Thoughts and Prayers

Over the last couple of months, I have been helping a new friend edit a book about surviving Chemotherapy. Beyond the Infusion was researched and then written in response to his mom’s struggle with breast cancer. While we were working on the book, a few friends have reached out to let me know about their own fights with cancer. And I hate cancer more and more each year.

But I’m not writing today about cancer. I am writing about prayer.

I wish I could be there with my friends, offering help and shoulders, tears and encouragement. Believe me, I am feeling the weight from thousands of miles away. And all I can do from the Central Coast of California is to offer the cliched “thoughts and prayers.”

That’s an interesting phrase, “thoughts and prayers.” It has become a throw-away phrase tossed at situations without much care or concern. I hear people say the phrase to men when I know good well that they are offering no thought and no prayer past them mention of those three words. For others, it’s a complacent way to be connected without any commitment. For others (a very small group,) it does indeed mean that thoughts and prayers will contain the situation at hand.

I’ve thought about “thoughts and prayers” quite a bit lately. It contains both a religious and irreligious notion. “Thoughts” from the people who are not the praying type. It’s similar to the phrase “I’m sending good energy your way.” Like, just thinking about it will help in some way. Oh that my thoughts we that powerful! (Or maybe, I’m glad they are not!) But, for the religious people, prayers can move mountains. Prayer makes the blind see and the lame walk. The alcoholic puts their drink down and the wayward return home. But I do wonder if that expectation is there when “thoughts and prayers” are mentioned…

“Thoughts and prayers” unite the two camps in a single phrase that has unfortunately become trite.

But when distance separates us from actively helping those we care about, thoughts and prayers are just about all we have to offer.

For my friends who are struggling with cancer, I do offer my thoughts and prayers. But here’s what that means for me… Each time they are in my thoughts, I will pray. I won’t stop at “I wonder how so-and-so is doing.” It’s not enough to think, “It sucks that they have to deal with this.” Instead, when those friends come to mind, I will go to God with my concerns. I will complain that disease even exists, I will make sure God know that these are people He loves, and I will plead with God to fix the situation. I will ask for cancer to be healed. I will ask that His peace and His presence will be unavoidable in the midst of the battle. And I will thank Him for bringing them to my mind so I can pray for them.

That’s what I mean when I say my “thoughts and prayers” are with someone. That every time they are in my thoughts, they will be in my prayers just a second later. The two will go hand in hand.

There is much that occupies our minds. We spend a lot of time thinking about things, arguing about things, worrying about things. So much so, that we often seek distractions to shut off our thoughts. Thoughts are not the problem. Or the solution. But what if the things that occupy our thoughts also occupied our prayers? What if we spent as much time praying for our politicians as we do complaining about them? What if our fears were prayed for more than fretted? What if I prayed for the neighbor who irritates me as much as I complained about them?

When our thoughts and our prayers collide in this way, things change. But don’t be surprised if the biggest change occurs in the way we think and the way we pray. Because prayer often changes the pray-er before we see the results we are wishing for when we say, “thoughts and prayers.”