Prayers for Healing

Most people who look for a prayer for healing are not looking for information. They are standing in a hallway outside a room, or holding a phone that has just delivered news, and they need words because their own have gone. That is what this page is for.

Below are prayers for your own healing and for someone you love, short ones you can say in a breath and longer ones you can sit with, the scriptures Christians have prayed over the sick for two thousand years, and an honest section about what it means to keep praying when healing has not come. Take what you need. You do not have to read it in order.

How to Pray for Healing Short Prayers For Your Own Healing For Someone You Love For the Body For the Mind and Heart Healing Scriptures Prayers to Send When Healing Does Not Come Questions Browse All Prayers

How to Pray for Healing

There is no correct form. Nothing in scripture suggests God is grading the wording. But people who pray for the sick often find four things help.

Say the actual thing. Not “be with her” but “take the tumour out of her lung.” Blind Bartimaeus shouted until people told him to be quiet, and then shouted louder, and Jesus asked him what he wanted him to do, which was a strange question to ask a blind man, unless the asking was the point. Name what you want.

Pray for the person, not just the illness. Fear, exhaustion, and the loneliness of being the patient in a room full of visitors are all part of what needs healing. So is the marriage that is buckling under it and the child who has stopped sleeping.

Pray more than once. Jesus told a story about a widow who wore down a judge by simply refusing to go away, and the point of the story was that this is a reasonable way to treat God. Praying again is not a lack of faith. It is what faith looks like over time.

Pray with other people. James tells the sick to call the elders of the church, not to pray harder alone. Ask someone. Say it out loud to a friend. Being prayed for by another person does something being prayed for at a distance does not.

Short Prayers for Healing

For when you have thirty seconds, or when the long words will not come.

Lord, Heal Me

Lord, heal me.
I have no better words than that.
You made this body and you know what has gone wrong in it.
Put your hand on the place that hurts and make it whole.
Amen.

A Prayer in the Waiting Room

Father, I am sitting here and I cannot do anything.
You can.
Be in that room with them.
Steady the hands that are working.
And steady me out here.
Amen.

A Prayer at Three in the Morning

God, it is the middle of the night and I am afraid.
I am not asking for answers right now.
I am asking you to sit here with me until it is light.
Amen.

A One-Line Prayer for Someone Sick

Lord Jesus, you healed everyone who came to you. Come to them now.
Amen.

A Prayer Before the Appointment

Lord, whatever they tell me today, you already know it.
Go in ahead of me.
Give me courage to hear it and grace to carry it.
Amen.

A Prayer When the Pain Is Bad

Jesus, you know what pain is.
You did not float above it; you felt every hour of it.
So you know what I am asking.
Take this from me, or give me the strength to get through the next hour.
Amen.

Prayers for Your Own Healing

A Prayer After a Diagnosis

Father, I have a word for it now, and it is not the word I wanted.

I do not know how to hold this yet. I keep reaching for the life I had this morning and finding it is not there. So I bring you what I actually have, which is fear and a great deal of confusion.

You are not surprised by this. You knew what the scan would say before it was taken. I am asking you to heal me, fully, in this body, in this life. I am asking plainly and I am not going to dress it up.

And while I wait to see what you will do, hold me steady. Do not let fear be the loudest voice in this house.

Amen.

A Prayer for Complete Healing

Lord God, you are the one who made me, every cell of me, knit together before anyone knew I was coming.

So there is nothing in this body that is unfamiliar to you and nothing that is beyond you. I ask you now for complete healing. Not partial, not managed, not tolerable. Whole.

Work through the medicine and the people treating me. Work in the places medicine cannot reach. Restore what has been taken and rebuild what has been worn down.

I will keep asking until you answer, because you told us to.

Amen.

A Prayer for Strength to Keep Going

God, I am tired in a way sleep does not fix.

This has gone on longer than I thought I could bear, and I have already borne it. I do not have another reserve to reach into. Whatever is next has to come from you.

You promised that those who wait on you would find their strength renewed. I am waiting. I am asking you to make that true today, in an ordinary way, so that I can get up and do what today needs.

Amen.

A Prayer for a Miracle

Lord Jesus, I have read what you did.

You stopped a haemorrhage that twelve years of doctors could not stop. You opened eyes that had never seen. You called a man out of a tomb four days after they buried him. You did not do these things once, in a story; you did them constantly, to ordinary people who had run out of options.

