Recently, One of the members of my immediate family was married for the first time. She was having a very difficult time, as being newlyweds can be romantic and wonderful, it can also have its difficulties, as you are becoming familiar with a person in a new way. It was also be difficult on her husband, as he is a new immigrant, and was still processing the cultural shock of living in the US, and being far away from his friends and family for the first time in his life. Because of these and other factors, they were experiencing a difficult first couple of months.

To help them with this, I put together the following sugar jar, to bring sweetness and affection to their marriage and new lifestyle.

Here are the things you will need

a half pint mason jar and lid
granulated sugar (or other sweetener, I just prefer sugar)
a small piece of paper approximately 4 x 2 inches
a red pen
a bible or “Secrets of the Psalms”

The first thing you will do is make the petition paper. On the piece of paper, lightly draw a circle in the center of the paper with a pencil. In the center of the circle, right the name of one member of the married couple. Turn the paper 90 degrees to the right, and right the name of the other partner crossing over the first partner. The end result should look something like this:

Take the paper and fold it in half towards you three times, turning it clockwise as you do so.

Then take the paper and put it at the bottom of the mason jar. Fill the mason jar with sugar to the brim. Take your finger and wet it gently and say “As this sugar is sweet to me, so let there be sweetness between (x) and (y).” Stick the finger into the sugar, take it out, and lick the sugar that sticks off. Then seal the jar with the lid, screwing it into place tightly.

While holding the mason jar, pray aloud Psalm 139 and Psalm 140, with sincerity and fervency. Psalm 139 is said to preserve and increase love among married couples, while psalm 140 is said to remove enmity between a married couple.

If you keep a Love Altar, you can keep the jar there, with a quick prayer of praise and thankfulness to the powers of Love, or you can place the jar in a location where the married couple will pass by it on a regular basis, or (if you can) have the jar hidden in their home. Hiding the jar in the pot of a house plant as a gift is an excellent idea.