“I’m praying for you.”
“My thoughts and prayers are with. . .”
“We’re keeping them in our prayers.”
That isn't good enough.
Thoughts and prayers are a fine place to start when trying to comfort someone, but that shouldn't be all you do.
I’m sure most people mean well when they offer thoughts and prayers, but thoughts and prayers can’t do anything. It’s a simple sentiment that offers the speaker false empowerment.
If you want a better world, you have to work for it. No amount of hoping and praying is going to magically accomplish your goal.
The only way thoughts and prayers will ever truly affect change is if the sentiment inspires people to act — which they easily could have done in the first place.
Some people really believe in the power of prayers, and that’s great, but that should not be the only thing you have to offer in times of crisis. Thoughts and prayers are a lazy response. While someone else struggles with something, you do nothing.
The offer of thoughts and prayers isn’t just lazy; it’s insulting. Someone has just opened up about a challenge in their life, and the best you can come up with is “thoughts and prayers?” Offering to pray for someone makes certain people feel like they’re really doing something when in reality all they’re doing is hoping for a change in circumstance, which is the exact same thing the person who is having the problem is doing.
If you truly want to comfort someone, offer them your time and service.
Make them a casserole.
Offer to help them complete their tasks.
Take action.
Just listen to them vent.
You don’t have to do anything elaborate. All of the things I just listed are infinitely more poignant to someone going through a tough time than the promise that you’re just going speak a wish for their recovery into thin air.
When it comes down to it, the answer to anything and everything that warrants thoughts and prayers is action. Someone might “need” thoughts and prayers over something simple, but their situation might call for more drastic action.
Neil deGrasse Tyson said it best when he tweeted, “Evidence collected over many years, obtained from many locations, indicates that the power of Prayer is insufficient to stop bullets from killing school children.”
And to be honest, the power of prayer seems insufficient at accomplishing anything. Some might feel that events only took place because enough people prayed for something to happen, but the fact of the matter is that people only took action for anything because they chose to cast off their laziness and work for change instead of hope for it.
Thoughts and prayers will not stop school shootings, but vigilant action will.
Thoughts and prayers will not stop disease, but treatment and medication will.
Thoughts and prayers will not help someone recover from trauma, but authentic sympathy — not sympathy cheapened with the lazy absolution of thoughts and prayers — will help them recover so much better than a simply prayer will.
So next time tragedy strikes, instead of just offering thoughts and prayers — something no more powerful than the breath it took to say — offer action as well.
