helly-watermelonsmellinfellon:

tooiconic:

cnovaks:

tooiconic:

I am seriously skeptical of religion as a whole.

Yet when someone tells me that they are going to pray for me, genuinely, with nothing but love in their hearts, I just smile and say thank you….

…because I’m not an insufferable jackass.

I’m an athiest, but I live in the south so there’s always religion being thrown in my face. For context of this story: I had surgery in July, the fifth in a row for a medical issue I’ve had for two years.

One weekend before my surgery I went and got a facial (let me tell you. if you’ve never had a facial, YOU NEED TO). This was the most relaxing experience I’ve ever had, tbh. But my esthetician and I had been talking sometime during my facial that I was having surgery soon. So, at the end, she asked, “Can I pray for you?”

This put me in a damn weird position because I don’t believe in the “power of prayer” as my aunt calls it. So I had two choices: say yes and just go with it, or say no and look like an ass.

So I told her “Yes” and I suppose I expected her to pray for me at a later date? But she prayed for me, with me, right then and there in the room. And honestly?

I bawled.

Look, I don’t believe in a god. I don’t believe that her attempting to contact an entity would have changed my outcome of my surgery at all. But the sheer fact that this woman, whom I’d known for all of an hour while she did my facial, was willing to take 5 minutes out of her day to sit down and use her faith to help me.

Shame on the people who put others down for their willingness to pray for and help them.

Things like this warm my heart. 💕😭

THIS! I know we don’t see frequent examples but there are genuinely people in every religion who want to help and want you to not suffer. And they do what they think they can, and sometimes all they can do is pray and hope. And sometimes they will pray and hope multiple times a day or a week or a year without you ever knowing. 

My Nana was like this. She would pray for an hour every morning at 5, and would bring up a young lady she met months back was who was struggling to pay her bills by herself. Or a young man she met at the store a week ago, who lost his only mode of transportation in a crash and was forced to walk miles in the snow. Or her ex-husband’s best friend/on-off love interest who was going through hard times.

5-6 was prayer time every morning. She prayed out loud and I used to listen in whenever I slept over and she would go into detail over the struggles of these people she barely knew and she would pray for resolution and blessings for ‘these nice, young people’.

Someone praying because they want you to not suffer and genuinely think they can help through prayer, is vastly different from some condescending asshole praying away your ‘heathen desires’ or some ridiculous shit. Learn the difference and don’t be an asshole.