It’s been a terrible week in terms of protecting our children. On Wednesday, an evil madman in Minneapolis fired upon K-8 school-aged children praying a Catholic mass commemorating the first week of school. Two children lost their lives. Eighteen other victims are fighting for life.
In our own backyard circumstances are different, but no less consequential. As 1819 News reported, Deshler High School freshman August Borden suffered severe injuries walking to football practice after school. Borden’s parents reported skull and facial fractures, also noting that he didn’t regain consciousness for two days. Despite statements issued by the school, they still haven’t received a clear answer on what went down.
Alabama is a state that upholds faith and honors and participates in prayer. Falling to our knees is the go-to for many of us, whether it is a prayer we express with our own words, through the rosary or Anglican prayer beads, through scriptural meditation, or through written prayers, such as the Serenity Prayer, which is pivotal to those battling addictions. When confusion and senselessness overwhelm us, the only sensible thing is to seek solace in the God who sees all, knows all, and who can not just uphold us, but who supernaturally motivates us when most needed.
So, it is disheartening that the left chose to use tragedy as an opportunity to malign people of faith.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey lead with this foolish statement directly after the Annunciation School tragedy: “And don't just say this is about ‘thoughts and prayers,’ right now. These kids were literally praying! It was the first week of school, they were in a church."
The political agenda became apparent when Frey’s statement was immediately echoed by former White House press secretary Jen Psaki:
It is apparent that people with just a casual faith or those who don’t subscribe to any faith look upon prayer as just another form of magical thinking. But it is so much more than that. As I wrote in these pages last year:
We are praying to the God of the Bible, the creator of the universe and the only one who can activate, motivate, and empower us to produce the changes needed in our state and nation. If we are just going through a ritual to make us feel better, then God help us, because we are lost.
And Vice President JD Vance, a practicing Catholic, beautifully expressed the heart of prayer in response to these spurious attacks, posting the following on X:
Others also attribute to God cosmic Santa Claus properties, as if prayer is a transaction, a vending machine where you put in the coin of prayer and get what you asked for in return. It’s so much more complex, however, and this attitude not only cheapens God, it also cheapens one’s faith.
There was a period in my life where I walked through the deaths of three close family members in one year. On top of this, we lost our home, and my husband lost his health and almost died. As a Christian for over three decades, I had few words and could barely manage to pray for myself. It is in such times that the “thoughts and prayers” of others are the very supports necessary to carry on, keeping us from sinking and shoring up our own faith in a faithless world. As Vance said, God is indeed listening – through our numbness, our tears, and especially our profound grief.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world,” C. S. Lewis wrote in “The Problem of Pain.”
Jesus is always our example. He prayed to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane for God to take away the cup of death. Did God do this? No, and we are thankful that Jesus chose the Father’s will and saved us from our sin through His sacrifice, death and resurrection.
Scripture also says that God is near to the brokenhearted. It is sad that the people who mock thoughts and prayers will probably never know that nearness or that comfort. But for those who pray, we know it like we know the back of our hands.
My fervent prayers go out to the Minneapolis families and communities who lost so much, and for the family of August Borden and the Tuscumbia community.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Jennifer Oliver O'Connell, As the Girl Turns, is an investigative journalist, author, opinion analyst, and contributor to 1819 News, Redstate, and other publications. Jennifer writes on Politics and Pop Culture, with occasional detours into Reinvention, Yoga, and Food. You can read more about Jennifer's world at her As the Girl Turns website. You can also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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