4 Ways Praying for My Deployed Husband Helps Our Marriage

I want to introduce Elaine Sinott a devouted women of God, mother and wife.  We met through Social Media and after reading her blog Military Wife After God I knew that she needed to share on FaithFueled Mom!  February will be our Family First February month and Elaine is a great example of just that. Our military families make such a sacrifice for our freedom. I am so grateful for their services and the support of their family!

I recently learned through the Unveiled Wife’s devotionals Wife After God: Drawing Closer to God & Your Husband and 31 Prayers for My Husband: Seeing God Move in His Heart the extreme importance in praying for your husband. These devotionals (which I HIGHLY recommend-they truly changed my life!) taught me that praying for your husband not only has an incredible impact on him as a person but also for your marriage!

The 4 things I learned from praying for my husband daily are:

1. It has helped me to see him through God’s eyes. Praying daily for my husband has softened my heart towards him and has helped me to let go of things in the past that have been hurtful. It has helped me to begin to see him through our Heavenly Father’s eyes meaning I am much more willing to choose love over anger and I am willing to extend grace. It has helped me to learn how to forgive, that I should be quick to forgive when I am hurt because God does that exact thing for us over and over! And it has taught me the importance of forgiveness in marriage! When you forgive your spouse, and begin to see him through God’s eyes, you learn true intimacy.
2. It has helped my marriage significantly! Yes, believe it or not, it has made a difference in our marriage even through a deployment! Imagine the changes that can happen when your husband is next to your every day! (I cannot wait until he’s home for me to experience that feeling J) I have noticed that our conversations are much calmer, loving, and attentive towards each other throughout this deployment (probably because my anxiety has been almost non-existent since I began a relationship with our Heavenly Father!). When he is upset about something, I am more attentive to how it makes him feel and I’m less concerned about myself (something I wish I would’ve known for our last two deployments as well). When he is excited about something, I’m more attentive to why it makes him happy and I share in that joy with him! We have truly grown closer despite the 6,000 miles between us!
3. It has taught me to RESPECT my husband! Respect for men is like the need to feel loved for women – our husbands need respect to thrive! They need it to be happy in life, every day. When a man is not respected, resentment builds and it will be difficult for him to be in tune you’re your needs. What does respecting your husband mean? It means letting go of the sarcastic comments. It means letting go of the things you think he is doing “wrong” if he isn’t doing them your way (my mistake there-correcting him too many times when taking care of the kids!) It means listening to him. It means trusting in his decisions and supporting him. It means not gossiping about your husband. You are your husband’s partner in life and he is yours – your job is to build each other up, not tear each other down. I have learned how to truly respect my husband with my words and my actions and it has made a world of a difference in our marriage.
4. It has taught me to become more intimate with him! Intimacy is often thought of as a sexual thing but intimacy actually means “making yourself known.” Praying daily for my husband has taught me to step out of my comfort zone and talk to him about things we never used to talk about enough, like God and our feelings. We talked a little about them but after becoming closer to God this past fall for the first time in my life, I have learned a whole new level of communication with my husband and it’s been AWESOME! We don’t hold anything back, there are no questions about anything. We’re honest and open with each other about every little thing. Communication is ridiculously important in a military marriage especially, as you can imagine, because that is all we have for months at a time. This whole new level of intimacy with my husband has been the start of something beautiful! Prayer has such power – you won’t realize it until you try!

Being your husband’s wife, your prayers for him are the most powerful. God wants nothing more than for your marriage to be centered around Him. And He promises when two or more gather in His name, He is there with you! What a beautiful and comforting promise our Heavenly Father makes!

One of the most intimate acts you can ever do with your husband is pray WITH him! Sit in your bed together at night before falling asleep, hold hands, and talk to God. Ask Him to bless your marriage – to let His will be done through it! Pray aloud for your husband, ask God to protect him emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally every day. Ask God to help your husband fulfill his duty of being a leader in Christ for you and your family. Ask Him to help your husband be the warrior in Christ he was created to be. And ask God to help you become to wife you want him to be – for you to love your husband the way God wants you to love him and to always forgive and love without conditions.

Praying for your husband can move mountains in your marriage. It can bring healing, understanding, forgiveness, love, security, compassion, kindness, gentleness, joy, and so much more. When you pray for your husband, you invite God into your marriage and, when God is the foundation of your marriage, you and your husband can conquer anything the world throws your way!

Meet Elaine

Elaine Sinnott is a military wife to Luke of 5 years, a mommy to 4 beautiful little boys, and a daughter of God, eager to learn and share what she learns about God’s purpose for marriage! She also wants to help the military wives out there know that they’re never truly alone when the lifestyle seems that way – that God is always with them! She credits the devotional Wife After God: Drawing Closer to God & Your Husband by Jennifer Smith (@UnveiledWife) for changing her life and saving her marriage.