What is Wrong with This Picture?

I recently received an email from a colleague of mine which distrubed me on a couple of levels.  Maybe I should have said that I found it sad instead, but it was also a bit disturbing.

The colleague was emailing asking people to pray for her mother, who was very ill.  This, of course, is sad in itself.  It is hard to lose a parent and I totally sympathize with that in itself.

But, and I guess the disturbing part, is that the email contained (in the last paragraph) an apology  (in advance) to those who are not "pray-ers".  She stated that she had carefully chosen the recipients and did not wish to offend anyone.

What is wrong with this picture?  Has our society actually gotten to the point where we should be afraid to ask for prayer from friends and colleagues for fear of offending someone? 

I realize that there are people who do not believe in God and/or Christianity - but come on - are we really childish enough to be "offended" by a prayer request?

And we wonder what is going to become of our country??????