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Our physical health and learning how to take care of our bodies have played a large role in our growth of the years. In the beginning of our marriage, we dealt with sexual issues and after 4 and a half years living with those problems we finally discovered what we believe was a major contributor to those problems. We began replacing our toxic products with non-toxic products and almost immediately found healing in the area of intimacy. We have had many people over the years ask what kinds of products we use now and so in this episode we share a little of our journey and the products we like to use. Pleas enjoy! PRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for our bodies. We pray we would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis, using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices and be on the same page in marriage so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us not to be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but who are about our bodies and take care of them.In Jesus’ name, Amen! Some things mention this episode. http://Parentingprayerchallenge.comhttps://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/the-unveiled-wife-embracing-intimacy-with-god-and-your-husband-by-jennifer-smithhttps://ENG.orghttps://unveiledwife.com/oils/https://norwex.bizDr. Bronner’s - https://amzn.to/2vRCQ91https://www.bendsoap.com/Native Deodorant - https://amzn.to/2VXpWkzBert's Bees - https://amzn.to/3cPJkpNBurt's Bees 100% Natural Moisturizing Lipstick - https://amzn.to/3aKRNs7Ancient Minerals Magnesium Lotion - https://amzn.to/2TQu6YT READ TRANSCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helpin' you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna share with you our favorite non-toxic products. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as, Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as, Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage. Encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one. Full of life-- [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] and power, [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly, after God's will of our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Welcome back everyone to another episode of Marriage After God. We are happy to have ya, and today we are just going to share some, it's kinda like a funner episode, where we're gonna share, not just our non-toxic products, but why we choose those, and part of our story. [Aaron] Yeah, and well, we've had a lot of people over the years, kind of, 'cause we've talked about our journey with health, and we talk about products we use, and you have people often asking, "Well, what do you use?" [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And so-- [Jennifer] A large portion of my first book, "The Unveiled Wife," you know, talked about our journey, you know, figuring some stuff out, and so, we'll probably start there. [Aaron] Yeah, but it'll be fun. We believe that it's good to have a healthy life, I mean, everything we talk about it spiritual, but there's something to be said about, taking care of our bodies, and being careful with what we're putting on, being thoughtful, we even talk about, yeah, we talk about this often in our books, we talk about it in our life. We actually try and live it also, doesn't mean we're perfectly healthy in every aspect, but what's been awesome about it also is, we actually have less stuff, which is cool. So we'll talk about that a little bit too. So first, before we get into that, why don't you give a little update on baby Edith? [Jennifer] Yeah, is everyone as anxious as I am to meet her? I'm-- [Aaron] Some people are probably like, "They're having another baby?" [Jennifer] I know, [Aaron] Yes we are, number five. [Jennifer] Yep, I'm 38 weeks, and just starting to feel like way more ready and prepared, mentally, [Aaron] Some of that pre-labor stuff [Jennifer] Yep, and my body, but also, just in our home, I feel like, we are all kind of getting to that transition point where, I don't know, we're just, we're just ready. [Aaron] So I'll say this, if you don't hear of any more podcasts coming out, after this one, it's because we had the baby. [Jennifer] But, I haven't ever gone that early, so-- [Aaron] Yeah, you-- [Jennifer] I don't know. [Aaron] We're usually like, I should say, you're usually right on the dot. [Jennifer] I will say this, usually nesting kicks in, and I you know, look forward to, just utilizing that energy, that extra energy to clean the house, and get every nook and cranny, and this time I didn't get that way at all. I had to like, really rely on the Lord, and just um-- [Aaron] Well I'll say this, I think you did have the desire to nest, but you didn't have the energy this time. [Jennifer] Yeah, I had the desire for sure. [Aaron] You're like, "I just can't get up off the couch, "I just, I don't feel like I," So, there was all these things that you wanted to do, but it took a lot of my helping, it took a lot of like, extra stuff that you didn't have-- [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and so, but that's just unique for this time. [Jennifer] But we got some stuff checked off our to-do list this weekend and now I feel ready. So thank you Aaron, thank you for your help with that. Yeah well, I'm sure we'll have a little bit more stuff before the baby comes. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Gettin' the house ready, just gettin' some things off of our plates, so that we can enjoy little baby Edith, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] when she's here. [Jennifer] What I did do, was I got through Olive's old clothes, and got like a drawer ready for her, and all of her clothes are ready, so, [Aaron] Oh, we also moved all of, 'cause right now we have all of Truitt's clothes, in our bedroom, like right below the changing station, so that we can like change him, and put clothes there, but we moved those. Now he's got his clothes in the boys' room. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] I'm imagining, we're probably gonna move him into the boys' room soon, right? [Jennifer] Soon, yeah. [Aaron] And then he's gonna be one of the big boys. [Jennifer] Uh? [Aaron] I know [Jennifer] Everyone's growing up too fast. [Aaron] Who in the world? [Jennifer] Elliot feels like he's seven feet tall. Doesn't he feel so big? [Aaron] Yeah, he's gonna be a tall one. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But it's awesome, seeing them grow, we were just talking tonight about if we would have had children earlier, which kinda goes into a little bit into our story, but if we would have started, day one, we'd have a 13 year old. [Jennifer] Yeah, just recognizing, how long we've been married and-- [Aaron] And we probably have 13 kids. So, [Jennifer] At our rate. [Aaron] Yeah at our our rate, yeah. Hey, I just wanted to also bring up something that I've been doing lately, and maybe you can chime in on this, Jennifer, as well, but for the men listening, something I've been trying to do, I know not everyone has our situation. We totally understand that. We get that. But Jennifer and I both, I would say I work the majority of the time, it used to be much more equal, but as we've had more kids, Jennifer's desires, and our desires has changed to, you spending a lot more time homeschooling, [Jennifer] My work just looks different [Aaron] Totally looks different, but the idea is that we're keeping things going, but what I've been doing lately, is letting you have Fridays to yourself, often that's so you can get, you know, the work that you need to get done, done. But sometimes it's just to go. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] To get into the Word. To meet with a lady [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] From the church. To just have time to yourself, or a little bit of both, like you get some work done in the morning, and then you have like a hair appointment, or you have a meeting with a friend, [Jennifer] Yeah, I try and use that time to schedule appointments-- [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] But um, I will say this, I've really enjoyed it, and it's been super beneficial in a lot of ways, but I also recognize that change is coming, with having the baby and post-partum, and all that. So it'll be something that we reevaluate, come very quickly. [Aaron] Right 'cause we go through seasons, and ebbs and flows, and we have to adjust our schedules and our way of living to the situations in life. But, I just wanna encourage the men out there, that even if you're not in a situation, where maybe your wife works with you, or works at home, or maybe, I don't know, like your situations are gonna look differently. The idea is being intentional, to let your wife know that, especially if she doesn't have like, a regular nine-to-five job if she is at home with the kids, if you have a similar situation in that aspect, is giving them time. It may not be every week, maybe it can't be every week, but if it's once a month, if it's every other week, if it's for a couple hours, there's times like, "Hey why don't you, "I got the kids you get out of here--" [Jennifer] And maybe it can't be during the day, but it's at night or, if it can't be during the week, it's you know Saturday morning or something like that. [Aaron] Yeah, there's always going to be a way to just let your wife know that you're thinking about her time, and also, as men who are leading our wives, spiritually, giving them time specifically like, maybe it's at home like, "Hey, why don't you just go lock yourself in the bedroom? "Open up the Bible like, read, journal, "go take a bath, and listen to some worship music." Giving them time to themselves, time to recharge, regenerate. I know some women probably recharge around people, not alone, but, whatever it is, maybe they need to go be with some friends. Just, keeping that in your mind, something we've been practicing, like we said, it's a it's a seasonal thing. So it's not necessarily that it's always going to be this way, but currently Fridays have been your day, and you've been enjoying them, we've been slowing down on that with the baby coming. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Also 'cause, you're having less energy, and you're like, "I just wanna be home." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But, it's been a cool thing. [Jennifer] I think it's a really good encouragement, and I think it's good for husbands to hear, that when it's even spontaneous, 'cause this was something that we kind of scheduled out, and looked at our situation, and said, "This needs to be happening." But even when it's at random, you know, spontaneous, it's a huge encouragement to the wife's heart to know that the husband is thinking of her like that. You've done that for me plenty of times over the years and so, I love that you're bringing this up. I think it's cool. [Aaron] So hope you're encouraged by that. One more thing before we get into our, our list of our favorite non-toxic products is, we just want to invite you to join the Parenting Prayer Challenge. We created this prayer challenge, it's very similar to the Marriage Prayer Challenge, where you get 30, 30 some-odd emails everyday, reminding you to pray for your children, and giving you a topic to pray for over them. and you can actually sign up for one for a son, or one for a daughter, or you can sign up for both, which is pretty awesome 'cause some of you probably have a son and a daughter, or just sons, or just daughters, or just one or the other, but you can go, you go to parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word, and you sign up, it's completely free, and we just pray that God blesses you, and your prayer life for your children, because praying for your children is so important. Just like praying for your marriage. Just like praying for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Prayer is so important. God wants to be praying people, and so this is just a fun challenge. It's a way of being a catalyst for your prayer life, for your children. It's parentingprayerchallenge.com, it's completely free. [Jennifer] Okay, so for some of you listening you may have already read "The Unveiled Wife," if anything we talked about today, you know sparks interest and you haven't read that book yet, that was our first book that we came out with, you should go check it out, just because it shares more in depth of our journey, of kind of coming to this place