Most spouses go through periods of feeling like they have lost one another. For some, it becomes so serious it leads to divorce often with each spouse feeling like it is the other’s fault. This is because we have turned inward spinning around in our own feelings allowing those feelings to be our impetus for action.

The Lord is always there waiting for us to come to Him. I guarantee that He will hear you for He promises us that in Scripture: Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find. The question, is, dear friends, will you ask Him AND will you hear Him? You must first ask with a pure heart. You must ask with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. It cannot be a throwaway request. It must be from the depths of your being. Our Lord wants you to hunger for Him. Why? So you realize it is only He who can help you…so you realize you need Him. He is our salvation, our redeemer. Let Him redeem. Half-hearted requests are not true prayer or thinking, at the bottom, that “I’ve got this,” is not prayer. Prayer is on your knees, emptied completely, begging Him – not because He is a God who needs to be treated this way but because you know that only He, He who is Love, is the answer you seek. All prayer is the realization that He is the answer to everything.

Then you must listen. To listen requires that we quiet ourselves, stop talking, stop answering the situation the way we want to answer it so as to allow the Lord to speak to our hearts. Your conscious is often the voice of God. Consolation of the soul is also a response from God. Direct inspiration is also a response. This is difficult because we can confuse what we so desire with direct inspiration. The only thing I can tell you is that direct inspiration must be accompanied by a true emptying of self in prayer – a sense of complete trust in God, a letting go of anything you are still holding on to. Only then, when your soul has been stripped naked, can you properly discern direct inspiration. And you will know, with an experiential certainty…a certainty…that this inspiration is coming from God.

“Real love is not to desire a person, but to truly desire their happiness–sometimes, even, at the expense of our own happiness….I am incredibly grateful for the inspiration that came to me that day so long ago.” – See more at: http://aleteia.org/2016/09/24/a-single-a-phrase-helped-save-my-marriage/#sthash.jHIC02oV.dpuf

This article made me cry because it is a true story and because it is about prayer, a response to prayer and the follow-through from prayer. I know it was not easy for this couple. But nothing good is easy and we so often forget that. Anything good requires suffering, tears, heartache, questioning. This couple came out the other side, marriage intact. Why? Because one spouse turned to God, emptied himself, begged for answers, got one, and followed through.