I have been praying for Paris. Right next to praying for my family and Caid’s family and our friend and our ministries and our kids and the other things our other friends have asked us to pray for…it is a lot of prayer (that is a good thing). And I am nowhere near the “Praying without ceasing.” I am nowhere near dedicating the time I want to—and that others need—to prayer. I haven’t even seen “War Room” yet.
My husband changed his profile picture to the French flag. I did not. I was too overwhelmed with so many tragedies, and took a nap instead. I think it is so important to let each one grieve for their own sorrows without calling into question their motives.
The catch is this: if you say “Don’t (just) pray for Paris, pray for the world” you are hurting the people who need time to grieve specifically for Paris. It makes them feel as if you are saying their pain doesn’t matter. Their hurt doesn’t go away just because somewhere else was bombed as well. And with so many people actively praying for Paris, it makes other people feel left out and their hurt minimized (Beirut...).
To compensate, we generalize into "Pray for the world," and somehow no one is happy.
This helped put into perspective the pain (and lashing out) that I saw from #blacklivesmatter and #alllivesmatter. BOTH are true. You don’t have to minimize one to care about the other. Focusing on one doesn't mean you don't care for the other. Sometimes we are just too overwhelmed with it all to be able to focus on more than one small thing at a time. Sometimes we should just go take a nap.
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