of like, being aware of healthy living, and living a healthy lifestyle. But we're going to kind of summarize it. Just to kick off this episode, just so that you guys can, just get some background into Aaron and Jen. How about that? Okay. [Aaron] Let's see how quick we can make this summary. [Jennifer] Okay so I would say that when we first got married, Aaron, we didn't really, we didn't have a strong foundation of what it look like to live healthy. We grew up on fast food, and and home cook meals, but there was no, [Aaron] We didn't have an awareness of healthy living at all. [Jennifer] Yeah, and so we didn't really care about looking at ingredients on products, or you know reading the labels of things. I would say that you know I used all the all the really good smelling lotions and body washes, and if you didn't have more than three or four in your shower, it was like, "What are you doing?" You know, that type of thing. Fragrant candles, the kind of laundry detergent that you just never think about, you just use it because your parents used, or that's what so-and-so use. I remember using MAC makeup. This one, actually, I didn't really ever talk about this one, but this was one that affected me, in my teens because I was caking on the foundation, but I was using it to cover up acne, [Aaron] Which that made more acne. [Jennifer] Which made more acne. And I was actually allergic to something that was in it, and so I stopped using that, even probably around like 18. But anyways, the point that I'm getting at is that we didn't care about what was inside of these bottles that we were using to put on our skin, you know, the soap that we use, the body wash, the lip balms, the hairspray, we just consumed it. [Aaron] Not internally necessarily. [Aaron] We were consumers. We bought what we liked, we didn't have any consideration of what it was, and I actually think, back then, not very many people did. There was movements of it, but social media wasn't a huge thing back then, so not a lot of people were talking about it. Like news wasn't talking about it, like it was just, you got these products, and it wasn't until there was some sort of, big blow up or news story about something that people were aware of something, but I think with, now looking back, everyone is much more considerate about what's in products, people care about it, but back then we didn't have that experience. No one was telling us to, like, "Oh, do you know what those ingredients are?" Can you even understand what there, like, we just figured, like, "Oh, that's what they put in everything. [Jennifer] Yeah, and then, on the side of like, I'm not gonna go too much into this, but medicine, it was kind of just like, the Benadryl, Tylenol, like, whatever you could get over the counter type stuff. And I wasn't raised with a really big awareness of homeopathy, or how to, you know, use what you have at home. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] To help through sickness or things like that. Or to even just look at what's the root of the problem here? Of whatever symptoms you have. [Aaron] Or having an understanding of what those, why those symptoms exist. How fevers work, and how, like, why are you coughing, and sneezing, and these kinds of things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Rather than just, medicating the symptoms, which we're not totally against medication. [Jennifer] No, I'm just saying this is kind of like, where we came from. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So we get married, and I, you know, it was just like a normal thing people talked about, to go on birth control, so I did that. 'Cause I thought that was-- [Aaron] It's what you do. You get married, [Jennifer] What we were supposed to do. [Aaron] birth control, wait. [Jennifer] Yeah, wait. And I only on it for about two to three months, and it like, drastically effected my body, and so that was the first thing that I noticed should go. And so we did that. But that was also in conjunction with trying to find a solution for what we were dealing with in our marriage, which started immediately-- [Aaron] Physically, yeah. [Jennifer] And for those of you who don't know, Aaron and I, we struggled with intimacy right off the bat, like, zero, none. [Aaron] Like sex, specifically we couldn't have sex. It was very painful for you, and we've talked about this in the past, there's a few episodes where we talked about our story, and in your book you talk about it, we talk about it in our new book, "Marriage After God." We talk about it so much because it was such a influential season in our life, and how it brought us to our knees before God. Because, it drew out of us, so much other sins, and frustrations, and bitterness, this situation we were going through. Which is often when we go through things that are hard. They often will draw out those negative things in us. Which is cool, because then God gets to deal with them. But that was, yeah, we didn't know it, you would go to see doctors, and they would say, "You're young." [Jennifer] "You're fine. [Aaron] "You're fine-- [Jennifer] "You're really great." [Aaron] "there's nothing wrong, "this should be working just fine." And then we'd go home and cry, because it's not fine, it doesn't work, nothing's changing, it hurts you. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was like at least if you told me that something was wrong, I can work with that. I can't work with nothing. But moving on, so year four of our marriage, we had a conversation with some friends, we were being really transparent and honest with them about our struggles, and they kind of like, I remember them sitting across from us, just looking super confused, like, "How-- [Aaron] Dumbfounded, or like, "Are you serious?" [Jennifer] "Yeah, is this really happening?" but she goes, the girl, she goes, "The only thing I can think of to help relate your story, "to someone else's that I heard is, "a friend of mine has PCOS, and she changed out all "of her products to be more organic, "and just cleaner, and three months later, "she ended up pregnant." Which people with PCOS, it's a hard thing to do, and they weren't even trying to get pregnant. She was just trying to heal some of her other symptoms. And we quickly disregarded that because we thought, "Well, we're not trying "to get pregnant, we're just trying to start off "with the first thing, which is-- [Aaron] Yeah, how do I have sex? [Jennifer] "sexual intimacy." And we didn't think about it again for about five, six months. And then what happened, Aaron you share. [Aaron] Well, I would just, it got worse of course, 'cause we're like, "There's like no hope, "like this in never gonna change." You know, it started off with a lot of hope, like, "Oh, it'll get better, it'll get, "but it can't possibly keep going the same way." And it just did, and you know, I'm praying through this, God was working in our marriage. There was a, if you read in our book, in both of our books, actually, there's this moment that God gets ahold of my heart, and just totally convicts me of my wrong heart, towards my wife. Not just over the situation about our sex, but about a lot of things. And it brought me to my knees, I repented, and I just said, "Lord, I'm gonna obey you. "I'm gonna walk with you, "and I'm gonna love my wife, "regardless of if I ever get what I think I deserve, "or whatever she owes me, or whatever. "I'm gonna love her. "The way you've called me to." And that was the beginning of a lot of transformations, in our marriage, in our life, and our being. But how, I don't know how, it was like. [Jennifer] It was shortly after-- [Aaron] It was like that weekend, maybe, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] or the next weekend, or that week, 'cause it was at church that this you know revelation that God gave to me happened. And I'm in the shower, and I'm just praying, 'cause I'm still like, "God, there's gotta be something, "that's gonna fix this." 'Cause even though, I've totally committed my heart to say "I'm gonna love my wife," [Jennifer] You still wanted change-- [Aaron] I still want a change, right? But my heart was totally in a different place now. And I'm just praying, and I'm like. "Lord, what is it? "It's been since before we were married, "like this is, since we've been married, I mean, "and there's gotta be something." And I looked down in the shower actually, and there's a face wash in there, and I just immediately remembered this story about the PCOS, and the girl that got rid of her stuff, and I just asked myself, I was like, "Is it possible that there's something reacting "with my wife's body?" And then I started thinking like, "What has there been, that you've used, "ever since the beginning, of our marriage?" [Jennifer] 'Cause shampoo and conditioner changed out, body wash changed out, a lot things changed, in those four years, but my face wash was the one main thing that I always was consistent with. [Aaron] And so, I said, I just yelled from the shower, I remember like, "What have you been using "since before we were married?" And you were like, "My f-why?" You were like, confused. Anyways, I take the face wash out of the shower, and I hop onto our computer, and I just start researching every ingredient on the thing. And there was like, first of all, like, half the ingredients were, I went on this site, and it talks about the toxicity level, of ingredients, right? You type the ingredient in, and it just tells you what the level is. [Jennifer] Had you ever done anything like that before? [Aaron] Never, never done like that before. Didn't even know it existed, I had to Google, and I'm searching like, how do you figure out, I'm typing these, and then this site shows up. And like half the ingredients in this thing, were-- [Jennifer] It was EWG. [Aaron] Toxic. [Jennifer] EWG.com. [Aaron] EWG.com, I don't even know, is it still a thing? [Jennifer] I think so. [Aaron] Okay. So half the products were toxic at some level. And then there was several of the ingredients that had specific terms that it said it was, that the affect. Specifically the endocrine system in your body. Then I looked up, I was like, "What's the endocrine system? "I'll just start looking it up." I'm getting all technical, and we're not scientists, we're not biologists, we don't know, like, I'm not gonna try and diagnose people, but all I know is the Lord lead me to something. [Jennifer] We were putting pieces together. [Aaron] I started researching, and regardless if it has any effect, the fact that it had all these toxic chemicals, and I'm like, "Maybe she should, regardless, "she probably shouldn't be putting this on her body." and the endocrine system something that's, it's super important to the whole reproductive system. To the normal function of the woman's body. Like secretion of normal hormones, and I was like, "Dang, that sounds like a lot "of like the things that we deal with." And so it-- [Jennifer] The specific thing that you're talking about is parabens. [Aaron] Parabens, yeah. [Jennifer] So there's four, different types of parabens, in this specific face wash. [Aaron] Methyl, propyl, like all these different kinds. [Jennifer] And this was before parabens was a thing, [Aaron] Yeah, like no bottle said paraben-free, back then. [Jennifer] Nobody was talking about it yet, but it soon became a thing, shortly after that. [Aaron] A few years later. [Jennifer] I mean, I remember a few years later, you'd go into like, Ulta, or Sephora, and you'd start seeing, you know, makeup lines that say, paraben free this, paraben free that. [Aaron] Which is interesting because back then, no one cared. I should say no on knew. And then we're like researching this and finding this out, and I don't wanna say, like started move, we actually didn't start anything. Other people are already trying to get this moving, but because of social media things like that, that it exist. Things were a lot slower. I think things are way faster now. But I was just like, "Hey. "I want to be with you, physically." And in this is a big deal because Jennifer has been using this forever, she believed that without it, she was gonna have acne. And be, and feel ugly, or whatever it was, and I remember I was like, "Hey, would you get this up?" [Jennifer] I said no. [Aaron] And she was like "No!" And I'm like, "I'd rather you have acne and us be able "to be together, than you have clean skin, clear skin." [Jennifer] And then I was like, "Well maybe there's something, okay. "I'll just do it 'cause you asked me." [Aaron] So you did, you chose to put it away. And now, I'm sure everyone's thinking like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go use this to get my wife, "or get someone to stop doing something." But, I, my heart was not just to get her to stop using this. I actually had never thought about it until this moment, and I was just like, "Would you be willing to experiment with me?" Like, "Let's just delete this from your life." [Jennifer] Yeah, it was an experiment. And here's the thing you guys, three days later, three days later, I was at work and I remember just feeling different, and I called Aaron and I was like, "I don't get too excited but, I feel different, "and I wanted you to know that my body feels, "it feels like things are changing." And I feel like it was just like two more days after that that we had sex for what feels like the first time. [Aaron] Yeah, in four and a half years. [Jennifer] Like pain free. [Aaron] Pain free. Not just pain free, but like it was enjoyable. