Not Tonight, Honey
I just knew we'd pray together every day. Uh … right.
by Rachael Phillips
Steve held my hand and offered a simple, profound prayer.
I thanked God for our perfect love.
Newly engaged, our 20-year-old hearts shared the deep conviction that our marriage would set new holiness records. We would pray together every day.
It didn't happen.
First, our inner clocks didn't mesh. A night owl, my medical student husband often studied until 2:00 a.m.
I, a working woman, lay legally dead at that hour. His attempts to raise me resulted in a rumble, not a resurrection.
As his schedule escalated, we saw each other mainly in our dreams. One rare evening we prayed together before supper. I left the table briefly and returned to find Steve face down in his spaghetti, snoring.
The next morning he didn't remember the prayer. I'm not sure he remembered me.
Steve graduated and practiced family medicine in a small town. Three children arrived. We joined a church and threw ourselves into committees, outreaches, and prayer meetings.
But we did not pray together.
When our kids put purple crayons into my dryer or flushed keys down the toilet, I learned Erma Bombeck's prayer: "God help you if you do that again!"—plus others, as my husband answered emergency calls and tore out of bed to deliver babies.
Consumed with family, patient, and church needs, we both learned to pray. A lot.
But not together.
What's the big deal?
In John 17:21, Jesus prayed his followers would be one, "just as you are in me and I am in you." He wanted Christians to experience the same spiritual intimacy he and God share.
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.
Steve didn't see it.
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.
As the lone faithful prayer partner, I felt quite holy. The holier
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.
© 2008 Riverside Chapel Seventh-day Adventist Church
