When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence
Overview
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist
ECPA Top Shelf Award Winner
Taylor Schumann never thought she’d be a victim of gun violence. But one spring day a man with a shotgun walked into her workplace and opened fire on her. While she survived, she was left with permanent wounds, both visible and invisible.
In When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough, Taylor invites us to see what it means to be a survivor after the news vehicles drive away and the media moves on. Healing is slow and complicated. As she suffered through surgeries, grueling rehabilitation, and counseling to repair the physical injuries and emotional trauma, she came face to face with the deep and lasting impact of gun violence. As she began grappling with the realities, Taylor experienced another painful truth: Christians have largely been absent from this issue. Gun violence undercuts God’s vision of abundant life and community—and the silence of the church rings loudly in the ears of survivors and families of victims.
Taylor weaves her own incredible story of survival and recovery into a larger conversation about gun violence in our country. With compassion and honesty, she encourages readers to reconsider their own engagement with the issue and to join her in envisioning a more hopeful, safer future for our nation. Move beyond thoughts and prayers and enter into grace-filled dialogue and action.
Introduction
Part I: A Survivor’s Journey
1. Surviving
2. Even If Not
3. Grieving the Should Have Beens
4. A New Normal
5. Life Sentence
6. Stones to Bread
7. A Heart for Justice
Part II: Our Societal Challenge
8. Domestic Violence, Family Fire, and Firearm Suicide
9. School and Mass Shootings
10. The Costs of Gun Violence in Our Communities
11. Common Arguments Against Gun Reform
12. So You Want to Talk About Gun Violence
13. Beyond Thoughts and Prayers
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Discussion Guide
Notes
Resource Index
"One cannot keep the grim reality of gun violence at arm’s length after reading this book. Taylor brings it close. She writes about trauma with honesty and compassion. Regardless of one’s political views or personal stance on gun ownership, Taylor’s research provides a practical and compelling case for gun reform. This book is for any Christian concerned with our biblical call toward neighbor love."
"On my thirty-fifth birthday I witnessed the close-range shooting of a police officer by a felon. My story is not the same as Taylor’s, not as tragic for me nor as potent to tell, but it became a story that changed my life in more ways than I can count. In the months and years after my experience, I wanted to find comfort and solace in the church, and I couldn’t. Most church folks I knew had only thoughts and prayers for survivors but no plans, personally or politically, to reconsider any Second Amendment reform. I needed allies like Taylor, who understands what only victims of gun violence understand: something must change."
"It’s hard to think of a more polarizing topic than gun control, but When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough reminds us that before we talk policy, we need to listen to people’s stories. As a shooting survivor, Taylor Schumann invites us into her story before inviting us to consider broader policy issues and the responsibility of Christians to address the well-being of our neighbors. The result is a poignant and clarifying book that will help facilitate a much-needed conversation."
"When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough is an urgent, thoughtful, and painful book. It hurts to see the realities of gun violence laid bare before us. And yet Schumann, by looking at both the personal and systemic impacts of gun violence, does what seems impossible. She models for us the prophetic work of allowing suffering and statistics to change our hearts and minds toward real action regarding gun violence in the United States. I wish this book wasn’t so achingly necessary, but since it is, I will be encouraging everyone to read it. May our prayers for peace be turned into real laws that protect the most vulnerable among us."
"There are two things that are abundantly clear in When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough. The first is that there are few things more important than the power of one’s story, and the second is that we should all care about gun violence and the havoc it wreaks on its victims. Not only does Taylor Schumann humbly ask us to consider the impact of gun control legislation through well-researched, thorough, and illuminating information; she does so by first inviting us on her honest and raw journey of trauma, faith, and survival."
"Compulsively readable, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough presents a practical guide to changing our minds about guns. The view into the continued difficulty of Schumann’s life as a gun violence survivor gives readers reasons and permission to reexamine our views on guns. She has laid out hopeful, doable action that can follow our collective knee-jerk instinct to give thoughts and prayers. As Schumann suggests, prayer can actually be the beginning of our work and not the end."
"I don’t say this lightly: this is a book that will change minds. Taylor’s personal story is heartbreaking and compelling, but it is her passion for justice, her well-researched arguments, and her empathy for different perspectives that make this book so powerful. I am confident that When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough will inspire many people, but I am even more confident that it will guide and inform real conversations that we desperately need to have in our families, churches, and communities."
"This book is a rallying cry for a culture that has simply not cared enough to tackle the problem of gun violence. Taylor Schumann invites us into her pain, then guides us toward thoughtful consideration and practical, long-haul action. Vulnerably told, packed with both data and empathy, our list of excuses ends within these pages."
"By sharing the gritty reality of her own journey, Taylor Schumann offers all of us a complex understanding of gun violence that we simply can’t get from the latest headlines. Even when thoughts and prayers are given with the best of intentions, Taylor shows us that what survivors need isn’t sympathy offered from a distance but connection from a place of curiosity and care."
"In When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough, Taylor Schumann tells a story and makes an argument. With wisdom and heart, Taylor not only unpacks the scourge of gun violence in America but provides a model for Christians who ought to be moved by experience and compassion into the public square to advocate for the common good."
- Title: When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence
- Author: Taylor S. Schumann
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2021
- Pages: 248
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780830831715, 9780830831708, 0830831703, 9781514003848, 1514003848, 0830831711
- Resource ID: LLS:9780830831715
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T21:25:55Z
Taylor S. Schumann is a survivor of the April 2013 shooting at a college in Christiansburg, Virginia. She is a writer and activist whose writing has appeared in Christianity Today, Sojourners, and Fathom. She is a contributor to If I Don't Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings. Taylor and her family live in Charleston, South Carolina.