Description
15th Edition
Why should you buy Stormy Omartian's book, The Power of a Praying Wife?
Stormy Omartian's Christian book, The Power of a Praying Wife, is an international bestseller. The main purpose of this book is to talk about the great power of prayer. Of course, this work will be especially valuable for those people whose marriage is going through a difficult period. In her book, Stormy Omartian gives invaluable advice that will help you look at the current situation in your family from a different angle and find the right solution to the problems that have arisen. Thanks to this book, a wife will be able to realize her true calling and better understand her husband. The author uses examples from life to show how effective prayer can be in the life of each of us.
Stormy Omartian says in her book that the power of a believing and praying wife cannot be overestimated. By praying for yourself and your husband, for your marriage, you can receive blessings that you never dreamed of.
Stormy Omartian's book, The Power of a Praying Wife, contains one hundred daily prayers. In them, the author shares with his readers:
- new prayers that will help husband and wife prevent ungodly thoughts and negative emotions from entering their lives;
- a fresh look at the problems that every family man faces in everyday life;
- an easy-to-understand explanation that will increase the reader's inner strength.
The author focuses on the fact that a couple can become happy in marriage if they trust in God. Prayer will help build good relationships within the family.
O. Stormy “The Power of a Praying Wife.”
The Power of Prayer
First of all, I want to state that the power of a wife's prayer for her husband should not be seen as a means of gaining control over her husband, and I want to warn you not to delude yourself with false hope! I have found that it is much easier to pray for my children than for my husband. From the day they are born, we take part in their lives, wishing with all our hearts the best for them. But praying for your husband is not so easy, especially if you have already known the bitterness of married life. Your husband can offend you with his indifference, lack of attention, he can be rude and incredibly annoying. He can speak words that pierce your heart like a needle, and every time you begin to pray for him, you feel how much that festering wound hurts. Obviously, you cannot open your heart to God in the way that pleases Him until you get rid of this “needle” in your heart.
Praying for a husband is not at all like praying for a child, because you are not your husband's mother. We have authority over our children given to us by the Lord, but we are not given authority over our husbands. However, we have been given “the power to attack... all the power of the enemy...” (see: Luke 10:19) and to thwart the plans of the enemy with our prayer. Numerous problems that arise in marital relationships are actually part of the enemy's plan to destroy them completely. But we can say:
• I will not allow anyone or anything to destroy my marriage.
• I will not stand by and watch as my husband is led astray.
• I will not look indifferently as an invisible wall is erected between us.
• I will not allow the rust of alienation and misunderstanding or bad choices to corrode our relationships and destroy what we are trying to build together.
• I will not accept the pain and unwillingness to forgive that pushes us towards divorce.
We can resist any negative impact on our marriage and be confident that God will give us the strength in His name to preserve it.
You have the means to put a protective wall around your marriage because Jesus said, “...whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). You have the power in the name of Jesus to stop evil and open the way for good. In prayer, you can tell God about everything that prevents your husband from living a full life: about alcoholism, workaholism, laziness, depression, weak character, quarrelsomeness, a feeling of constant anxiety, fear or chronic bad luck - and pray for his release from all this.
Don't rush to condemn your marriage to death...
Now I can honestly admit that I once seriously thought that my husband and I should live separately, and perhaps even get a divorce. Today, such a solution is unacceptable to me, because I do not consider either the first or second option the best way to solve the problem of an unhappy marriage. I know what God says about divorce; I know that this path is not pleasing to Him and greatly upsets Him, and the last thing in the world I want to upset the Lord. But I also know very well the feeling of despair that kills any ability to make good decisions. I knew the degree of hopelessness at which a person gives up all attempts to do the right thing. I know such depths of loneliness, being in which the soul is ready to rush to anyone who only agrees to look into it and see you in it. I experienced such unbearable pain that the fear of dying from it forced me to look for the only available means of survival - to get rid of the source of this pain. I know what it's like to act out of hopelessness because you have no future. I experienced such an onslaught of negative emotions day after day that nothing short of divorce promised me the relief I wanted.
The greatest problem in our marriage was my husband's short temper. The only targets for his anger were me and our children. From his words, everything inside me shrank and turned cold. I cannot say that I was sinless - quite the opposite. I was sure that I was as guilty as he was, but I didn’t know how to fix everything.
