Not Tonight, Honey | MarriagePartnership.com

How do we start?

We married couples work, play, and sleep together. We know each other's bumps, frumps, and slumps too well! So why does spoken prayer together seem awkward, almost indecent? If you and your spouse feel a little weird, these tips will make your prayer adventure more natural.

I don't do mornings

Bottom line: Choose a daily place and time when you can pray together. Couples who stay up with babies or wait up for teenagers will find late night prayer more reassuring than Leno or Letterman. Others who commute together can pray in the car before driving. Partners able to keep their eyes off the lasagna might practice pre-meal prayers. (Personally, I would pray afterward.)

Get physical

Youth workers wisely patrol church hallways and prayer services. Their credo: Don't touch! Years later, married couples may still disconnect the physical from the spiritual. According to Ephesians 5, however, marriage represents Jesus and his church in loving, intimate communication. So hold hands while you pray. Hug each other under the quilts.

Don't pray forever and ever, Amen

Keep your sessions short, especially at first. Pray for each other before you name every cousin thrice removed. No one can pray for your spouse like you—and probably no one will.

Focus on one issue your spouse will face that day: a difficult client, a dreaded parent-teacher conference, or relatives from outer space. Jesus cares.

Life happens—pray anyway

Steve sometimes interrupts prayer to discuss medications or (eww!) urinalysis results on the phone. We've learned to carry on afterward. If we must trim prayer time one day, we pray as usual the next.

Parents especially must keep a flexible outlook, as babies fuss and small children may invade their prayer space. Jesus isn't nervous. Snuggle up and include them for a minute or two. Your kids need to know you pray for each other and for them.

Forgive your spouse

No human prayer is perfect. Our attention drifts. Like Jesus' disciples, we ask his help in learning to pray—and we help each other. When Steve appears comatose amidst my praise and petitions, I tap his ribs. When I nod off and bless dinosaurs aloud, he applies a gentle elbow.

Fortunately, Romans 8:26-27 declares the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Our tired, distracted circle of two becomes a holy circle of three: thee, me, and God. And God never falls asleep.

Jesus didn't say, "Oh, excuse me. I forgot you two are married. Definitely an exception."

No, it made sense to me that praying together would draw us closer to God and to each other.

I prayed him through many challenges—patients with heart disease, others with cancer, one with a sick cow he wanted Steve to see (yes, really!). But my husband admitted he rarely prayed for me.

Even occasional suggestions that we pray together didn't register. "Maybe I should make an appointment," I muttered as Steve dashed out again. "I could pray into your stethoscope!" But he was already gone.

I felt, the madder I grew. My prayers did not rise like incense to the Lord. Instead, they resembled a nuclear blast. Once, after days of sick, cranky children Velcroed® to my neck, I let God have it.

"Why can't he pray with me?" Like my two year old, I bawled and stuck out my lower lip. "Maybe I'll just let Steve pray for himself."

While my children watched Big Bird, I grabbed the semi-quiet like an oxygen mask. A steaming cup of tea soothed my raging soul. God pulled up a chair. (It would have been nice if he'd brought coffee cake, but he knew I was dieting.)