When Prayers Aren't Enough

If it was your child, would prayers be enough?

If the child you sent off to school this morning ended the day in a morgue, with a bullet lodged in their body, would prayers be enough?

If your dinner tonight would be the salt of your own tears, would prayers be enough?

If the load of laundry you take out of the dryer holds the clothes that won’t be worn by their owner ever again, would prayers be enough?

I’m a pastor. I believe in prayer.

I’m a pastor. I pray.

If my daughter, who teaches high school in Phoenix, was dead tonight with a bullet in her head, prayers wouldn’t be enough.

For the family vacations that won’t happen this summer, for the colleges that will have one less student in the fall, for the weddings that won’t take place and the grandchildren that won’t be born. Prayers aren’t enough today.

So, to those of you who are praying as you cling to your guns: JUST STOP. Your prayers are made of hypocrisy and betrayal.

To the politicians who have sold their souls to the NRA, you have blood on your hands. Again. Your prayers are a mockery.

And if it was your child, would prayers be enough for you on this day?

Because instead of graduation parties and diplomas and pomp and circumstance, funerals will be the event of the month.

For those of you who will plan those funerals, yes, I will pray for you through my own tears.  I will see your loved one’s pictures on TV and mourn.

But because I don’t believe prayers and mourning are enough, count on my action. And the action of countless others. We will march. We will vote. We will give. We will do. Because LOVE is an action word.

For when prayers aren’t enough.