From Fixer to Prayer: Pray A to Z Stories, Marriages

Happy New Year, friends! I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your family and friends celebrating the gift of Christ. And if your new year is off to a rocky start, you are not alone.

Now more than ever, I’m committed to being a person of prayer. Rather than letting worry and anxiety rule my days, I’m learning more and more to lean into God through prayer in the midst of my everyday messes.

Throughout 2017, I will be sharing stories related to the topics in my new book Pray A to Z.

With 150 topics, I plan to keep this going all year long! You’ll hear from a variety of guests who will share their experiences, teaching us how we can pray for people in our community who are facing similar situations. We’ll also hear answered prayer stories!

I’d love to have YOU participate in this series.

Have an answered prayer story? We’d love to hear it and celebrate with you. Have experience with one of the 150 topics in Pray A to Z? Would you be willing to share your story so we can learn how to better pray for others? Email me at amelia (at) ameliarhodes (dot) com.

Today, we’re kicking off the Pray A to Z Stories with the topic of praying for marriages.

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Wondering what to pray, whether for your marriage or a friend or family member’s? M is for Marriages on page 74 in Pray A to Z.

You can also check out the article I wrote, “5 Things to Pray for Your Marriage” on crosswalk.com.

Today’s guest post is written by Jen Ferguson, an author and speaker from Texas.

Jen offers encouragement for marriages, along with a practical resource to help you pray. Be sure to check out the cards Jen is offering below!
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I tend to skew self-reliant.

Without God’s intervention and presence in my life, I would have never grown out of the mentality of a two year-old where “Me do it!” is my perpetual mantra.

If I’m brutally honest with myself, I tend to approach most every situation with this formula:

A) What is the problem?

B) What is the ideal solution/outcome?

C) What can I do to make this happen?

If “C” routinely included prayer as the first micro-step, I’d be in good shape. But it doesn’t. I run through all the potential strengths, gifts, and experiences that I store in my trusty tool belt and see what’s going to be most useful. I come up with plans and strategies. I let everyone know what their role is and how they can contribute to my glorious outcome.

And then, when people don’t follow the program or I find I just don’t have what it takes, I get frustrated and angry. I blame. And when I’ve finally cooled off, I consider prayer.

This cycle frequently plays out in my marriage. Shockingly, my husband doesn’t always like to follow my commands or subscribe to the life plan I’ve written for him. (Crazy, but my plan for Craig doesn’t necessarily match God’s plan for him!) Thus most of the time, all my strategizing ends up being wasted energy. And then there’s the shame.

The shame that “I should know better,” that “I should have learned my lesson by now,” that “if I couldn’t fix his porn addiction with my whole list of rules and regulations, why would I be able to fix anything else?”

But though I struggle with the shame of allowing my self-reliant nature to rule, prayer is the way to overcome this sticky, green slime. To enter into the presence of the One who came not to condemn, but to save me from my affliction—my desire to be Lord over myself, among other things—simultaneously eradicates my shame and reinforces that I cannot do this life (or this marriage) on my own. Nor was I ever designed to do so.

Though I hate to admit it, there is so much that cannot be solved by my talents, by my gifts, by my meticulous planning. But I am learning to see this not as a fault, but rather as freedom.

[tweetherder]God gets to do the heavy lifting. God gets to plan. God gets to break the chains.[/tweetherder]

All I have to do is ask Him. Then go and do as He leads.

It took me approximately a decade to learn this in my marriage. Sometimes (often?), I forget the lesson. But God is faithful in His work to change me from a fixer to a pray-er. He’s training me to use prayer as my first course of action, not as my last resort.

Last July, I designed a set of prayer cards to help couples consistently pray for each other. I have witnessed in our marriage how prayer has brought freedom, change, redemption, and true unconditional love. I desperately wanted other couples to know this in their own relationships.

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But honest confession—I didn’t start using these cards habitually until my last “fixer” episode bombed. Of course I had been praying for Craig, but not like I used to—not with the Scriptures, not in the mindset of true surrender, of knowing that God can do an immeasurable work that is paltry in comparison to my own.

For the New Year, Craig chose a word to bring focus to 2017. His word is “balance.” Oh, you can bet that I wanted to pull out my tool belt. I wanted to give him ideas, help him map out a structure and a schedule. I wanted to tell him to delete all his games on his iPhone (I still really want to tell him that) and pull out some good books for him to read.

But before I opened my mouth, I asked Jesus first. And He led me to those prayer cards I spent so much time and passion making. The cards splayed out in my hands, I asked God, “How do You want me to pray?” He lead me to the temptation card and as I prayed the Scripture and through the bullet points, I found a freedom of my own—freedom from fear, freedom from worry, freedom from my own controlling nature.

With full confidence, I know that these prayers will bring change. They may not be the changes I expect, but anything that brings me into conversation with Jesus will change me. And, for sure, that seems like a good plan. No strategy required.

Be sure to check out the Marriage Matters Prayer cards Jen referenced above. They are on sale, buy one get one free until Sunday, January 8 at 11:50 p.m. Central time! Find them here.

Jen Ferguson is a wife, author, and speaker who is passionate about helping couples thrive in their marriages. She and her husband, Craig, have shared their own hard story in their book, Pure Eyes, Clean Heart: A Couple’s Journey to Freedom from Pornography. They continue to help couples along in their journeys to freedom and intimacy at The {K}not Project. She’s also a mama to two girls and two high-maintenance dogs, which is probably why she runs. A lot. Even in the Texas heat.