Lord, I pray for an end to this conflict and a breaking of the hold strife has on us. Take away the hurt and the armor we've put up to protect ourselves. Lift us out of the pit of unforgiveness. Speak through us so that our words reflect Your love, peace, and reconciliation. Tear down this wall between us and teach us how to walk through it. Enable us to rise up from this paralysis and move into the healing and wholeness You have for us.

Break any ties—good or bad, emotional or spiritual—with any former relationships. You can't move forward into the future if you have a foot stuck in the past.

A husband can hurt your feelings, be inconsiderate, uncaring, abusive, irritating, or negligent. He can say or do things that pierce your heart like a sliver. And every time you start to pray for him, you find the sliver festering. It's obvious you can't give yourself to praying the way God wants you to until you are rid of it.

Help us to never cast aside the whole relationship just because it has developed a nonworking part.

No woman wants to be a complainer, but in her attempt to make life good for her husband, her children, herself, and others, she often sees things that are wrong and tries to change them with her words. If you ever find your wife saying the same thing over and over to you out of the frustration of her heart, pray with her about it.

If busyness, workaholism, unforgiveness, strife, child-rearing, careers, separate interests, boredom, or miscommunication has crept in between you and your wife, God can work through your prayers to bring down the wall that separates you, melt the armor that has been put on for self-protection, and mold you together in unity.

Everyone, even within a family, is different. We all have different needs, different issues we struggle with. Part of being a family is learning to face those differences, forgive, and accept so that you can move on to love.

My pastor had told me that forgiveness doesn't mean justifying or condoning what he did, but it would begin the process of freeing me from the past, and it would offer a lost person the opportunity for redemption.

Forgiveness is an action, not an emotion.

If Jesus loves the church, you and I should, too. We can't use the excuse that the church has messed up too many times or that we're disillusioned. Jesus is the only person who has the right to disown and give up on the church. But He never has. And He never will.

There are some hurts that we experience that can be forgiven but we won't forget them.

Forgiveness is not a feeling - it's a decision we make because we want to do what's right before God. It's a quality decision that won't be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.