I am asking for one now. I know you are not obliged. I know you are not a machine that dispenses outcomes. But you invited us to ask, so I am asking, and I am asking for the whole thing.

Do what only you can do.

Amen.

A Prayer for Healing and Protection

Father, heal what is wrong and guard what is still well.

Protect the parts of me that are working. Protect my mind from the fear that circles at night. Protect the people around me, who are carrying more than they say.

Be a wall around this house and a hand on this body.

Amen.

A Prayer of Thanks After Recovery

Lord, I am well, and I do not want to walk away from this without saying so.

Ten men were healed and one came back. I do not want to be one of the nine. Thank you for the treatment that worked, for the people who did not give up on me, and for the mornings I now get to have without thinking about any of it.

Let me not forget quickly. Make me useful to the next person standing where I stood.

Amen.

Prayers for Someone You Love

A Prayer for a Sick Friend

Father, my friend is ill and I cannot fix it.

I have brought what I can bring and it is not much. So I am bringing them to you, the way four men once carried their friend up onto a roof and took the roof apart because the door was blocked. That is what I am doing now.

Heal them. Take the illness out. And in the meantime let them feel carried rather than alone.

Amen.

More at prayers for healing a friend.

A Prayer for My Mother

Lord, she looked after me before I could remember it, and now I am the one watching her.

I do not like seeing her small in a hospital bed. It rearranges something in me.

Heal her. Give her back her strength and her appetite and her sharpness. And if there is a hard road here, walk it with her and let her know at every step that she is not by herself.

Amen.

A Prayer for My Father

God, he has never been good at being looked after.

He is frightened and covering it, and I am pretending not to notice because that is what he would want. Cut through all of that. Meet him where he actually is.

Heal his body. Soften whatever he has been holding shut. Let there be honest words between us before this is over, whichever way it goes.

Amen.

A Prayer for My Husband or Wife

Father, we promised each other sickness as well as health, and here it is.

I did not know what I was agreeing to. I am finding out.

Heal them. And hold us together through this, do not let fear and exhaustion turn us into two people managing a situation instead of two people who love each other. Give us patience on the bad days and something to laugh about on the ordinary ones.

Amen.

A Prayer for a Sick Child

Lord Jesus, you took children in your arms and blessed them, and when a father begged you for his daughter you went with him.

I am that parent now.

Heal this child. Take the illness out of that small body. Let them be well and running and ordinary again, complaining about ordinary things.

And give us, their parents, the steadiness to be calm in front of them and somewhere safe to fall apart when we are not.

Amen.

More at prayer for a sick child.

A Prayer for the Whole Family

God, one person is ill and everyone is carrying it.

The children have gone quiet. Someone is doing all the driving. Someone else is holding a job together on no sleep. The whole house is arranged around one bedroom.

Heal the one who is sick. But also strengthen the ones who are standing up. Let no one in this family disappear inside this.

Amen.

A Prayer for the One Doing the Caring

Father, I am so tired, and I feel guilty for saying it, because I am not the one who is ill.

You know what is underneath the tiredness. You know the moments I have wished this were over and how frightened those moments make me.

Do not let me despise myself for being human. Carry me while I carry them. Send someone to help who actually helps. And give me one hour this week that belongs to nobody.

Amen.

Prayers for the Body

A Prayer Before Surgery

Lord, tomorrow I will be handed over to people I barely know and put to sleep.

Steady me tonight. Steady them tomorrow. Guide the hands that will be working and give them clear judgement in the moments the plan changes.

Bring me back. And let me wake to good news.

Amen.

More at prayers for surgery.

A Prayer for Someone in Hospital

Father, hospitals are loud at night and lonely at four in the morning.

Be in that room. 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 for Recovery

Lord, the worst is behind and this part is slower than I imagined.

Knit the tissue. Settle the inflammation. Give back the strength an inch at a time and keep me from measuring today against who I was a year ago.

Thank you that I am here to be impatient about it.

Amen.

A Prayer for Chronic Illness

God, this is not an emergency any more. It is my life.

There is no date on the calendar when it ends, and most people stopped asking about it a long time ago. That is the part nobody warns you about.

I still ask you to heal me. I am not going to stop asking. But I also ask you for the thing I need every single day, which is enough grace for this day only, not for the whole road ahead, which I cannot look at.

