23: Your Guide to Praying Together as a Couple

If you're not engaged, you're married yet either. Um, and I think the more. We, I don't know, just live life the more we realize this isn't like a normal thing that a lot of couples do, or it's something that maybe people want to do, but it's kind of foreign or it's a little bit weird for people. Like it's a little awkward to kind of get, get started and get into it. Um, so. And we feel like it's so important to learn how to pray with your spouse.

Yeah. I mean, you don't just feel like it that's, it is extremely important to pray with your spouse and to have prayer be an integral part of your relationship, whether you're dating or married, um, those relationships will look different, but prayer definitely needs to be a foundational part of. Right. And I mean, if we go back to our goal of having a God centered marriage, I mean, if you think of like, how do you have a Christ centered life?

I mean, you have to root yourself in prayer and your relationship with God is developed through intentional daily prayer. And so in a similar way to really have a God centered marriage, to really have your marriage be rooted in God. You know what the Holy Spirit's calling you to do and the way the Lord wants you to live out a good and Holy marriage. You have to know the Lord together as a couple and you have to invite the Lord into your relationship via prayer as a couple.

So that's what we're going to get into today. And I'm excited. Let's get started. Okay. We'll start off in a prayer. In the Father, in the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Amen. I'm Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we give you praise and thanks this morning. We thank you for. Always that you love us, always that you bless us. Thank you for my marriage with Mari. Thank you for our families and for our health.

Thank you for this podcast and the ways that you are using Mari and I to spread your love and to lead people to you. We pray that. The words on this, our words on this podcast today will be your words that you'll inspire us, that you'll send your Holy spirit into our hearts to fill our minds. I would pray for protection, uh, over the equipment and the technology today. Uh, that'll be a smooth recording and that, uh, we pray for all the listeners that there'll be blessed by this podcast and that.

Uh, you'll give them the grace to integrate prayer into their marriage and their relationships and they marry. We trust all this to you. In Jesus name. We pray. Thanks babe. Yeah. Okay. Where are we starting? I think we start with before you can begin to pray as a couple, you have to be praying yourself. Uh, that is primary. Uh, and so if you're not praying, you're not praying. And you don't have your own individual relationship with God and you're not having daily prayer yourself.

I start there. Uh, you've recorded a podcast or two on prayer. I know. Yeah. At least two. I know. I know there's one full one that like breaks down, I think more of like the catechesis of theology on like the importance of prayer and what prayer is. And then I think one of the more recent ones was literally just like breakdown ways to have a prayer routine consistently, like minute by minute. Very practical. Yeah. So go listen to those. Go listen to those. But that's first.

If you're not praying yourself, start there. Yeah. It's most important. Yeah. And when we're talking about prayer, if you haven't heard those other episodes, we're talking about like sustained time in silence with God and either that's you literally being silent and allowing for God to speak into your life or you spending time in quiet, personal prayer, journaling, reading scripture, speaking to God on your own, like mental prayer, um, that's truly. What prayer looks like.

That's truly how you develop that relationship. So as Catholics, we're so used to those rope prayers, which are good and beautiful and still should be prayed, but just praying a hail Mary or in our father, isn't the extent that your prayer can go. And isn't the extent that your relationship with the father can go. So just wanted to make that note. Yeah. And praying as you fall asleep or thinking about God while you drive is good, but it's not.

It's not, it's not, you're still missing the point there. It's not, it shouldn't be the extent of your prayer life. Yeah. Um, somebody told us last night that, uh, God, God doesn't think of you as an afterthought. You shouldn't think of God as an afterthought. So don't have God as the afterthought of Um, praying in the car, like, Oh, like a toss up prayer before you go to sleep, make intentional time for him. So start there. Yeah. And my, my challenge here specifically, I think we hear a lot.

I mean, we've said it ourselves, we've fallen into this as well, but like, it's very common to hear people say, yeah, my faith is my number one priority. It's like the, the, the most important thing in my life to me is my faith. But if you're not praying. How is that really true? That's my question, right? If you're not actually, if you don't actually have a committed daily prayer life or striving for one, right?

