Praying for Marriages (PfM)

Please join us this week in praying for marriages in which one of two non-believing spouses has become a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ.  The difficulties a marriage can experience when entered into by a believer and a non-believer are many.  All of those difficulties and more can be present in the marriage of non-believers when one comes to faith in Jesus Christ and the other does not. The new believer can find being faithful to Christ difficult because the very one s/he is joined to in marriage is at the least not equipped to be supportive and at the most possibly hostile.  The non-believing spouse, even without intention, can tempt the new believer into situations that would violate his/her new relationship with Christ.  These situations can strike at the heart of companionship and cause the couple to doubt the suitability of their relationship. Non-believing friends of the unequally-yoked couple can drive a wedge between the two by sid...

Please join us this week in praying for marriages that have grown emotionally cold.  Emotional coldness in a marriage can be as destructive as rage and is more insidious.  Rage is like a fire that ignites and is immediately recognized as damaging.  Emotional coldness, or emotional distance, as some would call it, is like freezing weather, uncomfortable for sure, but too often not identified as damaging until frozen pipes start to break. The growth of emotional coldness in a marriage can have its origin in any number of situations.  Excessive attention to children to the determent of a spouse can cause a marriage relationship to cool.  The same can be said of excessive attention to work, to a hobby or, yes, even to a ministry.  Discounting the need to give and ask for forgiveness when a hurt has been caused to a spouse can be the seed-bed of emotional coldness. Being unaware of how a spouse expresses his/her emotions can cause one to...

Please join us this week in praying for marriages dealing with the tragedy of breast cancer.  Although cancer of any kind can create stressful situations for marriages, breast cancer does so uniquely.  It strikes the wife at the heart of her self-image and worth.  Many sufferers experience an emotional roller coaster that can cause their spouse to receive conflicting signals.  One moment a wife may long to be held and touched yet at another moment, or maybe even at the same moment, withdraw from physical contact.  The husband, on the other hand, who does not understand this dynamic, can become confused when his touch is rebuffed or his reserve is interpreted as uncaring. Like with other cancers, the physical battle of fighting breast cancer is draining and demanding, on the patient particularly but also on the spouse.  Almost without fail, the physical stresses of enduring radical treatments and of caring for the patient create emotional stresses and...

Please join us this week in praying for marriages that have suffered the excruciating pain of the death of a newborn baby.  In past weeks we have called on you to pray for those who have had a child to die as well as for those who have suffered the painful disappointment of a miscarriage.  Many of the issues experienced by couples that have faced those tragedies are also common to those who have lost a newborn. The circumstances of this particular tragedy can be quite varied.  In some cases the death has been long expected and to some degree prepared for because of prenatal testing.  In other cases the death is totally unexpected but comes quickly after birth.  And yet, in still other situations, the newborn’s death, though almost a medical certainty, is delayed for days or even months. One of the hardest things about infant death is the sudden and absolute reversal of emotions.  Joyful expectation is usurped by gut-wrenching sadnes...