Everyone wants some advice on how to help people who are sick and suffering.
In his article, You Look Great and Other Lies, Bruce Feiler offers some pretty good advice on things to say. He also offers a few NOT to say, like “everything will be ok” or “you look great.”
But one of the phrases he suggested people avoid made my heart sick:
MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU. In my experience, some people think about you, which is nice. Others pray for you, which is equally comforting. But the majority of people who say they’re sending “thoughts and prayers” are just falling back on a mindless cliché. It’s time to retire this hackneyed expression to the final resting place of platitudes, alongside “I’m stepping down to spend more time with my family,” or “It’s not you, it’s me.”
Attaching the words ‘prayer’ and ‘mindless cliche’ just hurts. He is probably right that most people should avoid that statement because they either have no intention of following through or they have no thought that prayer actually means anything.
Let us not be those kind of people! If we say we will pray, let us pray, and do so with expectation.
The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16b
And when people say their ‘thoughts and prayers’ are with us, let us accept it enthusiastically, thanking them for going before the Father and Creator of all things, with joy that they love us this much! If they said it mindlessly or carelessly, may God use our excitement at prayer to shake them up and reconsider the power available to all who cling to Jesus – we can come to the throne of God himself, boldly!
The Works of God 
John,
One of the saints, Mary, who has gone on to be with the Lord, told me that she had prayed for us almost every day for years as we dealt with Michael. She did this even in her dying days as she battled leukemia. Michael is now nine. She told me this repeatedly so I had no reason to doubt her. I figured that if she prayed almost every day, say 300 times a year for seven years, that is over 2,000 prayers before the throne of God! Who knows what God has been pleased to do because of her pleading to our Lord on our behalf! We are blessed!