If you're not striving for one and striving to know Jesus truly in a personal relationship, is that really true? Is your faith, is Jesus, is your relationship with Jesus really number one in your life? Because we make time for the things that we find important. So we find time to scroll on our phones. We find time to work. We find time to go out with friends, you know, travel, whatever it is you find important.

And so I just want to challenge you there and feel like if, if you feel that way in your life, if you've said that in your life, you know, How is that actually playing out? Because I think that's the hardest part is actually recognizing like, what does it look like to put Jesus first in my life? And I would, I would say it starts with daily prayer. Absolutely. And don't get us wrong.

Like it's hard and it's very challenging and we fail all the time, but we're always on the struggle bus with prayer, but we're always trying to incorporate it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's all about getting back up. So praying as a couple. Okay. So I think let's just talk a little bit about like how we even started incorporating into our life, like how it actually just naturally incorporated into our relationship. Do it. Okay. So when we. We're dating.

There was the summer kind of in those first few months of our dating relationship where we both went and did internships or mission type, uh, like work for that summer. You were at life team for the summer in Georgia. And I was doing an internship with focus here out in Colorado for the summer. And that was kind of our first real exposure to this like amazing Catholic world. And, you know, Kind of the first time we started to live, like, vibrant Catholic lives, like, Christ centered lives.

We didn't really know what that looked like before then. And one thing that we both experienced was prayer with other people. At least, I don't think I'd ever experienced that before. Like At least not to the extent. I don't know if I'd ever really had anybody Pray for me like that.

Like maybe in youth group, the leader would like pray us out or pray us in, but that summer, I mean, I not only experienced like Bible study with other people, like talking about scripture with other people, but at the same time, um, people also offering to like, pray over me and like pray for specific intentions and do like intercessory prayer. And so that was a really cool experience because the Holy Spirit was a. Part of the Trinity that I was very unfamiliar with.

I think, um, I think I always kind of had a relationship with the father and then was kind of working on my relationship with Jesus. And the Holy Spirit was just kind of this, like, elusive thing that was happening. And I think that's the case for a lot of people. And so people were like, let's invite the Holy Spirit into our prayer. Like, let's pray intercessory prayer.

And, um, I think it was really good to kind of have that experience apart from each other, because it kind of normalized it a little bit. Yeah, and I, and I mean, like, we learned how to do it on our own first. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Cause I think it's, you can definitely learn together and that's beautiful, but I think it helps to. That was just our experience. Yeah, that was our experience. It's like, we learned how to pray individually and we were able to do it together.

Yeah, and so then when we came back to campus after that summer, I mean, we were talking about all these experiences all throughout the summer together. And then when we came back to campus, um, I think it was our mentor friend, Jeremy, or either it was just us reflecting from the summer who encouraged us to like. Continue to pray with each other.

Um, well, at that point we were already discerning engagement and that's something like as your relationship is progressing, it's more and more important to incorporate prayer into your relationship. And so, yeah, we were encouraged by mentors to make sure that prayer was a foundational aspect of our relationship. And so then we kind of just started trying. Yeah. So what did that look like? Well, I remember us doing two things. I remember us praying with scripture.

I remember that like, I think it was like every other Thursday morning there was a stretch where you would come over to my house and we would pick a chapter in the gospels. What? That's great. I don't remember that. You don't remember that? I remember praying with scripture together. I don't remember that. It was every other Thursday. After this summer or that one summer, like we were praying scripture before this because we were both in that like.

Gospels class where we like our homework was to pray scripture. So that was a unique part of our relationship where we were like reading scripture together from like day one before we were even dating. But then after the summer, I know that we were like intentional about praying it together.

And so I remember it was like Thursday mornings, you would come over and I'm not saying we did this for like months on end, but like there were several times on Thursday mornings where you would come over and we would like pray with scripture. I love that you know, because it's Thursdays. Feel like it was a Thursday. That's great. Um, Hey, women with the berries gatherers. So like we have good memories, you know, it was, it was real.

