Praying for Marriages (PfM)

This week we are taking a slight turn for the holidays. Of course we want you to pray for marriages this coming week, but we would like you to pray particularly for the marriages of those people you will be with during Christmas and/or as 2015 draws to a close. In many cases those will be the marriages of family and friends, marriages into which you have more intimate insight and for which you can pray with more specificity than normal. On the other hand, you may have had or will yet still have occasion to spend time with new acquaintances about whose marriages you know little. Regardless, all these marriages will benefit from your intercession. So, even in this busy season, take time to lift up these marriages to our Lord who is actively about the work of renewing all things. We hope you have a blessed Christmas and you experience the full goodness of God as you seek to live obediently before Him in 2016.

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 sense of hopelessness.  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-...