Wait! Before You Write Off the Marriage

I started reading the book The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian. My friend Krista gave me this book almost two years ago – I was not even married then. I admit that is has been sitting on my bookcase this whole time, but I am so glad I started reading it!

Krista, thank you!

I just finished the first chapter and I loved reading the introduction. I didn’t love it because the message was easy to take in, I loved it because I know I have a lot to grow in the ‘prayer area of life’ and I am excited to start praying more specifically for my husband.

I will probably post multiple times as I read this book and I’ll try to share the parts that touch me the most.

After reading the introduction, I can’t stop thinking about this part:

“I confess right now that there was a time when I considered separation or divorce. This is an embarrassing disclosure because I don’t believe either of those options is the best answer to a troubled marriage. I believe in God’s position on divorce. He says it’s not right and it grieves Him. The last thing I want to do is grieve God. But I know what it’s like to feel the kind of despair that paralyzes good decision making. I’ve experience the degree of hopelessness that causes a person to give up on trying to do what’s right. I understand the torture of loneliness that leaves you longing for anyone who will look into your soul and see you. I’ve felt pain so bad that the fear of dying from it propelled me to seek out the only immediately foreseeable means of survival: escape from the source of agony. I know what it’s like to contemplate acts of desperation because you see no future. I’ve experienced such a building of negative emotions day after day that separation and divorce seemed like nothing more than the promise of pleasant relief.

…

God impressed upon my heart that if I would deliberately lay down my life before His throne, die to the desire to leave, and give my needs to Him, He would teach me how to lay down my life in prayer for Michael. He would show me how to really intercede for him as a son of God, and in the process he would revive my marriage and pour His blessings out on both of us. We would be better together, if we could get past this, than we could ever be separated and alone. He showed me that Michael was caught in a web from his past that rendered him incapable of being different from what he was at that moment, but God would use me as an instrument of His deliverance if I would consent to it. It hurt to say yes to this and I cried a lot. But when I did, I felt hopeful for the first time in years.

I began to pray every day for Michael, like I had never prayed before. Each time, though, I had to confess my own hardness of heart. I saw how deeply hurt and unforgiving of him I was. ‘I don’t want to pray for him. I don’t want to ask God to bless him. I only want God to strike his heart with lightening and convict him of how cruel he has been,’ I thought. I had to say over and over, “God, I confess my forgiveness toward my husband. Deliver me from all of it.”

…

Don’t write off the marriage. Ask God to give you a new husband. He is able to take the one you have and make him a new creation in Christ. Husbands and wives are not destined to fight, emotionally disconnect, live in marital deadness, be miserable, or divorce. We have God’s power on our side. We don’t have to leave our marriages to chance. We can fight for them in prayer and not give up, because as long as we are praying, there is hope. With God, nothing is ever as dead as it seems. Not even your own feelings.”

What an amazing message!

Nothing is too hard for God and if we are willing to humble ourselves in His presence He will be faithful.

Are you ready to start praying?

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. Joel 2:25