And, and so I think like one of us would open in prayer and just like, ask like God to be present and to like speak to us through his word. We would pick a piece of scripture, kind of like chat about it, pray with it and then close out. And then there were also times when. One of us felt like we needed, like, particular prayer intentions to be prayed over that then we would pray with each other for, um, I'm just trying to think of examples.

Um, if we were starting a big decision, or if we were feeling really stressed or anxious about something, or if there was just something going on in our lives that we were just struggling with. Yeah. Yeah. And since we weren't discerning engagement, I remember praying us us praying about that a lot. Like maybe after a date night or something, we'd be just in the car and be like, okay, like, let's just pray. And you just pray.

Pray in the car for like God's discernment to be clear for our discernment to be clear and God's will to be clear and Just what yeah, whatever was going on in our lives Yeah, and I think that at first it was like maybe a little bit awkward at times Like when we were first getting into it like it wasn't like Boom. You know how to do this. And it's like fireworks and the Holy Spirit's just flowing.

Like, I feel like, and there's kind of awkward at first learning and just kind of, yeah, that's what I would describe it as awkward. So let's talk about like, why is it awkward? Right? Because that's just a true fact. And you hear that a lot from people that like, probably the number one thing that prevents couples from praying is, It's either they don't know how or they're just not really comfortable doing it. They feel awkward.

They feel like I'm not doing it right or I don't know how to initiate it or I feel like nervous that I don't know, like my spouse is gonna not want to do it with me or judge the way I say things or like maybe you just like don't even know how to say things. You kind of get stage fright when you're on the spot, right? So, uh, that's how you feel. I think everybody has felt that. Yeah. You're not alone.

And I think that like, it's important to point that out because I remember this mentor that we were talking about that like kind of encouraged us to incorporate prayer. He would tell us prayer is more intimate than sex. And so like, if you can't pray together, like, how are you coming together? In the sacrament of marriage, like this is the most intimate form of your relationship. And so I think there is something about it being awkward that shows like there's a sacredness to it.

There's, um, you're burying your souls to each other. Exactly. Like you're burying your souls to each other. So yeah, there's a level of intimacy that happens when you pray together. Yeah. So it's okay if it feels weird and it's okay if it feels like not normal or awkward, like that's normal, but I promise you the more you do it, the more comfortable you'll feel. It's just like learning any new skill. It's not going to feel natural at first.

You're going to have some learning pains, but it's important. And so if you stick with it, it will become more natural. So. What are ways, like the easy, natural ways to incorporate prayer into a relationship? Yeah. Should we just start with practicals? Like, and let's just start with like easy to more advanced, if you will, you know?

And so we'll start off with the really basic ones that you can, if this is something that's totally new to you, or maybe you've tried to incorporate it into your relationship and your significant other or your spouse is like. Pretty against it or like nervous about it or not open to it. I think these easy stepping stone practical tips will like help you kind of like slowly get into it because you can do this because you can do it.

So number one would be blessing the meal, like praying over your food before you eat. That's something that. A lot of Catholics, most Catholics, most Christians know how to do even just like, if you've never prayed it out loud yourself, even just from the standpoint of like, you know, what's supposed to be said. Thank you for this food. Thank you for my family. Like please bless this food, Lord. Right. Yeah. Like you don't, there is the bless us at Lord prayer. Yeah. You're welcome to use that.

And pray out loud with each other. Don't just say it in your head, but you don't have to, like that is not required. You can literally say whatever you want, like food for those who don't have any, whatever. And so, and there's something so impactful about having the man lead in this aspect. And so this is a great practical way for. Him to be start getting comfortable. I think like comfortable leading and initiating it himself.

Yeah. And so just like encouraging him to be the one to pray and Thanksgiving and bless the food in his own words. Yeah. Yeah. You can, yeah, definitely start with the, bless us a Lord prayer if you want, but you could graduate into just praying out loud. Just like, thank you for this food pray that it nurtures our body. We pray for those who go without today. I think for all of our blessings, amen. Amen. Exactly. And as women, as wives, like be encouraging of that, be supportive.

