Week 21: Marriages and Debilitating Darkness
Please join us this week in praying for marriages in which one spouse is passing through an unexplainable dark time that is emotionally and physically debilitating. A large part of the difficulty of this situation is its mysterious genesis. The fact that the cause is unknown to either spouse can cause both to feel helpless: the afflicted spouse can feel helpless to explain the problem and the care-giving spouse can feel helpless to provide what is needed to relieve the suffering. Many times the suffering spouse can experience a palpable darkness that separates him/her from God, spouse and friends. The suffering spouse can also become convinced the darkness will never lift, leading to dejection and a deepening of the darkness. As this situation lingers, the care-giving spouse can begin to suffer as well, since his/her partner is in no position to meet his/her needs or share in bearing the responsibilities of daily living. Finally, this life-situation, like many maladies of mind, body and spirit, can destroy normal sleep patterns and inflict deep weariness and fatigue.
Please pray couples in this life-situation will
- Bring the situation constantly before their Heavenly Father, praying that He will lead them to discover or reveal to them what is causing this profound darkness and how to escape it
- Not allow the darkness to cause them to doubt their Lord's sufficiency or His love for them
- Be able to get adequate sleep and mental rest
- Be surrounded by believing friends who will support them in prayer and service even though they don’t fully under-stand the problem
- Not allow the crisis to damage their marriage but rather learn from it and be drawn closer together
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