Making Your Marriage a Fortress: Strengthening Your Marriage to Withstand Life's Storms

Making Your Marriage a Fortress truly was a unique and helpful read. I am a big fan of Gary's other marriage books, and this one was no exception. What a really enjoyed and benefitted from was reading honest, authentic stories from couples who have walked through major trials and challenges. While my wife and I have not personally walked through most of these same challenges, I learned from every one of their stories.We know the storms of life are going to come (in this life we will have trouble (John 16:33, if you marry you will face trouble (1 Cor 7:28), so we might as well learn from others who have walked the road before us.Whether in the storm, before a storm, or after a storm, Making Your Marriage a Fortress will strengthen any and every marriage.

I couldn't figure out what was bothering me about this well researched, well written book which persuades us that God's design is for marriage to make us holy. I finally realized that to me it misses the point. No matter how holy I am, I could not get into heaven based on my own track record. That's why I need Jesus. So the emphasis on achieving holiness is to me misplaced. If God had one million holiness points, my best effort would fall short of one point.I would say instead that the purpose of marriage is to give us a place to practice loving within the family and in the family's interactions with others. We are ambassadors of God and "God is love." In our life stories, we can show how God's love and grace have changed us, an experience available to all people.Still a great read.

Marriage is a marathon. The best marathoners are not the ones who run well when everything is perfect. Perfect weather, perfect conditioning, perfect diet, perfect hydration. It's the marathoner who makes it across the finish line when the rain is pouring down and the salt of their sweat stings all the raw places. It's the marathoner that crosses the finish line, limping and crying tears of joy AND pain as they accomplish something they were told could never be accomplished due to poor health, poor joints, and lack of proper training.I married my husband 16 years ago. We were babies when it came to relationships. He'd had multiple girlfriends and an ex-fiancee and all the baggage that came with them. I had one short relationship and in my naivety assumed it was going to be The One. We both came from families who left a lot of wounds.When I met him I thought him handsome but a little too immature for my tastes. He thought me hot, but untouchable. Three years later we both realized that God knew something we didn't because we said "All in" and never looked back.One of the first marriage books I read in that first rough year of "building oneness" was Gary Thomas' Sacred Marriage, followed quickly by Sacred Influence. At a conference with him as the keynote speaker, my husband boldly walked up to his table and said, "Sir, I have never read a single one of your books, but they are my favorite books because of what they have done to my wife." I'm not sure what Gary Thomas thought, but I was in full agreement.Making Your Marriage a Fortress comes at a time in my life when we've already ridden the tsunami of storms. Job losses, sick children, 13 moves in 16 years. My own health tanked after the birth of our fifth child as years of stress took its toll on my body. My husband was my faithful captain determined to make sure our ship didn't sink under the waves. He's held me ever more tightly through each storm as it comes (sometimes one right on top of another) and I have held him. We've wept, prayed, laughed, and wept again and God has turned our marriage into something that often feels right out of a fairy tale (only the happily ever after is not the end but the glorious beginning).Early in the book, Gary Thomas says, "Surrender is the humble acknowledgment that life is about conceding to and accepting God's agenda and will over our own, seeking to learn what he wants us to learn instead of trying to convince God that what we initially wanted is best."When I met my husband, I would never have imagined that he was God's best for me. I didn't see the depth and beauty of the gift God had prepared for me until it hit me in the face with a question from my future husband at a time when I didn't fully realize the enormity of what he was vowing, "Are you all in? Because I am. This is for life for me and I don't want you to say yes only to realize later on that you aren't all in." The first test came before we were married when I got food poisoning. He stayed all night, holding my hair back as I vomited into a bucket repeatedly, washing my face and handing me my toothbrush in the breaks in between. The second came when I suffered an extremely difficult pregnancy in my final semesters of college two years after we got married. He would come home from work, exhausted and mentally drained, drag out a massive tub and fill it with ice and cold water so I could soak my swollen feet. We've had multiple tests, some of which we've failed, some of which we succeeded, but every one of them brought us closer to God and closer to one another.All this to say, Making Your Marriage a Fortress has reaffirmed my commitment to build our marriage on a solid foundation and co-pilot our ship through the storms, with our eyes on God and our hands entwined.

I have read many marriage books and this one has everything rolled into one. Making Your Marriage a Fortress can help any married couple walk through many storms that can really rock your marriage. Using the real-life situations that many married couples have faced, Gary Thomas, helps us see that being prepared can help face them together. At the end of all ten chapters there are Building Your Fortress Takeaways, which makes it a great way to go back and remind yourself of all the strategies. My number one take a way is, marriage takes connection, day to day connection. Checking with each other daily to stay connected is an extremely important strategy. I see many newly married couples that are not connecting this way and that can cause its own storm, a disconnect that can stress a marriage. Staying connected can help with all the other storms, health issues, infidelity, loss, finances, etc. Even after 30 years of marriage we have to be reminded just how we, with God’s help, can walk through and survive the troubles of this world.

Hubby and I lead a community group that alternates between a book of the Bible and a marriage book. This one is AMAZING. Real examples of life's storms and how to navigate them by preparing now. Love love love Gary Thomas' writing.