Don't be critical about it. Don't be like, Oh, like you should say this in your prayer. You shouldn't say it that way. You know, like, just like be loving and encouraging and thank him for leading in that prayer and slowly. You'll build him up to have that confidence to lead you both in prayer and kind of bigger ways. Yeah. It's a great stepping stone to be comfortable praying on your own, like with free prayers as opposed to just reciting the road prayers. Yeah. I think that's the other reason.

And we've touched on a little bit why people feel a little bit uncomfortable is like, you A lot of times you can be self conscious about like how you're praying out loud. And if you're saying the right words or beautiful words or not, and the reality is like, you can't pray wrong. Yeah. You can't pray wrong. You really can't pray wrong. And whether you are like super poetic in your prayer or super basic in your prayer, it has the same effect. The Lord loves it all.

It's not like one prayer is more powerful or better than the other. So don't get caught up in that. And Just talk as if you're talking to somebody else. Just like, don't get caught up in like fancy language when you're praying. Okay. Another example of times in your life when you can just incorporate prayer very naturally is we do it when we travel. So anytime we're on a plane and a plane is taking off, we'll just lean over to each other and just pray out loud. That's, we just free pray.

We usually alternate. Yeah. We'll just take turns. But then I encourage you, especially at the beginning to initiate it. Even if you don't, aren't the one that's saying the it's like, Lean over to your wife or your girlfriend, fiance, and say like, Hey, can you pray, like, at least be the one to initiate it and then just pray like for like, like, Lord, we pray that you keep us safe on these travels that you pray for the pilot that he'll be able to fly the plane safely.

It's great for all those other people that are traveling. Like, thank you for the opportunity to be on this trip. That's it. Yeah. Literally take 10 seconds. Um, you can do it for when you're on the plane. You can do it when you're going on road trips, you do it anytime you get in the car. Uh, but those are just kind of like, we do it anytime we go on a road trip, just like bless this trip, bless the road, bless our car and the vehicles around us.

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to travel. Yeah, those are very easy ways to with meals and with. Traveling that's the Mari likes to call it habit stacking. Other people have called it that as well, where you're just incorporating something into something you're already doing. So for something you want to learn how to do, just incorporate it, stack it on top of an activity that you're already doing in your life. And so you're already getting in the car. You're already on the plane.

Like just have those be indicators or markers to be like, Oh, let's pray. Yeah. So those are just two very, very simple. Yeah, I think maybe the next level could be like praying a rosary together. Yeah. Because I think what, what makes it easy about the rosary is that the prayers are given to you. And so like, you're not worried or, you know. Feeling self conscious about like how you're praying or what words you're saying, the words are given to you.

And I think where you could kind of like incorporate a little bit more of that, like prayer together is like speaking your intentions out loud at the beginning of the rosary. Um, that's a level of vulnerability to kind of share what's on your heart, what you want prayers for without actually having to be like, You praying for your spouse out loud yet.

So, you know, your attention could just be like, Hey, I've just been like having a really rough time at work, feeling like just inadequate about myself. Like just put prayer for confidence and for, you know, whatever it is that you're looking for, or maybe you have a family member who's struggling, whatever you feel like you want to Want prayers for in your life? Just speak them out loud.

I actually love that, that I feel like most times when we're, uh, talking about intercessions that we were praying for, like for the beginning of a rosary or when other people are asking like, Hey, like, what do you need prayers for? We oftentimes most go to, Oh, pray for my mom, pray for my friend, pray for this, like other people, which don't get me wrong. Those are great.

But especially when you're praying with your spouse or significant other, Like share the things that are on your heart that you specifically need prayers for, because that's a beautiful way to just like baby step, like dip your toes into sharing that part of your heart, part of your heart more. And then you don't have, then you're just, you lean on the rosary, the power of the rosary and you say that together.

