Prayers for Healing a Friend
Most of the time when a friend is going through something, you are not in the room. You heard it in a message. You are at work, or three hundred miles away, or standing in a kitchen holding a phone and not knowing what to type back. That is who this page is for.
Below are prayers for a friend who is ill, in hospital, grieving, or simply having the worst year of their life, plus a section on what to actually say to them, and a set of short prayers written so you can send them straight to your friend rather than only praying them about your friend.
Short Prayers A Friend Who Is Ill In Hospital A Friend With Cancer A Hard Time A Grieving Friend When You Are Far Away What to Say Prayers to Send Bible Verses Questions Browse All Prayers
Short Prayers for a Friend
For the moment you read the message and do not know what to do with yourself.
A Short Prayer for a Friend
Lord, be with [name] today.
Heal what is wrong. Quiet what is frightening.
And let them feel carried.
Amen.
A Prayer the Moment You Hear
God, I have just read something I was not ready for.
Go to them now, before I have worked out what to say.
Amen.
A One-Line Prayer for a Sick Friend
Lord Jesus, you healed everyone who came to you. Come to my friend. Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Who Is Struggling
Father, my friend is not all right and is telling everyone that they are.
Meet them underneath the answer they keep giving.
Amen.
A Prayer When You Do Not Know What They Need
Lord, I do not know what to ask for on their behalf.
You know. Give them that.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Tonight
God, give my friend one good night’s sleep.
Just one. They are running on nothing.
Amen.
Prayers for a Friend Who Is Ill
A Prayer for Healing for a Friend
Father, my friend is ill and there is nothing useful I can do about it.
So I am doing the one thing I can. I am bringing them to you by name, the way four men once carried their friend up onto a roof and took the roof apart because the door was blocked. They could not heal him either. They could only get him to you.
Heal them. Take the illness out of them completely, not managed, not tolerable, gone.
And until you do, let them feel carried rather than alone. Let them have people who are still turning up in month six, when the meals have stopped arriving and everyone else has gone back to their own lives.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Waiting for Test Results
Lord, the answer already exists and my friend does not know it yet.
You do.
Let the news be good. And in the meantime hold them through the days where nothing happens and the mind fills the gap with everything.
Get them to the phone call.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend in Pain
Father, pain is loud and it crowds out everything else, including you.
Turn it down for them. Let the medicine work. Give them one stretch of hours where they can think about something that is not their own body.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend With a Long Illness
God, this stopped being news a long time ago, and that is the hard part.
People asked constantly for the first month. Now nobody asks. My friend is still living it every single day.
Heal them; I am not going to stop asking for that. And keep me from being one of the people who forgot.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Who Is Getting Better
Lord, thank you. They are on the way back.
Keep it going. Rebuild their strength and their confidence, which took a worse beating than anyone realises.
Amen.
Prayers for a Friend in Hospital
A Prayer for a Friend in Hospital
Father, they are in a bed with a number on it, in a building that never goes properly dark.
Be in that room tonight. Let them sleep. Send a nurse with a kind face. Let the tests come back better than anyone expected.
And bring them home.
Amen.
A Prayer Before Visiting a Friend
Lord, I am about to walk in there and I do not know what I am going to find.
Give me a steady face and the right amount of words. Keep me from filling the silence with things that make me feel better and them feel worse.
Let my being there help rather than cost them.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Having Surgery
God, my friend goes in tomorrow.
Be with them tonight while they cannot sleep. Be in that theatre in the morning, guide every hand in the room. Bring them out of it well.
Amen.
More at prayers for surgery.
Prayers for a Friend With Cancer
A Prayer for a Friend With Cancer
Lord, my friend has cancer and I keep not knowing what to say.
I say the wrong thing, or I say nothing because I am afraid of saying the wrong thing, and both feel like failing them.
Heal them. That is the main thing and the whole thing. Take it out of them completely.
And show me how to be useful. Not dramatic. Useful. Let me be the one who still texts in month seven when everyone else has gone quiet.
Amen.
A Prayer Through a Friend’s Treatment
Father, they are in the long middle now.
The shock has worn off and the sympathy has thinned out and there are still months of this.
Renew their strength, today, in that body, enough to get through this week. And let the treatment be doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing, even on the days when all they can feel is the cost of it.
Amen.
More at prayers for cancer.
