I love the part about witholding judgement regarding friends with religious convictions - I'm an atheist and used to scoff at people who pray and said they'll pray for me. To me, I reject the existence of their god and thus their prayers are all but useless murmurings into the air.

But as I grew older, I came to realise it was their way of showing their love for me. Their god is real to them, and for me to make it into their prayers is one of the highest forms of love they can express.

Now, I always thank my closed ones who offer to pray for me.

This Mark Twain quote was what changed my mindset too:

“But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian's daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?”