Learn how trusting God with your marriage brings hope, healing, and strength—even when you can’t fix it on your own.
What do you do when you’ve prayed, tried counseling, worked on communication, and it still feels broken?
When my husband and I went through our tough marriage season, I was willing to work on the marriage but I didn’t have much hope. Mainly because I read a lot of hopeless talk from Christian counselors and psychologists. It was actually very discouraging and because they were professionals who’d seen so many marriages similar to ours, I trusted they knew what they were talking about. I wish I had trusted God more.
One of the biggest lies people believe when they are in a difficult marriage is that they are doing it alone. Even if one spouse is not on board to heal the marriage, God is. He is the One who brings the healing and transformation. It’s our responsibility to do our part and then pray for the rest.
There are some temptations you’ll want to watch out for while you’re in a season of waiting on God in a marriage that feels beyond repair. You don’t want to become indifferent, bitter, or emotionally distant. You don’t want to take your troubles to everyone else — especially anyone of the opposite sex. It’s okay to talk with a small, trusted group of friends. But don’t air out your issues with everyone you meet.
1. Surrendering Control: Acknowledging You Can’t Fix It Alone
“Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” -1 Peter 5:7
The first step in trusting God is acknowledging that we can’t control or fix everything in our marriage, but He can. This is huge. It’s so much easier to look at other people’s stories and believe yours will be the same. It doesn’t have to be.
God knew that when He created marriage that He was putting two sinners together. He knew we’d face challenges, and past trauma and unresolved pain would be in the mix. A marriage cannot thrive without God being the center of it. The whole idea of marriage was His, after all!
The best way to fix your marriage is to surrender it to God and do what He tells you. Give him all the worries and concerns about the challenges you are and will face. Even if you’re both on board to heal your marriage, you’ll need God’s guidance to walk with you. He has a plan! Trust that He knows your needs. But surrender isn’t a one-time moment—it’s something we walk out daily.
2. The Role of Faith in Marriage: Trusting God’s Timing
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. -Jeremiah 29:11
Sometimes the hardest part is trusting God’s timing, especially when immediate changes don’t seem to come. You must be patient because this will take time—a lot of time. It took me a full year before I even felt ready to *start* allowing myself to feel emotionally safe around my husband. Then it was back and forth for another year.
The times when I quietly withdrew that trust again, I had to go to God in prayer. Otherwise I’d allow my feelings to cloud reality based on a trigger. I could see the change in my husband and I knew he wasn’t going to be perfect. At times, he would react in his old ways and I would shut down. Taking that to prayer was essential to helping me heal. Sometimes I would go back to my husband and let him know how I was feeling, too. But mostly I gave it to the Lord.
Healing takes time. My husband needed time to heal as well. His actions were symptoms of something much deeper. Treating the symptoms never had long-lasting results. It wasn’t until he began to understand His identity in Christ that things began to shift. God is faithful. Trust Him and let Him do the heart work.
You may not see the full picture, but God’s plans for your marriage are good, and His timing is always perfect.
3. God’s Faithfulness in Our Weakness
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” -2 Corinthians 12:9
Marriage struggles highlight our weaknesses, but God uses those moments to draw us closer to Him. When you feel that anger, frustration, or annoyance bubbling up, breathe a prayer to God rather than breathing fire at your husband.
Even if you believe your husband is the one in the wrong, I promise you, if you go to the Lord, He’ll reveal some things to you about you. We all have things we need God to work on in us. The beautiful thing about it is, God doesn’t wait for us to have it all together to bring peace and healing to our marriage. He only looks for willing and surrendered hearts — and it only needs to start with one.
Trusting God means allowing Him to work through those weaknesses. When I chose to work out our marriage, I trusted God knew what He was doing. I didn’t want a divorce—but I did want to feel emotionally safe in my marriage. The mistake I made was believing that was solely found in my husband. He’s a good man, but he’s not a perfect man. He could never be a perfect refuge for me—only God can do that.
Embrace your vulnerabilities and allow God’s grace to work in your marriage.
4. Restoring Hope Through Prayer
“For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.” 1 Peter 3:12
Don’t look at prayer as a last resort; it’s a powerful way to trust God with your marriage. I wish I could get people to understand just how prevailing fervent prayer is. It’s asking for help, yes, but it’s so much more than that, too.
Prayer is taking your worries, frustrations, and needs to God. It’s sitting in the stillness and listening for His voice while He fills you with peace. It’s thanking Him for the things He hasn’t done yet because you trust He will do them. It is His will for your marriage to prevail. It is His will for you and your husband to turn to Him, love Him with everything so you can love each other.
Everything God talks about in His Word leads back to relationship with Him, and relationship with others. His relationship with us is so important to Him, He did what was necessary to restore it—He died.
“Well what about abuse?” Abuse is a symptom of a deeper issue. I’m not excusing bad or sinful behavior against you or anyone else. I simply want you to consider why this behavior is happening.
Abuse stems from unhealed trauma that is often unrecognized. Prayer is a transformative way to bring these things to light. It won’t be easy, but friend, oh it’s worth it! Imagine your husband healed and happy. If you’re in a place right now where you just want nothing to do with him, I get it. And this is exactly the thing you need to take to the Lord in prayer.
Might I be so bold as to tell you to ask God to reveal things to you about your husband that you cannot see? Pray for God to open your eyes — because, friend? This is where God reveals what you need to pray for. Then, ask Him to reveal things about you.
Through prayer, you both can align your hearts with God’s will.
5. Trusting in God’s Promise of Restoration
“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” -Exodus 14:14
God is a restorer. Even when things seem impossible, God can restore marriages to something beautiful.
Whatever the story is with your husband or your marriage, God wants to restore it. No matter how impossible it seems right now. He wants to strip away all the sin and pain and replace it with new hearts and ultimately a new marriage. When I talk about God healing and restoring your marriage, I don’t mean to what it was before.
No. It will be so much better! I speak from a place of hope because my own marriage is a testimony to what God can do. I wasn’t even fully surrendered to the idea at first, and He still worked in me! Why? Because my husband was praying for me. Because my friends were praying for us.
I was the wife who was uncertain I wanted to continue in a marriage where I’d been so hurt for so many years. I got to a place where I didn’t even like my husband, let alone love him. I was angry and resentful. In fact, I grew more resentful when he started trying harder. Why? I was holding on to unforgiveness because it felt like he “got away” with doing all this mean stuff and I was left with the mess of it all. How is that fair?
And that’s just it. It’s not about what’s fair. My husband couldn’t love me because he struggled to believe God loved him. He didn’t see himself as lovable, but wretched. It spilled over into everything else. This is why I’m so passionate about reading your Bible and meeting with Jesus daily. When we fill our hearts with truth, recognizing Satan’s lies is so much easier. No preacher or online influencer can reveal truth to us the way the Holy Spirit can.
The entirety of my marriage wasn’t all bad. We had great times and great moments—but the bad times and bad moments were HARD and impressionable. Not just for me, but for my kids, too. Today, my husband and I are very different people and God continues to grow us and our marriage every day. No, we still aren’t perfect (ha!) but we are in a place we never would have been had we not trusted God with each other.
Trust in God’s ability to heal and restore your marriage, even in the most difficult of circumstances. It’s the best decision you can make. Surrendering control allows God to work in ways that are beyond human understanding. My marriage is living proof of that.
You’re not alone. He sees every tear, hears every prayer, and holds your heart—and your marriage—in His hands.
In His Grace,
Christin
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