As part of the launch for my new book, I wanted to invite other married folks to share their experiences of making marriage beautiful. The road to beauty is not always pretty or easy. We often find ourselves in dark and difficult places and don’t know where to turn for help or companionship. One of my main goals in writing Making Marriage Beautiful was to vulnerably offer my experiences so that others would not feel so alone or hopeless. This series seeks to give more glimpses into the lives of other men and women who have partnered with God to create and sustain satisfying, joyful marriages.
Waiting for God to Speak: Tending Our Marriage with Prayer, by Patricia Raybon
My husband crawls to my side of the bed and kneels on the floor beside me. It’s daybreak. Our daily prayer time. So I scoot out of the covers and fall to my knees beside him. Still in our pajamas, we lean into each other, read our devotional and Dan starts to pray. O God!
But does God hear us? We don’t even ask that question. After 41 years of marriage, we’re finally willing to learn a little something about patience. About waiting on the Lord. About God’s curious tendency to delay His replies.
So we’re not panicked today for quick answers. We’re humbled that God would even take time to listen to us.
We were married 35 years before we started praying together like this.
If God would wait that long for a distracted wife and husband to finally seek him together for our marriage, for family members, for life questions and more—then patiently reveal his answers—we have no doubt that God is good and God hears.
Call it amazing. And not that hard. To pray, we use a daily devotional. It sets the pace. We read the Scripture, ponder the story, kneel down and pray. This simple approach works every time.
Maybe that’s why David in Psalm 28 frames his plea by first acknowledging who God is. My rock. Not like the chalky caves near the Valley of Elah, God in David’s eyes is as enduring as the granite peaks of Sinai. He still is.
Like a silent rock, however, “don’t turn a deaf hear to me,” David begs God. “For if you are silent, I might as well give up and die” (vs. 1).
Talk about a desperate prayer. But my husband and I can relate. Our youngest daughter has left the Church and hasn’t returned—a situation that keeps us on our knees daily. If God were silent, we’d give up and die, indeed. But God isn’t silent after all. He speaks in his Word, our Christ, and through his great promises, but also in his world. As I write this, the morning after a frosty weekend, I gaze out of my window to the audacious warmth of piercing sunshine.
Have hope, the beautiful day is saying, and in the sun’s glowing rays, I can hear the Divine. Kneeling with my husband today, letting him pray this time for both of us, instead of jumping in to change his words, we gain humility and assurance, peace and joy, blessings and beauty.
Indeed, it’s a journey, this business of hearing God together. But what a beautiful trip! As Dan and I have learned, prayer helps pace our way through this beautiful journey.
Patricia is an award-winning author of books and essays on bridge-building grace and mountain-moving faith. Her husband Dan is a retired educator and also a new author of mystery fiction for children. Patricia’s prayer memoir, I Told the Mountain to Move, was a Book of the Year Finalist in Christianity Today’s 2006 Book Awards competition. This reflection was adapted from Sanctuary for My Soul: Meeting God Through the Psalms. She’s also author of a One Year® devotional, God’s Great Blessings. Learn more about Patricia and Dan, and her writing ministry, at patriciaraybon.com.
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