Protect, Love and Remember.

I had the benefit of growing up in a household with two parents who loved each other and modelled a healthy and happy marriage daily. I know that is not the case for everyone, and when we enter in to our own marriages we see the relationship through the lens of where we came from.

It seems as though during this season of life, married 15+ years, marriages all around are breaking down. I don’t know why, every story seems the same but different, but what I do know is that God can help us in our marriages if we let Him.

Pray for Protection: Dear Lord, please wrap your arms of protection around my marriage. Our marriages are under attack daily and we are all busy. It makes me think of this excerpt from the book ‘Waking the Dead’ by John Eldredge. “It works like this: hyenas cannot bring down a lion in its prime. What they do is run it and taunt it and wear it down to the point of exhaustion. Once they see it cannot defend itself, then they close in. The strategy of our Enemy in the age we live in now is busyness or driveness. Ask the people you know how things are going. Nine out of ten will answer something to the effect of ‘really busy’. The deadly scheme is this: keep them running. That way, they’ll never take care of their hearts. We’ll burn them out and take them out.”

Pray for Agape Love: Dear Lord, please help me love him the way you love me. Agape love is choosing to love first. This is my favourite definition of Agape Love ‘this sacrificial love is not based on a feeling, but a determined act of the will, a joyful resolve to put the welfare of others above our own. But this type of love does not come naturally to humans. Because of our fallen nature, we are incapable of producing such a love. If we are to love as God loves, that love—that agape—can only come from its true Source. This is the love which “has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us” when we became His children (Romans 5:5). Because that love is now in our hearts, we can obey Jesus who said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you should also love one another” (John 13:34).

Pray to Remember: Dear Lord, please help me always remember. Remember how it was in the beginning and what made you fall in love with him. My husband and I have always been intentional about spending time together with just the two of us, going away to a beach vacation somewhere, a weekend away, a dinner date or even just a few quiet moments together after the kids go to bed. We talk, we laugh, we reminisce old times and new times. We always make time to connect and honestly just when I think I couldn’t possibly love him more; I do. As a child, I always remember my parents going away together and coming back so happy and in love, and it made me feel so secure and loved. That was one of the best gifts my parents gave me, because now when my husband and I go away together just the two of us, I know we are modelling a healthy and happy marriage to our children and that we are filling them with a sense of security that comes from seeing your Mom and Dad happy and in love.

For more resources on marriage please check out the ‘Library’ link on the site.

Xo Prayer Group Girls