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Like it was, like we were like, "Whoa. "Like that's what it's supposed to be like. [Jennifer] There was nothing else that was gonna convince me, that what we stumbled upon, was the thing. [Aaron] Right, and I would also say, we, God lead us a new place, in our hearts toward him. We had been repentant, of things that were going on, and I think that the Lord revealed thing to us, so I would say I definitely think that there is certain things are engaging, or interacting with your body. I mean we know over the years that you're sensitive to certain things, I'm sensitive to certain things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But I also think that the Lord, was like working in us. So I'm not trying to over-spiritualize it but, I don't wanna take away from what God was doing. [Jennifer] Sure. [Aaron] And he revealed this to us-- [Jennifer] Well and I think, he's the one that revealed this to us, and it was really awesome, and so the next step was, "I'm getting rid of all parabens." Like parabens became this like, [Aaron] We literally threw [Both] Everything, [Jennifer] And I am telling you guys, [Aaron] All of our shampoos, all of her makeup. [Jennifer] It was it! [Aaron] My makeup too. I'm just kiddin'. [Jennifer] It was in everything. It was in so much stuff. People will message me on Instagram, and they're like, "So you know, "You talked about parabens in the "Unveiled Wife," "and what kind of stuff did you have to look at?" It was like, [Aaron] Everything. [Jennifer] I tell 'em, "everything." And so what's funny is that, I look at our shower now from what it used to be, and it's like you had mentioned earlier, [Aaron] There's two things in there. [Jennifer] Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode. 'cause we just thought it'd be fun to share with you guys, some of the things that we use now, but this indecent, this thing that happened over something as small as face wash, is what stimulated our hearts to say, "Hey, what were putting in our bodies. "What we're putting on our bodies, "is important because it has an effect on us." [Aaron] And I mean it's definitely not our main focus, I mean everyone that listens to our podcast would know that this is not, we're not like a health and fitness-- [Jennifer] Freaks, [Aaron] Podcast. No, we just know, that there's a holistic view that God has of us. He wants us to love him with our minds, our souls, our bodies. Like so, when we look at the world it's not just, "Oh, we can be unwise over here, "as long as we're wise over here." we look at idea of, what we, we gotta be wise in every aspect. And we seek God on that. So what's wrong with just, caring about what goes on our body and in our body? Not out of a, like, not putting something on my body and not putting something in my body is not making me more holy. It's making me more healthy. [Jennifer] It's taking care of yourself. [Aaron] it's taking care of the body that God's given me. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I will say this, back then, it felt a little bit harder to know what to switch to, because-- [Aaron] Well, there was also less things, I think. [Jennifer] Less cleaner things available and so I just wanted to make that clear, that, you know, anyone who wanted to make a switch today, like if they want to go to their products or-- [Aaron] There's a million products now. [Jennifer] be more healthy in this way, there are so many good products out there and so, it's a lot easier, I would say. But another thing that triggered our healthy lifestyle, was doing the Sugar Busters diet, which we-- [Aaron] This was long time ago. [Jennifer] that was just a couple months, after all of this, and we made the commitment to do it together. We even took a class on it do you remember that? [Aaron] I do. [Jennifer] And they taught us how to read labels-- [Aaron] It was at the church. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was at our church. [Aaron] The church put this like health class on. It was cool. [Jennifer] Yeah so, it taught us how the read labels, and so I remember going grocery shopping with you, and we're looking at the back of like pasta sauce-- [Aaron] Well, everything we bought, had added sugar in it. Every single thing. [Jennifer] But we were like, amazed, we were like, "And this has it too!" [Aaron] I was like, "Bread doesn't have sugar in it." and every loaf of bread, was like, the second ingredient was sugar. And we're like, "Okay, what's going on here?" So anyways, [Jennifer] And then you had to go with a list of what are sugars called? because there's a lot of-- [Aaron] All the different names of sugar, yeah [Jennifer] Different names, for it. But that was another one, when we talk about eating, like that was what stimulated our healthy movement towards eating healthier and just buying things so that we're aware of what we're putting inside of our bodies. It doesn't mean we don't consume sugar, and we don't, you know, we'll have Chick-fil-A, we'll go out and-- [Aaron] No, but that education, the learning about how to read labels. What are ingredients, you know, how they order the ingredients, that's important, I can give a little tip on that. Even though we don't still do Sugar Busters, that month or how many? It was a couple months maybe. [Jennifer] It grew a muscle in us, We now, that's how we shop. When we go grocery shopping, of course there's gonna be stuff that we grab that has added sugars to it, but for the most part, we look at the ingredients in almost everything we buy. Everything, now especially with you, you need to be gluten-free. We look at, we actually buy less things that have wheat in it period, because of that, but it was a good tool in our tool belt, as we talk about in "Marriage After God," to just help us be healthier, help our kids be healthier. They enjoy things, here and there, we just had icecream tonight, so we're not like, sans sugar in our life, we're sans sugar all the time. [Jennifer] I was gonna say, we try and make the best opportunity, or we take every opportunity, when we can, to be healthy, eat healthy, and you know, choose the right thing, but it doesn't mean that we don't get, [Aaron] We also enjoy things. [Jennifer] Yeah, we also enjoy things, so, [Aaron] In moderation. [Jennifer] in moderation. That's good. [Aaron] So, Oh I wanna give that quick tip real quick, 'cause people are probably thinking like, "Well, what about the ingredients?" Just a quick tip on ingredients, the order of ingredients on the box, so like starting from the first, to the second, to the third, the higher up an ingredient is on the box, the more of that ingredient is in the product. So if sugar is in the top three ingredients, that means there's a lot of sugar in that item. So if wheat's the first or water, that's how they order the ingredients, based off of amount of ingredients. [Jennifer] So here's another one, it's really random, but I've been seeing a naturopath for my thyroid issues through this last year, and one of the things she asked me is if we use Weed and Feed. And I didn't even know, 'cause you usually do-- [Aaron] For the lawns? Yeah. [Jennifer] the lawns, yeah. And that was just one instance where she was like, "Well, instead of using that, "why don't you just pick the weeds?" like-- [Aaron] Or leave the weeds. [Jennifer] or leave the weeds. So there's a lots of things in our life that we can look at and evaluate, and say, "Oh, we should probably make change." It doesn't have to happen all at once, but it is something that we should be aware of, to go, "Hey what's happening to this exposure "that we're doing to our bodies. "And how can we maintain a healthy body?' [Aaron] And the Weed and Feed was important because was saying, "You guys walk on "that grass all the time." And like, it goes into your skin, and you're going to be affected by it. Because you're you're working with your thyroid and all of these things, effect that. Which is interesting because, we knew back then that you were probably sensitive to some stuff, and now we know now, you are definitely sensitive to things. Your body's gonna react, maybe differently than someone who, has normal functioning thyroid, or endocrine system or all that. [Jennifer] Right. Okay so, we we're just going to get into kind of a list of our non-toxic products because-- [Aaron] These are literally things that we use, pretty much on a regular basis. [Jennifer] Two reasons, one we just thought it would be fun to share these things, and if you guys you know want to know more, you can reach out to us on Instagram @marriage-- [Aaron] Reach out to Jennifer about the [Jennifer] I was going to say @marriageaftergod. [Aaron] Ah there ya go. [Jennifer] or @unveiledwife We also know that everyone's always looking for, you know, new things or ideas or inspiration so, we just hope that by sharing these, it's an encouragement to you, and give you some information. [Aaron] And I'll also let you guys know that we're not like necessarily sponsored by any of these people. We're just we're literally going to share with you guys the things that we love-- [Jennifer] Now I will say, [Aaron] and use. [Jennifer] that some of these things that I put on the list, and we've been using Young Living Essential Oils for [Aaron] Several years now. [Jennifer] about four or five years now. And we did just recently, just be more open to sharing the business side of things on social media. You may have seen that, maybe not. And so I know you said that we're not sponsored by this, but we,-- [Aaron] But we use it. [Jennifer] but we do use Young Living, and we do believe in what they have to offer, and and have really fallen in love with their products. So, I just wanted to put that out there, just so that people know and we're clear about that. [Aaron] We're not trying to be tricky or anything, we just, these are literally products we love and no one's asked us to share about them. Except for us, wanting to share about them. [Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to cleaning I really love the Thieves Spray, which in the beginning I was using wrong, because I didn't know it could be diluted. I literally would just put the spray cap-- [Aaron] And everything was just like slimy and had like, film all over the [Jennifer] Uh yeah, like a residue. [Aaron] We had residue everywhere. [Jennifer] On the countertops. [Aaron] Oh man, there was no germs I bet. [Jennifer] Ah, probably not. So the Thieves container comes, and then you dilute it, and it lasts a long time. But it smells really good, and I can use it for-- [Aaron] Everything. [Jennifer] I feel like every, one product, I feel like I can use for so much. [Aaron] And what's awesome is like, if you sprayed it on food by accident, I'm not saying you should eat it, but it's not going to be like spraying Lysol on something. Like you spray the table, you spray the the highchair, you spray, you're not worried about this, you know hurting your children. Which is awesome. It's an added benefit to this kind of cleaning product. [Jennifer] Another awesome cleaning product, is by a company called Norwex, it's really awesome you guys, they do these microfiber cloths, but they're like-- [Aaron] Aren't they infused with like silver? [Jennifer] Yeah, they're infused with silver, and they just, I don't know what about it is, but like, when you go to clean the stove, you barely have to even scrape, it's just like, [Aaron] Reusable [Jennifer] It like makes you want to clean. The window rag, you just you put water on it, and just wipe your window down, and they look