And let me still be a person, not a condition.

Amen.

A Prayer to Ease Pain

Lord, pain is loud. It crowds out everything else, including you.

Turn it down. Let the medicine work. Give me one stretch of hours where I can think about something other than my own body.

And where the pain stays, be in it with me.

Amen.

A Prayer for the Doctors and Nurses

Father, bless the people looking after us.

Give them sharp eyes for what is easy to miss and steady hands when it matters. Keep them from becoming numb. Let them go home to something good tonight.

Amen.

Prayers for the Mind and Heart

A Prayer for Emotional Healing

Father, some of what is broken in me does not show on any scan.

It is older than this year. It shapes how I flinch and what I expect from people and what I believe about myself when nobody is watching.

You bind up the broken-hearted. That is the actual promise. So bind this. Go back to where it started and heal it properly, not just quietly enough that I can function.

Amen.

A Prayer for Peace When Fear Takes Over

Lord, fear has got hold of me and it does not listen to reason.

I have told myself all the sensible things. It made no difference. So I am handing it to you instead of arguing with it.

Guard my mind. Give me the peace you promised, the kind that does not depend on the situation making sense yet.

Amen.

A Prayer in Depression

God, I know you are there. I cannot feel it, and I have stopped expecting to.

Everything is heavy and grey and far away. Getting through today is the whole task.

Do not wait for me to feel something before you come. Come now, into the flat and colourless place. Send help through people, through treatment, through whatever ordinary means you like. Lift this.

Amen.

If you are struggling badly, please also tell a doctor or someone you trust. Prayer and treatment are not rivals. God works through both.

A Prayer for a Broken Heart

Lord, this hurts in a physical way I did not know grief could.

I keep going over it looking for the moment it could have gone differently.

Be near. You are said to be close to the broken-hearted and I am asking you to prove it. Heal this slowly and properly. Do not let it harden into something that makes me smaller.

Amen.

A Prayer for Healing in a Relationship

Father, there is damage between us and neither of us knows how to start.

Soften both of us. Show me my part honestly, not the version where I come out well. Give one of us the courage to speak first.

Heal what can be healed, and where it cannot, give us grace.

Amen.

Healing Scriptures to Pray

These are the verses Christians have prayed over the sick for centuries. Each one is paired with a short prayer you can pray straight out of it.

“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.”. Jeremiah 17:14

Lord, I am not asking anyone else. You are the one who heals. Heal me, and I will be healed. Amen.

“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him.”. James 5:14

Father, I do not want to do this on my own. Give me the humility to ask people to pray, and give me people who will. Amen.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul… who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction.”. Psalm 103:2–4

Lord, remind me what you have already done. You have brought me through things I thought would finish me. Do it again. Amen.

“But he was wounded for our transgressions… and with his stripes we are healed.”. Isaiah 53:5

Jesus, you took this into your own body. Nothing I am carrying is unfamiliar to you. Amen.

“For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord.”. Jeremiah 30:17

Father, you said restore. I am holding you to your own word. Amen.

“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”. Psalm 147:3

Lord, the part of this that does not show is the part I need you for most. Bind it up. Amen.

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee… I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee.”. Isaiah 41:10

God, when fear arrives tonight, be louder than it. Amen.

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength… they shall run, and not be weary.”. Isaiah 40:31

Lord, I have nothing left of my own. Renew it. Amen.

“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages… healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”. Matthew 9:35

Jesus, you turned nobody away. Do not start with me. Amen.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”. Matthew 11:28

Lord, I am worn out. I am coming. Give me the rest you promised. Amen.

Prayers You Can Send Someone

Short enough to put in a message, a card, or a text at the moment you hear the news. Use them as they are or change the words.

Praying for you today, that God would put his hand on you, take the illness out, and give you an easy night. You are not going through this alone.

Lord, be with my friend today. Heal what is wrong, quiet what is frightening, and let them feel carried. Amen.

Thinking of you before your appointment. Praying for good news, steady hands, and peace while you wait.

May the Lord bless you and keep you; may he make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; may he lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

You are being prayed for by name today. God has not lost track of you and neither have we.

Father, my friend is tired of being ill. Give them one good day. Amen.

When Healing Does Not Come

Most pages of prayers stop before this. It is worth saying plainly, because if you are reading it you probably already know it: not everybody is healed.

