Praying for Marriages (PfM)

Please join us this week as we pray for couples that are the primary caregivers for an aging parent. This life-situation can turn life on its head as roles are reversed and the children become the parents and the parent the child. At best this situation can be awkward; at worst is can lead to serious conflicts. A parent, who has had a lifetime of making decisions, now has children making decisions for him/her. These can be small decisions (“Dad you should not climb that ladder”) or life-altering decisions (“Mom, you can’t drive anymore"). Caring for an aging parent can limit the freedom of the care-giving couple. It can mean delaying travel plans, changing long-established schedules and learning the old “spur-of-the-moment” event now requires planning. Also, the decisions that come with caring for an aging parent can put the couple at odds with siblings who may have different ideas about what is best for the their parent. Adult-sibling disagreement...

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 that to 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 to a spouse can also be the seed-bed of emotional coldness. Being unaware of how a spouse expresses his/her emotions can cause one to miss cues that would normally elicit an appropriate res...