After several years of such a life, one day I turned to the Lord with tears: “Father, I can’t live like this anymore. I know how You feel about divorce, but I can no longer live in the same house with this person. Help me, Lord." I sat on my bed for hours with the Bible in my hands and fought the strong urge to take the children and leave. I know that by hearing my cry from the soul, God allowed me to clearly and clearly see what my life would be like after divorce, and to think about the problems that would arise for me: how I would make a living and raise my children, which of my friends would remain with me, and the worst thing is how the divorce will affect the psyche of my son and daughter. The picture was extremely terrifying. If I leave, perhaps I will feel better, but only at the cost of losing everything that was dear to me. I knew this was not the way God had planned for Michael and me.
As I contemplated my future, God revealed to me that if I voluntarily lay my life before His throne, if I gave up my intention to leave my husband and trusted Him with all my needs, He would teach me how to devote my life to prayer for Michael. He will show me how to pray for my husband, and as I pray, He will restore my marriage and shower His blessings on both of us. We'll both be better people if we go through this together instead of apart. The Lord showed me that Michael was tightly bound by the web of his past, which did not allow him to become different. But He intended to use me as an instrument to free my husband if I agreed to it. It was painful and difficult to agree, and I cried a lot, but when I decided, hope began to glimmer in me for the first time in many years.
I began to pray for Michael every day - praying like I had never prayed before. However, each time I had to confess the vices of my own heart. I saw how deep my pain and resentment were. I don't want to pray for him. I don't want to ask God to bless him. I want God to strike his heart with lightning and expose him to cruelty, I thought. I repeated: “Lord, I confess my inability to forgive my husband. Teach me mercy."
Little by little I began to notice changes in both of us. When Michael became angry, instead of getting annoyed as usual, I prayed for him. I asked God to show me the reason for his anger. And He showed. I asked what I could do to change the situation. And He taught me. Outbursts of anger began to happen less and less often and became less and less durable. Every day something positive was created through prayer. And today we are still far from perfect, but we have come a long way. It was difficult, but I am confident that God's path is worth the effort required to follow it, for it is the only way to save a marital union.
The power of a wife’s prayer for her husband is incomparably greater than even the power of his mother’s prayer (forgive me, mom). Of course, there is nothing hotter than the prayer of a mother asking for her son, but after getting married, a man leaves his father and mother and becomes one with his wife (see: Matt. 19:5). Now they are one team, united by spiritual unity. The strength of the union of husband and wife in the eyes of God far exceeds the sum of their strengths outside of marriage. The reason for this is that the couple is united by the Holy Spirit, who gives power to their prayers.
Therefore, one cannot help but pray: after all, too much is at stake. Can you imagine praying for just the right side of your body? If one side is deprived of support and protection and collapses, then the same fate awaits the other part of the body. The same can be said about you and your husband. If you pray for yourself but don't pray for him, you will never receive the blessing you desire or experience the fullness of life. Everything that happens to him happens to you, and it is impossible to avoid it.
Our spiritual unity as husband and wife gives us strength that is not to the taste of our enemy, who invents new ways to destroy our marriage. He tries to tempt us in various ways, be it low self-esteem, pride, the desire to always be right, unwanted acquaintances, or self-indulgence. He will lie to you, saying: “Nothing will change,” “Nothing will work out for you anyway,” “There is no hope for reconciliation,” “You could be happy with someone else.” He will be convincing to get you to trust him because he knows that once you trust him, your marriage is doomed. If you believe most of these lies, your heart will harden against God's truth.
In any broken marriage, at least one party is against God. When you harden your heart, you lose the ability to see situations through God's eyes. When we are unhappy in our marriage, we grasp at every straw in search of a solution, but we cannot see the whole picture. We perceive only what lies on the surface, but God's will remains hidden from us. However, when we pray, our hearts, turning to God, are softened and our eyes are opened. We find hope because we begin to believe that the Lord can restore what has been broken and destroyed in our marriage: “And I will repay you for the years that the locusts, the worms, the beetles, and the caterpillars have devoured...” (Joel 2:25). We can trust Him and ask Him to take away our pain and hopelessness, heal our hearts of bitterness, and teach us to forgive. We can trust in God's power to raise love from the ashes.
The power that raised Jesus can resurrect your marriage today and fill it with new life. “God raised up the Lord, and He will also raise us up by His power” (1 Cor. 6:14). There is no other force capable of doing this. But this is possible only with the complete aspiration of your heart towards God, only with your unconditional readiness to go through the difficult path in anticipation of the resurrection of love. For the path to joy lies through pain.