Prayers for a Friend Going Through a Hard Time
A Prayer for a Friend in a Hard Season
God, my friend is having the worst year of their life and it is not one thing, it is everything at once.
They have run out of the energy it takes to be hopeful. They are getting through days rather than living them.
Carry them. Send something good this week, small is fine, it does not have to be the big thing. Let one door open.
And do not let them disappear quietly while everyone assumes they are coping.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Who Is Depressed
Lord, my friend has gone flat and far away and I cannot reach them.
I do not know how much to push and how much to leave alone. Show me.
Come into the grey place. Do not wait for them to feel something first. Send help through people and through treatment and through whatever ordinary means you like.
Lift this.
Amen.
If you are worried about a friend’s safety, say so to them plainly and help them reach a doctor or a crisis line. Praying and getting help are not alternatives.
A Prayer for a Friend Who Has Lost Their Job
Father, it is not only the money. It is what it did to how they see themselves.
Provide, genuinely and soon. Open a door they have not thought of.
And in the meantime protect their dignity, and keep the people around them from asking how the job hunt is going every single time.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Whose Marriage Is Failing
Lord, my friend’s marriage is coming apart and I am watching from the outside.
I do not know the whole story and I am not going to pretend I do. You do.
Heal what can be healed. Where it cannot, be with them in it, and let them come out of this without becoming somebody harder.
And make me a friend who listens rather than one who takes a side.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Fighting an Addiction
Lord, my friend is fighting something that keeps winning, and I have watched them try before.
I do not want to become somebody who has given up on them. I also do not know how to help without making it worse.
Give them one more beginning, and make this one hold. Put the right person in front of them, a doctor, a group, someone who has walked out of this themselves and can say so.
Keep them safe tonight.
And take the shame off them, because shame has never once helped anybody stop.
Amen.
If a friend is struggling with addiction, the most useful things are usually the unspectacular ones: staying in touch, being honest with them, and helping them reach a doctor or a support service when they are ready.
A Prayer for a Friend Who Has Stopped Believing
God, they used to pray and now they do not, and I do not think it was an argument. I think something hurt them.
Go after them. Not through me pushing; you know how that would land. In your own way and your own time.
And in the meantime let me be an actual friend rather than a project manager.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Who Is Exhausted
Father, they are looking after everybody and nobody is looking after them.
Hold them up. Send help that is actually help. Give them one hour this week that belongs to nobody.
Amen.
Prayers for a Grieving Friend
A Prayer for a Friend Who Has Lost Someone
Lord, my friend has lost someone and there is no version of this I can fix.
Be close. You are said to be near the broken-hearted; be near now, in the specific way they need and not the general way.
Get them through the arrangements, and then get them through the week after the funeral, when everyone has gone home and the house is quiet and that is when it actually starts.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend on a Hard Anniversary
Father, today is the date and everyone else has forgotten.
Be with them today. And thank you that I remembered, let me not be the only one.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Grieving Something Nobody Names
A miscarriage, a diagnosis that ended a plan, a life that did not turn out the way it was supposed to.
God, my friend is grieving something that does not get a funeral.
Nobody sent flowers. There is no day off work for this. But it is a real loss and they are carrying it on their own.
See it. Sit with them in it. And let them know it is allowed to hurt this much.
Amen.
When You Are Far Away
Almost every page of prayers for a friend assumes you are nearby. Most of the time you are not, and being at a distance is its own particular helplessness.
A Prayer When You Cannot Be There
God, they are going through it and I am four hundred miles away being no use to anyone.
You are already there. You do not need me in the room to act.
So do for them what I would do if I could be standing next to them. And show me the thing I actually can do from here, because I would rather do something small than nothing at all.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend You Have Drifted From
Lord, I heard about it secondhand, because we have not spoken properly in two years.
I do not know if I have the right to turn up now. But I am praying for them anyway, and you do not need my standing to be good to them.
Heal them. And if there is a way back to being friends, open it, without making their crisis about me.
Amen.
A Prayer for a Friend Moving Away
Father, they are going, and the ordinary everyday version of this friendship is ending even though we will both say it is not.
Go with them. Give them people there. And give us both the effort it takes to keep something alive across a distance.
Amen.
A Prayer When Praying Feels Like Not Enough
Lord, I keep saying I am praying for them and part of me feels like that is a way of doing nothing.
Teach me it is not. And then make me do the other things as well.
Amen.