crystal clear. I bought these mitts for the kids that have, they're just really easy slip-on gloves, but they're good for dusting, [Aaron] So that they can help clean? [Jennifer] So that they can help clean. Oh and our mop, I use the Norwex mop, and it's just really nice. It's good, I like it. I like their stuff. [Aaron] I wouldn't say those are necessarily, healthy products, they're just good products that we love using. [Jennifer] Oh yeah. [Aaron] On that specific one, [Jennifer] On the Norwex side of things. [Aaron] I did wanna go back, and just real quick, the Thieves Spray, we just talked about, I wanted to say it like it what it replaces. Because I think, as we go, we should just remind them, also, what it replaces like, it replaces Lysol spray, it replaces window spray, it replaces like toilet cleaner, it replaces all these things that you'd use to clean your countertops, or your floors, or your tables, or your, it does all of those things. [Jennifer] So for all you minimalists out there, [Aaron] You get one thing, and it does all. [Jennifer] It'll make your cleaning closet, or cupboard very pretty looking. [Aaron] It also smells really nice. [Jennifer] It does, that's true. For laundry, again that they sell Thieves Laundry Detergent and we've really liked that. And I just noticed that, there's a drastic difference when washing towels and washcloths. They're just so much cleaner. [Aaron] And they smell fresher, and they feel nicer. I've been really liking that, as well. This is this one's kind of like for me. So Jennifer, actually, doesn't use the the Thieves Laundry Soap for me, because I'm really sensitive, my skin, if we, if there's any laundry detergent that has any sort of dyes or perfumes or anything, I get like a rash, on my whole body. [Jennifer] If I even think about changing it, he breaks out-- [Aaron] Now, it happens, we've gone, we've stayed at hotels in the past, and I wake up in the morning and I'm just like red, and I go down and I'm like, "What are you guys washing your stuff with?" And they're like "We don't know, why?" And I'm like "I like I need something else." It's like horrible 'cause I'm like sleeping on these blankets and pillows, and so the only thing that we found work, we've actually tried venturing out, into other things, is the Arm & Hammer Sensitive Skin laundry detergent. [Jennifer] But it's fragrance-free, it's clear, [Aaron] Dye free. I'm sure it's got a couple of bad things in it, but literally, it's the only one that I've been able to use and not like break out in a rash on my body. But that comes in a huge bottle and we use it for me so. [Jennifer] Okay so earlier, we mentioned the shower, and just how the bathroom is much [Aaron] less cluttered, [Jennifer] Yeah, less cluttered. So we use dr. Bronner's for just about everything when it comes to washing our bodies. [Aaron] Body wash, shampoo, [Jennifer] I use it in the kids hair, I throw it in their bath and they have different scents, and they come in big bottles [Aaron] I like the rose scented one. [Jennifer] I will say this, the first couple times that we used it, do you remember how it felt like, really different, almost oily, but then once you got out of the shower it was like, [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause it doesn't suds the same way, as like a regular shampoo and also, you have to dilute it. And so you if you use too much, it's like everywhere but it comes off really easy. Doesn't leave any residue, but it's, we love it we use it for everything. Apparently you can use dr. Bronner's for like, laundry soap, [Jennifer] Yep. and dish washing soap [Jennifer] You can use it for a lot of stuff. [Aaron] We use it mainly in the shower, but yeah, you can [Jennifer] I use it for my face wash now, face and body wash, [Aaron] You can use it for everything. We wanna make a note that, the company that that owns dr. Bronner's, they write a bunch of weird stuff on the packaging so we're not necessarily endorsing what is written on the packaging, but we love the product. [Jennifer] When it comes to my like, lotions and things like that, Cetaphil is pretty bland, there's not very much stuff in it. I've used that for years now. I love the orange blossom and ART brand from Young Living when it comes to face moisturizer. The Genesis lotion is also really great, especially because, well, it smells clean and fresh, but it's not super fragrant. That one's good, just an overall lotion, I use that one for the kids. But also, Aaron, [Aaron] Yeah, there's a lotion that I, I hate lotions, like I don't like putting anything in my hands, even though, like right now, my hands are so dry because it's so dry out. But I hate feeling like greasy and the lotion I love the most is from Bend Soap Company, they're actually right here in our hometown. And they make this goat milk lotion, they make goat milk soap, they make a lot of really awesome things. So if you have really sensitive skin, like eczema, things like that, their soaps are amazing for it. That's actually why they started the company, 'cause one of their sons had issues with skin like that. [Jennifer] What I like is their milk bath, it comes in these like shavings, [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] And it's just, you toss it in the bath with the kids, and it's just so fun. [Aaron] So just go check out Bend Soap Company, I can't remember the domain, but just Google Bend Soap Company. And their lotion, does not feel greasy. Once it's rubbed in, it's like, it smells nice, it feels great. [Jennifer] You don't have to go wash your hands [Aaron] It feels soft, yeah I don't have to wash my hands afterwards. [Jennifer] For toothpaste we do use Young Living. The Thieves whitening, specifically, is really good for us. And then we use it the kid's ones for the kids. But for the deodorant, this was a big one for me, because I feel like every time I try to use like, a natural deodorant, it just felt weird [Aaron] They don't work. [Jennifer] and didn't work [Jennifer] Yeah, but there's a new company out I'd say a fairly new. They're gaining ground, they're like in Target now, [Aaron] Yeah, they actually have some body washes now, I saw. [Jennifer] Oh really? [Aaron] Yeah, I almost bought a bottle of it. [Jennifer] Oh you should, I'll have to try it. [Aaron] But I like my Bronner's [Jennifer] I know. It's called Native. And they have great scents, it goes on smooth, almost silky like, and it works. Someone asked me, "Do you think it'll work during postpartum?" And I'm like, "That I haven't tried yet, "so we'll know this time around." But I've really really enjoyed Native. [Aaron] Yeah, it doesn't have the heavy metals, or nothin' in it, [Jennifer] Paraben-free [Aaron] So it won't necessarily protect you from perspiring, I should say. It's not an antiperspirant, it's a deodorant. So it protects from the smell, but-- [Jennifer] I don't, really notice-- [Aaron] Yeah, well, it's winter right now, so I don't know, sometimes. [Jennifer] I've been using it for a while though. [Aaron] But I like it a lot. It smells great, it feels good, and deodorant is another one that's really been a, hard one for me because, like, pretty much any deodorant I use, I used to use the Arm & Hammer deodorant, but that has some metals in it, and so I've since switched to Native, but Arm & Hammer and Native are the only ones that don't give me rashes on my arms. And they're painful, you've see them. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] Like, I they hurt. And I've loved their deodorants. [Jennifer] Another good product for chapstick, is Burt's Bees. [Aaron] Yeah that's good. Especially their vanilla brand, [Aaron] I think a lot of people are like, "yeah, I like that." Burt's Bees, they've been pretty synonymous for chapsticks. [Jennifer] That or coconut oil. Which coconut oil, you guys, you could used for literally everything. [Aaron] Yeah, we should do an episode on that. [Jennifer] Dry skin, lips-- [Aaron] intimacy, oh we're gonna talk about it. [Jennifer] Lubricancy, or, lubricancy? [Aaron] Lubricancy [Jennifer] Whatever that is. [Aaron] It's like, new word. [Jennifer] Okay before we get there, supplements, some things that I've been taking his last year, Nordic Naturals-- [Aaron] You've been, just real quick, you've been getting a lot, into the supplements, just because of your-- [Jennifer] Thyroid. [Aaron] your thyroid. So you've been learning a lot about these. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Because we're, we're trying to avoid going with other stronger, methods, we're trying to do the natural way, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and you've been, pretty consistent with this. [Jennifer] Yeah, and just as a testament, after being on the supplements, I have actually, my numbers have gone down, and in my symptoms have pretty much dissipated, but I've also been pregnant the last nine months. [Aaron] Which does change things, yep. [Jennifer] So it does change things. But Nordic Naturals has a really great, strawberry flavored, omega-3. Which I love. And I've been taking-- [Aaron] So it doesn't just taste like fish? It tastes like strawberries? That's good. [Jennifer] Yeah. We've taking D3 a lot. Young Living has a great line of supplements that we use, like the vitamin C, the vitamin B, Multigreens, [Aaron] Yeah, I've been loving their Master Formula. It's like a pack of like five little supplements, and vitamin B, C, D3, all these different ones. I've been taking that, pretty much regularly, every day, I really enjoy that one. [Jennifer] Cool. Okay so for pregnancy and post-partum care, my friend recommended ancient magnesium lotion for restless legs, and it works. [Aaron] Do you get restless legs when you're pregnant? [Jennifer] Yeah, mostly towards the end, [Aaron] I'm being facetious, because I know. [Jennifer] I know, Aaron does the massaging, with the lotion, [Aaron] Yeah [Jennifer] Thank you, Aaron. [Aaron] You've had pretty bad restless legs this time. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] And the magnesium lotion-- [Jennifer] It's been good. [Aaron] And lavender, on your feet. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Has been, really helping you. [Jennifer] Yep, that's true. [Aaron] 'Cause I can tell, 'cause then you fall asleep. [Jennifer] Yeah. I've love it. And then the other thing that helps, has helped me during this pregnancy is the Young Living Deep Relief roller and I don't necessarily put it on, but like I smell it, like especially when I'm nauseous, or anything like that. [Aaron] I personally don't like this one because of how cold it feels. It's like all this-- [Jennifer] When you put it on, yeah. [Aaron] Like the peppermint in it, I just can't. [Jennifer] The cooling effect. [Aaron] But it does work, but it's too cold for me. So you brought up makeup in the beginning, I remember you used to go to the MAC store and you were like, "We have to go to the mall, I need some MAC." And I was like, "Are you serious? "You look beautiful." I've never liked you wearing makeup. You remember this? I was like, "You don't need to wear makeup." But you've used since not used makeup, the MAC makeup and for a long time, you didn't use almost anything, because we couldn't find anything. What do you use now? I'm sure some of the women are like, "What kind of makeup do you use?" [Jennifer] Yeah, so I would say, like my everyday would be, a primer from Urban Decay, which just kind of holds the eyeshadow on, and the eye shadow is also from Urban Decay. And I just like it, they're neutral colors, easy to put on really quick, and the times that I do use foundation, it's a powder foundation from Young Living, it's called Savvy Minerals, it's like a mineral makeup. And it goes on super light and so, [Aaron] But that's rare. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's like on Sundays. [Aaron] I would say you used to use a lot more makeup, and now it's like, you do a little eyeliner, [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] You do a little mascara, [Jennifer] I don't use eyeliner actually. [Aaron] You don't use eyeliner? [Jennifer] No but my mascara, Smashbox has been a really good favorite, paraben-free, and Clinique. [Aaron] Clinique, [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] So no eyeliner, but mascara, okay, and then you use some lipstick sometimes. [Jennifer] Every once in a while. