Saving Grace
In the almost three years I have served you, I have experienced “seasons”
of pastoral care issues. When I first arrived, the core of my pastoral care dealt
with grief and mental health issues. That was followed by a time of addressing
the issues of several stay-at-home moms. For a while now, Pastor Randy and I
have been in a season of addressing the pastoral care needs of those whose
marriages are struggling. And now maybe our church seems to be re-entering a
season addressing the grief, especially for bereaved spouses. For this week’s
“Saving Grace,” I found another prayer from a book I referenced in my most
recent “Saving Graces,” entitled A Counselor’s Prayer Book by Kathleen Fischer
and Thomas Hart. This is a prayer for those who are in stressful circumstances in
their marriages. This is a prayer to pray for others but can be easily modified to
pray for your own marriage. May this be a prayer of strength, healing, and
rebirth for all marriages. Be blessed!
Mark Whitley
For a Couple in Difficulty
God of love, look graciously upon _________________and
________________, whom you have given to one another in marriage.
You have made marriage holy, consecrating this highest form of human
friendship. It is your will that in a couple’s committed love, the quality of your
own love might be manifest to all – accepting, patient, kind, forgiving,
challenging and nurturing, faithful even to death, though the beloved
is a sinner.
_____________________ and ____________________ have reached for
that ideal of love, and often realized it, blessing one another and all who know
them. Thank you for all that you and they together have realized, and for all the
happiness they have had together.
Now they stand at a painful place in their relationship. Disappointments and
hurts have made it hard for them to see the good in one another and to remember
all that has been. They stand together in pain, wondering if their love can
weather this storm.
Faithful God, when they committed themselves to one another, you committed
yourself also to them. Guardian of the deep, invisible bond of married love, be
with them now. Help them to find the spirit, and the words, to work through their
hurt and anger, to come to forgive and cherish one another again.
May your love supply what is now deficient in theirs. May your undying hope
rekindle their hope and move them to risk again.
Gracious God, always laboring to bring forth Christ in us, ever blessing us even in
our agonies, deepen the faith of _____________________ and
____________________ in this difficult hour. May they experience new birth
together, and live to glorify your name. Amen
(A Counselor’s Prayer Book, Kathleen Fischer & Thomas Hart. Paulist Press, 1994; pp 46-47.)
