The wind of prayer

Ours is a different love story. He was a widower with four children and I was a long-time career gal. We had known each other for several years through our church. I’d worked on committees with his wife. We’d been in Bible studies together and I’d taught his kids in Sunday school. After his wife's tragic death in a car accident, we discovered we shared many values and we wanted to sail to the same destination.

For quite a while, I’d sometimes wake up in the morning and think, I’m married to him? Always before, he had been someone’s husband.

We came home from our honeymoon to four children, ages 4 to 15. Keep in mind that I had left single life – and my house – behind while he had suffered the loss of his wife in a tragic car accident. Then, three months later, I got pregnant. Shortly after that, the older kids decided it wasn’t all that fun to have a step-mother and could we just unwind everything? Sometimes it felt like a blizzard of emotions.

The teenager was testing her wings while the youngest just wanted a mommy and I would do, even if I didn’t have any training. I quit my job so I could be home with him and learn how to be a mommy before the baby came. Hormones were like wind to my sails, tossing me on the waves.

We survived that first year of marriage. I’ll tell you why. God brought us together and covered us with the prayers of our friends and family. I have never been as clear on God’s leading as I was in accepting Matt’s proposal. And, when things got hard and I didn’t understand, I clung to that word from God, his answer to my specific prayers.

We knew that our church family prayed for us daily. Those prayers were like a gentle breeze correcting our ship day to day. The winds of conflict were intense but not as regular as the daily breath of communion with God.

Lessons we learned? Pray in marriage and pray for marriages. Matt insisted we prayed before he left for work and before we fell asleep at night. I suspect that when we earnestly pray, we are less willing to let go.

We celebrated 17 years of marriage in May. We're still sailing to the same destination. We still start and end each day in prayer and we still ask God to make this a union of three. And we know that he is faithful.

He has taken me to the banquet hall,
and his banner over me is love.

Song 2:4 (NIV)