Power of a Praying Wife

This book is amazing!! I started reading it after a group of women at church were going to read it together for a study. I didn't fully participate in the study for several reasons - timing for one and maybe more importantly, I felt like I got more out of it on my own. I finished the book last week after starting it in August. I'm not that slow of a reader, I purposefully read only one chapter a week. Then a few other times a week I would go back and reread just the prayer in each chapter.

Let me back up. If you have not heard of this series by Stormie Omartian you need to look into them. There is Power of a Praying: Woman, Wife, Husband, Parent, Man etc.c In this book each of the 30 or so chapters deals with a different aspect of your husband's life that you can pray for. Some of the things I would have thought to pray for like his faith, work, fears, temptations, health, money, emotions etc. There were also many things that I would not have thought to pray for like his affection, talk, vision, future, mind, fatherhood, etc. Each chapter has a brief introduction to the topic, a written prayer at the end with space to fill in personal names or situations and then scriptures that go along with the topic.

The expereince of reading this book was amazing. I think that it taught me a lot about praying not only for Josh but for other people as well. Almost all of the prayers were written in a way that included and quoted scripture. I loved the way Stormie wrote "Lord you have said in your word that..." It is powerful to be able to pray words from the bible. Some of my favorite times were when I would go back and pray all of the chapters that I had read to that point. I think that when I did that it became more meaningful - instead of just a book I was reading it was a reminder that these are things I should pray for Josh regularly.

In the book Stormie talks about how prayer has changed her, her husband and friends in ways that she didn't think were possible. One of the lines in a pray that has particularly stuck with me was something like "Lord, I release my husband from changing in ways I think he should. I also know that You will change him in ways I never imagined. " That's not the right quote but it was something like that. I was really touched by stories of women who struggled with an aspect of their husbands lives whether that was a temptation, his moods, his priorites etc. They would pray about those situations continually rather than arguing over them. God was faithful and redeemed those situations even if it wasn't in their timing.

I think many times we forgot that prayer should not be our last resort but our first instinct. God loves for that communication and I believe he wants to help and to listen. The more I pray daily about all kinds of things, the more I crave it. I know that I was changed as I started committing time each day to pray - I had more patience, joy, was slower to get angry, etc. It was also interesting how several times the chapter of the week diretly related to what was happening in our lives at that time. For example, when I read the chapter that prayed for your husband's health and safety Josh was across the country at a conference. When I read the chapter that talked about emotions we were going through a really rough time with the loss of a pregnancy. God works in mysterious and wonderful ways.

If you haven't read this book, or the others in the series - look into them.

http://www.stormieomartian.com/