Hi, I'm Dana Shea, host of the Real Relationship Talk podcast.

To all of our married listeners, I want to encourage you that prayer is mission-central

to your marriage.

The goal of marriage is not to be happy, the goal of marriage is not just to have your

needs met, the goal of marriage is not just to have a good friend.

Those are all byproducts of oneness.

The purpose of marriage is that you and your spouse become one.

That's God's deal, okay?

And so when we go to God and prayer for our spouses, our heart has to be God make us

one.

And now I would love the honor to pray for you and your spouse.

Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, lifting these couples up to you.

The couples who look to you for strength, support for their very sustenance, I pray that

you would support these couples and their efforts to create oneness and unity in their

marriages.

I pray, oh God, that you would cover them and would you protect them, oh God, from influences

Lord that would seek to divide, influences that would seek to destroy the beauty and the

wonder and the oneness that you have given them.

God I pray in the name of Jesus, Lord, for those who are discouraged today, Lord, for

those who are ready to give up on their marriages, God, for those who are bent beneath their

loads.

Lord, I thank you, God, that your word says that we can cast all our cares on you because

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