You Can Save Your Prayers as Far as I’m Concerned
Sorry But Not Really Sorry
A few years ago, I awoke to the news that four children between the ages of 1 and 7 years old had died in a fire in my hometown. The fire broke out in a trailer. There were four adults present as well. All were injured and sent to the hospital.
What a way to start a morning.
I was physically ill from the news. I’m sure people all over town offered prayers for the victims. It was a heartbreaking, horrific, and totally unexpected disaster — the kind that takes your breath away and leaves you feeling terribly vulnerable.
Deep inside, we all knew that it could’ve been YOU or ME.
On cue, the prayers ascend, but so often, our prayers are after the fact. We are forced to pray to our gods to comfort survivors, heal those who are injured, and help see them through a deadly situation. Afterwards, we wait for HUMANS to step in and take care of the situation. Thankfully, in most communities, someone usually does. Whether it’s doctors who save lives thanks to their skills in the operating room or communities that donate money, food, and services to help the victims, people tend to offer a helping hand.
Thank you!
Recently, I read a comment on Facebook from a person who made reference to the Almighty Doctor From Above being present in an operating room of a loved one undergoing a very delicate surgery. The earthly doctor’s name wasn’t mentioned. I’m glad to know that the operation was a success regardless of who gets the credit for it, but I can’t help but ask this question: if an operation is botched, who should get sued? God or Doctor No Name?
I grew up on prayer.
My parents and grandparents often stormed the gates of heaven with prayers. Prayer is definitely an all-American pastime. There are all types of prayers, too — from praying for advice and direction to praying to be healed, to praying to be blessed. If there’s a god, I don’t see how she can ever get a good night’s sleep.
Praying seems like begging to me. I know most people mean well when they say that they’re praying for me, but it still aggravates me. I try not to show it and generally say thank you, but it still rubs me the wrong way. Prayer seems like a whiny little baby activity to engage in and accomplishes nothing. So you prayed that God would keep you safe while you hid in your basement from an angry tornado, and miraculously, it skipped your house and hit your neighbor’s instead.
Praise God? Really? I mean…really?
My mom prayed for YEARS that her god would heal three of her kids and three of her grandkids from a genetic eye disorder inherited from her side of the family. Retinitis pigmentosa is a cruel disease affecting the eyes. It tends to be progressive and leaves a person with very compromised vision. Peripheral vision is almost nonexistent. It’s like looking at the world through a tunnel that keeps getting narrower through the years.
My mom was born with it, but no one knew much about it back in the day. Eventually, after she was grown, she finally got an explanation for what ailed her. Later in life, when she better understood how heredity affects your offspring, she suffered from feelings of guilt.
So she prayed.
Granted, my mom prayed about everything. If she lost her car keys or a friend lost a job, she always asked her god to intervene. “Please, please, please help me find my car keys, God.”
When she found them, I could hear her from the other room saying, “Thank you, Jesus.” Apparently, Jesus had the time to locate her car keys but was too busy to heal the eyes of even one of her kids. Nope! To this day, my two brothers and one sister deal with hereditary vision loss.
Volunteering to pray seems like a waste of time.
If I’m facing a challenge in life, I don’t rely on prayer to fix a thing. Yet, I’ve met so many people, like my mom, who offer to pray for me. Somehow, even though they haven’t lifted a finger to help me solve a problem, they feel like they’ve been helpful.
And if, by chance, things do work out, they feel smug and give their god all of the credit. You can forget about the doctor who administered top-shelf treatments or the person who gave me a ride to and from the hospital. Jesus gets all the praise.
Thank you, Jesus.
I never felt comfortable praying for ANYTHING for myself. Yet, I’ve heard people pray for a promotion, a new car, a new house, a vacation, even that their favorite team would win the playoffs. Without a hint of shame, they smile and proclaim that they’re blessed.
Ugh!
So, your god gave you a new car, but he still won’t fix my sibling’s eyes. What an ass. And you have the gall to brag about it. You’re a bigger ass than your god. Sorry, it’s just a sore spot with me.
Clearly, these gods that people are constantly begging to help them must not be very compassionate. If I had all that power, I don’t think I could watch my sister trying to find her way into a crowded room, constantly fearful that she’ll run into something or someone she can’t see. It hurts me to watch her, and I’m just a mere mortal.
Yet, my mother’s prayers weren’t able to move her god to lift an almighty finger.
The whole public declaration of prayer on social media makes me depressed, too. Someone gets bombed, and the comment section is inundated with prayers. Another mass shooting? More prayers. Hospitals are full of COVID patients, and we pray, pray, pray some more. It’s an insult to those in pain, and it makes the gods look bad.
Stop it already.
There are no words, not even words uttered in a prayer, that properly express the horror of that fire or alleviate the suffering caused by such a tragic event.
I think in the end, prayer may very well be the most deceitful thing we can do. It makes us think we’ve done something so that we can sleep a little better at night. We’re deceiving ourselves into a false sense of security while making empty promises.
We might as well tell someone like my sister that we’ll mix a magic potion from two parts wild ginger and one part eye of newt and then feed it to a raven at dawn.
That’s bound to fix her problem. Right?
Teresa is an author and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
