As I mentioned before, I LOVE to read (in all my spare time LOL). I recently told you that I will now get to read and review books for free thanks to Book Sneeze. If you are a blogger that would like to read and review books they send you for free, you should go to their site and sign up. It only took me a day to get approved and I got my first book, Couples Who Pray, very quickly.

I have finished reading it finally this week, and found it was very interesting. I find I am coming from a very different perspective than the couples in the book. I grew up always being told to pray together as families and couples so we always have. This book challenges couples to take a 40 day Prayer Challenge where they pray together as a couple for at least 5 minutes a day. Most couples in the book are adding praying together to their marriages for the first time. Though there is a variety of couples, most had never even thought of praying as couples before given this challenge.

First, to get this out of the way, the negative...For me, I would say the main downfall of the book is that the couples they chose to focus on are all either famous or semi famous. There is not really a "normal joe" among them. (I like having some famous people in the mix, but would like to have had more variety...like maybe a "regular" non famous couple that does not live in Martha's Vineyard...maybe an inner city couple from NYC?!) But that aside, I thought it was an interesting read about prayer.

Now, the POSITIVES about this book...first, I should say that my personal opinion is that Prayer within couples and families will bless and help your life in ways you cannot imagine. I have great faith in prayer and always have. So, you have to know that is the stand point I am reading from. That being said, it was easy for me to accept their very bold statements like that "Prayer WILL change your marriage" or that taking the challenge in the book will change your marriage, that you will find Prayer to be the "most intimate act between a man and woman". It was easy for me to read the stories and experiences of couples who took the challenge and told their stories of miracles/blessings (or as the book calls them "God Winks") that occurred. I believed them and that these blessing probably did come due to prayer.

I believe your own faith can grow by hearing/reading about others' faith-building experiences, so I liked reading the stories. And I LOVE that the book takes it a step further-not just telling and sharing the faith-building stories, but then also extending a challenge out to the readers to try the same thing the couples in the book tried.

Now-if you are coming from a viewpoint where you do not already believe in prayer like I do, I could see that you may be skeptical about a lot of claims and stories in the book, but I felt the authors were aware that people would feel that way. They extend the invitation to try it for yourself if you do not believe and they claim it will change your marriage-essentially I got the impression that they believe that any couple that takes the challenge will come to believe in prayer as a couple and will have a closer, improved marriage and relationship overall!

I recommend reading this book if for no other reason than to read these experiences. And if you are looking for some extra credit-go ahead and try out the challenge! The book gives you all the tools to get going on the 40 Day challenge!

You can check out the book and see other reviews of it here.