Praying for Him: What Cripples Everyone

Over the next 30 weeks, which I started with an intro on May 1st, I will be doing a weekly series where I talk about my journey through Stormie Omartian's Power of  a Praying Wife. I felt led to pray for my husband, wanted to incorporate the book, but knew that doing a 30 day challenge was next to impossible. (Let's face it: life with a baby just-turned-Toddler changes and there are still nights with many wake up calls due to teething or illness. I'd already tried once and failed.)  So this series was born as a way to share, encourage, and hold me accountable to the commitment I made. I'll keep a list of links just below this on each post so you can easily access them all. Enjoy!

Week 1: Intro     Week 2: Starting with Me     Week 3: His Identity     Week 4: His Treasure

Week 5: His Sexuality   Week 6: His Hugs, Kisses, and "I love you"s  Week 7: His Achilles Heel

Week 8: His Battlefield

___________________________________________________________

I originally thought I was going to be confessing to you that this week was another hard week, another week that I let prayer slip right past me when it came to praying for Ben. Another week where I certainly was not depending on the strength of our Lord.

And though I certainly do not feel it was the best week out of the nine I've been doing this, I realized that without knowing it, I was praying for Ben's fears and my own on a consistent basis.

As I looked back on this past week and all it entailed, I realized that I was constantly praying for Ben as there were some possible situations that would arise at work which brough fear with them.

I also realized that I was constantly praying for a fear, likely a healthy fear, both of us struggle with: whether or not we are really serving God in the here and now. This was so prevalent this week as we were recently faced with an opportunity that, while it's a great way to "know" you're 100% using your life to serve the Lord, was a huge commitment that would likely cause our relationship and personal family life to suffer. We have a lot going on. We also have never had time to really work through any changes that have come our way. One change is followed shortly by another which has caused us to become stronger in some ways, but has also made it very difficult for us to establish a great base for our relationship.

Though this may sound as though I'm complaining, I'm sincerely wanting you to get a glimpse on our 2 1/2 years as a married couple to help you understand what I'm talking about. This isn't because I wish our life was different, this is simply how it's been.

1. Ben and I met, started dating, became engaged, and married all in 19 months time. That's not a lot of time to get to know each other. Which leads me to...
2. We hoped that we would have at least the first 2 full years of our marriage to strengthen our relationship, get to know one another even deeper, and establish a good basis on which to weather the storms we knew would come before as well as after we had kids.
3. God had other plans. 9 months into it, SURPRISE! Pregnant with Zoë!
4. #3 caused Ben to search for another job, knowing that we both desired and practically needed me to stay home. (I'll have to write another post on that later.)
5. Ben's two jobs had him working so that 3-4 days a week he left at 7:30am and didn't return home until 1-1:30 the following morning. This started about two months after we found out.
6. March 2012 Zoë is born. Huge life change to throw in the mix of newlyweddom (Yes. I made that up. No, it does not denote the highs and lows that true marriage brings but I like it. So I'm leaving it.) And Ben's schedule still followed the routine of #5. Can you say worn out?
7. mid-October 2012 Ben gets a single job that will provide but will move us to Houston.
8. 3 weeks after being offered the job, we're required to move. Woah! That was rough. Good, but rough.

We also have some other changes that are coming up here in the near future, but I'm not able to share about them at this time.

However, it is obvious that we have gone through many, many changes, some of which we cannot control. While we know life will bring change, we didn't feel it a great idea to ask for change to be brought in if it didn't need to be.

I say all this because the idea of being involved in an "actual" ministry, appealed to Ben greatly. It also appeals to me as there are some days I wonder what good I am doing for Christ when I'm sitting at home with a child who can barely communicate with me. I know in my heart that being a mom is a ministry of itself, but sometimes it's hard to get past the knowing to actually believing. Ben struggles with the same thoughts, though I don't feel it necessary for me to divulge in what they are. There may be many factors to this, but that is something truly between Ben and God and sometimes shared in confidence with myself and men who he is close to.

All this to say that fear isn't just something that cripples women and finds us frozen, not willing to move from fear of whatever choice it is we're being faced with. When I thought that this week was truly a let down, I found that I was actually praying for fear to be done away with more than I realized in the moment.

It helped me to realize that this truly is a very common struggle that takes on many forms.

Ironically, it is what our pastor has been teaching on these past two weeks. One of the bits tht stuck with me from his sermon this past Sunday was this: "The single-most command used in the Bible is some version of 'Don't be afraid.'" Though I'm no Bible scholar, and I've not done studies on this, I'm willing to guess this is said so much because we struggle with truly trusting God on a daily basis. We let fear take hold of our hearts and keep us from living a life fully devoted to God, wherever we are. When we fear, it takes the place of trusting God with our everything.

And so this week really was more of an eye opening experience, though I didn't realize it until today. A realization that fear can take over anyone, that it isn't just some problem that I struggle with, that I need isolate myself because no one struggles with it. (Oh, the many voices of fear that leave you feeling so alone!) And many reminders that fear is not where God wants us to live, He can and wants to use you no matter what your calling in life (need I say that is why any job can be listed as a calling? If that is what God desires for you to do, it is ministry. Period.), and if your everything is given to God, He will give you peace amidst the fear.

Maybe this is more for my heart than yours, but either way, it has felt healing to type this up. May we live this week basking in His Peace and Strength, banishing any fear that comes our way!

Next week I'll be sharing about my week of praying for His Purpose.