In third grade, my class was told we would no longer have the English teacher we had grown to love; instead, we would have a long-term substitute. Being in the south I naturally gathered all of my friends under the slide on the playground and announced, “guys! Let’s pray for our teacher…we can meet here during recess and we’ll call ourselves the FEPPG” ((Fairview Elementary Playground Prayer Group))*
And you know what…
My friends refused.
“She did a bad thing that’s why she’s not our teacher anymore,” one friend said. Another chimed in, “it’s stupid to pray for sinners.”
As hurt as I was, I don’t remember much – other than crying to my mom and that our prayer group never happened. But something about the words of third grade girls stuck.
I didn’t pray for my teacher that day.
Maybe it’s cultural taboo…or maybe it would be seen as insensitive to the families that are hurting from pain caused by another… maybe, for fourteen years I’ve believed a lie that was shared with me on the playground.
I don’t pray for terrorist, or bullies, or for Johns involved in human trafficking. I don’t pray shooters, or arsonist, or dictators. I don’t pray for the bad guys.
But, there’s something not okay about not praying for those that are not okay…did you follow?
Today my heart is heavy.
How can we hurt and not hate?
Be saddened without denying love?
Pray without pessimism?
I think so.
I think that we serve a God capable of loving extravagantly. I think Jesus’s capacity to care for His own, isn’t limited by our definitions of sheep and goats. I think He mourns when we mourn, for the hurters and for those hurting.
I think He’d want me to pray for the hurters. I think He’d want me to pray for Boston, for Baghdad, and for the Bad Guys.
So today, I started my day in prayer… and it was scary.
*I obviously hadn’t yet learned, acronyms are supposed to be memorable and witty…
