“If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Thirty days ago you started with two are better than one. You end with a cord of three strands.
That's the whole arc. Two people who decided to be on the same team, with God woven through the middle of it. Not two strands doing their best. Three, and the third is what holds when the other two are frayed.
Look back at what you've covered. Noticing the good. The weight of words. Listening. Apologizing. Fighting fair. Forgiving. Trust. Closeness. Money. Exhaustion. Family. Friends. Serving. Dreaming. Faith. You didn't fix all of that in thirty days. Nobody does. But you talked about things many couples never talk about in a lifetime, and that matters more than finishing.
Here's what to do with it. Don't file this away as a thing you completed. Pick the two or three conversations that hit hardest and keep having them. You know which ones. There was a night one of you got quiet, or a question neither of you answered very well. That's the one to return to.
And keep the small habits. The specific thank you. The ten uninterrupted minutes. The reach after a fight. The twenty seconds of praying together before bed. Small habits held for years are what a strong marriage is actually made of. There's no dramatic version of this.
You're going to have hard weeks. You'll drift and come back. You'll have to forgive things you haven't imagined yet. That's not failure. That's marriage, and it's worth it.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Keep the third strand in it, and keep going.
Talk About It Together
Take your time with this last one. Look back together before you look forward.
- Which day of this hit you hardest, and why?
- What's one thing that has changed between us over these thirty days?
- Which conversation do we need to keep having?
- What is one habit from this we want to keep for good?
- What do you most want for us in the year ahead?
Tonight’s Challenge
Choose one habit from these thirty days and commit to it out loud, together. Then set a date three months from now to sit down and talk about how it's going.
Prayer
Father, thank You for these thirty days and for what You've done in the quiet of them. Thank You for the person sitting across from us. Keep us on the same team. Weave Yourself through the middle of this marriage so that it holds when we're weak. Give us many more years, and let them be honest, kind, and full of You. Amen.