The List
This year, my husband and I will celebrate eight years of marriage. Ben is my best friend and number one teammate in life. I’m thankful for him and all that we have learned in our time together.
I often ask my patients when I’m working as a nurse, how long they’ve been married. It’s not my first question of course, but as the conversation goes on, it often comes up. They share about spouses who have died while others share about being married for 60+ years.
I ask what is the secret? Is there advice you’d give? There’s often laughter but I’ve also had some tear up in sharing that two of the most important things were to always love and communicate. Never going to bed angry also came up from time to time. All solid advice.
No relationship is perfect. I can vouch for Ben and me, that our relationship and our marriage are stronger today than it was the day we got married that mild December day. We have been through a lot. We have learned a lot. We have grown together.
Back in 2012, I read a book with a couple of my friends: Praying for Your Future Husband - Preparing Your Heart for His (by Robin James Gunn). Yes, I grew up in church and Sunday School, but I had never really “prayed” for my future husband before. The idea seemed strange, praying for someone you didn’t know. After reading this book, I realized just how important prayer in this area really was.
I wrote out a list. A top-ten list if you will, on qualities I prayed my future husband would have. I distinctly prayed for these qualities. For years. I didn’t take any relationship lightly and I trusted God would bring the right man, at the right time. Despite all the jokes thrown at me or those telling me my list was too specific and I would need to settle, God provided just as I knew he would.
I included a picture of the list below for you to see what I prayed for. I wanted to share this with you to encourage you. Single, dating, married, or complicated, God has a plan. Regardless of your relationship status, there is always something you can pray for.
For those big decisions and challenging circumstances, pray. I encourage you to write down your thoughts. Keep them close. Diligently pray. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, the things that matter to us, matter to God.
He is not bothered when we continuously bring things to Him. Even if you’re in a wonderful marriage, it still needs prayer. Your spouse still needs your prayers.
If you’re in a situation that is not good, pray, but please reach out in courage and seek help. Please confide in someone you trust. God’s design is not for us to be in unsafe situations.
Prayer is powerful. No prayer goes unheard even if it takes years. There may be some prayers that aren’t fully answered until we enter eternity but don’t lose heart. Stay the course. Persevere even when it’s hard and trust that your Heavenly Father is always in control.
James 5:13-20, MSG translation
Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.
