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The elderly lady on the other end of the phone began to cry. "Ever since my husband passed away, everything has just been going downhill. I just don’t know what I am going to do. I’m 71 years old and live all by myself. ”
My heart went out to this dear stranger and all I could say to her was, "I am so sorry for everything you have been going through. I’ll be thinking of you and hope the best for you.” I wanted to pray with her over the phone, to tell her that God is with her and that there is hope in Jesus. But my job forbids me to make any remark that is religious in nature. In fact, one of my co-workers got in trouble for telling a customer, "Bless your heart.”
This is a constraint in my job that I really don’t like. As a customer service associate for a health insurance company, I talk to many people who are dealing with heartbreaking situations. These situations are often due to a health or financial crisis - oftentimes both – yet I can’t pray with them. Thank goodness, though, I can still pray for them.
I keep a little list at my desk next to the phone and as soon as that heartbreaking situation comes to me over my line, I jot down the name of the person who is in need of prayer. One such call I took nearly had me in tears as a young woman was calling for her abortion benefits. It was my job to tell her that forty-dollar copay was all she would have to pay to end her pregnancy. As soon as I got off the phone I began praying earnestly that God would intervene in her life. About seven months later, I had a phone call regarding the same woman and came to realize she had given birth to twins.
There are many other situations that have come my way where I have wanted to pray for our company’s customers over the phone; instead, all I could do was jot their name down on my list and offer a prayer up for them. Every once in a while I receive a call for the same customer and when I pull their name up in my system and take a look at their claims, I can see the progress they have been making. For instance, take the fifteen-year-old who had an accident in which she was paralyzed and who is now in physical therapy. And then there is the baby whose echocardiogram turned out to be normal.
Another amazing thing about praying for these people is that they are hundreds of miles away, living in Missouri or Kansas. I don’t have to personally know them to pray for them. I don’t have to hold their hand in order for the prayer to work. I don’t even have to let them know I am praying for them. And those prayers can still be answered!
Please understand that I am certainly not writing this to "toot my own horn.” Although I truly thank God that he can use me in my meager job of answering the phones on a day-to-day basis to pray for others, my point is to encourage others and to give Him the glory!
Since staring this job and keeping my prayer list, I seem to pray more and more for people I don’t even know. I will see someone walking down the street as I am driving to the grocery store and send up a prayer for them. I have no idea what may be going on in their life, but I figure prayer can never hurt. I often pray that if they don’t know Jesus that they will somehow get to know Him. Who knows, maybe this is the only prayer they will ever receive.
Again, I say all of this to encourage you to pray for others no matter who they are or where they are. We can pray for strangers as effectively as we can pray for our friends. The Bible says, "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16)
Next time you hear of a heartbreaking situation in someone’s life, simply send up a prayer. Who they are or where they are simply will not matter. I guarantee it will bring peace to your heart – and most likely, theirs too.
Who are the people you pray for? Do you keep a prayer list? Do you feel constrained in your job about not expressing your Christianity? How do you deal with this?
Cari Bousfield is a freelance writer and blogger. Besides blogging for JOY, Cari blogs at Faith's Mom's Blog and writes on a variety of articles at HubPages. She is also the author of Having Faith. Cari has a strong desire to help people connect with one another and to God. She prays that through her writing, she can reach the hearts of others and help to bring hope, inspiration and courage to "walk by faith not by sight". See all JOY Blog posts by Cari.
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