The Power of a Praying Wife

I'm so excited about the new 'book group' I'm participating in. My friend, Jaime, always makes great suggestions for ways to deepen our faith and relationships with others and they always come right when I need them! My friend, Margo, gave me the book 'The Power of a Praying Wife' for my birthday last year and told me how much she enjoyed reading it. I put it on my bookshelf and thought I would read it someday. Then, recently, Jason and I started talking about how we watch too much TV and we need to start doing other things with our time, like reading (shocker, I know!) So, when Jaime sent out an email saying she wanted to read this book and asked if anyone else would be interested in doing a couple chapters a week and then having discussion via email, I was really excited! Anyone who knows me, knows I'm NOT a reader, but I really want to get better about that. So, I told her to count me in!

I read the introduction last night and I'm already really excited. It talks about how the 'evil one' tries to mess up God's plans for our lives/relationships/marriages through all these different things- laziness, abuse, alcoholism, infidelity, lack of affection, etc. As I read through the list, I was wondering what I might be able to pray for Jason about. It seems like such a drop from bigger issues like alcoholism, infidelity and abuse to a (what I consider) simple lack of affection or laziness. Those little ones are what we actually struggle with, but I always felt like a whiner for thinking they were of any importance. From what I've read so far, these are also serious issues and there are ways to pray FOR Jason about them.

That's the thing about this book- it's not teaching you to pray to get what YOU want. It teaches you how to pray for your husband and the result will be the lessening of these issues. The author struggled with her husband's problems with anger. So, she prayed that she would remain calm and ask how she could be better, etc. Because she didn't let the situation escalate, his anger bouts didn't last as long and eventually went away all together. Of course, it's a constant battle- she still prays for that, but it's not an issue like it was before.

I skipped ahead to read about 'lack of affection', because that's my biggest struggle. I didn't read the whole thing, but from what I did read, I know it's going to be hard, but helpful. The story was talking about a couple where the husband grew up in a family where there was no physical affection shown. So, he truly didn't need it and didn't know how to show it. The wife also came from a family of no affection, so she desperately needed. (My story is the same as far as Jason's family is concerned. But, my family has always shown affection, so I know what I'm missing and crave for the affection I've grown accustomed to.) Anyway, I can't wait to get to that chapter and see how I can pray for Jason in that regard.

I know this book isn't a cure-all. In fact, it's not even a 'how to' on relationships. It's really going to teach us how to pray for our husbands as their wives. What they need us to pray about for them.I know it's not always going to be easy and it's going to take a lot of hard work and earnest prayer on our parts. But, I can't wait to see what wonderful things God has in store for us as we start this. I know He's going to break down our walls and flood us with His blessings! I can't wait!