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] The Burt's Bees tinted is really nice. [Aaron] 'cause it's kinda like lipstick, and it's moisturizing [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, so I'm just making a note that you wear way less makeup than you use to [Jennifer] Oh yeah. [Aaron] And I think you're beautiful. [Jennifer] Thank you. [Aaron] Yeah, well, I'm not lying. I've never been a fan of a lot of makeup, and because of this, you've since found contentment in just a very little. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Which I think is really awesome. [Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to intimacy, you guys we ditched pretty much, well, we did all lubricants because of-- [Aaron] And we've tried a lot of lubricants 'cause, [Jennifer] We've tried a lot [Aaron] 'cause, things didn't work. [Jennifer] But there were so many of 'em that had parabens in it. [Aaron] All of them. [Jennifer] Every single one, [Jennifer] We didn't even know, [Aaron] Had parabens, yeah. [Jennifer] And then other things on top of that that were just not good for you, so, we stuck to coconut oil for a really long time. [Aaron] So, tip, coconut oil's amazing, for that, specifically, and it's so good for you too. And it feels good. That was a little side note, for the adults in the room. So, I guess what we wanna get at, and I'm sure there's like a ton more things that we-- [Jennifer] I know, [Aaron] we use that are healthy, and we could probably, make a whole other list, but we essentially, wanted to show you that we've simplified, we found the handful of products that we love, and that we know what's in them, and we just, what's really awesome about this is, we it makes shopping easier, it's actually cheaper 'cause we're not buying a bunch of stuff and always experimenting, we're not always saying like "Well, let's try this new thing." We just say "Nope, we love this product. "Let's just go with it, we know it works." And so it makes, we don't think as much about those things. We know that we're minimizing the amount of chemicals we're putting on us, on our kids. And so we can have some peace of mind, and just one less thing that we have to think about, in our home. And we can put more intention into the spiritual growth of our family, into our careers, into our children, into each other, and we're not like worried about these other things. [Jennifer] Yeah, or when you say, "don't put as much "thought into them," I would say initially we do, because we do look at ingredients. We look and we do our research and figure out what we want to use, and we're in agreement when we choose things, but then, once we know what it is, it's kinda like that going back to that spaghetti sauce, once we found the one that didn't have sugar in it, we just stick to that one. [Aaron] And it's great. We love it. [Jennifer] And it makes it easy. It makes it so easy when you know what you are good with. [Aaron] Well, and grocery shopping's hard. I don't know if everyone who's listening is like, "Yeah grocery shopping's hard." Like, for us it's hard, like, so once you, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every single time, we've kinda, we slowly over time with built, our list of things that we like, "Oh, these are the things-- [Jennifer] Stick to the basics [Aaron] "that we can, "we're just gonna go to those things." And some of them are a little but more expensive. But what's awesome is we don't get as much of everything, like we get those handful of things and I was just at the grocery store the other day, and I was just thinking how awesome it is, that we have these habits on the things that we get. There's just the staples in our home, there's things that we get often. We've already looked at the ingredients. We know we enjoy them. We know that we like them. And it just makes these normal, everyday things so much more enjoyable and easy. They're less stressful like, all around like, this this this way of thinking, is just good for our everyday life. To simplify, to know the things that we like, and we create the good habit. And then that habit is there. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel, every single time we walk to the grocery store. Or every time we are shopping for something for our home, and for our kids. [Jennifer] And we also gotta know when we do choose that organic, clean, non-toxic, or non-GMO, whatever the thing is, we can't be up so obsessive about it that when we go out, or someone offers us, or brings us-- [Aaron] Right. That's a good point. [Jennifer] food during, postpartum, or whatever it is, that we're not nitpicky in a way that promotes-- [Aaron] Is this from that specific brand? [Jennifer] Yeah, let's not be like that. [Aaron] Yeah, we're not, yeah. [Jennifer] And I guess what I'm trying to say is we can't make it in idol. I think it's important to be healthy, and do the best that we can, but there's going to be times that we can't, and that's okay. We can't make living out this way, become an idol in our lives, and especially not become a strife point between husband and wife. I think this is something that you guys, [Aaron] Or friends, [Jennifer] can learn about together. Engage in together, and agree on together. [Aaron] That's a really good point, you know it's good to, in general, be making healthier habits in our life, but the point is not just to be healthier, it's too have a good habits. It's to walk rightly and have wisdom. And so is that thing, if those things, are getting in the way of your relationships with other people, they need to be put on the shelf. Not forever, but like you need to check yourself, and say "Am I letting this thing get in the way of them?" [Jennifer] Yeah, or if you really, truly have a heart to encourage your friends, or family members, or whoever to also, live a healthy lifestyle, be patient with them, because it might take someone else more time, than maybe it took you, or I don't know, I just feel like we need to have compassion for people's learning experience, [Aaron] Yeah, well and also don't let this, one last little warning, don't let this be the message you preach. It's good to encourage people and say "Hey like, you know, why don't you try this? "Why don't you try some more healthy things? "Here's an idea." It's one thing to share, healthy lifestyle, and to encourage someone, but if that if that replaces the message we should be preaching, the message of Christ, if like we have this opportunity and we're instead, we're encouraging someone to be healthier, and then what were thinking is, holiness comes from that. Rather than encouraging someone in Christ, and making the healthy lifestyle thing, that's an ancillary thing in our life that were like, "Oh and I like to live healthy, "and here's some ideas if you're interested." So the main messages is our life represents Christ and we preach him. 'Cause, we could do that sometimes. I got excited about crossfit, and every conversation I had was about crossfit, and I have to check myself and be like, "Hey, is this getting in the way "of the message I should be preaching right now? [Jennifer] That's really good Aaron, and I just, you know, just even thinking about this episode, it's little bit fun and quirky, and you know, not very Christ driven, but yet, I think the encouragement here is that we're aware of what we're putting in and on our bodies because, the scripture to tell us about, our bodies being the Holy Temple. [Aaron] Right, and we're, it's just being wise. Let's be wise with our bodies, and we can't control everything, and we shouldn't try and control everything. But what we can control, with moderation, with wisdom, and with sober mindedness, you know, thinking rightly, I think there's wisdom in that. And walking good, and not just putting junk in our bodies, and on our bodies. [Jennifer] And it has felt really good, I think you would agree with me, in having the conversations from time to time, about our lifestyle choices, about the things that we're doing, the things that were buying, and it's something that we evaluate often. You know, even when we go to the grocery store and so, I would hope that this episode, encourages couples to do that. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So I also wanna let you guys know that if you, especially the wife, if you're interested in following me on Instagram, @unveiledwife, there's a highlight tab called toxic, free, healthy living, and you can get more information there. And also if you're curious about more things, if you want to hear more about, you know, the things that we use just message me. [Aaron] So before we close in prayer, I thought it'd be cool if we let everyone know some of the resources and people that we follow that kinda promote, some healthy living, so what are you share some of those? [Jennifer] So Dashing Dish, she's a good friend of ours and she is-- [Aaron] She's awesome. [Jennifer] really good at just like, meal planning, healthy fitness, [Aaron] Believer, loves the Lord. [Jennifer] everything you can think of, if you want some inspiration she's a great resource. Dr. Mark Hyman H-Y-M-A-N, is a really great resource, he just talks about the holistic living, like that Aaron mentioned. Carrie Vitt, I think it's a Vitt, or Veet. It's C-A-R-R-I-E V-I-T-T and on Instagram, that's where I follow her, and she talks a lot about thyroid health. So I mention that earlier-- [Aaron] Yeah, which is important to you. [Jennifer] Yeah, if you guys are interested in more inspiration for thyroid health, she's a great one to listen to, or watch, or follow. Follow, yeah. [Jennifer] I don't know what it's called. Another one is just.ingredients. She is going to really fun resource, a newer resource that-- [Aaron] Someone shared this with you, yeah. [Jennifer] someone shared with me, and she does like, Costco overhauls, she'll compare products and it's just been really great. [Aaron] A note on her, isn't she the one, that she'll say "If you can't do this, "at least do this?" [Jennifer] Yeah, I think so. [Aaron] And so she shows you like, if you can't afford this, the best product, here's one that's a little bit better than that other product. [Jennifer] I know she shows pictures too, of like, comparing products and things like that. So that's just.ingredients. And then another one I've been falling recently, is Purely Parsons. She's a fun one, just a mom, also nurse, who shares a lot of things, and her highlight reel, I mean, so much about birth, postpartum care, flu season, just home remedies, farming, like, anything that you can think of that you want to know more about, she's just a fun person to follow. And I really appreciated, how much time she takes in explaining things, and sharing resources. And then we had mentioned Sugar Busters, but if you want to know more about the toxi, I can't say that word, [Aaron] Toxicity. of sugar, Dr. Robert Lustig L-U-S-T-I-G [Aaron] Oh yeah, he's the guy [Jennifer] he's the guy. And especially on YouTube. Just research him and check out some of his-- [Aaron] He talks about what sugar does in our bodies. and this is not to be an anti sugar talk, we just when we're aware of how things interact with our body, how God created our bodies, it's pretty interesting 'cause it's not normal things to learn, so just wanna encourage you to check that out. So hey, we just want to thank everyone for being here today. As usual, we like to close in prayer. And so just Jennifer, why don't you pray for us? [Jennifer] Okay. Dear Lord, thank you for our bodies. We pray would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them, and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis. Using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices, and be on the same page in marriage, so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us to not be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us, and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but people who care about our bodies, and take care of them. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. We love you all, We thank you for joining us on this episode. We hope it was enjoyable and educational. Go follow @unveiledwife and check out some of her, some more of her things. She posts about them often. And again, we love you, and we look forward to having you next week, possibly as long as we don't have the baby before then, we'll get some episodes up. See you next week. Did you enjoy Today Show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.   

