A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Esther Mcllveen is a free-lance writer living in Richmond, B.C.
It was a glorious clear day on September 15, 1962 when Dr. Fitch from Knox Church, Toronto, smiled on us as we signed the marriage registration. To help our thirtieth wedding anniversary along, we have dug out the love letters we wrote to each other when the relationship began. Howard was a student at Knox College, Toronto and I worked in London, England and toured the continent. We had met and worked together in Kingston, Ontario. We decided to keep in touch through letters. The eighty-some letters revealed how the relationship grew from friendship into a passionate love and that we had committed ourselves to pray for each other.
Although friendship has replaced a certain passion in our years together, prayer has helped to anchor our relationship. It is like a silver thread spanning thirty years of ministry, three children, three provinces, tears, humour, cross-roads and God’s incredible faithfulness.
We had a head-start in prayer because we worked together before we were married and praying together was part of our job description. After our marriage and particularly when our children came along, we determined that prayer would rescue us from becoming emotionally and spiritually stagnant. After the evening meal was our special time when we shared tea and the day’s events. We trained our children, as they grew older, to take the phone calls and help protect our privacy. This sharing aided communication and led into prayer. We would pray about the day’s events, current events and the people who would come to our minds. It was also a time when together we would ask the Lord to show us his plans and purposes for our marriage and family in an on-going way. It would create a climate that would often be a prelude to our total communication as we expressed our love in bed.
Prayer is by no means a panacea — we have gone for counseling and it has been very helpful and we are swift to encourage others who need it, to do so — however, prayer enhances marriage tremendously. Praying together provides intimacy and affects physical, psychological and spiritual closeness. Dr. James Houston, from Regent College, in his lectures on the sexuality and prayer life of C.S. Lewis, says, “The Annual Financial Statement of a company denotes the financial health of that company; so our sexuality and prayer life denote the spiritual health of each one of us.” When you pray together you create an atmosphere of faith, adding faith to faith — you also create an atmosphere of love because you are constantly inviting God into your relationship and this rejuvenates and keeps the bond tender. Even though your sexual needs may vary (due to workload, menopause, mid-life crises, etc.) prayer keeps your heart tender until the spark returns to your sexual expressions.
It’s very difficult to pray or to have sex when you are angry, or if you have hurt the other person — you first have to come to terms with the conflicts. Even if everything hasn’t been resolved by the time you pray or go to bed, the very act of praying together helps to begin to change attitudes so they don’t result in roots of bitterness. Nothing is quite as humbling and powerful as asking your spouse to forgive you. It is very important to keep short accounts when difficulties arise. Prayer has a way of reconciling the union again and again.
Vacation times are wonderful opportunities to express your love sexually and to gather the splintered, harried elements of your life leisurely in love and prayer. Couples need to experiment with both and to find new settings to make love (atmosphere and timing are very important to women). Nature is very conducive to achieving both. Try making love under the stars and praying beside the water. Holidays can be a time for reviewing both your sexual and prayer life. It can be a time for setting goals and gaining new spiritual breakthroughs.
My husband and I bring different strengths and perspectives to prayer and in this way it helps us to be more balanced and encourages growth. Distances arise in a marriage when one partner stops growing — intellectually, socially, spiritually — and loses interest in their lovemaking. The analogy of iron sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17) happens as couples continue to pray and find new ways to demonstrate their love.
During the months leading up to our 25th wedding anniversary, my husband wrote me love notes which he slipped to me in unexpected places. One had to do with prayer:
Sweetheart:
I pray for you often — although not enough. One occasional and delightful part of this comes when I have a desire that you do something or be open to something, but know that you can’t hear it from me or anyone else. Then to pray — knowing your alertness to the will of the Father. Then to see you voluntarily and cheerfully espouse the very thing that would otherwise have been a burden.
Howard
Sometimes words and gestures can still set the heart to racing even after many years of marriage.
I discovered that my grandparents prayed twice a day for their children and grandchildren, naming each child by name. Without knowing until quite recently, I have been a recipient of their prayers — they were my harbingers in prayer. They were also very much in love. What a heritage we as couples and parents could give to our future generations by praying for them and seeking to keep the bloom in our marriage.