“By Thanksgiving I am often already considering my New Year’s resolutions,” says River Jordan in her book Praying for Strangers.  “Every year I see them as a way to complete myself, to make up for all those things I haven’t accomplished in a lifetime but can now master in a year.” But after years of failing to accomplish a list of resolutions, Jordan made only one resolution last year; she resolved to pray for one stranger each day. It could be a cashier at the grocery store, a sales clerk in a department store, or a person walking down the street. She explains that she is definitely not the evangelistic type or even an extremely outgoing person when meeting strangers. Nevertheless, she began praying and blessings followed.

    At first she felt foolish, tapping someone on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, but today you’re my stranger. I’ll be praying special prayers all day for you.” However, the person was most always grateful and willingly shared specific prayer needs. If no requests were given, she would go home and pray: “Lord, bring goodness into my stranger’s life, give him clear direction, and may his destiny be perfectly fulfilled.”

    Jordan was easily drawn to those who looked helpless: the old man on the corner, the woman walking with a burden, or the crumpled-over soul at the bus stop. However, she found that well-dressed ladies driving expensive cars and wearing confident smiles carried hidden burdens also. At the mention of prayer, a confident looking woman might become vulnerable and whisper: “Oh, please pray for me, my son died two months ago.”

    While driving down the street one day, Ms. Jordan was impressed to knock on the door of a house with a For Sale sign in the yard. When a tearful woman answered the door, Jordan knew she had found her “stranger” for the day. When she offered prayer, the woman admitted that she had been planning suicide. She said, “I just said, Lord, if you want me to live and not die today, just send someone to my door who will just listen to my story.”

    Through the year, River Jordan collected a list of desperate needs with attached faces that came to her in the night for more prayer. Her “stranger of the day” could be a person on the television news report, a face from the newspaper, or a person on Facebook. She has seen that we live in a needy world filled with needy people of all descriptions. She says, “If only we knew how important we are to each other. Sometimes the end of the rope is so near the surface of a person’s soul. And we never know how one more drop of rain might just push that person over the edge into the abyss. Yet one small prayer might be the difference that pulls them back from the brink.”

    Before River Jordan began her year of praying for strangers, she was anxious and fearful because her own two sons were in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the time she needed someone to pray for her heavy heart. Now her faith is stronger, and she sees the results of her resolution: “Every day it faces me to walk through the world with my eyes open, to see other people’s needs, and not to just concentrate on my own fears. Praying for strangers is helping me become a better human being. I do this for me.”