So I love that as like the next step, I would say the third or like, uh, I don't know what number we're on, but the next level is every morning, every night. Pick one to start with, do both if you can, but start and end your days in prayer, same thing like praying before meals or praying when you travel. It can be so simple. Don't overcomplicate this. You can take turns doing it. But literally just say like, ask the Lord, like what you're thankful for, what's on your heart.

Yeah. What you're struggling with. Yeah. I get it. Intentions you have for yourself and for other people. I, I am trying to remember what, like the acronym was for it, but I feel like growing up we learned something love, like, like praise petition, you know, there's also like the pirate prayer. Okay. What is the primary? Okay. Say what that is. I don't know. It's. It's like adoration. Okay. Then a bunch of ours. That was so unhelpful. Respect.

I mean, I'm going to look it up right now, but I mean, they all are basically the same. It's adoration or praise petition. Uh, Thanksgiving. Okay. I've got it. I'm looking up an acronym on my phone and, um. The one the A. R. R. 1 is 1 that we can do, but the 1 that I've heard most is acts. Yes, I do. So it's a stands for adoration. C. confession T. Thanksgiving and S. supplication. And so. acts. This is a really easy way to remember kind of like how, what I could say in my prayer time. Right.

And you can honestly like use this framework for a two minute prayer, five minute prayer and a 30 minute prayer. Um, it's just about what goes in order. And again, there's no right or wrong or wrong way, but if you're stuck and don't know how to pray and don't know what to say, this is a really great framework. So one. A stands for adoration. So acknowledge God in and praise him and just love him. I mean, Trey, when he started out today's prayer, he said like the heavenly father.

And I think you were saying, you said something like, we praise you and we love you just kind of like a moment of adoration and thinking the Lord for who he is. Then it's C confession. And this can be time when you just, Um, ask the Lord for forgiveness for maybe ways that you acted wrongly throughout the day or, um, didn't live according to like his plan for you or, or a Christ centered life. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. Um, tease for Thanksgiving.

So then spend time thinking the Lord for his blessings in your life. Thank you for my family, for our home, for our food, our health, whatever it is that you're thankful for. Amen. Amen. Easy things, easy things you guys. And then S you end with supplication. And this is a request or a petition in your life. Um, a specific intention that you're hoping to pray for, whether it's for yourself or people in your life or for your marriage. So that's a great framework.

You don't have to be confined to that if you don't want to, but if you feel stuck, acts. So you can do that. We were talking about, you can do that in the morning and night when you're praying together. Um, I feel like that kind of starts getting into like, you know, a five minute prayer together. Yeah. If that like two to five minutes before you go to sleep or when you wake up off of the day of the Lord.

Before we go to sleep, it's a great time to reflect on the day, give thanks, um, and always be asking the Lord for what's on your heart. Yeah. Okay. Next practical step that is a little bit more involved, I think, would be praying with scripture together. I would say one before that it's real quick that is really good and powerful is just going to adoration together. You don't even have to speak out loud to each other. Like just sit next to each other.

In the presence of our Lord and be praying together. That's great. You don't have to say anything out loud. Uh, but I would just throw that in there. That's so important. I think that's beautiful. And yeah, you're just in front of the Lord together and letting him do the work. So just go to adoration together, sit in silence, 20, 30 minutes, an hour. That's another option. Yeah. And just have like your own personal prayer time. Yeah. But doing it alongside your spouse, it makes a difference.

Okay. So then we'll be praying scripture together. So Why don't you talk about kind of like, yeah, how people can do this. I would go back to Mari's episode where she prays with scripture. It's called like, Bible study with Mari. That's just a very tangible example of a way to pray with scripture, like so divina. And you can just do that with your spouse. Like literally I was at this talk too.

I can't remember who was giving this talk, but like every morning he comes downstairs, makes a cup of coffee for him and his wife. And then You know, five, 10 minutes later, the wife will trickle on downstairs and the Bible will be on the kitchen table. There'll be two cups of coffee and they'll just be tired, like maybe hangry or just like waking up, like not like doing anything beautiful or like doing anything like performance based. It's literally just like showing up, showing up.

