Week 237: Marriages and Newly Weds

Please join us this week in praying for newly married couples. Though the issues faced by newly married couples are common and often joked about, they can be troublesome and cause a marriage to get off to a rocky start. Every new marriage is a blending of two different people, and their differences require adjustments, understanding, open communication and forgiveness.

The adjustments of living everyday with another human being can be a strain.  These adjustments are tough for young persons who haven’t yet established routines as independent adults; they can be even more troublesome for individuals who have been independent adults for a number of years prior to the marriage and have habits and life-styles with which they have become comfortable. In either case, adjustments both large and small are a challenge for newly weds.

Another issue for young marriages is the personal baggage the newly weds bring with them. Often not all this baggage gets opened during the dating and engagement period, so surprises, and not always pleasant surprises, are frequent. A spouse’s reactions to these unknown tidbits can lead to disappointment and disagreement. Negative reactions by one spouse can cause the other to conceal further revelations for fear that these will just bring more negative response and hurt. Dealing with these surprises requires understanding or often forgiveness for less than appropriate initial reactions.

Finally, every person entering a marriage has expectations, mental pictures of how the marriage is to work. Rarely are the spouses’ pictures the same and even more rarely does either set of their pictures fully depict what the new marriage will actually look like. These unfulfilled expectations can cause the new spouses to face some uncomfortable realities. Open communication about expectations is necessary to keep the uncomfortable from becoming an unconquerable barrier to happiness.

This week please pray that newly married couples will

• Extend to each other extraordinary grace and understanding
• View inevitable adjustments as minor sacrifices to the high goal of becoming one
• Communicate kindly, humbly, openly and continuously
• Be quick to forgive and even quicker to seek forgiveness as they work through the process of becoming one
• Daily affirm their love for each other in word and deed
• Understand they are painting their own unique marriage picture that will be different than any other they have ever seen or imaged
• Submit their marriage and themselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