What has successfully nurtured spiritual intimacy in your marriages? It seems for us praying together honestly about our own spiritual struggles has helped. I think I heard that a Gallup poll of marriages showed some amazing statistics on low divorce rates when couples pray daily. Does anyone know about that?

SCM,<p>I don't know about the statistics but I'll bet they're right. Thsi is an area where I've dropped the ball big time. I'd like to do it now, but wife doesn't seem ready to let me be that close.

SCM<p>My husband is a Bishop and Pastor. When you have a spiritual connection, one must be careful and make sure they are living according to the ordinances of God. What I tend to do and I'd imagine that my H does as well is pray for guidance. This usually works and things get back on track within a few days.<p>Now I know that there were times when neither one of us took the time to pray and we fought (and I mean fought). We were about to board the express train to divorce court! I walked out of the house and prayed. I know that he prayed as well because he came looking for me. We prayed and talked and worked things out. That night we made another vow to God to live what we both preach and pray about. Spiritually, we are growing together. God is taking us both higher, together each day.<p>Don't get me wrong now there are problems within our marriage. Major ones (if you read my prior posting I'm sure you'd agree)! But we spend a lot of time praying together in and out of the church together and separately. <p>Having the Lord in our lives has not rid us of all problems but He does make it easier for us to go through and gives us hope that we will emerge victorious over any battle that comes our way.

I've also found that it helps to pray as a family. Our married life is "thankfully" getting back on track. One of the things that my husband and I do together with our children is that we gather together and hold hands and pray. A lot of times we pray for the strength to be nice to each other. I must admit it was awkward at first. It was something that we began sharing because of my six year old son's suggestion. Children are a blessing in many ways. They have such a strong inner sense of the family structure... I still have much to learn from my children.