"Couples Who Pray"

I have an amazing husband. Once a month, when the Doula Connection meets at our house, he puts up with the estrogen overload. Whenever I have a new idea, he's supportive. When Couples Who Pray, my latest BookSneeze review book arrived, he sat down on the couch and read it with me.

I guess when we started reading Couples Who Pray, I expected something else. More Bible verses, more concrete suggestions. It's more theory and sales (selling you on the idea of prayer) than it is a Bible study or devotional book.


The book starts out with a somewhat lengthy introduction of the (mostly famous) couples who were the original "testers" of the program. The next chapter talks about how praying together improves relationships and actually gives statistics from research. For example, we learn that 92% of couples who pray together rate their marriage as "very good" versus the 76% from the no prayer group.

The authors make reference in the book to the "40 Day Prayer Challenge," but unlike other books with similar programs, the 40 Day Challenge isn't gone over in great detail. They give you the basics for the 40 Day Challenge, which are things like "Make time to pray," "Pray out loud with your spouse," and "Keep it short."

Reading what was my favorite chapter, "Six Steps to a Healthy Marriage," I realized that our marriage probably works so well because Tim and I have the things listed, at least most of the time. They give the acronymn LAUGHS- for Laughter, Appreciation, Understanding, God, Honor and Support. I think a big part of the reason that we've been married for almost ten years is that we do laugh together, appreciate each other and do those other things.

As far as the challenge goes, we have not embarked on the 40 Days. For the past couple of years, we've had the evening routine of Tim reading the Bible to the family before bed and us all praying together. We did pray together when we were reading the book, and we might do so more in the future, but we'll probably stick with our old routine.