A prayer for our husbands

I am reading the book, The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian. In my quiet time this morning I finished chapter one and it ended with this prayer, which I think is very powerful. Not all of it pertains to me because Evan and I have not really had any hard times in our marriage yet, but I am sure they will come at some point. But I also think it is a great prayer so that some of those hard times are prevented. I wanted to share it with you, especially if you are a wife. There may be certain parts that convict you as some did me. I think as wives we should be praying things along these lines for our husbands:

Lord,
Help me to be a good wife. I fully realize that I do not have what it takes to be one without Your help. Take my selfishness, impatience, and irritability and turn them into kindness, long-suffering, and the willingness to bear all things. Take my old emotional habits, mindsets, automatic reactions, rude assumptions, and self protective stance and make me patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled. Take the hardness of my heart and break down the walls with Your battering ram of revelation. Give me a new heart and work in me Your love, peace, joy (Galatians 5:22,23). I am not able to rise above who I am at this moment, Only You can transform me.

Show me where there is sin in my heart, especially with regard to my husband. I confess the times I have been unloving, critical, angry, resentful, disrespectful, or unforgiving towards him. Help me to put aside my hurt, anger, or disappointment I feel and forgive him the way You do-totally and completely, no looking back. Make me a tool of reconciliation, peace, and healing in this marriage. Enable us to communicate well and rescue us from the threshold of separation where the realities of divorce begin.

Make me my husband's helpmate, companion, champion, friend and support. Help me to create a peaceful, restful, safe place for him to come home to. Teach me how to take care of myself and stay attractive to him. Grow me into a creative and confident woman who is rich in mind, soul , and spirit. Make me the kind of woman who he can be proud to say is his wife.

I lay all my expectations at your cross. I release my husband from the burden of fulfilling me in areas where I should be looking to You. Help me to accept him the way he is and not try to change him. I realize that in some ways he may never change, but at the same time, I release him to change in ways I never thought he could. I leave any changing that needs to be done in Your hands, fully accepting that neither of us is perfect and never will be. Only You, Lord, are perfect and I look to You to perfect us.

Teach me how to pray for my husband and make my prayers a true language of love. Where love has died, create a new love between us. Show me what unconditional love really is and how to communicate it in a way that he clearly perceives. Bring unity between us so that we can be in agreement about everything (Amos 3:3). May the God of patience and comfort grant us to be like-minded towards one another, according to Christ Jesus (Romans 15:5). Make us a team, not pursuing separate, competitive, or independent lives, but working together, over looking each other's faults and weaknesses for the greater good of our marriage. Help us to pursue the things for peace and the things by which one may edify another (Romans 14:19). May we be "perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement." (1 Corinthians 1:10)

I pray that our commitment to You and to one another will grow stronger and more passionate every day. Enable him to be the head of the home as You made him to be, and show me how to support and respect him as he rises to that place of leadership. Help me to understand his dreams and see things from his perspective. Reveal to me what he wants and needs and show me potential problems before they arise. Breathe Your life into this marriage.

Make me a new person, Lord. Give me fresh perspective, a positive outlook, and a renewed relationship with the man You've given me. Help me to see him with new eyes, new appreciation, new love, new compassion, and new acceptance. Give my husband a new wife, and let it be me.-Amen