She pictured her husband's chair filled long before he came home

A wife once discovered that her husband, once close to her, had drifted toward another woman. She lost her composure at first, then went to her minister, who gently turned the conversation back to her: she admitted she had become careless at home, sharp-tongued, and privately convinced she wasn't his equal in company. When her husband asked for a divorce, she surprised him by agreeing calmly, on one condition, a ninety-day wait, because divorce, she said, is so final.

What she did with those ninety days is the real story. Night after night he went out and she sat home alone, but instead of picturing an argument or an ending, she pictured him seated in his old chair, reading as he used to, fixing things around the house, drying dishes the way he had when they were newly married. She held that picture steadily. One evening, he actually sat in the chair. She looked twice to be sure it was real. More evenings like it followed, then he began reading to her again, then he asked her to play golf. On the ninetieth day, when she reminded him what day it was, he looked up from his paper, baffled that she'd even mention the idea of leaving.

Norman Vincent Peale calls the method behind this story a three-part formula: prayerize, picturize, actualize. Prayerizing means talking a problem over with God as plainly and continuously as you would with a close partner, not saving it for formal moments. Picturizing means holding a clear, specific mental image of the outcome you're praying for, and holding it steadily rather than letting your mind default back to fear. Actualizing is what follows: the picture, tested against whether it's actually a right and good thing to want, and backed by real effort, tends to come to pass.

Peale adds a limit that matters: this isn't a wish-machine. The picture has to first be tested in prayer as something you should want, and it has to be paired with hard, intelligent work, not just imagination. The formula doesn't replace effort, it aims it.

Pick one situation you're currently anxious about, and start talking it over with God in plain, ordinary language, the way you'd talk to a partner, not just in a formal prayer once a day. Before you settle on what to hope for, test it honestly: is this something you should actually want? Once you're satisfied it is, build a specific, detailed picture of the outcome, not a vague wish but something concrete, and return to that picture deliberately every day, holding it steady even when the current evidence points the other way. Keep doing the practical, hard work the situation actually requires. Watch for the moment reality starts to catch up with the picture you've been holding, and when it does, recognize it rather than dismissing it as coincidence.