I don’t know about you but one of the ways the pandemic has changed my daily life is that I’m praying more. When I care deeply about someone or some issue, that’s my natural inclination. However, this pandemic has gone on much longer than your average crisis and some days I feel like I don’t know what to pray other than, “God please show yourself faithful and let your kingdom come to earth.” My friend Darcy Cross Wiley had an excellent idea: create a prayer guide. Twenty writers and ministry leaders joined together to create 30 day prayer guide for the COVID-19 pandemic. If you find yourself wanting to pray but feel too overwhelmed or exhausted to know where to start, download this guide (it’s free!) and work your way through. It includes prayers for health-care workers, teachers, patients, and many others.
Here’s my prayer for marriages:
BLESS AND PROTECT THIS SACRED COVENANT:
Father, in this time of unprecedented suffering and great turmoil,
In this time of loss and pain, let my marriage be a refuge from the storms.
Let this covenant provide a place of safety
where we can turn to each other
and ease our aloneness,
our anxieties,
our fears.
Help me to notice and value my spouse’s needs above my own,
to respect their limitations and boundaries and to faithfully lift up their needs to you.
Give me the strength to serve even when I’m tired or feel empty.
Give me a servant’s heart.
Give me the desire to serve.
Keep me from resenting their neediness.
Give me the capacity to fulfill Philippians 2:
“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others.
Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.
Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.”
Help me to be an empathetic listener.
Let my listening be an offering of love rather than an obligation.
Help me to let go of my agenda and hear my spouse on their own terms.
Father, when anger and hurts surface, give us humility to apologize quickly.
Keep us from being defensive.
Help us to forgive quickly and fully.
Help us to believe the best about each other and always offer grace and mercy.
Keep me from holding onto hurts or weaponizing them.
When there is a divide between us, give me the courage to reach across,
trusting that you are with me.
Inspire our imaginations to find our way through this difficult place.
Ignite our God-given creativity and help us direct it toward our marriage.
Let us see from your perspective.
Give us each a heart of gratitude for the person we share our lives with.
Let that gratitude turn us to focus on our spouse’s strengths.
Give us the faith and hope that we need to go through each day
loving you,
loving each other,
and loving others you have placed in our lives.
Continue to fill us with your Holy Spirit
that we might love extravagantly in sickness or in health,
in times of peace and times of war,
until we draw our final breath.
Amen
Download the whole PDF.
Pray hard. Love well.
(To read more of my work on marriage, click this link for my book or put marriage in the search engine on this page. I’ve also been writing semi-regular blog posts on COVID which you can also find by scrolling through the site.)