The Power of a Praying Woman

Stormie Omartian structures this book as 31 chapters, each addressing a distinct area of life that she believes requires consistent, focused prayer. Each chapter combines personal testimony, biblical teaching, and practical guidance with a model prayer and a selection of Scripture promises.

Omartian identifies her audience as all women regardless of age, marital status, or spiritual maturity and establishes her central argument: that women can transform every aspect of their lives through intentional prayer, yet they too often neglect to pray for themselves. She recounts a period when she became so consumed with work, family, and ministry that she stopped nurturing her personal relationship with God. Though she did not cease praying or reading Scripture entirely, she neglected her own spiritual needs, resulting in a deep depletion she compares to the biblical Martha, who busied herself with serving while her sister Mary chose to sit at Jesus' feet (Luke 10:38-42). She warns against looking to other people to meet needs only God can fill and introduces the Holy Spirit as the essential source of divine power in believers' lives. She also addresses spiritual authority, the God-ordained leaders a believer is expected to submit to, asserting that God's power is "too precious and too powerful to be let loose in an unsubmitted soul" (9).

The early chapters lay what Omartian considers the spiritual foundation for everything that follows. She shares her pre-conversion involvement in occult practices, Eastern religions, and New Age spirituality, explaining that she pursued these to escape the pain caused by an abusive, mentally ill mother. At 28, at her lowest point, she converted to Christianity and began a healing process she had never thought possible. She provides 30 biblical names for God, each representing a dimension of His character, and encourages readers to use these names to deepen their trust in Him.

From this foundation, Omartian moves to confession and repentance, arguing that honest self-examination is essential to an unhindered prayer life. She shares a personal example of resentment toward her husband that produced physical illness until she confessed it, at which point the symptoms immediately lifted. Her chapter on forgiveness recounts how a Christian counselor helped her discover hidden unforgiveness toward her father, not for abuse, which came from her mother, but for his failure to rescue her from it. A lifetime of rage and grief surfaced, and forgiving him brought unprecedented peace. She describes forgiving her mother as a layered, ongoing process and frames forgiveness as a decision rather than a feeling.

Omartian addresses obedience by distinguishing between general obedience to God's commands in Scripture and personal obedience to specific directives. She shares how God instructed her family to move from California to Tennessee, a decision they resisted but whose wisdom became clear over time. A related chapter on surrender argues that many believers fail to experience spiritual breakthrough because they have not truly made Jesus Lord over every area of their lives. She defines surrender as willingness to do whatever God asks, even when it contradicts personal desire.

Several chapters focus on spiritual warfare and the mind. Omartian contends that believers face a real spiritual enemy and must exercise the authority Christ gave them, identifying five weapons: God's Word, praise and worship, obedience, faith, and prayer combined with fasting (voluntarily abstaining from food for spiritual purposes). She recounts a period of paralyzing depression despite nothing being wrong in her life, which she broke through fasting and praising God, later connecting the episode to the enemy's attempt to stop her from writing The Power of a Praying Wife. She teaches that believers need not accept every thought that enters their minds and urges readers to fill their minds with Scripture rather than media that produces fear.

A chapter on Scripture recounts her emergency hospitalization, during which she was too weak to read the Bible and depended on family members to read it aloud. During months of recovery, her inability to absorb Scripture caused her to lose spiritual ground until she prayed for God's Word to come alive again. She identifies God's voice as the most valuable thing found in Scripture.

The middle chapters address practical life. Omartian defines submission as a voluntary condition of the heart and teaches that correct priorities and willing submission to God-appointed authority are prerequisites for blessing. Her chapter on worship draws from her former career as a singer, dancer, and actress on television. She testifies that as a new believer, praising God in the middle of the night drove out severe depression rooted in childhood abuse, functioning like being "hooked up to a spiritual IV" (90). Over time, a lifestyle of worship freed her from depression entirely.

Subsequent chapters cover work, the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), holiness, purpose, and relationships. On purpose, Omartian encourages readers who fear they have wasted years, citing her own late starts: conversion at 28, professional writing after 40, and ministry in her 40s. She teaches that dreams must be surrendered to God so He can either remove desires not from Him or fulfill those that are. Her chapter on relationships opens with an account of Los Angeles gang members who committed murder as initiation because they were desperate for belonging, illustrating the universal need for community.

Omartian recounts her family's relocation from California just months before the 1993 Northridge earthquake destroyed their former home, presenting God's will as a place of safety that must be actively sought. She addresses divine protection through a near-fatal car accident on black ice from which she credits prayer for her survival. She uses her view from a high-rise condominium to illustrate wisdom: from above, she could see where the ocean floor dropped off dangerously while swimmers below could not, just as God sees dangers believers cannot perceive.

She provides the full account of her near-death medical crisis: months of undiagnosed abdominal illness, a nighttime rupture, and a surgeon who operated on instinct to discover a ruptured appendix, telling her she was an hour from a fatal coma. She argues that caring for the body is stewardship before God, since the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Later chapters address deliverance, negative emotions, comfort, temptation, fear, giving, speech, faith, and Christlikeness. Omartian testifies to her own deliverance from alcohol, drugs, and various fears. She identifies seven destructive emotions (anxiety, anger, dissatisfaction, envy, depression, bitterness, and hopelessness) and argues each reveals underlying doubt in God. She shares losing her best friend to breast cancer and taking in her friend's eight-year-old son. She uses the biblical King David's adultery with Bathsheba as a warning against sexual temptation, noting that David's sin produced lifelong consequences even after forgiveness. She teaches that intercessory prayer, the practice of praying on behalf of others, is a universal calling, and recounts how her prayer group asked that The Power of a Praying Wife reach the ends of the earth; it was eventually translated into more than 40 languages.

The final chapters address the past, the believer's ongoing dependence on God, and the future. Omartian compares unresolved past experiences to a heavy weight tied to a runner's leg, arguing that God does not erase painful memories but heals them so they become the foundation for ministry to others. She distinguishes between reading one's past "like a history book" versus "like a prophecy for your future" (236-237). She stresses that recognizing utter dependence on God is among the most liberating realizations a believer can reach, warning that feeling self-sufficient is a precursor to trouble. In the closing chapter, written as a personal letter, she assures readers that God has prepared a future greater than they can imagine and that prayer and obedience are the essential actions for reaching it. She invokes Hannah, whose persistent prayer for a child resulted in Samuel, one of Israel's greatest prophets, to suggest that life's greatest outcomes are often birthed through persistent prayer.