Building a Strong Foundation in Your Marriage through Prayer - Part of the What I Wish I Knew Before I Got Married Series

Hello!  I'm Jessica, married to my handsome husband for 8 years and blessed with 3 children through the gift of adoption.  I love to write about faith, motherhood, DIY projects, and all of life's little adventures along with my sister Katie at our blog Sweet Little Ones.

And today I'm so excited to share my thoughts about the importance of prayer in your marriage as a part of Christina's Marriage Series! 

The foundation for a strong marriage is placing God at the center of your love and your lives.  

Having a strong foundation is vital because it will help you grow in holiness in your everyday life and in the tough times in your marriage.  When you love God and place Him at the center of your lives as a married couple, you'll receive graces to grow in virtue and to overcome any trials because you have a common reference point in God. 

One of the main ways to build up a strong God-centered foundation in your marriage is prayer - with each other and individually.  Focusing on praying together will keep you pointed towards God even in the midst of difficulties and suffering.  It will keep you united as a team and on a path towards holiness.  And it will help you to not only to get through your trials, but to grow in hope, trust, and love while going through them.

During our first year of marriage, we quickly saw how important prayer was to helping us overcome obstacles.  We discovered early on that I had several diseases which not only affected my health, but also caused infertility.  We had planned on having a large family, so this news was very difficult to accept.

Sometimes praying together (or even on your own) can be extremely hard when you're going through a trial, whether it's major or minor.  I know there were times during our infertility struggle when I felt like giving up.  But it is crucial to keep praying no matter how you feel inside, and encourage your spouse to continue too.  Prayer will only help you:  it will keep you united to each other and focused on God no matter how you pray or what you're going through.

So throughout every new diagnosis, every negative pregnancy test, and every corrective surgery, we clung to prayer.  Prayer is what got us through (and is still helping us get through) our infertility struggle, but most importantly, it helped us (and still is helping us!) to grow stronger in our relationship with God and each other in marriage.

Having a solid foundation of prayer in your marriage will help you get through major trials, like a medical crisis or financial problems.  But it does more than that!  Prayer will help you get through the everyday trials you will encounter as well, such as minor disagreements and personality conflicts.  It will help you overcome any obstacle because when you are united as a team through prayer, it keeps your marriage focused on God, not on the difficulty.

Prayer will strengthen your marriage even when you are not going through any difficulties as well.  The goal of your vocation of marriage is to help your spouse grow in holiness and to reach Heaven.  And the main way to help each other become more virtuous is through prayer. 

Prayer is the most fruitful way to grow in holiness because it deepens your personal relationship with God.  The closer you are to Him, the more you become like Him.  So praying together in your marriage will help you both to grow in virtue, which will lead you and your spouse closer to Heaven everyday.

In the good times and the bad, for better or for worse, prayer keeps you focused on the only One Who can keep your marriage strong - God.  With this strong foundation of prayer, you are ready for anything you encounter in the adventures of married life and are filled with the strength and joy God created you for!

I'm looking forward to sharing some ideas on how to pray together as a married couple tomorrow!

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