One of the best ways I have found to open communication with my husband is with questions. I specifically ask him two questions: “How can I love you today?”, and “How can I pray for you?” Asking my husband what he needs me to pray for not only provides me insight into what He is dealing with, it also forces him to articulate what is really happening in his heart. (I don’t know about you, but it can be hard to get the men in my life to talk about feelings.) When they are telling you what they need prayer for, they are addressing what is really happening in their spiritual life without even realizing it. I am a great talker, but not always a good listener. I have to be especially intentional with my husband because he can easily slip into the background. He's not a squeaky wheel at our house.
One of the times that I asked Pete how I could love him, he said he needed me to be interested in him, to really see him. I hadn’t really realized that I focus on being intentional with my children, and my friends (because seriously if I wasn’t intentional with them I would have no friends, motherhood leaves very little down time), but I don’t think enough on how to be intentional with my husband. Maybe I think it will just spontaneously happen because we occupy the same space a lot. Intentional wife-ing ( as one of my brilliant friends coined the phrase) can only be led by the Spirit, I mean seriously who has the time??? I need the Spirit to tell me what he needs and what he needs to hear from me because that’s just time efficiency people!
Sometimes it is so easy to see my girlfriend’s hearts and harder to really see my husbands. We women have a softer outer shell. Men are made tougher by God for a reason. They are the protectors, they inspire confidence, and they lead. So instead of trying to make them into women, we need to ask God for insight into their hearts. Ask Him to heighten our senses to see what is really going on inside, to read between the lines. When we are seeking how to love our husbands better, and we ask God for His insight, it has to thrill His heart. He is always waiting on us to seek and He doesn’t hide.
I've been thinking a lot about my little boys growing up to be men. It's happening fast. If I want to intentionally mother them into good men, then I need to intentionally love and pray for their example: Daddy.
So, with Father’s Day coming up, I wanted to share these prayers for our husbands. They are based on scripture, and I even made a printable version of the documents and of just the prayers that you can easily print on card stock and cut out. These prayers have really helped me stay intentional.
Take this whole next week, not just Sunday, and pray for the Fathers in your life. It's the best gift you can give, a mix of love and time.
If you'd like these prayers sent to your inbox just go to www.laurenmitchellwrites.com
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