Centering Your Marriage Around Truth

My love story in Christ began when I was sixteen as I gave my life and heart to Jesus. What a sweet love for sweet sixteen! 

My love story with my husband, Mike, began when I was twenty.  He heard me share my Jesus story at a college event. We were also in a sociology class together, Marriage and Family. I know—crazy! 

Since we were both Christians (he also had a love story with Christ), we became friends.  After a few months, we went on our first date and dated over the next three years. We had a long engagement before we said, “I do” to love and marriage and ever after. 

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from marriage, and from experiencing so many marriages around me fall apart, it’s that the only thing that gives marriages real hope is when it’s centered around Jesus – truth itself.

How to Center Your Marriage Around Jesus

Whether you and your husband are both believers or you stand in Christ alone, I’d like to offer you some ways to center your love story as a wife (bride) around your love story in Jesus. 

1.   Run to Christ for deep and wide and high love. Because what people made fake about love, God made true in Christ. If you’ve never heard this thought before, or you’ve maybe forgotten it, Jesus Christ is the only source of real, unconditional love. We may know this truth, but we often forget to go to the real source of love and therefore find ourselves looking to other things for what only Jesus can provide us. Keep going to the source of real love. This helps us live satisfied with love from our Savior. The love in our marriage will become a by-product of a much deeper and more authentic love.

2.   Make the love of Christ in you attractive to your husband. Sure, we want our husbands to be physically attracted to us. And that’s a good thing. But take this a step further. Let the love of Christ shine through you. His love can be seen in your eyes. His love can be heard in your words. His love can be felt in your touch. A heart beating in rhythm to the love of Christ may help draw an unbelieving husband to Jesus and a believing husband closer to Christ.

3. Resolve to make your personal walk with Jesus as strong as it’s ever been. It is only in Christ that all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). If your husband is willing, share with him a plan to grow your relationship with God, inviting him to be a part of a daily or weekly routine. Come up with a specific plan for when you’ll be alone with God, what you’d like to do during that time (have quiet time with him talking with him, praying, and/or reading Scripture). To understand how to read your Bible, read this post, and for a how-to guide to start reading your Bible, read this post.

Wife Step: Take five minutes right now and reflect on these three points above, completing a plan for number three.

Karen Friday is a pastor’s wife and women’s ministry leader. As an award-winning writer and avid speaker, she loves words and God’s Word. For over a decade, she has balanced the busy life of church ministry with working from her home office in marketing where she is frequently referred to as Girl Friday. A blogger, Karen “Girl” Friday engages a community every week, Hope is Among Us. She has published a number of articles and devotions in both print and online media, and is currently working on her first book. Karen’s writing connects family life experiences, Christian ministry, and real life scenarios as women to the timeless truths of Scripture. Vulnerable about her own marriage journey, Karen knows life never gets more real than as a wife. Karen and her husband Mike have two grown children and two grandchildren. The entire family is fond of the expression, “TGIF: Thank God it’s Friday.” They owe Monday an apology. Visit her blog at KarenGirlFriday.com