Six Biblical Prayers When Tragedy Strikes

Hope for a Broken and Hurting World

By Stacey Pardoe

The day we heard the news, our hearts felt like they broke into a thousand pieces. I stared out the living room window with tear-filled eyes and considered the years our friend would miss. I thought of the grandchildren yet to be born, summer vacations along the Carolina coast, and Christmas dinners beneath twinkling lights. It’s hard not to grieve what might have been when cancer sweeps in and dashes our expectations.

The shape or form of our loss may differ, but at some point we all face the deep grief of saying goodbye to loved ones and staring numbly into the heavens. We wrestle with God’s goodness in our broken world. We make the difficult choice between maintaining soft hearts or letting our pain coat our broken hearts with hard, protective shells.

A Nation’s Grief

Days after our family’s personal loss, our nation faced a much greater tragedy. With my heart still fragile and bruised in my own pain, I watched the scene unfold on the afternoon news. Long lines of teens fled the school building in Parkland, FL, with arms raised to the sky as a gunman went on a rampage, devastating countless lives. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the horror.

The news channels captured the images of parents weeping outside the building. Gray ashen crosses of Ash Wednesday’s sacrament streamed down their damp foreheads. How quickly a holy day can descend into the worst kind of terror.

My mind raced to the fear that one day I might be the mother weeping on the sidewalk outside our small-town high school. One day, I might find myself searching for my child in the chaos. I might be the one whose name is called from among the crowd. I might be the one watching an ambulance take my child away. I might be the one trying to pick up the shattered pieces of my life.

For the past two decades, attacks against our children, our schools, and our citizens have seemed unending. Names like Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, and Columbine are etched in our minds forever. A concert-turned-massacre in Las Vegas has caused people to rethink attending large events. Wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides, and tornados add to the uncertainty of everyday life.

In light of these calamities, how do we pray for the broken and hurting? How do we pray for our nation when evil ravages our schools, churches, families, and other places that should be safe havens? How do we pray for our neighbors and friends when they walk through the valley of the shadow of death—when words like cancer, mental illness, and suicide wreck their worlds?

Whether we’re praying for families who have lost loved ones through a large-scale tragedy or we’re praying for the quiet losses that take place in living rooms and hospital rooms every day, we can offer these six appropriate biblical prayers:

1. Pray that the hurting and broken will see their need for God.
   The world offers a wide range of remedies for our pain. But ultimately, we all need God, the Creator of the universe, to step in and restore our broken hearts. We can begin by praying that those affected will come to the realization that God is the great Healer. Disasters remind us that we live in a world desperate for a Rescuer.

The well-known passage of 2 Chronicles 7:14 was originally written to God’s chosen nation, Israel, as a call to seek His face and find healing. This is a powerful prayer for our country and our time as well. We can intercede for the hurting this way: “Lord, we pray that Your people who are called by Your name will humble themselves and pray and seek Your face.” The first step on the path toward healing of a nation is through the humility of the Church.

1. Pray that we will turn from evil.
   In addition to seeking God’s face, 2 Chronicles 7:14 is a call for God’s people to turn from their wicked ways. The promise that follows is for God’s children today, too: God will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land. When we turn from evil and seek God’s face, He hears, forgives, and heals.

Our culture, saturated with violence, needs forgiveness and healing, both of which come when we turn in repentance to the open arms of our heavenly Father. And when the Church repents before God for our own sins and those of our nation, we take another step on the path toward healing.

1. Pray that we will encounter the healing presence of Jesus Christ.
   The adage that “time heals all wounds” is simply untrue. Jesus Christ is the great Healer. “By his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). Hurting hearts desperately need a Healer, and that Healer is Jesus.

Pray that the suffering will see their need and turn to the One who binds up our wounds. Pray for a fresh revelation of God’s Spirit to draw hearts to Himself. Pray that the heartbroken will recognize their spiritual thirst and draw near to the God who promises streams of living water (John 7:37–38).

1. Pray that hardships will lead hurting people to saving faith in Christ.
   Jesus said it is the sick who need a doctor (Matt. 9:12). In the same light, only the broken need a Savior. Pray that God will use people’s hopelessness to reveal their great need for a Savior.

Times of loss often remind us of the brevity of life, the brokenness of this world, and the need for Someone to pay the price for our sins. Pray for messengers of the gospel to speak into the lives of those who suffer (Rom. 10:14). People are often most open to the gospel when their hearts are tender with grief. Pray that they will turn to Jesus and receive His gift of eternal life.

1. Pray that the hurting will encounter Jesus as their portion and hope.
   Throughout our family’s painful trial, I wanted nothing more than to hurry to the other side of our dark valley of pain. I longed to “make things right” any way I could. I was tempted to put my hope in a future that looked brighter than our present circumstances. In all my planning and my attempts to fix our brokenness, I was gently reminded that “fixing” our situation was not my hope; Jesus, Immanuel, is my hope.

My hope does not rest in getting to the other side of my pain or climbing out of the valley of the shadow of death. My hope rests in the fact that Jesus is my portion in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death. Psalm 142:5 says, “I cry to you, o Lord; I say, ‘You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living’” (ESV).

Jesus promises to stay with us, even in the darkest times. Pray that the hurting will encounter Jesus as their portion and their hope.

1. Pray that the hurting will be strengthened according to God’s glorious might.
   In Colossians 1:11, Paul prayed this for God’s children (including us): Be “strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.” Only by God’s glorious might can we climb out of the darkest valleys. Pray that the hurting will be filled with the strength and joy of the Lord. Now is the time to pray—even before a disaster strikes—that God will transform lives through whatever comes upon us, and that this deep transformation results in glory to His holy name.

Prayer as Our First Response

There are no easy answers or quick fixes in times of despair. Often, the best we can do when tragedy strikes close to home is to offer the comfort of our presence and to quietly lift up our prayers. Prayer is not our final effort when all else fails. God has given it to us as our first response and the foundation of our lives.

As we pray for those facing tragedy, pain, and hopelessness, we hold onto the promise that Jesus walks with us through every valley. We offer prayers of thanksgiving for this promise, and we lift these prayers of petition for those who struggle to pray for themselves.

Our family is healing from the losses of the past, and we have witnessed firsthand God’s power to move mightily despite any tragedy. We cannot truly grasp what it means to encounter Jesus as our portion until we have reached the end of ourselves and fallen before Him, devastated.

In our family’s pain, our precious Savior brought healing, and He is the hope the world craves. Tragedy can strike at any time. As others are overcome with grief and despair, let us, as the Church, go to prayer first—that our broken world will turn to Him, seek His face, and encounter His healing presence.

STACEY PARDOE is a freelance journalist, mentor, and certified special education teacher. Her greatest passion is to walk closely with Christ and make His love known to the world. She writes weekly at staceypardoe.com.