I knew I loved Craig before having kids. But I could never have imagined how much I could love him and feel connected to him after having kids. Watching your spouse become a mommy or daddy is the sweetest thing in the entire world. Not only that, they helped give you the greatest little gift you will ever receive.

Having children will bring out things in both of you you’ve likely never seen before. While it is the sweetest blessing and most fun you guys will have, it is also going to be the most straining paradigm shift you’ve probably ever experienced as a married couple. Having a child changes everything. It will enhance and strengthen all the ways you’ve already been serving and loving each other, and it will expose and magnify all the selfish places in your hearts. Keeping your marriage at the forefront of your priorities and attention is the secret ingredient to a happy, healthy family. 

While both of you will be entirely focused on the needs of this tiny human, there will be times when both of you feel overlooked by the other. You are adding a whole other person to this equation, and that little person happens to need absolutely everything done for them. There is this great shift that happens when two become three, or three become four, as your family beautifully expands. While life looks drastically different, you must not neglect the two of you that started this journey together.

We all know pursuing each other is crucial to the health of a marriage. As a couple, you are going to now have to create a new normal. Life will literally never be the same as it was before. While you could once give all of your attention to one another, this tiny human will now take a massive amount of your capacity and care. Together, you must create a new normal for pursuing each other, even in the midst of life with children, and especially with a newborn. 

Your marriage is going to blossom and shift in amazing ways over the next year. And simply knowing some of these coming changes and discussing them ahead of time is only going to help make things smoother. With Christ at the center of your marriage, you both will remain strong and steady through the coming challenges. “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). 

Now is as good a time as ever to recommit to serve, tend to, honor, and forgive one another. In parenting, teamwork really does make the dream work. Fighting for each other and making sure the other has what they need ensures your own needs will be met. You two are on the same team, no matter how hard things get. Keep investing, keep loving, and, most importantly, keep Christ and his great example of love right at the center. 

Scripture:

“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.” (John 13:14)

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:2–3)

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–7)

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21)

*This is an excerpt from A Parent’s Guide to a New Baby, for daily discussion questions and guided prayer, click here.