Praying for Marriages (PfM)

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. As 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 these...

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 and 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 sadness. The ...