You yourself must decide the fate of your marriage and say whether you are ready to do what is really necessary to revive it. You must believe that what was destroyed in your marriage by pain, indifference and selfishness can be restored. You must believe that any tragedy in your life that has consumed you - violence, the death of a child, adultery, poverty, the loss of a loved one, a serious illness or accident - can be stripped of its deadly sting. You must believe that whatever divides you and your husband - workaholism, alcoholism, drug addiction or depression - all this can be overcome. You must know: no matter what trouble creeps quietly and treacherously into your relationship with your husband, no matter what you become obsessed with - your career, your dreams, caring for children or selfish desires - all of this can be dealt with. You have to believe that God is powerful enough to do this and more.
If one morning you wake up and realize that the husband lying next to you has become a stranger to you; if you feel silent hatred that breaks all the threads of the spiritual connection between you; if you see how love and hope inexorably disappear drop by drop; if your relationship is full of pain and anger, and every day only adds to the despair; if every spoken word drives a wedge between you even deeper, turning it into an insurmountable barrier separating you - if all this happens in your life, then be sure: it is not God’s will. The Lord wants to destroy all barriers between you and your husband and restore your marriage. He can heal wounds and put love in your heart. Nothing and no one except Him is capable of doing this.
But you must firmly say: “Lord, I pray that this conflict will come to an end, that the wall of hostility between me and my husband will collapse. Deliver us from the pain and hatred with which we try to defend ourselves. Teach us to forgive. Speak with our lips, so that in our words there may be Your love, Your peace. Destroy this wall and teach us to walk Your path. Lead us out of the ignorance in which we are; Reveal Your truth to us so that we can be healed and reborn for a new life, as You want.”
Do not rush to declare your marriage hopeless and do not ask God for another husband. He is able to make your current husband a new creation in Christ. Husbands and wives were not created to be at enmity, to be strangers to each other, to live in a dead marriage or separately, to endure humiliation and to get divorced. God's power is on our side. We cannot leave our marriage to fate. We must fight for it because we have hope. If God is next to you, then there is nothing in your life that cannot be reborn from the ashes. Even your own feelings.
And what about me? I need prayer too
Naturally, when you start praying, you will think about whether your husband will pray for you the same way you pray for him. No matter how wonderful this may seem to you, don’t flatter yourself. Prayer for your husband is an act of sacrificial and selfless love on your part. You must be willing to make this sacrifice and pray for him with complete dedication, realizing that it is quite possible, and even very likely, that he will never pray for you the way you do. You can ask him and pray for it, but you cannot demand it from your husband. However, this is not your concern, but God’s. So relieve him of this duty. If he doesn't pray for you, it's his loss, not yours. Your well-being does not depend on his prayers - it depends on your relationship with the Lord. Indeed, wives also need prayer. But I am convinced that we should not count on the help of our husbands. In fact, expecting your husband to be your partner in prayer would be an empty hope.
I realized that the most effective way to save our marriage was the prayerful support of the other women I prayed with every week. I'm sure this is beneficial for any marriage. If you can find a few women of deep faith in whom you can trust completely and reveal the secrets of your heart, set a time for weekly prayer. It will change your life. This does not mean that you are obliged to tell everyone the details of your husband’s personal life - no, your task is to ask God to correct your heart, teach you to be a good wife, to share the burdens of your soul with someone and ask for God’s blessings for your husband.
Of course, if your problem is very serious and you can wholeheartedly trust your friends who are praying with you, do not hesitate to share it with them. I have seen many marriages end in divorce simply because people were too proud or afraid to tell someone their problems, someone who could pray for them. They create an outwardly prosperous picture, and one day everything turns into disaster...
Even in the absence of support from other people or your husband, your sincere prayer will bring good results. Before your prayers are answered, God's blessings will flow upon you simply because you pray, because you are in the presence of God, and from there further change begins.
Who is this book for?
This wonderful work is intended for women who want to change their lives. But any change is impossible without God's help. Stormy Omartian shows how important it is for women to pray not only for their spouse and children, but also for themselves. God loves it when a woman comes to Him and asks for help to become what He intended her to be.
In the book, Stormy Omartian gives many real-life examples and talks about how women should pray and how effective their prayer can be. By purchasing the book “The Power of a Praying Wife,” a woman can learn how to:
- resist temptations;
- fulfill your destiny;
- take care of your health;
- fight fear.
The author offers readers sample prayers that can be used. Thanks to the prayers that Stormy Omartian offers, a woman will be able to achieve the goal set for her by God. Having entrusted her anxieties and concerns to the Lord, a loving wife will definitely see how the great power of her prayer will begin to act and how family life will be transformed.
You can buy Stormy Omartian’s book “The Power of a Praying Wife” not only for yourself, but also as a gift for your friend or acquaintance if her family life also needs God’s help and support.