In this episode, we answer questions for our community about having children, birth control, how many kids to have and more.Please also take a moment and download our free 52 Date Night Ideas eBook.http://datenightideas.com PRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for the gift and blessing of children. Thank you for creating and designing us with the ability to recreate, what an incredible miracle life truly is. We thank you for the opportunity to build our family and have children. We pray for others who either have not had children yet or in awaiting their first in anticipation. May you lead them in the way you desire them to walk and to grow together. We praise you for all those who have children and we also pray for those who can’t have children for whatever the reason may be. You are sovereign and we trust you. We continue to surrender our hearts to you as you lead us in parenting and raising our children to know you. Please help us with our fears and insecurities. Please remind us every day of the purpose we have with our family. May your name be glorified.In Jesus’ name, amen! READ FULL TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're gonna answer some of your questions about having children. - [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry onlinae for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. - [Aaron] Love. - [Jennifer] And Power. - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chased boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Hey, everyone welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. We're happy to be with you and we're really excited about this episode, and just being able to answer your questions. So doing Q&As is gonna be just an awesome new feature of the podcast where every couple of weeks, we're gonna poll our trusty community on Instagram and ask you guys what questions you have, and hopefully get some answers, well I should say opinions. - [Aaron] Yeah 'cause we have all the answers. - [Jennifer] No. - [Aaron] On everything. - [Jennifer] We don't but you know what, we're happy to explore these questions with you. And so thank you to everyone who shared these questions with us, and specifically about about having kids which we have a little bit of experience with. And so we'll dive into that in just a bit. All right, so one thing that we really are excited to share with you guys is that we have a new freebie for all of you. - [Aaron] So everyone has already did the free prayer challenge. - [Jennifer] Right. - [Aaron] They already got the date night conversations. - [Jennifer] You better, we've been sharing about those two for a while. So I begged Aaron, and I was like, "Let's do something new. "We've gotta do something new." - [Aaron] So this one is date night ideas. It's a free download. It's a list of 52 date night ideas which you could do one a week for the whole year. - [Jennifer] So is this something we're committing to? We're gonna go through all of these and do them? - [Aaron] Sure. - [Jennifer] Let's do it. - [Aaron] Let's see how it goes. - [Jennifer] I think that would be so fun. - [Aaron] So if you wanna get this freebie, this download, you just go to datenightideas.com and you can download our free ebook with 52 date night ideas. - [Jennifer] And the goal is one a week but if you can't do one week, do three a week. It's fine-- - [Aaron] If you have to do one a day, you know what, you can get done faster-- - [Jennifer] Have fun with it. - [Aaron] And just do it all over again. - [Jennifer] Have fun with it. No, but you can use these whenever you want and you can even sift through them and pull from it. - [Aaron] You know what would be fun is if they downloaded this and then found another couple to do a challenge with. How many they can get done in a year? - [Jennifer] Interesting, the other thing you could do is print them out and cut them out and stick them in a jar and pull them out randomly. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] That would be fun. - [Aaron] That's a great idea. Datenightideas.com, one word and it's free. Go get it, so the topic we're talking about, these Q&As, they're all on a similar topic. We polled our followers on Instagram and many of the questions were around children. Having children, children after marriage. - [Jennifer] So we're like let's stick them all in one episode so we can hit them all at once. - [Aaron] And so we're just gonna, some of these we're gonna wing answering. If we don't have good answers, we might say we don't know. We're not afraid to say we don't know. - [Jennifer] And just keep in mind that these are just our positions on these questions. How we would answer them based off of our experience and knowledge and-- - [Aaron] And things that we know of the Bible. - [Jennifer] Things that we know of the Bible and what we believe in so-- - [Aaron] Take it for what it is. - [Jennifer] Yeah and thank you guys again for asking these questions and sharing them with us and we really appreciate that. If you wanna jump on board for the next Q&A, just follow along on Instagram @marriageaftergod. - [Aaron] And you can always send us your questions in a message and we may not answer it in the message but we'll take down the question and potentially answer it in a future Q&A episode. We'd love to get those from you. So why don't we just jump right in to the first question and this is a doozy I feel like 'cause it's controversial, it could be. - [Jennifer] It could be yeah. - [Aaron] And they ask us their question and they said, our view on birth control. - [Jennifer] So what's your view on birth control? - [Aaron] That's a good question. - [Jennifer] It's a big question. - [Aaron] Okay, next question is, no I'm just kidding. Our view on birth control. - [Jennifer] Let me share my point of view first. - [Aaron] Okay, go ahead. - [Jennifer] I'll just be honest. I went on birth control 'cause that's what I heard you do when you get married. And so I went on the month before I got married and I chose to go off of it a month after we were married. So I was on it for a total of two months and I got married at 21, you were 22. And we were so excited married and so excited to-- - [Aaron] Be with each other physically. - [Jennifer] Yeah, experience what sex was like and it was awful. I'm just gonna be honest. It was very painful for me and so I scrambled, you guys. I tried to figure out why is my body responding this way because it was my body that was keeping us from experiencing-- - [Aaron] Physical intimacy. - [Jennifer] Healthy, physical intimacy. And so one of the things that came to my mind was something that was super obvious because over the course of that month of being married, not only were we having these issues but I gained a lot of weight. I got acne. - [Aaron] There was a lot of things going on. There was emotional stuff. - [Jennifer] Emotional ups and downs and mood swings and it was awful and I didn't feel myself. And so the obvious question then is what happened in the last few weeks that has changed me? - [Aaron] Other than getting married. - [Jennifer] I know it's a big transition. - [Aaron] I that that guy you married can make you feel crazy, I get it. - [Jennifer] But we narrowed it down to birth control and so I chose to go off of it and I haven't regretted it. - [Aaron] And it didn't fix everything but it did actually drastically change your mood. - [Jennifer] And some of the physical things that I was-- - [Aaron] Some of the physical things you were experiencing. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] So that's an experience you had with birth control. We know tons of people use birth control. I also know that there is certain people that say birth control is a sin. I'm not gonna go that far. I'm not gonna make statements like that. What I will say is I'm not an advocate for opting to put a chemical in your body to adjust and manipulate how your body is naturally meant to work. So that's my, you're meant to do a certain thing. Your body has been created to do a certain thing and birth control is meant to stop that thing from happening, to manipulate the way your body responds to certain things and I don't think that's great. We have a lot of stuff going on this world. A lot of sickness, a lot of problems and for us to be healthy and to do something like that to our healthy body, I don't think is very wise, personally. - [Jennifer] So just to clarify for those listening, you're not saying that you won't put anything on or in your body that helps stimulate positive things to happen in your body. You're saying, you wouldn't do something that would stop the natural function of your body. - [Aaron] I'm saying I don't think it's a good idea to put something in our bodies electively to stop the natural. - [Jennifer] That alters the natural. - [Aaron] Yeah 'cause there's, again, I'm not gonna. The question is about all the other things that happen in this life, we know taking things when you're sick. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say there's supplements and there's oils and there's things that are out there. - [Aaron] Right, that's different than I'm gonna take this birth control to stop my ovulation so that we don't get pregnant. I'm not gonna do that. That's just my personal perspective on this. And to be honest, there's most things like medically that I'm a little hesitant on just because I like to stay mostly natural as much as possible. But this is about birth control. I'm just saying that taking a woman's body, putting something in it to stop her from doing what it's naturally meant to do doesn't sound wise to me. Now on the spiritual side of things, we have to always ask ourselves the question of why are we trying to stop ourselves from having kids? Why are we trying to protect against that? And there's tons of worldly wisdom that we receive on why we should wait and what, there's this and that. And don't you wanna travel? Why don't you establish your marriage first? And none of those things line up with the things that we hear about in scripture about children being a blessing. That it's good for women to have children. People prayed when they were barren because they wanted children and all these positive. It's positive, positive, positive but our generation and the last couple of generations has heard the message of negative. Children are a hindrance. Children get in the way. Children are difficult, they're expensive. They're hard, some of these things are all true. Not all of them but some of these things are true but not in the sense of they're not a blessings. Not in the sense of we shouldn't do it. I think we should always be asking ourselves about our heart posture towards children because God's heart posture towards children from the words of Jesus. "Let the children come to me", that's what he said. - [Jennifer] I love that, that's so beautiful. - [Aaron] Don't hinder the children. - [Jennifer] That's really good. I was gonna say that personally, we think that it needs to be thoughtfully considered not just in its physical impact on someone's body but its spiritual impact. And I think you just hit it on the head with being a heart posture. - [Aaron] Absolutely. - [Jennifer] And asking ourselves why. - [Aaron] Yeah and what do we believe about God? Is he good? Does it give us good things? And has he made us a certain way? And yeah those are all true. So we don't believe in birth control, the chemical form. I would say do any form of birth control, and we're about to have our number five so everyone can logically find out, we don't do birth control. We would probably lean towards just what's it called? The rhythm method? - [Jennifer] Natural planning. - [Aaron] Natural planning. And again, that's not even perfect. It's more of to our own abilities, we're just gonna try and plan around this and if God gives us a child, we're gonna be stoked. - [Jennifer] Yeah, all right let's move on to number two. Okay number two says, what made you wait to have kids? - [Aaron] Made us is a good word because half of it was physical. