The 7th Day of Christmas with Jennifer Smith–Unveiled Wife
Welcome to the 7th annual 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways!!!
12 Days.
12 friends guest posting sharing a Christmas idea, recipe or favorite with you.
12 great giveaways for you to enter along with one GRAND PRIZE for someone who comments to enter all 12 days!!
Please join me in welcoming Jennifer Smith of the Unveiled Wife on this 7th Day of Christmas. Jennifer began UnveiledWife.com, a web-based ministry for wives, in 
March 2011. She publishes weekly marriage articles including encouragements, devotions, and prayers of the day. She authored The Unveiled Wife, Wife After God, and 31 Prayers For My Husband. Jennifer is devoted to encouraging wives all around the world to develop God-centered marriages.
Now, here’s Jennifer….
The holiday season is usually bustling with families drawing close together to spend quality time with one another. Families flock the shops for gifts, hand-in-hand they search for the perfect tree, and they nestle side by side at coffee shops with peppermint lattes and hot cocoa.
Ever since I was a little girl I have done this with my family and as I am out and about I see others enjoying Christmas too.
When I became a wife I had the privilege of sharing this joy with my husband. Although we encountered hardships throughout the year, we were good at intentionally making Christmas memorable. By our third Christmas, the burdens mounted so high, it was a struggle to embrace the cheerfulness of the holiday season. In fact, I escaped into fantasyland by using up all my free time to read the Twilight trilogy.
For three weeks I grew fascinated with the love story of Edward and Bella, desiring a strong love in my own life, convincing myself that my husband was not good enough. My husband sat next to me as I flipped the page of my books. I checked out of my reality and dived into a sea of discontentment. The more I read, the more unsatisfied I became with my marriage. The more I read, the more I avoided my relationship with God as well. My heart was turning hard against those I once loved, dwelling on the potential of what I could have if I chose to leave my husband.
I am sharing this with you because I know the pain that comes with marriage. I know how burdens can pile so high that a wife would rather escape, even if it is just into fantasy. I know how a whole holiday season can fly by without any intentional memories built because it is uncomfortable and sorrow-filled. I also know I am not the only one who has dealt with this, and I don’t want any wife to endure this type of isolation this Christmas!
The greatest thing that saved my marriage and transformed my heart was my husband’s willingness to pray for us. Even when I hard-heartedly refused, my husband was faithful. He prayed for us every night and asked God to help us. At that time when I isolated myself in books, my husband was unaware of all that I was internalizing, but he surely felt the separation in our relationship. Yet, he prayed.
I believe God hears our prayers and that He wants us to rely on Him. There was no way I would have recognized my sin of lusting in fantasyland without the Holy Spirit convicting my heart. And there was no way my heart would have softened and overcame discontentment without God showing me the purpose of marriage and how He can use our burdens to teach us and ultimately transform us.
This Christmas, no matter what condition your marriage is in, I urge you to pray. Ask God to protect your marriage. Pray for you and pray for your husband. By doing so you will be able to embrace the holiday season and more importantly you will be able to embrace unconditional love for your husband. There is power in prayer!
Here is a prayer for your marriage [click on the image to make it larger]. If you want you can print this out and frame it where you and your husband can view it daily and serve as a reminder for you to pray for your relationship!
Giveaway: Jennifer is giving away a copy of her book 31 Prayers For My Husband: Seeing God Move In His Heart. Enter to win by leaving a prayer in the comments for your marriage and a random winner will be chosen.
Lord, thank you for restoring my marriage when I too thought it would be better to leave him. I am so thankful to you for giving me a love for him again and protecting me from a great sin in my life. Lord, keep us safe and help us to grow in love for one another with you at our center. I love you, Lord…
i’m so thankful for my husband and our marriage. please protect it.
Lord, please restore my marriage and help me to see my husband through Your eyes.
Thank you for sharing so honestly–helped remind me to focus on the blessing of a husband i have
Lord, create a new spark in my marriage so that people around might see Your love.
Father, Thank you that my man does not expect a perfect woman, and I should not expect a perfect man. For if so, we would both be alone. Lord, please help me to focus on what I DO have and not what I am missing out on(or think I am missing).
Thank you, Lord, for the goodness you have showered on us. Please direct my path that I may be a reflection of your love toward my husband, just as Your love for me is reflected through my husband.
I am not married but I have a dear friend who desires a good Christian man for her husband, so I pray that God will direct that pending relationship.
Father, help my husband to learn to trust You.
Father, help my husband to learn to trust
Thank you Jesus for the gift of my best friend and husband. I pray that even in the busy-ness and hard times, You are first in our lives.
Father, Make my marriage to my husband all that you intend it to be. Amen.
Help me to have the love and grace that you have shown me and show it for my husband
Dear God, Thank you for love and life to the fullest in You. Please touch hearts and heal rocky marriages., drawing people closer in You.
Dear Lord thank you for keeping us safe and for giving your example of forgiveness and love.
Dear Lord thank you for keeping us safe and for giving your example of forgiveness and love.
Thank You, Lord, for my husband and for the work You have done in both of us. I ask that You continue to strengthen our marriage and help us point others to You.
Lord help me to be a support to my husband even when I’m so tired. I pray we both continue to grow together in the Lord, and not apart. Thank you for giving me an incredible husband.
Thank you Jesus for my wonderful husband, help us to understand each other in a greater way !!
I’m not married, but I pray for healing for the marriage of a friend.
Lord, thank you for bringing us together so many years ago. Help us always to be mindful that all that we have comes from you and to always put you first and be generous to others. In Jesus’s name!
Thank you Lord for a husband of integrity and strength to be a Godly man in today’s world. Please help me to be a supportive wife.
Wow…so many comments/prayers.
Lord, I do indeed thank you for my husband, i repent of taking him for granted after 30 years of marriage. Long work hours (for him) and 7 children plus marrieds and grands, have indeed taken it’s toll. Always blessed, but yes, Lord, I confess to having it also worn us down. So we just go thru the motions sometimes. And just exist. i thank you that we can minister side by side to others, as we minister and serve in our own giftings and callings as well. I am truly a blessed woman. Let me not forget that. Help us, Lord, to carve out time together just to be together. Without the cares of the day, the family issues always pressing in. Give us grace to love each other when those mundane, going thru the motion, doing what needs to be done days happen.
Lord, I confess that I am often selfish in my marriage. I feel weighed down and empty often and am quick to ask my husband to help me when he comes home. I am slow to ask him how I can meet his needs and minister to him. I know that he’s tired and has SO MUCH that he takes on at work. Please help me to see beyond myself, to remember that YOU meet my needs. Help me to be a wife who understands and shows the love of the gospel to the man who loves me best. Thank you for this gift of a husband and for not treating me as my sins deserve. You are my joy and my treasure.
Heavenly Father I thank you for my husband. I pray that in this season of our life you will cover us and help us to put one another first, before the kids and the grand kids even though we love them so much. Draw us closer to one another and let us minister to others together in the name of Jesus.