Couples we help prepare for marriage are interested in developing their spiritual lives together, and rightly so. Many of them ask us how to pray together, and this is one area where Stacey and I have surprisingly little to offer.

We pray in very different ways. I speak with God in contemplative, devotional practices like the rosary or the liturgy of the hours. Stacey speaks with God conversationally and relationally. Whenever we’ve tried to pray together, it never seems to be a fruitful experience—it feels more like “show and tell” than anything that allows us both to experience God’s presence.

Now this is not to say that we just throw our hands up in the air and say, “Oh well!” Prayer is an indispensable part of Christian life, and should be a foundational part of every marriage, too. So where does that leave us?

We both have cultivated our own prayer styles through the years, and even though we are not praying together by saying the same words to God in the same space and time, we still do pray, together. We support each other by sharing the fruit of our prayer—the insights and revelations that come to us in prayer, or even just the highs and lows of sustaining a relationship with God in the conversation of prayer. This level of conversation takes candor and builds intimacy with God and each other, and we are at our best when we are attending to it regularly.

With kids in the picture, our prayer largely falls during bedtime preparations, as it does for most families. We’ve had a solid routine for bedtime prayer that has carried our family from toddler years to the teens. It is an important time for us to close the day together, and to share whatever intentions each of us is holding—this is one important way that our family shares life together and communicates with God.

As our two youngest children get older—both are of age for their First Communion—it is clear that they are developing the capacity for deeper prayer than just reciting rote prayers and naming the family and friends we remember to God. So, Stacey had a brilliant plan.

Just before Advent we settled into our new house, which has a separate room for each of the kids. With that new space, Stacey helped each of the kids create a prayer corner in their rooms. We purchased small tables the size of a night stand, and took the kids to a fabric store so that they could pick out the cloth they wanted for their “prayer altar.” Then we helped them decorate their altar with prayer materials—Bibles they’ve been given, religious imagery, rosaries, photos of them at their baptism, etc.

Now, each night before we gather for family night prayer, we set a timer for 10 minutes and each of us goes into our own rooms for silent prayer. We’ve seen the children take to it like ducks to water—they read their Bible, or say part of the rosary, or use a book of prayers to talk to God.

So there we all are—praying, together, each in our own way. It is a beautiful time of the day in the Noem home. I love the feeling of that silence, knowing we are all approaching God in our own way. And that practice deepens our regular night prayer together—when we go around to name our special intentions, we all share with one another people or situations that we’ve already lifted up to God.

I am confident that one day we will look back and see that this prayer practice—just 10 minutes a day—will turn out to be one of the most important ways in which we’ve shaped the life of our family. It will allow our children to grow into a living relationship with God, and what could be more important?