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 as 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...

Join us this week in praying for marriages dealing with infertility. Couples dealing with infertility experience drastic ups and downs, hopes and disappointments, month after month. Hormonal issues can create mental and physical weariness for the wife. Medical testing and treatments and their side effects can be a burden to both spouses and also strain their financial resources. The marriage relationship itself can also be tested, particularly when the husband and wife cope with disappointment differently and grieve differently. Also, the spirits of couples in this life situation can be wounded by insensitive or thoughtless questions and statements made by their families and friends. Finally, despite their best efforts to rejoice with others, these couples can struggle emotionally as they see their friends becoming pregnant and having children with apparent ease, while their hopes are frustrated again and again. As you lift these couples up, pray that the...

Please join us this week in praying for the marriages of those in pastoral ministry. Because of the various demands of the pastoral role, it is easy for the pastor to become wedded to his ministry, fully believing he is doing good when in fact he is a workaholic, neglecting the needs of his spouse and unintentionally undercutting the very ministry to which he has been called. Also, in the process of being "all things to all men,” pastor and spouse can get so caught up in the busyness of knowing everyone, attending everyone's "special" events and caring for everyone during crisis that they fail to slow down and take the time to build deep, personal friendships and, consequently, miss out on the joy and support these friendships can supply. Finally, marriages of those in the pastoral ministry are lived in a fishbowl. The business of the pastor and spouse is everybody's business. This fact can cause those in the pastoral ministry to put up a false...

We are asking this week that you pray for marriages dealing with the issue of pornography. Most frequently husbands have a more difficult time with pornography addiction than wives. They often see it as a personal issue that does not affect their marriage partner. But this attitude is far from the truth. Pornography easily creates unrealistic expectations no wife can meet. The husband will come to the marriage bed looking to re-experience something he has seen, giving little thought to the needs and desires of his spouse. Sex can become a cold, performance-driven encounter instead of the warm, intimate relational union it should be. One too-frequent result of this impersonal sex is infidelity. If the wife becomes aware of her husband’s addiction, it can create in her a feeling of inferiority and of being just another of his sexual playthings. She can feel she is no longer the one unique and special person in his life and thus th...