And they just, whether they're going through a book or just the daily readings or the daily gospel, and you just read it together, like, you just read it together and maybe sit some time in silence. If you're doing like Alexio form, read a couple of times and just sit in silence together with scripture.

And then if anything sticks out to you, like a certain phrase, just share that and why it stuck out to you with your significant other and then end in just like a prayer Thanksgiving and, and I don't know that you have any suggestions on that.

No, I mean, I think this is such a beautiful exercise to do together because I think it opens up a little bit of a deeper level of vulnerability to dive into scripture together and talk about like, what is resonating with you, but at the same time, you're just letting it out. God do the work because scripture is, is a living word. It is applicable to your life in so many different parts of your life.

Honestly, every time you read scripture, it's gonna hit different and it's going to speak differently to you. And so you're really just allowing the Lord to speak to you and you're just. Kind of recapping what you're feeling. Yeah. Literally you're letting the Lord be the one inspired word. You just have to repeat what he says. Yes. And I do recommend like when you're sitting down to pray, having one of you open in prayer and invite the Lord into it.

Um, the Lord is always with us, but he wants to be invited. He wants to be acknowledged and invited into our prayer and into relationship with him. And so start out with just being like, come Holy spirit. We always invite the Holy spirit is just, Powerful and gives us the words to pray. And it allows us to, I feel like kind of like remove these, like more fleshly layers and just be more of like in tune with our soul and really like hear the word of God.

So invite the Holy Spirit to be like Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit, um, teach us to pray with the scripture today and just allow God's word to be clear to us. Like, what does he want to speak to us in our life? And then just read. Read together and have some moments of silence. It's okay to have some moments of silence. And then you kind of just ask like, Hey, what stood out to you? You don't have to like, ask like, what theologically do you think this means?

Just literally what stood out to you? Like literally you don't have to recap. Like what we're not asking you to interpret what God's trying to teach. You know, it's just like, what word. Moved your heart. What resonated with you or how can you apply what was read to your day that day? Yeah, why do you think it stood out to you? Do you think the lord's trying to do something in your life?

Like do you think he's trying to speak something in your life or is there a decision that you're weighing on your heart heavily? and And this scripture kind of gave some insight to what to do and discussing that together. And then ending with a prayer of Thanksgiving, like, thank you, Lord, for speaking to us through your word. Thank you for giving us your word. Um, thank you for my spouse and how I'm able to just seek truth and relationship with you with my spouse. And amen.

Yeah. I think the biggest, biggest, biggest thing that we're trying to communicate, um, is is don't overcomplicate it. There's no right way to do it. It can be so, so simple, but it's so powerful. It's so powerful in bringing you and your spouse together. And it's so powerful. And like I said, inviting God into your marriage, you can be Catholic, you can be baptized Catholics that go to Sunday mass every Sunday and maybe even do other things.

But if you're not actively inviting God into your relationship, it's going to look different. practical step that I feel like is. Maybe the top tier level, would you say? Yeah, it's at least the most intimate level. Yes, would be intercessory prayer with each other. So this looks like praying with each other out loud for the specific intentions your spouse is asking for. Yeah, so it would be me interceding for Mari for whatever it is. That's going on in her heart.

A lot of the times in like Christian and even Catholic circles, you hear it as like praying over each other. I've heard back and forth things on whether this is like an accurate term or not. You're just praying with each other for each other, but. Um, if that kind of clears up what we're talking about, I know some people know it as like praying over each other.

So, um, practically what this looks like, for example, if I'm like super anxious about something that's happening in our lives, I'll be like, Trey, like, here's how I'm feeling. I'm like feeling super anxious. I'm stuck. I'm lost. Like, this is how I feel in my relationship with God. Like, I don't know where he is. I don't know what to do. Can you pray for me? Yeah, I think sharing a few specific things, like, try to be specific.

