Love for Abandoned Wives

Though I normally write romance novels, I recently sold my debut non-fiction title, Moving On After Your Husband Moves Out. It's a book ten years in the making, and it's not finished yet.

Inspired by Stormie Omartian's Power of a Praying Wife, this book outlines thirty areas of prayer for personal healing when the "wife" part no longer applies. I'll be going through each of the thirty prayers day by day in my online group: Love for Abandoned Wives.

If you have wisdom to offer, could use a support group, or know someone else who needs healing, please join me or simply use the below prayer list for your personal life. Let's find love from the only One who will never let us down.

Truth

When we are lied to by the man we trusted most, truth gets pretty convoluted. Prayer for truth will position us on the solid ground we need to move forward.

Mercy

It’s natural to feel vengeful and judgmental when we are tossed to the curb and replaced. But by realizing that we are no better than those who hurt us, we open ourselves up to accept God’s mercy and to grant mercy to our victimizers, as well.

Thankfulness

If we look at our circumstances without thankfulness, our hearts will grow hard and our thinking futile. Offering thanks prepares the way for salvation.

Comfort

This is your time of mourning. It’s the death of a marriage. It’s tragic, to say the least. So don’t hide your pain. Or numb yourself out. But let yourself grieve, knowing that God wants to be the one to comfort you. And it will be a comfort like no other.

Accountability

You didn’t want your husband to leave you. You didn’t deserve for it to happen. But it happened anyway. And now you are dealing with the fallout. You could choose to blame him for everything. Or you could accept your circumstances with the knowledge that you have the power to improve them.

Acceptance

Not only do you have to accept the circumstances, you have to accept yourself. Coming from a place of rejection can make you look for approval from others, and it can also make you reject others before they can reject you. But if you accept yourself in all your strengths and weaknesses and cling to God’s acceptance, you will move forward with authenticity.

Love

Loving your ex doesn’t make you weak. Love is a strength. The principal of sowing and reaping is just as true with love as with anything else. You are going to get back what you put out there. So even when your husband doesn’t love you in return, if you continue to treat him with love, you will find an abundance of love in unexpected places.

Joy

Our spouses left us because they were not “happy,” but the pursuit of happiness can be a deadly trap. Instead, choose joy. Because joy doesn’t depend on anyone but God.

Hope

Life as we knew it is over, which is very scary. But hope will lead us to a life even better than what we lost.

Goodness

We are going to fail repeatedly as we work to find new footing. Don’t beat yourself up for your failures. Remember that we don’t have to be good enough for God to be good to us.

Blamelessness

To be blameless doesn’t mean to be perfect. It means to walk in spiritual and moral integrity. When going through a divorce, it’s so easy to try to get the other person before they get you. But if you choose the higher road God will reward you and you will have no regrets.

Forgiveness

Our situation is not fair. How could God let this happen to us? Well, it happens to him all the time. But he never stops forgiving. And we are supposed to strive to be like him.

Understanding

It’s okay to ask why. Because if God works all things for his glory, then understanding why will help us to be on the same page with God. Understanding is ranked right up there with wisdom and knowledge. It gives us better direction in how to bring God glory.

Sound Mind

Going through a divorce causes us to question everything. Especially our sanity. Medical doctors will want to throw prescriptions at us. But God is there to renew our minds.

Physical Health

The stress of divorce affects us physically. But with the emotional turmoil we experience, it is forced to take a backseat. And we are weaker because of it. Choosing to love God with our body, soul, and mind will bring a healthy balance to help us move forward.

Healing

God is in the business of healing. It’s a process that never ends if we continue to seek him as the great physician. And if we study under him, he will use our experience to bring his healing to others.

Friends

Many of our friends change as we go through divorce. They may take his side. Or they might just grow distant because they have different circumstances than we do now. But through this trauma we have the opportunity to develop a deeper friendship with those who care. And we will need their support and feedback more than ever.

Children

Children lose the most in a divorce. But as one evangelist’s wife spoke into my life, “Your children will lack for nothing. God has given you a treasure chest full of everything they need. All you have to do is open up that treasure chest and pray it over them.” We need to pray for our children as well as pray that we will be able to push our own pain aside to see exactly what it is they need from us.

Finances

There’s not going to be enough money to go around, and that’s before figuring in attorney’s fees. Trusting God’s provision is one of the ways Jesus was tested, so don’t expect to avoid the temptation of doubting God’s abundance. Simply take a finance lesson from the King of Kings.

Direction

The map of life in a divorce looks pretty much like the maps used back in Columbus’s time. We just sailed off the edge of it. So what next? Only God knows. Let him be the navigator.

Purity

Single life is nothing like married life. Especially when it comes to our natural desire for sexual intimacy. By choosing to let the Lord romance us, we will learn to value ourselves and not miss out on the possibility of future marriage with a man who also chases after God’s own heart.

Patience

Though you may have good intentions, trying to do good without God can be as wrong as doing something intentionally bad. We must pray for passionate patience. We must be still and wait on God’s perfect timing. Which could be the toughest thing we’ve ever had to do.

Peace

Peace? What is that again? It’s shelter from the storms of life. It’s one way God can give us direction. And it’s something that we can have even with our enemies when we refuse to take up offense and live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.

Trust

Trust is a huge issue for unloved wives. Our trust has been violated in a most intimate way. How can we ever trust God again, let alone another man?

Freedom

If you’ve come from a relationship where you were unloved, you have come from a codependent relationship. We either blame our spouse for everything that has happened to us, or we take the blame on ourselves. Learning to have healthy relationships will bring freedom and open the door to all kinds of possibilities for our futures.

Dreams

For some women the challenge will be to give up their dreams, while for other women it will be to dream again. Our dreams are going to be based on the gifts and strengths that God has given us. When we pursue them, we bring glory to God—unless that dream has replaced God in our lives. We must learn to dream with God.

Reliance

There was a time when husbands and wives relied on each other for survival. Today’s independence makes divorce that much easier—it’s frowned upon to rely on anyone else. But this is a behavior we need to unlearn with God. We should be relying on him for everything.

Unity

If you didn’t have unity in your marriage, it doesn’t get any easier after divorce, but if you have children together, unity in co-parenting will affect their lives forever. And if you are both Christians, this is something you are called to value. It probably seems impossible right now, which is why right now is when you need to pray for it most.

Restoration

Think Job—the guy in the Bible who lost everything. God brought restoration to his life to the point that he was even more blessed in the end than he was in the beginning. That’s what God wants to do for you.

Endurance

It takes tenacity to keep going. And when you find truth and find goodness and all the other stuff you are praying for, you’re not done. You’re just getting started.