There are traditionally 40 days in Lent; these are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbors).

Lent, which comes from the Teutonic (Germanic) word for springtime, can be viewed as a spiritual spring cleaning: a time for taking spiritual inventory and then cleaning out those things which hinder our corporate and personal relationships with Jesus Christ and our service to him.

In addition, some believers add a regular spiritual discipline, to bring them closer to God, such as reading a Lenten daily devotional.

“The Serenity Prayer” is the common name for a prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, born in 1892. Niebuhr, who first wrote the prayer for a sermon at Heath Evangelical Union Church in Heath, Massachusetts, used it widely in sermons as early as 1934 and first published it in 1951 in a magazine column. The prayer spread through Niebuhr’s sermons and church groups in the 1930s and 1940s, and was adopted and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs.

Praying together as a couple and praying individually for your spouse is one of the most powerful weapons you have against divorce and for building intimacy in your marriage. Praying together not only brings us closer to each other, it deeply reinforces our relationship with the Lord.