Barbara Rainey says when your grown children leave home, it will put some stress on your marriage.

So the question is, how many empty places will you have in your marriage when you arrive at the emptiness?

And the more work you do on your marriage, the more you invest in that relationship,

the fewer gaps and the fewer holes there will be in your marriage when you arrive at the

emptiness. So I just want to stress again the importance of building in your marriage

and then for those of us who are in the empty nest to continue to invest in our marriages

because that is the primary relationship.

This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Lee-Mauze for Wednesday, September 17th.

For the last several sessions, we've been in a topic that touches every mom at some point,

adult children and the empty nest.

Susan Yates and Barbara Rainey have written a helpful book on the subject called Barbara

and Susan's Guide to the Empty Nest.

Now they're back picking up on the conversation with Nancy Lee DeMoss.

You know, one thing we haven't really referred to yet, but it's so crucial, is the role of prayer.

And talk to me as now moms and grand moms of older children, adult children and grandmoms about the role of prayer as you see these needs in their lives.

I think our responsibility to pray increases as we let them go.

Well, for one thing, we're desperate, right?

Often that's all we can do is pray.

But it's very helpful to go to the parents of your grandchildren and say, and do this yearly, okay? Usually,

I think of the years beginning in September, because we all sort of still live in the academic

year, but you can do it anytime and I'll say, okay, tell me some specific things to pray for

each of your children in the coming year. And I even think we did this with our kids growing up.

...