After taking excerpts from the books, I want to now look at the book as a whole in context. This book does not apply to you if you are not a White, middle/upper class cishet able-bodied woman. If you are disabled, POC, queer, poor, or anything else, this does not apply to you. (I don't exactly hit all those marks either, but as I mentioned, I am doing research on religion, after growing up in a large Christian/Catholic community). Jennifer's review from October 17th 2014 is a spectacular review that covers these issues. This book has a lot of internal misogyny. This book is classist, it is ableist, it is many things. It ENCOURAGES women to remain in ABUSIVE relationships with their husband, despite everything. I really want to highlight that. Stormie Omartian ENCOURAGES you to stay in an abusive relationship. Omartian has, within this book, openly admitted many times that her husband, Michael, is abusive to her and their kids. But it is ok because it is under the guise of a good ole Christian marriage. To divorce grieves God. Without wanting to be too critic of Omartian, I also found she was a little "look what my prayers did for this person". She would use an example of someone (usually her husband, of course!) who she prayed for regarding the particular topic and explain how her prayer was answered in the future. Of course that's possible, but I felt she was saying it was her prayer, not God's power, that made the difference. It's hard to explain what I meant without sounding like I think prayer is redundant, because I absolutely don't believe that! I just mean that the way the author wrote, made it sound like it was all about her. Seems to be for women who think their husband is desperately immature spiritually; at least, that’s the picture she paints of her own husband. She seems to think his unique struggles are universal. Praying Wife" was different to what I was expecting and at first I found it hard to relate to the topics as they didn't seem relevant to where my husband is in his journey with Christ. However, I realised that I could just use the topics as a starting point for my prayers for my husband. The prayers were quite specific, so it was hard to find them personal for our situations/circumstances, but I would like to go through the headings again and write up my own prayers for my husband, based on those. The author got me thinking about things to pray about for my husband, that I had never thought of before in regard to topics, not substance. The first problem is that she assumes the husband is Christian too. Praying for your husband is even more important if he isn't saved, and Stormie Ormatian seemed to forget that aspect, which made me feel like I wasn't part of the target group.

Negatives: Oh boy. Where to start... •Omartian puts too much of an emphasis on WHO is praying and not enough on who you pray TO. The power of prayer isn’t in prayer itself, but in the God who hears and answers. Great concept! Wives need to pray for their husbands, and can be their husbands best prayer warrior. There are many aspects of your husband’s life to cover in prayer, and I think this book points out some great ones! It definitely motivated me to start actively praying more deeply for my husband every day. So a man is always a sex-fiend, and if he's not, there's something wrong with the marriage??? What a way to ruin a wife's self-esteem! In the foreword, by Omartian's husband, Michael mentions this, claiming it as a "joke in the household"- "It's been twenty-five wonderful years of marriage for me and twenty-five miserable years for you." Wow, what a real knee-slapper. Twenty-five miserable years of an abusive relationship for Stormie Omartian (and their children). What a reliable narrative to advise for my marriage.Praying for your husband and your marriage is one of the toughest things we must do as a wife. Stormie shares the details of events that have taken place in her life and the strategies she put in place to receive the change she needed not only from her husband, but also herself to better their marriage and relationship with one other.

Chapter 3: "But your prayers will certainly help protect your husband from unnecessary struggle and loss. God's desire is to bless those who have obedient, grateful, and giving hearts, whose true treasure is the Lord." Chapter 25: "Suzanne was a praying wife who never stopped believing that God would bring her husband to repentance." I use this last one because there is a constant use of "will" "Would" verbiage that implies prayer always equals results. Sometimes, God might have a reason for not answering your prayer, no matter how fervent and well intentioned you are. There is no guarantee that if we just follow the magic formula of a praying wife we'll get good results. Can it happen? Yes. Should we pray? Yes. But don't make it out as a problem solved sort of situation. Chapter 6: "God wants us to get through temptation because He wants to bless us. But He needs to see if we can be trusted to choose His ways over our fleshly desires." Let me state this clearly. God is infinite, perfect, all knowing, and all powerful. He doesn't need to see anything about us, he already knows. He does not need anything from us.Lets just say that I found some red flags in the authors marriage that make me thankfully mine is nothing like hers. My husband would think I was slandering him if I tried to publish similar stories, and it's kinda hard to take her advice when I don't want to be in her shoes. Examples are: In the opening introduction she says "You can ask him [to pray for you], and you can pray for him to pray for you, but you can't demand it of him. Regardless whether he does or doesn't is not your concern, it's God's. So release him from that obligation." You should expect your Christian husband to be trying to build you up spiritually. I feel like that's not an obligation you place on him, but one that God does. Which means you have no right to release him from it. New from bestselling author Stormie Omartian is a book close to her own heart—The Power of a Praying® Wife Devotional. Following up on the insights and prayers of The Power of a Praying® Wife (more than 3.5 million books sold) 100 brand-new devotions, prayers, and supporting Scriptures offer a praying wife fresh ways to pray for her husband, herself, and her marriage.

NOOOOOO!!!! This book only capture some of Stormie's memories and they just happen to be when God answered her prayers. She is showing us how she prayed to bring about change in her marriage. She tells us several times, that she had to ask more than once and so things took months and even years before she received her answer from God. Look to God as the source of all you want to see happen in your marriage, and don't worry about how it will happen." How is sometimes a good question to ask. Is counselling a helpful answer to you? God might be leading you to that. Is better communication what you need? How do you work toward that? Relationships take work and prayer.

faith and future

If she said that prayer was “cheaper than a divorce” one more time, I was gonna throw my book at the wall!!!! Shallow. This could’ve been a great, deep book on prayer, but it was so shallow and poorly executed. The Power of a Praying wife is a great guide for women who love God and love their husbands, and who want to help them through prayer. The book is also a good lesson in relinquishing control and an exercise in faith that God will listen and respond to prayers, making this method more effective (and less frustrating) than arguing or nagging. Let me put a huge disclaimer on this and say, if any of the lovely women who did this with me for a prayer group see this, I was so encouraged and uplifted by our discussions and prayers, and I believe we got some good things out of this book. My critique of this book is in no way a critique of our group or the talks we had, and I was so happy to do it with you all. There is some good stuff in this book, and I've rethought how I pray for my husband through it. But enough of the content worries me that I'd hesitate to recommend it to anyone.