by Chef49er (California)
Father God in the name of Jesus I pray that you would give wisdom, love , guidance, and healing. Father I pray that you would reconcile and heal my marriage and teach my wife to forgive from past hurts and not let the present hurt her or destroy our marriage.
Father I pray that you would cover us both and our kids and home by the blood of Jesus that No weapon formed shall prosper. I bind everything that Satan is trying to put a footstool on us with and loose the Holy spirit all around us. Teach my wife and I to listen to each other and communicate out of love and not anger or control or pride. Father teach us not to demeanor each other or be bad examples for our kids.
Father I rebuke Satan in the Name of Jesus. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Father teach my wife and I to love, honor, respect, hear, obey and embrace each other through your will and your way that all will be pleasing unto you and not unto ourselves.
Father I thank you for total and complete healing in my health and from our past.
Father I thank you for the change you have placed in my son and my kids and myself and wife, for you said you would not leave nor forsake in Jesus name.
Amen.
Return to 7 Daily Prayers to Get You Through The Week
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It’s a wonderful thing when parents have a godly inheritance to pass along to their children and grandchildren. It’s beautiful, too, when kids go through life with lots of warm memories of Mom and Dad. But what happens when the family history hasn’t been quite so positive – when there’s been abuse or neglect, or when hurtful things have been said and done to mar the legacy one generation leaves to the next?
If there’s a legacy of pain and destruction in your family history, remember that you and your loved ones don’t have to be defined by your circumstances. The choice is yours to make. There are basically three ways you can respond.
First, you can let the negative memories cripple you forever. That’s obviously not to your advantage or anyone else’s, but it is a decision you can make. Second, you can bounce back and recover from the pain. This is far preferable to the first option, of course, but there’s actually a third and even better choice: instead of merely bouncing back, you can bounce forward. You can use the past as a springboard into the future.
There are three steps involved in the process of bouncing forward. It’s essentially a question of abandoning the “victim” mentality and determining to take control of your life. Here’s how it works:
1) Identify the pain. It’s amazing how suffering can cloud the human mind. Many people struggle with past hurts for decades without realizing what’s happening to them. The first step toward healing is to shine the light of pure reason deep down into your psyche so that you can get a handle on the events and experiences that are keeping you bogged down. You probably won’t be able to do this effectively without the help of a trained Christian counselor.
2) Find out why it continues to control you. Once you’ve identified and faced the source of your pain, you can begin to look at it more objectively. Analysis has a way of disarming the bogeymen that follow us out of childhood and haunt us throughout adult life. With the help of your counselor, take stock of your current situation and ask yourself exactly why these past events continue to exercise so much power over you.
3) Explore options for dealing with it. The last step is to come up with a plan whereby you can leave the past behind and move beyond the hurt. The goal is to be set free so that you can give yourself away without putting up defenses or second-guessing your own motives. This, as you’ll discover, is absolutely essential to the process of leaving a powerful legacy.
For more information, we’d highly recommend that you take a look at Erwin Lutzer’s book Putting Your Past Behind You: Finding Hope for Life’s Deepest Hurts. It’s available through Focus on the Family’s Online Store which can be accessed via the home page of the ministry’s website.
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Focus on the Family’s Counseling Staff is a group of fully trained, state-licensed clinicians and pastoral counselors who specialize in addressing personal and family-based issues from a biblical perspective. Integrating faith into daily life, a high regard for the Word of God, and a commitment to serve others with the compassion of Christ are all motivating passions for this team as they handle over 40,000 consults annually. Focus on the Family offers free consultation through 1-800-A-FAMILY and referrals for more in-depth care through Focus on the Family’s Christian Counselors Network. Focus has enjoyed a long and valued referral relationship with Meier Clinic and other like-minded agencies who serve the cause of Christ in their clinical work.
www.meierclinics.com
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32, NASB
As a high school and college cheerleader, I found tan legs to be an important asset. So, I tanned—probably more than I should have—at tanning salons and lying on an actual beach when time allowed.
So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when the biopsy on my left leg came back positive for melanoma in October 2006, but I was floored! I simply couldn’t believe I had skin cancer! When all was said and done, the doctor had skillfully removed the cancerous mass, leaving a 4 1/2 inch scar on the upper back part of my left leg. (Praise the Lord, all of the tests since the surgery have come back negative—I am 9 years cancer-free next month!)
But I remember so well the weeks following that surgery. I had to be very careful with the incision, dressing and re-dressing it with a certain kind of bandage. Still, it seemed like that scar took forever to heal. Just about the time it would start to close completely, I’d accidentally hit it while getting out of the car and intense pain would shoot through my body. It hurt so much—almost as much as the day my doctor made the incision!
Today, though I can still see it, the scar has faded, and it hasn’t caused me any pain for more than eight years.
Maybe you haven’t had to undergo a major surgery leaving you with a scar, but you’ve probably endured some emotional pain in your life, leaving you with one or more painful heart scars.
And, if you’ll be honest with yourself, some of those heart scars are still open wounds, never completely healing because you keep re-opening them with your words.
Every time you talk about that heart scar and replay how badly you were hurt, your heart takes a hit, just like when I bumped my leg getting out of the car. Then that scar is torn open again, and the hurt returns.
When you dwell on painful experiences in the past, your emotions go right back there, causing you to feel real pain in the present. So, don’t do it!
Instead of recounting all of the painful times in your life, start sharing just how good God has been to you over the years.
You have a choice to make every time you open your mouth. You can choose to recall the hurts and pains of the past, or you can choose to praise the Lord for sustaining you through the hard times and giving you an inexplicable joy in spite of life’s circumstances. If you choose the latter, those old heart scars will completely disappear—just like my leg scar slowly faded with silicone gel pads and tender loving care.
I say, let the healing begin…
Pray this with me:
Father God, I praise You today for all of the good things in my life. You truly are a good God. And, Lord, I ask You to take away all of the hurts from my past and replace them with your healing love. I receive that healing today. Help me to forgive those who have hurt me as only You can. In the Mighty Name of Jesus. Amen.
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