I hear it all the time and I’m sure you do also. “I’ll pray for you”. “You are in my prayers”, or just “prayers” that something turns out the way someone thinks it should.
While these are always welcome gestures, these prayers, I often wonder. Will someone actually sit down and pray? Is this another way of saying “With you, girl”? Or, as I do sometimes suspect, does it make the offerer feel better that they have made a difference or can affect an outcome when perhaps they can not?
Or maybe all the above, and more?
People come into my space and say we will pray a certain way. I go into their space and they say we will pray a certain way. Some say they are praying that a certain thing happen a certain way. Some say they just are praying.
Some just nod, saying nothing. Is this a prayer of sorts?
Some prayers are done with eyes closed and hands clasped and archaic phrases. Some are delivered five times a day on one’s knees with forehead touching the floor.
I’m thinking these prayers come in as many sizes and colors and personalities as derby rollers. Some are deliberate and strong, a full-throated demand sent hurling into the ethers. Some come in little, wispy emojis at the end of a social media post, slipping sweetly by in the midst of more bold statements. Some are a team activity. Some are solitary.
I’m not convinced anyone has an inside track.
Some have loud, colorful phrasing. Some appear to be no more than a gentle doze.
This business of praying is worth some good bench talk and not to be taken for granted or given in passing.
Not that I happen to know, and people rarely ask me my thoughts about it, but perhaps what matters is not the color or size or wording of these thoughts. What matters is that the ones with true intent are the ones that take wing, rising above the mishmash of other words to hit a target.
SKATE ON!
Darla
(Thanks to Mary for this photo of a church bench below the bell pull in Mykonos, Athens)