Prayer to the Mother of God for the love of a spouse
There is also a miraculous icon that is called upon to protect marital unions concluded between Christians - “The Unfading Flower.” This is one of the purely “female” icons, its origin is Greek. For a husband to love his wife, you need to hang the image in the same room as the marital bed, preferably at the head of the bed (but not necessarily).
Every evening before going to bed, ask the Queen of Heaven for peace to reign in the family.
“O Most Holy Virgin, Mother of the Lord of the Highest Powers, Queen of Heaven and Earth, our city and country, omnipotent Intercessor! Receive this song of praise from us, unworthy Thy servants, and lift up our prayers to the throne of God Thy Son, that He may be merciful to our iniquities and add His grace to those who honor Thy all-honorable name and worship Thy most pure image with faith and love. We are not worthy of being pardoned by Him, unless You propitiate Him for us, the Lady, for everything is possible for You from Him. For this reason, we resort to You, as to our undoubted and speedy Intercessor: hear us praying to You, surprise us with Your great and rich mercy, show us Your heavenly help and intercession, and ask God Your Son as our shepherd for zeal and vigil for souls, ruler wisdom and strength, judges truth and impartiality, mentor reason and humility, spouse love and harmony, children obedience, offended patience, fear of God to those who offend, complacency to those who grieve, abstinence to those who rejoice; Send down to us all the spirit of reason and piety, the spirit of mercy and meekness, the spirit of purity and truth. Hey, Most Pure Lady! Have mercy on Your weak people, gather those who are scattered, guide those who have gone astray to the right path, heal the sick, support old age, raise young children with chastity, and look upon us all with the gaze of Your merciful intercession, raise us from the depths of sin and enlighten our heartfelt eyes to the vision of salvation. . Be merciful to us here and at the Last Judgment of Your Son, and having ceased in faith and repentance from this life, make our fathers and brothers live in eternal life with the angels and with all the saints. For you are, Lady, the glory of heaven and the hope of earth, You, according to God, are our Hope and Intercessor of all those who flow to You with faith. We therefore pray to You, and to You, as the Almighty Helper, we commit ourselves and each other and our whole life, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen".
Content
1. When I want more persistence in prayer 2. When he needs to draw closer to Jesus 3. When we need to work together 4. When I need to trust God in situations 5. When he needs to make the right decision 6. When we need to communicate more 7 When I don't want to pray for him 8. When he needs to treat me better 9. When we need to learn to talk 10. When I need to rise above the things that annoy me 11. When he needs to understand the power of his own words 12. When we want see answers to our prayers 13. When I need to confess something to my husband 14. When he needs to hear what I want to tell him 15. When we need to talk about problems 16. When I want to become more like Jesus 17. When he needs to ask forgiveness 18. When we want God to breathe new life into our marriage 19. When I am disappointed in him 20. When he needs direction 21. When we want love that pleases God 22. When I need to get rid of bad habits 23. When he carries a heavy burden 24. When we need God's strength 25. When I know I should say nice things 26. When he needs to break free from destructive behavior 27. When we shouldn't rush into anything 28. When I need to rethink my expectations 29. When he needs to be free from fears 30. When we need to recognize the lies of the enemy 31. When I want excellence in everything I do 32. When he needs to be renewed in mind 33. When we need to make each other a priority 34. When I need make sure of his place in the marriage 35. When he needs God's leading in the area of employment 36. When we need to get rid of debt 37. When I need to show more love 38. When he goes away for a while 39. When we want freedom from depression 40. When I it's hard to trust him And others...
Preface
When talking about Stormi and I’s long marriage, I sometimes joke: “Those 25 years were the happiest years for me and the most unhappy for her.” After a quarter of a century of marriage, it’s unlikely that any aspect of my complex personality remains a secret to Stormy. She saw it all: my triumphs, my downfalls, my struggles, my fear and despair. She had every reason to doubt my worth as a husband, as a father and as a musician. She saw how I was offended by God because He did not fulfill all my requests on demand; she saw the miracles of God when He raised something from the ashes and turned it into gold. Every step along this path was accomplished through her prayers. This book is written based on Stormi's experiences over the years. I can't imagine what my life would be like without her praying for me. Her prayer brings me comfort and security, and also helps me fulfill God's commandment to pray for each other. I can’t imagine any other way to know true love for my husband, except one - constantly pray for him. This precious gift helps him to know the joy of God's blessings and His grace.
Stormy, I love you. Knowing the power and grace of your prayer, your husband Michael
I lovingly dedicate this book to my husband, Michael, who has given me so much more than I ever prayed for. We both learned the power of prayer.