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say this is a two parter for us. - [Aaron] We just talked about how we couldn't have sexual intimacy. - [Jennifer] Yup. - [Aaron] So it was not impossible but highly unlikely 'cause it was . - [Jennifer] We weren't doing the thing that makes the babies. - [Aaron] Yeah, the thing that makes the babies wasn't happening so there was no babies being made. And then the second part of that is, and this might have been out of a bitterness because we couldn't be with each other. I have feeling that some of it was from that bitterness but also some of it just straight from our own selfish pride. We would tell people, they would ask us when are you guys gonna have kids? And we'd be like, oh we're not gonna have kids for a while or maybe ever because we're too selfish. - [Jennifer] We like sleeping in. - [Aaron] We like traveling. We like this, we like that. We said these things out loud. This isn't thoughts we had. - [Jennifer] And I would agree. Some of it was probably just to give them an answer 'cause we weren't gonna straight dig into well, we can't have sex. So we found a different way to answer it but I think at the core, we truly believe those things as well. We were selfish. - [Aaron] I remember I would pridefully say it like it was something to boast about. - [Jennifer] Looking back-- - [Aaron] You are too selfish. - [Jennifer] Looking back that's so embarrassing. - [Aaron] I know what a fool I was that I would actually say that. God's looking at me at like I know who you are. - [Jennifer] I love you Aaron. - [Aaron] I was like a little child to him and he's patient with me, thank God. But what a fool that I would just boast about my selfishness which is opposed to God, to be selfish. I was literally boasting about my opposition to God. - [Jennifer] I wanted to share a little bit about this question. What came to my mind is well the physical. We couldn't and the selfish but I was also really terrified of having children and I don't remember it being a super affirmed thing growing up. And even though I came from a big family, it wasn't like I had this dream to have a big family myself. - [Aaron] And it wasn't like children are good. Children are a blessing. All you saw was there's all of this chaos at home sometimes. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so I remember just being really scared about having children. And so I was actually okay with not having children for a long time if any. I didn't have a hearts desire to have children. - [Aaron] And I actually, now you bring that up. I remember specifically a thought I had and I had it regularly was I didn't want children because we couldn't be together. All I thought I was like yeah that would be so perfect. We'd get pregnant the one time we do come together and then now like we couldn't enjoy each other, and now we have a kid. This totally negative connotation on having children because it was just gonna get in the way of the thing I wanted. - [Jennifer] Yeah and I think we talked about that even back then. Something that I didn't talk to you about that I really struggled with was the thought that if in that turmoil, those first three years if we did have a kid how much more it would tie me to you which is really depressing and sad to think about. I just am broken-hearted over those kinds of thoughts now. - [Aaron] But that's when we were in our sinful hearts. - [Jennifer] But that's where I was and I didn't have hope in our marriage. I truly believe that we're coming to the end so it was like I have to make sure even more that I don't get pregnant which was avoiding you. - [Aaron] Which made the whole thing worse. - [Jennifer] Yeah, it was a mess, you guys. - [Aaron] The devil is good at what he does. And it's why we have to resist him and it's why we have to put on the full armor of God 'cause these thoughts and things will come if we're not focused right. - [Jennifer] Now I have a part of this question to ask you. It has to do with this question, that's not here but would you have waited if you could have sex? - [Aaron] Back then? Well probably 'cause again I had my selfish heart of I thought tons of horrible things. I was thinking about your body and I was thinking about our sex, and I was thinking about being inconvenience with now I have to raise a child, and we're doing all these things. So absolutely, I think back then, selfishly would have waited. Not because I thought it was wise but because I didn't want to have to deal with it. - [Jennifer] Okay and I was thinking more like answering now having had children. - [Aaron] No, I wished we didn't have waited. - [Jennifer] I like that you're answering really honestly. - [Aaron] No, if I knew what I know now. - [Jennifer] I wouldn't have waited. - [Aaron] We'd have a 13-year-old. - [Jennifer] That's weird to think about. - [Aaron] How incredible would that be? We'd have a teenager. - [Jennifer] Wow, lots more growth opportunities for us. - [Aaron] No, I wouldn't have waited at all but to be honest it's God's sovereignty. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] He knew who we were. Our sin kept us away from it and it's probably better back then because we had some maturing to do. Not that I'm telling anyone they should choose to wait. I just think God knew what he was doing and he let us through a lot of stuff to grow us and make us into the men and women he wanted us to be. - [Jennifer] Yeah, all right. Number three, do you think numbering your children is necessary? - [Aaron] Yeah, I'd give a 10 to Elliott and then like all if I give-- - [Jennifer] What are you talking about? - [Aaron] I'm just kidding. Numbering, I'm thinking like . - [Jennifer] That's not what they're asking. - [Aaron] Numbering, the question is about should we have one, two, three, how many should we have? - [Jennifer] I was gonna change the question to what we usually get is what number do you guys want or what are you looking for? Because we do get asked that. - [Aaron] Yeah and it's usually with this like are you done yet look. Do you realize how many you have? We know exactly how many we have. So the question is do you think numbering your children is necessary? And I'm imagining the heart but it is do you think it's important to consider how many children we're having? Should we only have one or two or three? That's a pretty common thought. Most of the time, it comes in the form of, we only one, two or three. That's where that comes from. So Jennifer, do you think it's necessary. That's how the question is phrased. - [Jennifer] No, I don't think it's necessary. I don't think that we need to have a set number and we personally don't have a set number. - [Aaron] Our answer when someone asks, how many do you want is whatever God wants. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] Because to be honest, I don't know. - [Jennifer] To couple with that though, I do think that there's wisdom in every situation and so what I like to say is we take every pregnancy as it comes. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] Submit it to the Lord-- - [Aaron] And in between the pregnancies, we submit those to the Lord as well. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and you know what, it's a journey of walking with God saying God I trust you and it's not easy but-- - [Aaron] And I'll say this. - [Jennifer] He's doing this. - [Aaron] I'm gonna be a little candid here. There was a challenge after we had was it? - [Jennifer] Elliot. - [Aaron] Elliot and we went right back to that place in our hearts of we don't want any more. Elliot was difficult. It was our first child. - [Jennifer] He had colic. - [Aaron] He had colic for a couple months. - [Jennifer] I had nursing issues. - [Aaron] It was really difficult. And we just were like no, we can't do this any more. This is crazy, we are also-- - [Jennifer] Honestly-- - [Aaron] Publishing a book and we're thinking like how we're gonna do all this stuff and have another baby and everything was coming together. - [Jennifer] When I look back on it too, I don't remember it being a negative feeling. I just remember being okay with it being one. - [Aaron] We're like, we're fine. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] But again from all selfish positions. How are we gonna keep doing these things? That was too hard, I don't wanna do that again. And we were challenged by someone really hard and I'm gonna just explain to you what was challenging to us, and I'm gonna leave it at that. And they came to us and we were just sharing our hearts with them. And they very softly and gently said, you know the reasoning that you were coming to with this deciding not to want any more. And he brought up, is like it's usually for Christians, we say things like we want one, some or none. And it's like that sounds great. It sounds wise. One summer night, I'm gonna choose the size of my family. I think that's wise based off of whatever. Then they said that's very similar to the reasoning that pro-choicers have. It's your choice. Christians aren't gonna choose the abortion option right, hopefully. That's where the heart of a Christian shouldn't be that direction at all. We don't do that. But one, some or none is very similar and it's my choice. Pro-choice, I get to choose what I want. And he's explaining this to us and it cut us to the heart, and we realize wow, we're telling God, who's in charge of this area of our life. We want God to be sovereign in every area of our life except for this one. And so when they were explaining to us that we were essentially making decisions very similar to the idea of pro-choice. It's our choice and I want it to be pro-me whatever I want. And it really challenged us and it actually made us go and pray and dig into what we believed about children, and what we believed about our family, what God wants for us. - [Jennifer] I remember shortly after that conversation maybe even walking out of the restaurant, I told you that as I was sitting there listening, I could picture myself holding my hand shut tight and it was me as a Christian telling God, you are sovereign, you have every part of my life. I love you, lead me oh but you can't have this over here. - [Aaron] Don't touch this over here. - [Jennifer] And I was gripping it so tightly and I remember explaining this picture to you and just saying I feel like God wants me to open up my hands and trust Him. And I feel like we got pregnant about a week and a half later. - [Aaron] Yeah really quick. - [Jennifer] Really quick. - [Aaron] And I'll say this. It's easy to say, hard to do. Every single pregnancy we've had to go to God and say God, we need your help. We need to trust you more. We need to know what you have for us because it's difficult. Pregnancy is difficult. Children are difficult. It's just part of life so it's not like all of a sudden everything became rainbows and unicorns. It was like we have to trust God every single time which is what he wants. And then I'll say this as gently as possible 'cause I know the person that asked this question. I'm not trying-- - [Jennifer] There's a lot of people out there that asked. - [Aaron] There's a lot of people who have this question. I think the question is irrelevant and here's why I say that. You can say I want three kids and God only give you two. Is God wrong? Nope, I God bad? No. - [Jennifer] You could want two kids and never be able to conceive. - [Aaron] You could want one kid and never be able to conceive. You could want whatever you want. We could desire whatever we want. We can have this picture for our life and it's so perfect that oh if we just had a boy and a girl, you have six girls. I know people like that, okay. You could say lots of things. - [Jennifer] You can say you don't want any kids and then get pregnant. - [Aaron] We know people that are on birth control and I've gotten pregnant. We know people that have been barren for years. - [Jennifer] And have gotten pregnant. - [Aaron] And then have gotten pregnant. We know people that have had their tubes tied and then unfortunately have still gotten pregnant and had to have surgery because of the dangers of that. - [Jennifer] We also know the word of God and in Psalms when it talks about God knitting together a baby, a human inside a mother's womb, we know that's true. So it's from Him. - [Aaron] What we wanna do is we wanna say instead of asking well how many do we want? What's wrong with saying, God how many do you want? What do you want our family to look like? How do you want us to shape our family? You could say you want two children, right? And you have those two children and you stop, and there's no way for you to know that that third child was gonna be another Moses, another David. You don't know what God wants for you. So that's why I think that question is a little irrelevant because you think you have control. - [Jennifer] This is what the question should be. Do we trust what you have for us Lord? - [Aaron] Yeah and if that's a zero, and that doesn't mean that doesn't come with heartbreak but if it's zero, then God gets to choose that. If it's one, then God gets to choose that. Me and Jennifer are on number five and this could literally be our last child. We have no way of knowing. Something would happen. We could just not get pregnant again. Things happen or we could have another five. I don't know. But we want to trust the Lord with everything. I wanna encourage you to do the same. Whether that's zero, one, two, three, five, 10. That's the question we should be asking. Number four, what's the best way to prepare for or not be fearful of having a newborn? This is a good one 'cause we're literally right there. - [Jennifer] Yeah and you know what fear is a natural thing and it always comes with that feeling of I don't know what's on the other side of labor, or delivery, or having a newborn, and I struggled with all those fears. But when I look back and I think about my first baby, holding him in my arms, it's the most beautiful, miraculous thing I can think of. - [Aaron] And you don't necessarily look back and dwell on the pain. - [Jennifer] No. - [Aaron] You know it's there. - [Jennifer] I know it happened. - [Aaron] You look back and we think about those-- - [Jennifer] The joy and the love and the incredible miracle that comes with having a child. And I think that we should also just note that this probably whoever asked this question is going to give birth to a baby but I think even for adoption. When you think of the other ways that people build their families. I think there's a lot of fear that comes. A lot of fearful thoughts that could come with the unknowns but we just wanna be an encouragement to you guys that you're not alone. God is with you and do everything in prayer. