I read a poem yesterday about prayer that made it seem like prayer was an empty gesture. I can totally understand how this might seem like it. For example, several years ago, my cousin was dying of kidney disease. I hadn’t seen her in years. I didn’t think she wanted anything to do with me. However, she remained in contact with my mother. My mother was constantly calling me up and telling me all about my cousin’s problems. There wasn’t anything I could do about them, but my mom wanted me to say I felt sorry for her. I couldn’t understand why it would help for me to pity someone I couldn’t help and who I hadn’t seen in years.
In the same sense, I can understand how when a tragedy happens half a world away and people say the victims are in their thoughts and prayers, it really doesn’t make much difference to those people who were victims. If we really cared about the victims, then we would take action to help them. I don’t know what happens with other people and I can’t compare my life to theirs. I only know what has happened in my life. I know that I feel overwhelmed by all the world’s problems, and I don’t think I can fix all of them. So, I don’t try to fix all of them. I try to do what I can, when I can. When something bad happens in the world, I do feel sad, but it doesn’t really can my thoughts and prayers, because I know people are dying and hurting every day. I know that I just don’t know about it because it isn’t reported on the news. However, with billions of people on the earth, there’s thousands of people dying, thousands of people being murdered, thousand of people being tortured, thousands of people being raped, thousands of peopled going hungry and thousands of people suffering from atrocities that I can’t even imagine. I don’t need the news to tell me that. I feel it in my body and in my heart all the time. And yes, I pray. I pray because if I didn’t that knowledge would overwhelm me, and I wouldn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I would be so scared of the world, I wouldn’t want to leave my house. I pray because it doesn’t change God, it changes me. I gives me the courage to face the world knowing that as bad as it can get, I will be okay because God will be with me. I know some of the bad things that can happen, but if I just believe, I know miracles beyond my imagination can happen, too. And as long as I kept praying, I might just get enough strength and hope from God to be able to continue on this long journey that we call life.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
