How I Trust God to Protect Our Marriage

When we’re young and inexperienced, we sometimes assume that everything after the wedding will be smooth sailing. But most people, after the first year, will tell you that’s not the case.

My husband and I have been married for twenty-two years. The one thing I wish we had taken to heart before we got hitched is the importance of trusting God to protect our marriage and taking the necessary steps to allow Him to do that.

My husband and I have faced trials that could have absolutely capsized us: the punishing strain of unemployment, the raw ache of miscarriages, and the terror of health crises involving each other and our children. Yet, somehow, through every wave, our anchor has held.

That anchor is our Christ-centered faith, and I know now that it’s the only force capable of providing the true, unshakeable stability we both need when life feels completely out of our control.

Prayer Protects Our Marriage

The fires that initially threatened us often came from outside our immediate relationship, but the heat was frequently unbearable inside. We dealt with finishing our undergraduate degrees in the early years of our marriage and lived with my husband’s parents to boot. From there, we jumped into intense job stressors that we had zero experience with coping mechanisms to deal with.

Stress was often compounded by the crushing weight of navigating a complex, toxic extended family dynamic, forcing us to constantly define and reinforce boundaries to protect our peace of mind. Early on, we did not cleave as we were meant to, and the result was a control factor that often struck our marriage like a hailstorm.

In moments such as these, we learned to lean on a promise greater than our bank account or human relationships. When the anxiety threatened to turn us against each other, we made a conscious choice to drop to our knees instead of panicking.

Scripture instructs us to redirect worry into worship: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7, NIV).

That peace isn’t passive; it’s the stabilizing force that stops job and family stressors from destroying our marriage. By trusting God for provision and protection, we face challenges together, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, instead of turning on each other.

Communication Protects Our Marriage

Few things test a marriage like the simultaneous pain of physical illness and emotional loss. Nothing strips away your confidence quite like facing chronic, unpredictable health issues. In our early years, I experienced my first pregnancy and childbirth.

Then, between three miscarriages and a year of infertility, I underwent a dozen unplanned surgeries. More recently, my husband and I have entered a new era of chronic health conditions. These experiences are scary and impact marriage, even strong ones like ours.

Fears and stress without communication will kill a marriage if you let it. Unfortunately, we have learned the hard way to talk and compromise so that we both feel safe and secure. Extending that communication to involve God has been paramount in providing the protection we crave for our marriage.

We learned a hard truth: we can’t “fix” the pain for each other.

The Bible promises that God is actively present when we hurt. In fact, Psalm 34:18 (NIV) states that “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” This means we must communicate clearly with each other and God to feel peace.

Time in Scripture Protects Our Marriage

The arrival of our children brought unimaginable joy, but it also unlocked a terrifying new fear factor. Our path through parenthood hasn’t always been smooth; it’s included traumatic birth experiences, the kind that leave you shaky—and the overwhelming vulnerability of having our newborn babies in the NICU.

Suddenly, the challenge to protect our marriage extended beyond just the two of us. It became about protecting our most precious gifts from threats we couldn’t control. Later, as the kids grew, we experienced a couple more heart-stopping moments with our children—scary events that required emergency intervention and left us reeling.

It goes without saying that these high-stakes moments were terrifying, but they served as a reminder that ultimately, we aren’t in charge. Our stability didn’t come from a parenting book or our own medical savvy, but from the realization that we were co-stewards under the authority of a sovereign, loving God.

Whenever fear crept in—whether in a hospital room or following a childhood accident—we would pray the same prayer, grounding ourselves in the promise that God is actively supporting us.

Additionally, we’ve learned that time in the scripture provides what we lack in parenting book expertise or medical savvy. As Isaiah 41:10 (NIV) explains, we need not fear because God is with us. We should not be dismayed because our God strengthens and helps us.

With God, even the impossible is not impossible. Issues like healing, surviving trauma, and paying the bills with no negative dollars in the bank are attainable, just as Matthew 19:26 (NIV) says, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

We Trust the Third Strand

Our Christ-centered faith isn’t just an emergency toolkit; it’s the very foundation of our marriage. When we face external conflict, internal grief, parental terror, or any other issue, it’s Christ who serves as the immovable third strand in our covenant, providing the spiritual weight needed to keep us grounded.

By committing to Him first, we ensure that our commitment to each other has stability that human effort alone can’t achieve. Through all the storms, from unemployment and family toxicity to NICU stays and health scares, we trust God to sustain our marriage.

We have learned how to trust God to protect our marriage by relying on Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NIV) as our foundation and striving to remain tethered like a three-strand cord: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”