Andrew and I went on a little getaway alone to Florida for our 12 year wedding anniversary last week! We go away every year to celebrate our marriage and it’s something I cherish and always look forward to as I truly believe that (aside from my relationship with God) my marriage is the most important relationship to invest in.

Marriage requires determination and dedication to fight for what the enemy wants to rob from us. I use the word fight because if you could see all that comes against you and your spouse to divide and destroy your marriage and family you would know it’s a battle that requires some protective armor. I believe the word of God and listening to his voice are the two greatest weapons against our warfare. See, our mind is a battlefield and the enemy uses it to trip us up by distorting our view of reality. If we fixate on problems, they become monumental in our mind. This way of thinking can really get us into trouble causing a downward spiral of bitterness and resentment if we don’t get a hold of it. We can choose to feed the lies or crush them. The choice is ours.

I will never forget the day that God gave me freedom and revealed truth to me in this area of my life. I was in the kitchen preparing dinner for Andrew and I as I waited for him to come home from work. I had trust issues going on early in our marriage and I would allow my mind to run free with all the destructive thoughts that bombarded it. In an effort to self protect I’d get angry and begin to accuse Andrew of things from the past that I had already forgiven him for. These thoughts had a way of completely distorting my view from reality making me see my husband completely different than who he was. They were destructive thoughts that not only created problems in our marriage but left me feeling alone and completely defeated. That day in the kitchen something rose up inside of me. I was determined to put my foot down and fight. Every negative lie that I had believed as truth had to go. Every destructive thought was no longer allowed. I remember so vividly God showing me a picture of my husband in the palm of his hand. He is in control and I needed to let go of fear and start trusting Him to bless our marriage. God gave me new eyes to see my husband’s heart and I began replacing those destructive thoughts with Gods truths about him, even declaring them out loud in the kitchen that day because I knew my ears needed to hear what I hadn’t yet fully believed. I chose to believe in the man I knew God created him to be. I began to have more grace for the mistakes that he made because Lord knows I needed grace for my short comings too. I began to put my faith in God, trusting that He had so much more for our marriage. It was a decision. It was a determination to fight for our marriage and when the negative thoughts arose (because they did) I decided it was a battle that I wasn’t willing to lose.

Part of fighting for your marriage requires you to think about what your thinking about. It requires you to destroy negative thoughts by replacing them with positive thoughts and choosing to believe the best. It takes practice and determination but the effort you put in is oh so worth it!

I watched my husband over time turn from a beat up man who probably felt that he could never do anything right in my eyes into a man that believed in himself. Kicking him while he was down never made him want to get back up but when I learned how to call out what I believe God helped me to see in him he began to become that man. God radically shifted our view and changed our hearts and He wants that for you too! ❤️