If you’ve been following me for a while, you will know how tough these last few years have been – miscarriage – and then finding out baby has a congenital heart defect, open heart surgery, etc. Recently, I’ve found myself looking at Marvin, my husband, and just realising how much we’ve been through, but also how much I love him.

You hear about couples who’ve been through such horrendous situations, and a few years down the line, they break up. That makes me really sad, and I always wonder if they hadn’t been through what they went through, would they still be together? Did the trauma tear them apart?

Now, our situation has been horrendous, and I just couldn’t imagine doing it without Marvin, but it got me thinking about our earlier years. Marvin didn’t move in until after we got married, and we had both been on our own for a number of years before that. This meant we were both quite settled in our routines, how we liked things, etc. You get the picture.

We got married in October 2019, and I remember those first 5-6 months were hard!! We had some disagreements, which ended with us not talking to each other quite a few times. It isn’t easy not to talk to someone you live with. They were that serious at times that if I’m honest, I wasn’t sure we would make it. I wasn’t sure we had even made the right decision! If you picture iron sharpening iron, it was like that – sparks were flying, and I don’t mean romantic ones!

Then we hit March 2020, and unless you were living on the moon at that time, you would know that the UK went into lockdown mode. Married for 5 months, and now we were locked down together, no escape, nowhere to go – literally.

For some reason, things changed. We actually got on really well during this time. We adjusted accordingly and actually enjoyed this pause on life.

It would have been so easy during those first few difficult months to have walked away. Before we were Christians, I think we may have done so, but being married and having done that before God meant that we were not going to give up so easily.

Those vows we took, the journey we had been on to get together, how we saw God in that, it provided the glue to keep us together. We knew we had to put in the work, but God was also putting in the work, in us, in our hearts.

This October will be our fourth wedding anniversary. Time is really flying, and we have been through so much in that short time. The challenges have made us stronger. They have been like a bright light shining on each of us highlighting bits of us that we thought we could hide. But there really has been nowhere to hide.

During those difficult months, we would hide from each other by not talking, not sharing, not sleeping in the same bed, walking out the front door. Lockdown gave us space to reevaluate what was really important. And the last few years of trauma have shown us how much we need God, and how much we need each other.

As long as we are both following Jesus, I know our marriage will get stronger and stronger, no matter what is thrown at us. Together, we are stronger. And for that, I’m forever grateful ❤️

And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9‭-‬12 ESV