Praying for Marriages (PfM)

This week please remember in prayer those married couples who are living through the loss of a job. In addition to the financial pressures a job loss can bring to a marriage, it can also cause the one who has lost the job to question his or her self-worth. If a new job does not materialize quickly, hope can be lost and, when hope is lost, inertia can set in and eventually lead to deep depression. If both spouses have been working, the spouse who is still employed will often attempt to make up some of the income loss by working more hours. This response, though helpful in closing the income gap, can inadvertently create a feeling of guilt in the life of the spouse who has lost the job, while at the same time exhaust the spouse who is taking on the extra work, particularly if the situation continues for an extended time. Inertia, depression, guilt and exhaustion are all negative effects of job loss, each of which can cause marriages to spiral out of control,...

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 2019 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 2020.

Please join us this week in praying for marriages facing retirement. Retirement, whether the retirement of one or both spouses, can be a significant stressor in a marriage. Even when the retirement is a free choice and comes at a planned time, it creates changes in schedules, relationships and routines. All these changes, even when desired, carry some level of stress. When the retirement is forced by an employer or ill health or comes at an inconvenient time (like when retirement savings have taken a plunge), the stress can be even greater. Some level of discomfort in a marriage at retirement time is often experienced because many people just don’t handle change well, even positive change. Change means unknowns and unknowns create fear in many people. A fearful spouse or a fearful couple does not bode well for marital harmony. And of course we have all heard of occasions when someone has eagerly anticipated retirement only to be dissatisfied, restless and...