I was never a fan of popular music, not even as a teenager. In that way -- and probably a few others -- I was an "old fogie," even as a kid. Instead of listening to the Top 40, I stuck with a pretty small collection of recordings on vinyl, 8-track, and cassette.

My favorite artists had one thing in common: they sang like honey. While most of them were technically "before my time," that never mattered to me. I loved listening to men like Elvis Presley, Andy Williams, John Denver, and James Taylor, and women like Carole King, Helen Reddy, and Barbra Streisand.

To me, Streisand's voice was magical, so much so, that it almost didn't matter what she was singing. I knew every note would be powerful and beautiful all at once. But the song she was best known for back in the day was one from the Broadway musical "Funny Girl" called "People." It began, "People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world."

I'm pretty sure that at the time I had no real understanding of the message that song was trying to communicate. Then, I was bent on being strong. I would never have considered any form of neediness "lucky." For me, life was all about proving myself, being independent, self-reliant, and as invincible as possible. I wanted to be needed. I didn't want to need anyone else.

But that just isn't how life works. We all need people to care for us when we are very young, and someone to make sure we are cared for when we're old. But we also need people who will care about us in between -- people who will support us when we are discouraged, strengthen us when we are weak, inspire the very best in us, and call us to account. That has always been the case. And people who can acknowledge that interdependence without breaking into a sweat are truly among the luckiest -- that is, the most blessed -- people in the world.

But somehow, most of us continue to overlook how much we need a far less visible group of people in our lives: the people who will pray for us. A grandmother's rosary, a dad's holy hour, a best friend's novena: these play a much larger and more decisive role in what happens to us than we realize. It's hard to imagine where we'd be without those prayers -- especially when we're struggling to stay afloat. The people who pray for us behind the scenes and place us in God's loving care, influence our lives in ways we cannot begin to measure.

But what we can do is become one of them. We can pray for the people we love. And we can choose to reach out in order to lift up. We can recognize that some of the best blessings we have received came because others sought on our behalf. And instead of giving unsolicited advice, we can allow grace to transform our concerns about others into genuine concern for them. Rather than telling somebody what we think, we can choose to tell God about what they need.

People who pray are mystically connected to one another. They never pray alone. Together, they form a living communion of saints, a cloud of witnesses, a spiritual edifice not built with human hands. And when they lift another up, they rise higher as well.

But the people who pray need prayer, too. They suffer their own challenges and setbacks. Even saints have needs. And even saints need other saints. And that is what the people who pray become. Prayer may not change everything around us the way we wish it would. But it undeniably changes everything inside us in ways we never thought possible. People will always need people, especially people who will take an active role in our lives by praying for us.



- Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a Catholic convert, wife, and mother of eight. Inspired by the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, she is an author, speaker, and musician, and provides freelance editorial services to numerous publishers and authors as the principal of One More Basket. Find Jaymie on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @YouFeedThem.