Recently a dear reader brought up a beautiful question:
Q: I feel so inadequate in knowing how to pray for my kids and my husband. Help!
A: This is such a beautiful question because it shows a heart full of love and devotion that seeks to bless and empower her family with a greater and deeper prayer life. Inadequate is not a weak word, but expresses a longing and realization that God has answers that meet our need. When we are weak, His power comes and equips us.
I am thrilled at the opportunity to answer this segment of Woman To Woman, not because I have a “correct” answer, but rather I’m so excited to share what the Lord can do with a willing heart, as this was at one time my heart’s cry.
When I was a younger wife and mother, I prayed over my family each day. My prayers would be to ask for the Lord to bless their day and keep them safe but I seemd to get stuck after that. What else was there to pray about? As my husband’s job grew increasingly demanding and my children were getting older, I knew there had to be a more powerful way to pray for them. I purchased the book The Power of A Praying Wife and then The Power of A Praying Parent. These books opened up my heart to the power of prayer and provided fresh insights along with powerful Scripture based prayers to pray daily for my family. These books covered and gave me the ideas needed to pray for almost every imaginable subject for them such as their future, godly characteristics, their leadership, relationships, health, friends, influences and much more.
Some other resources I enjoy are the free printables from Revive Our Heart. There are numerous sheets to grow in wisdom and godliness as a woman, but specifically two of my favorite ones are 31 Days of Prayer For Your Husband and 31 Biblical Virtues To Pray For Your Children. These give great reminders and areas to cover in prayer.
The greatest model for prayer is God’s Word. I love to read the book of Proverbs and highlight specific verses to pray for my family. What a source of power and encouragment praying God’s Word is. Often times we can identify an issue one of our loved ones is going through and find a verse and pray that verse over them. There may be a characteristic we would like to see more of in our children. Pray over that virtue to be engraved in their hearts through the Holy Spirit. We never “arrive” as a prayer warrior, but rather journey along a beautiful path of prayer and can seek God to continually teach us and guide us.
In a recent post on my blog I shared some of the ways I specifically pray for some of my husband’s needs and how the Lord has grew me in this area.
It’s never too soon to start or too late to learn the blessing and power of praying for our family.
“The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:16
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Stormie Omartian’s books are great! I’ve used the Power of the Praying Wife and the Power of the Praying Parent for years. It helps me to make sure I’m not forgetting any area of their lives. Since my son married last fall, I’ve added the Power of Praying for Your Adult Children. Also, a great resource.
Stormie Omartian’s books are great. I’ve used The Power of the Praying Parent and The Power of the Praying Wife for years. They help me to not forget certain area’s of their lives. Since my oldest son married last fall, I’ve added The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children. Also a great resource.
I read The Power of a Praying Wife and was really REALLY blessed by it. It encouraged me to pray for my husband daily and taught me HOW to pray (and what he needed prayer for) – I’ve seen such good results, too. Blessings. In churches nowadays sometimes it seems like they don’t focus on prayer enough, and that’s our way of communing with God!
I’ll have to look into the other books, and the free printables. Thank you for the extra resources!
Thank you,Joyce! This was a great post! I have some of those books,but want the last 2 you spoke of!