Engaged Couples
My 3 Strands for Engaged Couples
You. Your Fiancé or Fiancée. God.
Building a friendship for life with faith, love, and hope.
Congratulations on your engagement!
You are beginning a beautiful season of discovering each other more deeply, preparing for marriage, and building a relationship meant to last.
Your wedding day will be important.
But your relationship is even more important.
Engagement is your opportunity to learn how to cherish one another, communicate honestly, pray together, grow through differences, and begin becoming best friends for life.
Your My 3 Strands engagement materials describe this season as a “marvelous journey” and a special time to discover and cherish one another while preparing for married life.
Your Relationship Has Three Strands
A strong Christian engagement is not simply:
You + Your Fiancé or Fiancée
There is a third strand:
God.
So your relationship becomes:
You
Your Fiancé or Fiancée
God
God is not merely someone you invite to your wedding ceremony.
He can be part of your engagement right now—in your conversations, decisions, hopes, plans, disagreements, prayers, and dreams for your future together.
Your existing engagement materials describe every Christian engagement as involving these three persons: you, your fiancé, and God.
Three Gifts for Your Engagement
Faith. Hope. Love.
God gives you three spiritual gifts that can help you journey together through both the easy days and the difficult ones.
These are your three strands.
Faith
Believe in God. Believe in each other.
Faith helps you trust what you cannot yet see.
During your engagement, you are still discovering the person you may spend the rest of your life with.
Faith allows you to say:
I believe in you.
I believe you can grow.
I believe I can grow.
I believe God can guide us.
I believe our relationship can become deeper and stronger.
Your engagement booklet describes faith as believing that your fiancé or fiancée can become his or her best self, while trusting God as the third strand to guide, inspire, and help both of you.
Faith also means learning to communicate.
Share what you think.
Share what you feel.
Listen carefully.
And learn to share those same thoughts and feelings with God through prayer.
Hope
Believe in the future you are building together.
Every relationship experiences sunny days and stormy ones.
Engagement is no exception.
You may experience excitement one day and anxiety the next.
You may agree easily about one issue and discover that another requires patience, compromise, and understanding.
Hope says:
This difficult moment does not have to define our future.
Hope gives you courage to keep moving forward.
It helps you imagine a marriage filled with friendship, faithfulness, peace, joy, and love.
Your My 3 Strands materials describe hope as the gift that gives courage during a difficult present while helping a couple anticipate a better tomorrow with confidence in God.
Love
Learn to cherish one another.
Love is more than the feeling that brought you to engagement.
Love becomes visible in what you do.
Love listens.
Love tells the truth kindly.
Love is patient.
Love forgives.
Love sacrifices.
Love celebrates.
Love notices what matters to the other person.
Love says:
Your life matters to me.
Your engagement materials describe love as the blossoming of faith and hope—the place where God’s presence can grow into joy, peace, security, and lasting relationship.
From Engagement to Best Friends for Life
Wedding preparation can become very busy.
There are invitations.
Clothes.
Flowers.
Music.
Venues.
Guests.
Schedules.
Money.
Hundreds of details may compete for your attention.
But underneath all those preparations is something far more important:
You are preparing for a marriage, not simply a wedding.
Your engagement is a time to discover each other and begin to cherish each other.
You are learning how the other person thinks.
What they fear.
What brings them joy.
How they communicate.
What they believe.
How they handle stress.
What they hope your future will become.
The My 3 Strands engagement materials call this the process of becoming “best friends for life” and emphasize that building a trusting friendship takes time, patience, and kindness.
Stronger Than a Single Thread
Have you ever tried to break a single piece of thread?
It can be easy.
But twist and weave strong strands together, and they become much harder to break.
Relationships can work the same way.
If your engagement depends only upon emotion, circumstances, or things always going well, difficult moments may place great strain upon it.
But when faith, hope, and love are woven through your relationship, something stronger begins to form.
Your engagement booklet puts it this way: when a relationship is built around God, the three spiritual strands of faith, hope, and love become a lifeline that grows stronger as they are braided together day by day.
God Is the Third Partner
Marriage preparation often asks you to think carefully about the two of you.
My 3 Strands invites you to remember the Third Person as well.
God believes in both of you.
God loves both of you.
God has hope for the people you are becoming.
And God can work within your relationship as you prepare to make your promises to each other.
The engagement materials express this simply: God believes in you, builds hope for a better future with you, and loves you.
So learn to ask God together:
How can I love this person better?
Where do I need to grow?
What should we understand about each other before marriage?
How can we serve each other?
What kind of marriage are You calling us to build?
Your Engagement Is Part of a Larger Tapestry
Right now, you can see only a small portion of your life together.
You cannot yet see every anniversary.
Every home.
Every celebration.
Every challenge.
Every prayer.
Every ordinary Tuesday evening.
Every person whose life may someday be touched by your marriage.
But God sees beyond the single strand you see today.
He sees the tapestry.
Your engagement is one part of a much larger story.
Two individual lives are beginning to be woven together in a new way.
And when God becomes part of that weaving, your relationship can become a visible sign of His love to your future family, your friends, and your community.
Your materials describe an engaged couple’s future marriage as a community of love, where others can see God’s love reflected through the couple’s love for one another.
Before the wedding…
Before the promises…
Before you know everything the future will hold…
Love is already weaving.
Start With Two Minutes a Day
You do not need a complicated spiritual program to begin putting God at the center of your engagement.
Start simply.
The My 3 Strands prayer practice begins with just two minutes a day.
In the morning, pray together or individually.
Remember the three persons:
God.
My fiancé or fiancée.
Me.
Then do the same again before going to sleep.
Your engagement resources specifically recommend this brief morning-and-evening practice as a way to create a continuing awareness of God’s presence in the relationship.
The time is small.
The habit can become significant.
Because every day you are reminding yourself:
God is here.
The person I love matters.
Our relationship matters.
Pray Your Three Strands
The My 3 Strands engagement prayer expresses the heart of the idea:
An engaged couple with God’s hands
Knit a friendship of 3 Strands.
Three cords of love, faith and hope
Weave a stronger bond than rope.
One greater love, a braid of three
Formed by God, my fiancé and me.
May my 3 strands grow in every way
As we approach our wedding day.
Carry that image with you throughout your engagement.
Three people.
Three gifts.
One growing relationship.
Grow Your Friendship Before Your Wedding Day
As you prepare for marriage:
Talk often.
Share your thoughts and feelings.
Listen without immediately defending yourself.
Spend meaningful time together.
Date each other.
Pray together.
Worship together.
Participate fully in marriage preparation.
Talk honestly about faith, family, finances, children, communication, expectations, intimacy, conflict, dreams, and the kind of home you hope to create.
And keep asking God to help you use your three gifts:
Faith to believe.
Hope to persevere.
Love to cherish.
Your engagement materials likewise encourage couples to communicate often, participate fully in marriage preparation, continue dating, worship together, and allow God to build their friendship as they approach the wedding day.
Your Wedding Day Is a Beginning
Eventually, your engagement will end.
The flowers will be put away.
The photographs will be taken.
The guests will go home.
And your marriage will begin.
What will remain is the relationship you have been building.
So give your engagement the attention it deserves.
Do not simply prepare to get married.
Prepare to become:
Husband and wife.
Partners.
Friends.
People of faith.
Two lives woven together with God.
My 3 Strands for Engaged Couples
You. Your Fiancé or Fiancée. God.
Faith. Hope. Love.
Three strands woven into a friendship for life.
Begin With Two Minutes a Day →
Explore the My 3 Strands Engagement Prayer Card →
Preparing for Marriage Resources →