“From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint;
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
— Psalm 61:2
Some days I want to be carried.
There are times in prayer when I don’t want a solution or a sign. I don’t want to be told everything will be okay. I just want to be picked up and placed gently somewhere higher—somewhere with solid ground underfoot. That’s what the psalmist seems to be saying here. I can’t do it from where I am. You’ll need to lift me.
It’s not a cry of defeat, though. It’s something more honest. A confession from the middle of the overwhelm: My heart is faint. My reach isn’t enough. Lift me.
I’ve prayed this line of the psalm while hunched on the floor of my room, unable to find a place in the world that feels soft enough to hold me. I’ve prayed it at night when my body won’t stop shaking, and the fear of being too much—or not enough—won’t let me rest.
But the rock is higher than me.
Not just stronger, not just safer—but higher. Out of reach, unless I am helped there. That’s what makes this prayer so beautiful to me. It’s not a psalm about climbing. It’s a psalm about being carried.
There are people in the Church who live this psalm without ever naming it. The carers who have no more to give, but still show up. The neurodiverse people who want to join in but can’t find a way the world will let them. The quietly faithful ones who never feel like they belong in the front row of anything. The tired priest. The over-questioning student. The lonely old woman in the pew who knows every word of Compline by heart.
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
This isn’t a verse about victory—it’s about shelter. And maybe that’s what we need more of. Not bravado. Not “doing better.” But an honesty that says: I need a rock, and I can’t get there alone.
That’s the work of God I’m trusting in these days. The God who lifts. Who steadies. Who leads us, not to the path of self-sufficiency, but to the rock that is bigger, better, and beyond us. The rock we couldn’t reach, but somehow still find ourselves standing on.
And maybe, just maybe, we are also sometimes called to be the ones who lift others toward that place—quietly, faithfully, without ever making it about us.
This is not a prayer about winning.
It’s a prayer about not falling.
And that, too, is holy.
Brother Margaret Thomas,
I think it's important to let you know how much you lift me up with all of your writings, and I'm sure there are others like me who would say the same. Thank you for your beautiful prayer today.
Thank you, I am needing this prayer a few times a day and everyday the moment 🙏