can pray where you are, and it counts exactly the same. This part is only if you want it.
Our team is based in Jerusalem, and we take written prayer requests into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the church built over the site of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Your prayer is carried there and prayed by hand. If you ask for a photograph, it is taken in the Chapel of St. Helena, inside the church.
People send prayers for comfort more often than for almost anything else, and usually in someone else’s name. Writing it down and sending it somewhere is, for a lot of people, what turns worrying into having done something.
Questions About Prayers for Comfort
What is a prayer for comfort?
A prayer for comfort asks God to be present in a difficulty rather than to remove it. It is the prayer for the stretch where nothing is resolving yet: grief, illness, fear, the end of something. It usually asks for three things, which are company in it, strength for the next day, and rest.
What is a good short prayer for comfort and strength?
“God of all comfort, comfort me on every side. Give me strength for today only.” It names what you are asking for, keeps the horizon at one day, and is short enough to pray while doing something else. There are ten more in the short prayers section.
What Bible verse gives the most comfort?
Psalm 34:18 is the one most often sent: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” For grief, Psalm 23:4 is the traditional choice, and it is worth noticing that it says walking through the valley rather than around it. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 is where the phrase God of all comfort comes from.
What does it mean that God is the God of all comfort?
It is a title from 2 Corinthians 1:3, where Paul calls God the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. The point of the passage is that comfort is part of God’s character rather than an occasional favour, and that comfort received is meant to be passed on to somebody else in the same position.
How do I comfort someone who is grieving?
Use the person’s name, do not ask a question they have to answer, and offer one specific thing rather than “let me know if you need anything”. Avoid explanations of any kind. Then keep going after the first month, when everyone else stops. There are seven messages you can send as they are further up this page.
Is it selfish to pray for comfort for myself?
No. Scripture is full of people asking God directly for comfort, and a person running on empty has less to offer anyone else. Praying for your own comfort is not a lower form of prayer than praying for someone else’s.
What if I do not feel any comfort after praying?
That is common and it is not evidence that you prayed wrongly. Comfort often arrives later, and usually through other people rather than as a feeling during prayer. Keep praying, tell somebody what you are carrying, and if the heaviness is not lifting at all over weeks, speak to your doctor or a counsellor as well.
More Prayers for Hard Seasons
Prayers of Encouragement Prayers for Strength and Hope Prayers for Hope Prayers for the Dead Prayers for Healing Prayers for Peace of Mind Prayers for Anxiety Prayers for Depression Prayers for Peace Prayers for a Friend Prayers for Our Family Prayers for Sleep Catholic Prayers for Healing Popular and Famous Prayers
Who Writes These Prayers
Unless a prayer is marked as traditional or quoted from Scripture, the prayers on this page are written and reviewed by the Holy Land Prayer team, who carry the prayer requests sent to us into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Read more about Holy Land Prayer.
Last updated 6 October 2026 by the Holy Land Prayer team.
