Friday, January 9, 2009

The Power of a Praying wife/Also Love Dare 6

Love Dare 6 is choosing to react to each circumstances in your marriage in loving ways instead of with irritation---beginning by making a list of areas where you need to add margin to your schedule (to lessen stress which can cause irritation). Then list any wrong motivations that you need to release from your life etc This tied in well with another book I am reading--the Power of a Praying wife.
Stormie Omartian books on prayer are so helpful. I have noticed that all of the books I am reading on Marriage and relationships deal with working on me, myself and I. I love how Stormie has prayers at the end of each chapter. So in this book there are 30 --ie one for each day of the month. I think I will share some if not all of the first prayer (This one ties in so well with not responding in irritation) Paragraphs are not working so I will color them:
"Lord, Help me to be a good wife. I fully realize that I don't have what it takes to be one without Your help. Take my selfishness, impatience, and irritability and turn them into kindness, long-suffering, and the willingness to bear all things. Take my old emotional habits, mindsets, automatic reactions, rude assumptions, and self-protective stance, and make me patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. Take the hardness of my heart and break down the walls with Your battering ram of revelation. Give me a new heart and work in me Your love, peace, and Joy (Galatians 5:22,23). I am not able to rise above who I am at this moment. Only You can transform me.
Show me where there is sin in my heart, especially with regard to my husband. I confess the times I've been unloving, critical, angry, resentful, disrespectful, or unforgiving toward him. Help me to put aside any hurt, anger, or disappointment I feel and forgive him the way You do---totally and completely, no looking back. Make me a tool of reconciliation, peace, and healing to this marriage. Enable us to communicate well and rescue us from the threshold of separation where the realities of divorce begin.
Make me my husband's helpmate companion, champion, friend, and support. Help me to create a peaceful, restful, safe place for him to come home to. Teach me how to take care of myself and stay attractive to him. Grow me into a creative and confident woman who is rich in mind, soul, and spirit. Make me the kind of woman he can be proud to say is his wife.
I lay all my expectations at your cross. I release my husband from the burden of fulfilling me in areas where I should be looking to You. Help me to accept him the way he is and not try to change him. I realize that in some ways he may never change, but at the same time, I release him to change in ways I never thought he could. I leave any changing that needs to be done in Your hands fully accepting that neither of us is perfect and never will be. Only You, Lord are perfect and I look to You to perfect us.
Teach me how to pray for my husband and make my prayers a true language of love. Where love has died, create new love between us. Show me what unconditional love really is and how to communicate it in a way he can clearly perceive. Bring unity between us so that we can be in agreement about everything (Amos 3:3). May the God of patience and comfort grant us to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus (Romans15:5). Make us a team, not pursuing separate, competitive, or independent lives, but working together, over looking each other's faults and weaknesses for the greater good of the marriage. Help us to pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify anther (Romans 14:19). May we be 'perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment' (I Corinthians 1:10).
I pray that our commitment to You and to one another will grow stronger and more passionate every day. Enable him to be the head of the home as You made him to be, and show me how to support and respect him as he rises to that place of leadership. Help me to understand his dreams and see things from his perspective. Reveal to me what he wants and needs and show me potential problems before they arise. Breathe Your life into this marriage.
Make me a new person, Lord. Give me a fresh perspective, a positive outlook, and a renewed relationship with the man You've given me. Help me see him with new eyes, new appreciation, new love, new compassion, and new acceptance. Give my husband a new wife, and let it be me."

7 comments:

  1. That's the thing... we can only really work on ourselves... knitting, mending, weaving, unraveling. Not easy though.

    (Btw, I loved your comment on Love Notes... the perfect companion verse! :)

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  2. I read this once several years ago -- I need to again.

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  3. thanks for this post...
    I find that sometimes I am much quicker at noticing the things that my hubby need improvement on, than the things that I should be doing better...
    this was a wonderful reminder for me
    thanks again!!!
    Mimi

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  4. Stormie Omartian is an excellent author and this is one of my favorite books. I give this one and the Praying Husband, as wedding gifts because there is no greater gift than to have a praying spouse. Thanks for your inspirational words.

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  5. Thanks for reminding me! Since seeing Fireproof I wanted to buy my hubby (and me) the Love Dare for Valentine's Day...Thank you for your site... I love looking at your photos and I LOVE your recipes. I am a home school Mom in Myrtle Beach. Be blessed! You are a blessing!

    Leigh

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  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  7. I seldom leave comments on blog, but I have been to this post which was recommended by my friend, lots of valuable details, thanks again.

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