Christians have always known this and have not always been honest about it. Paul asked three times for something to be taken away and it was not taken away. Timothy was told to take wine for a recurring stomach complaint rather than being cured of it. Jesus himself asked, in a garden, for a cup to pass from him, and it did not pass. The prayer was refused, by a Father who loved him, and it was still the right prayer to have prayed.

So praying and not being healed is not evidence that you prayed wrongly, or that you did not believe hard enough, or that something is being withheld as a punishment. That idea causes real damage and it is not in the text. The man born blind was asked directly whose sin caused it, and the answer was neither.

Keep asking. Ask for the whole thing, plainly, right up to the end if that is where this goes. And ask for the other things too, for the fear to lift, for the pain to be manageable, for the days that remain to be good ones, for the people around you to be held. Those are not consolation prizes. They are healing of a kind, and they are given far more often than people admit.

A Prayer When Treatment Is Not Working

Father, this is not going the way we asked.

I do not know what to do with that. I have prayed properly and other people have prayed and here we are.

I am not letting go of the asking. Heal this. But I am also asking for what I need if you do not: courage, and the absence of panic, and something to hold on to that is not an outcome.

Do not be distant now.

Amen.

A Prayer When You Are Angry With God

God, I am angry with you, and I have been pretending not to be.

The Psalms are full of people shouting at you, so I assume you can take it. How long will you forget me? Why does this look like silence?

I am bringing it here rather than letting it go cold and quiet somewhere else. That is the most faith I have today.

Amen.

A Prayer for Someone Near the End

Lord, we asked for healing and we are not going to unsay it.

Now I ask you for this: let them go without fear. Let there be no pain that cannot be reached. Let the people who love them have the words they need while there is still time to say them.

And when it comes, meet them at the door. You have gone through it yourself and come back. Do not let them be alone for one moment of it.

Amen.

Questions About Praying for Healing

Does God still heal people today?

Christians overwhelmingly believe so, and pray accordingly. Healing in scripture comes through several channels (sudden and unexplained, gradual, and through ordinary medicine and care) and there is no suggestion that any of these is less God’s doing than the others. Luke, who recorded more healings than any other gospel writer, was a physician.

How should I pray for someone who is sick?

Name them, name the illness, and ask directly for it to be healed. Then pray for the rest of it: their fear, their exhaustion, the people looking after them, the medical team. Pray more than once. If you can, pray with them rather than only about them. James 5 assumes prayer for the sick is something done in person and out loud.

Why hasn’t God healed me yet?

Scripture does not answer this, and anyone who claims a confident answer is going beyond the text. What it does rule out is the two explanations people reach for first: that unhealed illness is punishment, and that it means your faith was insufficient. Jesus rejected the first explicitly, and Paul, who healed others, lived with something that was never taken away. Keep asking. Delay is not refusal, and refusal is not abandonment.

Is it wrong to pray for healing and also take medicine?

No. The two have never been in competition in Christian practice. Paul told Timothy to take something for his stomach. Hospitals in the Western world were largely a Christian invention, built by people who prayed for the sick and treated them in the same building. Ask God to work through the treatment.

What is the most powerful prayer for healing?

Nothing in scripture suggests some words work better than others. The prayers that got results in the gospels were mostly short and unpolished, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,” or a father saying “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Power is not in the phrasing. Say the plainest version of what you want.

Can I ask other people to pray for me?

Yes, and scripture treats it as the normal thing to do rather than a last resort. Being prayed for by name, by people who know your situation, is one of the oldest practices in the church.

More Prayers for Healing

Deeper pages for particular situations:

• Prayers for cancer, diagnosis, waiting for results, treatment, caregivers, and the hardest stretches
• Prayers for the sick, for anyone who is unwell, at home or in hospital
• Prayer for a sick child, for parents sitting up at night
• Prayers for surgery, before, during and after an operation
• Prayers for healing a friend, when you want to carry someone and cannot
• Catholic prayers for healing, traditional prayers, novenas and the saints invoked for the sick
• Miracle prayers, for when medicine has run out of answers
• Prayers for strength, for the long middle of a hard season
• Prayers for comfort, for grief and for the days after bad news
• Prayers for anxiety, for the fear that arrives at three in the morning
• Prayers for the dead, for those we have lost