My husband and I have been together for what seems like forever – 12 years. We met when I was 19 and in college still. In retrospect, in many ways I am glad that I met him when we were both so young. We have been through many life changing events as a couple and really have grown up, so to speak, together. We don’t have to go into long explanations about our opinions or what happened in our families long ago. We even accepted Christ and got baptized together, so we know what we were both like before we were saved. This means so much to me and to us as a couple.

Sometimes, though, knowing someone for so long means that your old baggage gets carried around for the rest of your relationship. You both leave things unresolved, or you regret past mistakes and haven’t forgiven each other. The way that you as a couple solve problems may not have been very healthy in the past, and that behavior pattern might still haunt you now.

Then there is the inevitable transition to parenthood that turns your world upside down. As a couple you are used to doing things a certain way, or you can ignore and avoid chronic problems in your relationship when it is just the two of you. Once a little one arrives on the scene, though, things change. You cannot ignore your problems anymore. Things that seemed like minor issues before are magnified now because of lack of sleep and increased stress. The weak parts of your relationship are stretched to the limit. Having children forces you to take a long look at your marriage. What have we done about the stressful situations that test our relationship?

E and I have found that prayer is by far one of the most effective ways to make changes in our marriage. On the day we got married, we invited God into our relationship. Our marriage is built on the rock called Jesus, so we need to let Him do the work that we cannot do ourselves. For me personally it has meant that I pray for my husband, our marriage, and for me as a wife regularly. I ask God to change our hearts and to be ever present in our marriage. I have read and reread scripture (Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 5:21-33) about the marriage relationship. E and I also pray together for each other at least 4 nights a week. We continually work on those areas that we find causing the most problems. We also try to have time alone without our children. Although we value family time, we know that we will continue to be married even after the children have left our home. It is essential for us to have a solid relationship because without that, there really is no family and we will be left with nothing after the children are grown.

I hope that this week you and your husband can find some time to pray with each other and for each other as well as spend some time alone building a solid marriage on the Rock.