Don't be so vague where you're like, hey, can you just pray for me right now? Um, like share a couple specific things that are on your heart. Hey, I'm feeling anxious. Hey, I just feel really lost, confused with God. I don't have a desire to pray. Like, and then can you pray for me for those things? And then, um, like I'll just put my hand on Mari. Like, we'll just start in prayer. And then I just ask like, how many fire we thank you for a daughter, Mari. I just pray that.

Yeah. You give her peace and you send the spirit of peace upon her. Pray that you make your will known to her so that she doesn't feel lost. I pray that you give her the grace to respond to the ways that you're calling her to live in this life. Uh, we ask that you just overwhelm her with a desire and love for you so that she can enter in her prayer. I pray you remove any apathy, like Holy spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. Reveal the lie that she's unloved or that, uh, prayer is not important.

Amen. If there's any lines that are coming up, like Mari can share those and then we can rebuke those in the name of Jesus Christ. And then like we end in prayer, like praise and Thanksgiving where we love you. Thank you for the graces you've bestowed upon us. Like we thank you for this time of prayer. Sometimes we'll like end with praying a Hail Mary, inviting Mary to intercede for us as well.

Yeah. So that's a, like, that's the, uh, the next layer is more intimate, but it's where we should all aspire to go to. I don't. The, the easy ways praying before meals, praying, uh, when you travel, praying with scripture, like those are all like, we babysit, you're stepping in this direction, but like, I would encourage you that don't settle for just praying before meals. Pray with scripture. Work your way. Yeah. Pray the rosary. Work your way up.

Pray. Intercessory prayer guy, like all together routinely. And then, and then even like when you have a family and you have children, like teach your children, model it for your children. I saw this one video once too. And maybe that's where we saw the whole, like the couple praying with coffee and Bible scripture in the morning. I think like the line was like, we do this every morning for ourselves, but we also do it for our children.

Like we want our children to grow up seeing a marriage that is centered in God and is rooted in prayer. And so. Working it into your relationship, not only blesses you and your marriage, but will bless your children and their future marriages as well. I mean, they'll grow up seeing, they'll grow up seeing a husband and wife that are rooted in prayer and go to each other in prayer and have that level of intimacy in their faith.

And they are, they'll be wanting to seek that hopefully within their marriage, their future marriage as well. And so, um, you can pray with your kids then too, and kind of model it for them. Yeah, I hope this was helpful. And just know that like your significant other, while it's awkward and while it's difficult to start, it will get better. It will get better. It's, you know, the momentum.

Like once you start and you start doing it, and you start doing it, then it'll get easier and easier and easier. Um, and like they're not gonna judge you. Like they're probably feeling awkward too. And they're going to be super, like, they're going to admire you and respect you a ton to put yourself out there and try it. Um, so just honestly, just get over yourselves. This is important. And just do it. Yeah. Do you want to close in prayer, Mari? Anything else you want to add?

No. I mean, there's so many other ways to, I know I started the podcast saying like, we're going to talk about different ways to incorporate faith into your marriage, but honestly, the foundational thing is prayer. And that's where we're really here to talk about, but we're going to have to do a part two of like other ways to incorporate faith. Cause it's. Uh, just a God centered marriage is, is such a blessing is so fruitful to your life and to the world and is so necessary.

So we need to keep the conversation going, but we got to wrap up because we actually got to get to mass. So let's close in prayer. In the name of the father, son, Holy spirit. Amen. Come Holy spirit. Lord, we thank you for this, uh, time together of Trey and I being able to talk about prayer with each other. Um, thank you for this time with our listeners who are learning about how to incorporate you and prayer into their life more, into their relationship more.

Um, we pray for good and holy marriages. We pray for, um, people to desire to include you in their relationship even more into their marriage even more and for them to root themselves in you. Um, we pray for our listeners for you to give them a spirit of courage, um, and zeal, uh, in their faith and for them to be able to take that first step and bring it up to their spouse and say, Hey, I really think we should do this.

And we pray for the spouse or the significant other to have an openness in their heart to enter into prayer together. And we ask this all in your most holy name, Jesus Christ. And we ask for the intercession of your mother as we pray. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. In the father, son, Holy spirit. Amen. Thanks guys.