Our experience of learning to pray.....

April 25, 2007 follow up email from Bill and Cynthia Sarles:

This is really two different stories about prayer. First, it is about the two of us, Bill and Cynthia Sarles, building a prayer life together. And then it is the story of our engaged couple, Christian and Amanda, building their prayer life.

We have been married for 26 years when we were invited to become a Sponsor Couple at our church. We attended our first training with Father Ruhnke shortly after that. We had not ever prayed together at that point. We’d never discussed it. Father Rob talked during our training about the value of praying together for our engaged couples and we weren’t doing that ourselves! We both saved a handout he gave us on praying as a couple, tucking it away, knowing we would have to face it at some point, but kinda dreading it too.

It wasn’t until we were doing our prep work in For Better and For Ever that we faced the challenge. We talked for the first time about how we were going to have to begin praying together if we were going to be able to teach it to other couples! We were very glad to have the steps provided by the Kennedys in their handout.

[The most helpful part of that handout for us was the outline: Facing each other, holding hands and then beginning by Praising God for the incredible God that He is; asking his Forgiveness for the hurts we’ve inflicted on anyone, but most especially each other; Petitioning God for what we need; and finally, Thanking God for all the great things He’s put in our way.]

Even with the help, we knew it was going to be uncomfortable and awkward. It was. But it was also incredibly intimate. And joyful. And wonderful. We found that remembering to pray together helped us so much to be honest with each other and brought us so much closer to God and each other.

A few weeks later, we began working with our first engaged couple, Christian and Amanda. He was raised Protestant but doesn’t really believe in organized religion and doesn’t go to church. She was raised Catholic, but doesn’t attend Mass often.

At our third meeting, we gently introduced the idea of prayer to them, saying that at our next meeting we would be looking at the chapter on prayer and would like to show them how we pray as a couple and help them to begin that, if they’d like. Immediately, Amanda said, “He won’t do that.” He agreed, saying that he didn’t consider himself “religious” and he didn’t pray by himself, much less with anyone else. We backed off, telling them not to worry about it, that we wouldn’t cram anything down their throats or make them feel too uncomfortable.

So we panicked! And wrote Father Rob. How can we handle this? We are blessed by them in our lives; we do not want to chase them off or make them dread meeting with us. On the other hand, we don’t want to ignore this wonderful piece of a Christian marriage. Father wrote back to say that this topic could be treated like family of origin, or financial concerns or parenting: something to be put on the table, talked about and handled with them as it seems to fit. We should tell them about our journey toward prayer; we should invite them to be open to it as a positive contributor toward their Christian marriage.

We read over all that he’d written us many times and talked about it over and over in the days between those two meetings. When Christian and Amanda came back to talk about prayer, we were blown away! Christian started out by saying he’d had no idea what prayer really was before he read the chapter in Father Rob’s book. He thought it had to be what he’d seen on TV. He acknowledged that he did, in fact, do a lot of praying on his own, he just hadn’t realized it was prayer that he was doing as he sat at his desk at work or drove home from work or spent any other time alone in his head. Before that night, we had been afraid Christian would dig his feet in and refuse to be part of the conversation. Instead, he drove the conversation. He wanted to know how we brought God into our heads as we prayed by ourselves, what we prayed about, how did we know that was prayer and not just thinking, when did we start praying together as a couple, what did we say, did we pray together every single day, would it be okay to pray silently while he prayed with Amanda, and on and on and on. We were so surprised and delighted that he was open to inviting God into his head when he prayed.

When we asked if we could give them the Kennedy’s handout on praying as a couple, they both said yes, and it was Christian who reached out to take it from us!

Of the five nights we spent with them, this was without a doubt the most productive one. They agree with us: for them it was the meeting that brought them closer together and closer to what they want for their marriage. We also believe at this one that all four of us grew closer to God and each other than at any of the others.

We asked them to spend the next few weeks and months developing their prayer lives by themselves, but being open to praying together. We asked them to keep the handout, read it, and when they thought they might be ready, to talk about it with each other. They are open to praying together in the future. We told them we would like to discuss it at our meeting after they’ve been married for 3 months and that we’d be happy to show them how we pray together at that time, if they’re ready.

We have learned that it is important to go into our sessions prepared but the grace of God can work amazing wonders in our lives.

Bill and Cynthia Sarles