```html

Why I Pray Over My Tenants — Even the Ones Who Ghost Me

A moment of reflection — Photo by mugi jo (@jo.mugi)

I'll be honest with you. Being a landlord was not part of my five-year plan. Or my ten-year plan. Or really any plan I sat down and wrote out. It sort of happened the way a lot of things in my life have happened — one decision leading to another, and then suddenly you're responsible for someone else's hot water heater and you're googling "what counts as a habitability issue" at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday.

But here I am. And somewhere along the way, I started praying over my tenants.

Not in a dramatic, hands-laid-on, candles-lit kind of way. More like — I'd be going through the lease paperwork, or texting about a maintenance issue, or (let's be real) staring at my phone wondering why someone hasn't responded in eleven days, and I'd just... say something quiet to God about them. Watch over them. Help them land on their feet. Let this be a safe place for their family.

I think it started because I noticed I was getting anxious about things I couldn't actually control. Whether they'd pay on time. Whether they were taking care of the place. Whether the ones who went quiet were okay or just avoiding me. Anxiety has a way of filling every available space if you let it, and I didn't want to spend my mental energy living in worst-case scenarios about people I barely knew.

So I started praying instead. Not as a strategy. Just as a way of releasing something I was white-knuckling.

And here's the thing I noticed — it changed how I thought about them. When you pray for someone, even briefly, even imperfectly, it's hard to stay irritated at them. It doesn't mean I stopped following up on late rent or stopped expecting people to communicate. I did and I do. But there's a difference between being a firm landlord and being a resentful one, and prayer has quietly kept me on the right side of that line more times than I can count.

The ones who ghost me are actually the hardest. Because my brain wants to fill the silence with a story, and that story is usually not charitable. I've had to remind myself that I don't know what's going on in someone's life. I don't know what they're carrying. July heat has a way of making everything feel more urgent and more exhausting — people are stretched thin, kids are home all day, budgets are tighter with summer expenses — and sometimes people go quiet because they're overwhelmed, not because they're careless.

I'm not saying I'm perfect at this. I have absolutely drafted a strongly-worded text and then deleted it. I've vented to my daughter about a situation and she's given me that look — the one that means Mom, you're spiraling. She's usually right.

But I come back to prayer because it's the one thing that consistently reorients me. It reminds me that these are actual people. Families. Someone's parent, someone's kid. They're not just a line item in a spreadsheet or a name on a lease.

I think what surprised me most is how much it's helped me. I sleep better. I make clearer decisions. I'm less reactive when something goes sideways. I'm not sure I would have predicted that outcome when I started, but I've noticed it enough times now that I believe it.

I also think — and this is just my own quiet conviction — that when we ask God to watch over someone, He takes that seriously. Even the tenant who owes me two weeks of communication and a maintenance update. Maybe especially them.

So if you're also navigating something where you're responsible for people you didn't exactly choose, whether that's tenants or coworkers or just the complicated humans life keeps placing in your path — I'd gently say: try praying for them. Not because it fixes everything. It doesn't. But it might fix something in you.

That's worth something, I think.

If you've ever found yourself praying for someone who was also frustrating you, I'd genuinely love to hear about it in the comments. No judgment here — this is a fully vent-friendly space.

```