What to Say to a Friend Who Is Going Through Something
Praying is the easy half. The hard half is the message you are trying to write. A few things worth knowing.
Send something rather than nothing. Most people say nothing because they are afraid of getting it wrong, and the silence is louder than an imperfect message would have been. Almost nobody remembers a slightly awkward text. Everybody remembers who did not write.
Say less than you think. “I am so sorry. I am not going anywhere” is better than a paragraph. You are not required to make it make sense.
Take the reply out of it. Add “no need to reply” and mean it. A person in the middle of something has an inbox full of obligations and yours does not need to be one.
Avoid the four that land badly. Stories about someone else who had the same thing. Explanations of why this might be happening or what it might be teaching them. Anything beginning “at least.” And “let me know if you need anything,” which quietly hands them a job.
Offer something specific instead. “I am dropping dinner round on Thursday, leave the porch light on” asks nothing of them. Name a thing, name a day, then do it.
Follow their lead. If they want to talk about the illness, talk about it. If they want to talk about football, talk about football. Do not drag them somewhere for your own comfort in either direction.
Then keep going. The messages arrive in a flood for two weeks and stop. Put a reminder in your phone for six weeks out. Being the person who is still there in month three is worth more than anything you write in week one.
Prayers You Can Send Your Friend
Every prayer above is addressed to God about your friend. These are written the other way round, to your friend, short enough to paste into a message. Change the words freely.
Praying for you today. Not the vague kind, actually by name, this morning. No need to reply.
May God give you an easy night, a kind nurse, and better news than anyone expected.
Thinking of you. Asking God to carry the part of this you cannot carry yourself.
May the Lord bless you and keep you; may he make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; may he give you peace.
You are being prayed for by name today. God has not lost track of you and neither have I.
No advice, no questions, nothing you have to answer. Just praying for you, and I am not going anywhere.
Praying you get one good day this week. You are owed about forty of them.
I know it has gone quiet from everyone else. It has not gone quiet from me. Still praying.
Bible Verses for a Friend
Short enough to put at the end of a message. All from the King James Version.
“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”. Proverbs 17:17
“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”. Galatians 6:2
“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”. Psalm 34:18
“Two are better than one… for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.”. Ecclesiastes 4:9–10
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”. John 15:13
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.”. James 5:16
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.”. Psalm 55:22
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”. Psalm 46:1
“There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”. Proverbs 18:24
Questions
What is a good prayer for a sick friend?
The one that uses their name and asks for the actual thing. “Lord, heal [name], take this out of them, and let them sleep tonight” is a complete prayer. Then pray for the parts they are unlikely to mention: the fear, the boredom, the person looking after them, and the loneliness of being the ill one in a room full of visitors.
How do I pray for a friend when I do not know what they need?
Say exactly that. Paul writes that we often do not know what to pray for and that the Spirit carries the request the rest of the way. “God, I do not know what to ask for here; you know, give them that” is not a lesser prayer. It is one of the oldest ones there is.
Should I tell my friend I am praying for them?
Usually yes, and keep it short. “Praying for you, no need to reply” costs them nothing. Be careful only where you know it would land as pressure rather than care, if a friend has walked away from faith, praying quietly and turning up practically will do more than telling them.
What do you say to a friend going through a hard time?
Less than you think, and nothing that requires an answer. Avoid stories about other people, explanations of what it might mean, and anything starting “at least.” Replace “let me know if you need anything” with something specific you will actually do on a named day. And write again in six weeks, when everyone else has stopped.
Can I pray for a friend without them knowing?
Yes, and Christians have always done it. A prayer said in a car park counts exactly the same as one said at a bedside.
Does praying for a friend actually do anything?
Christians pray for each other because scripture treats it as the ordinary thing friends do. James tells believers plainly to pray for one another. It is also worth saying that praying and helping are not alternatives. The men who carried their friend to Jesus did the carrying themselves.
More Prayers
Deeper pages for particular situations:
- Prayers for the sick, for when you are actually at the bedside
- Prayers for healing, written for the person who is ill themselves
- Prayers for cancer, diagnosis, waiting for results, treatment, caregivers
- Prayers for surgery, before, during and after an operation
- Prayers for comfort, for grief and the days after bad news
- Prayers for anxiety, for the fear that arrives at three in the morning
- Prayers for strength, for the long middle of a hard season
- Prayers for the dead, for those we have lost
- Miracle prayers, when medicine has run out of answers
