"I cannot do this alone"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer from a concentration camp:

O God, early in the morning I cry to you. Help me to pray,     and to concentrate my thoughts on you: I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness, But with you there is light; I am lonely,     but you do not leave me; I am feeble in heart,     but with you there is help; I am restless,     but with you there is peace. In me there is bitterness,     but with you there is patience; I do not understand your ways,     but you know the way for me...

Restore me to liberty, And enable me so to live now     that I may answer before you and before me. Lord, whatever this day may bring, Your name be praised.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFEP, 1906-1945, was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian. Involved in the Confessing Church and anti-Nazi activities in wartime Germany, he was arrested in 1943. For two years be was held in a variety of prisons and concentration ramps. On 9 April 1945 be was hanged in Flossenburg concentration camp by the personal order of Heinrich Himmler.

Prayers of the Martyrs, Eerdmans, 1991.