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, to pray constantly. - [Aaron] To pray for everything. - [Jennifer] To pray for everything and to be thankful. And so I think the first way that I would respond to this question is pray, and pray with your spouse. Pray together over your family and over every situation. - [Aaron] Present those fears to the Lord and say Lord, here's some things I'm afraid of. Give me peace, give me your peace. That's what he tells us to pray for everything. With thanksgiving, lift your request to Lord. - [Jennifer] And the other thing I would say is meditate on his Word. What does God say about children? What does God say about birth? What does God say about families? Things that comes to my mind is John 16:21. It says, "When a woman is giving birth, "she has sorrow because her hour has come "but when she has delivered the baby, "she no longer remembers the anguish "for joy that a human being has been born into the world." That's what I remember. - [Aaron] That's an awesome statement by the way. For joy that a human being has been born. That's so cool and it is true because the pain is real. It's a thing you get to experience. You can talk about that in a second about experiencing the pain but you remember the joy of that child, holding the baby, seeing their face for the first time hearing their coos for the first time. - [Jennifer] I know I said this. It's miraculous, it truly is. - [Aaron] Yeah and seeing them grow up is miraculous too. I can't imagine my life without any of these kids. - [Jennifer] I know and I feel so grateful that the Lord trusted me and gave me these gifts. It's so wonderful. Another verse that comes to my mind and something good to dwell on is Psalm 127:3. It says, "Behold children are a heritage from the Lord. "The fruit of the womb, a reward." - [Aaron] So preparing yourself for having a newborn is you're preparing to have a reward and to build a heritage that he's giving you. That's really cool. - [Jennifer] A good resource for becoming new parents, you should check out "Redeeming Childbirth" by Angie Tolpin. It was just a really good book to bring perspective to having children and what that looks like biblically. So if you wanna check that out just go to courageousmom.com. One last thing that I just wanna encourage you guys with, and this you can do prior to having your first baby but you should also be doing it throughout parenting, and that's just talking about those fears with your spouse whenever they come up. And using those opportunities to encourage one another. If the wife is afraid, the husband can go to the word of God and console her and comfort her and encourage her. If the husband has some fears and he's being vulnerable about them, she can encourage him through the word of God and through prayer, and I just think that is so vital for us to be one in the way that we are experiencing the same thing, right parenthood. And another thing you could do is find someone who you admire, who has experience that you can ask questions to. I know as a new mom, I had so many questions. I still have so many questions. And so finding someone who you can be in communication with even if it's just a quick text or if you can get into community with several people who you can have questions too, and really just have that support system. It's really important - [Aaron] Yeah and that actually leads into our last question, number five really well. This person asked us if we can talk about the best ways to invest in our spouse before having kids. - [Jennifer] Okay. - [Aaron] Which is a cool thing because we could have done this. - [Jennifer] I know we did this for, no, we should have been doing this for years. The first thing that comes to my mind is having regular date nights and when you don't have kids and you're married, it can be so easy to just make everything feel like a date because you're with each other but making it significant somehow. - [Aaron] Getting it on the calendar, making it a regular occurrence. - [Jennifer] And doing something out of the norm, right? So like if you guys regularly already do something together, don't consider that your date. Go do something else. - [Aaron] Yeah, and what's good about that is it puts you into a really healthy pattern and habit so that after the kids, you guys will long and be like, hey, we need to get back on track. - [Jennifer] Not after the kids are grown and raised, you mean after having kids. - [Aaron] I'm saying after six weeks of healing and getting better. You guys are like, hey, we need to get back on schedule with our date nights, that's important. And for awhile, you're gonna have the baby with you and then eventually you'll get a baby sitter. But you start that up and it's there. It's existing. - [Jennifer] And just to encourage you guys, we've gone on dates with babies before and it can be done. - [Aaron] Just find those restaurants that-- - [Jennifer] Are really loud. - [Aaron] Either really loud or mostly full of older couples 'cause they love seeing young couples with their babies. - [Jennifer] Most of the times. - [Aaron] Most of the times. - [Aaron] Some restaurants don't like it but the experience we've had, we have people come up and be like, oh, your baby's so wonderful. This is so cool seeing a couple with children now. Anyways that's a good tip. For the husband's preparing your spouse before kids just doing what a Ephesians five says, "Washing your wife with the Word." Continually speaking God's truth into her life over her reminding her what the word of God says, reminding of her of who she is, what she's capable of, how God made her and building her up because those are the things that are gonna continually give her confidence. Make her feel like she can be a mom that she can handle pregnancy and labor and that she is going to be a victor in that area. So it's immensely powerful the words that a husband speaks over her life which is why we're commanded to wash our wives with not any words but the Word. With God's Word, reminding her of who she is, what God's doing in her life. That the thing that she's going to do. Having a child is such a powerful and beautiful thing that as she disciples that child, she's literally making world changers. Growing the Kingdom of Heaven within your home. It's a powerful thing. - [Jennifer] That's awesome, I love that. Another thing that I would say and this is something to continually do throughout your marriage, but to get really good at it is practicing transparency. Aaron and I talk about this a lot and it's something that I feel like we were actually pretty good at in our marriage but could have been even better way sooner at, and that's just being transparent and honest with one another when you're struggling with sin. You confess that you repent. When you're wrestling with insecurities or doubt or frustrations, you talk about it and you find a way if you're at conflict with one another, you reconcile. All those really important-- - [Aaron] Getting better at those things. - [Jennifer] Communication things. - [Aaron] Which will be huge for your children to see and to benefit from. - [Jennifer] And your parenting because there's gonna be a lot of situational things that come up that you'll have to be transparent with one another in and talk about so that you're on the same page when you parent. - [Aaron] Which leads into the other thing, and this is hugely important. Overcoming sin and bad habits. So for the husbands, if you guys are struggling with pornography, and you think it's just like not a big deal. And you're like, oh it's every once in a while. Just realize what you do, you're gonna teach your children. And I wish I would have known that earlier. I wish I would have recognized the the magnitude of walking in what I saw as hidden sin or things that I was getting a handle on. But it's just every once in awhile, it's not that big of a deal, minimizing those things. Maximize them, take those things in your life and say no, I need to get this out of my life. I'm not gonna smoke any more. I'm not gonna show my kids that habit. The way I eat. The hidden sins of my life, pornography. The way I talk. If you have issue with bad language. Those are things that you're gonna teach your kids and so work on it. Confess them, find freedom from them. Walk in the freedom that Christ has already given us on the cross and walk in it so that you can teach your kids to walk in it. The same freedom. - [Jennifer] Have authority in their lives. - [Aaron] Yeah as a pastor once told me, purity is power. Walking in purity is powerful. Say that last line right there, babe. - [Jennifer] I just put a note on here. Have children, because the question was how do you invest in your spouse before having kids. - [Aaron] Which can be-- - [Jennifer] It could be any range of things. It could maybe you're already pregnant and you're just waiting for the baby to come but it could also be we chose not to have kids right now, so what can we be doing? Well I'll tell you what, if there's one thing in Aaron's and I life that has stimulated growth in our relationship-- - [Aaron] That God's used to sanctify us in huge ways. - [Jennifer] Absolutely, or to just grow closer to each other in opportunities in ways that we never would have known or experienced, it was through having children. And so I've really appreciated that about our journey and where we've been, and so hopefully that just encourages you guys. - [Aaron] Those are five questions that we received from the community. Again we're not the end-all be-all to these answers but we try the best of our ability to look at the word of God, to look at experience and see how God is trying to change the way we think about things. - [Jennifer] I'll say this, answering the questions is not easy for me. I'm a peacemaker and I don't wanna ruffle anyone's feathers or ever put things out there that make people feel uncomfortable, but at the same time I want you guys to know where Aaron and I are on some of these topics because you're you're listening in, you're following us. And for whatever reason, God has trusted us with an opportunity to share these with you. And so I hope that through our experience and through the things that we have shared with you today, if anything, you get to go back to the table with your own spouse and talk about them, and share your own perspectives, and thoughts behind them. And we just encourage you to, like Aaron said, get in the scriptures and dive into what God has to say about these and let that be the foundation for what you believe and your your viewpoints and your perspectives on some of these topics. - [Aaron] 1 John tells us to test every spirit and to discern. So don't just take what we're saying as pure gold. Go yourself to the word of God and find them out. But if you're not willing to go to the word of God, and you just wanna disagree and have your own opinion, you have to understand something that we're not called to just do that. We're called to trust the word of God. And so I wanna challenge you if you are in that place, go to word of God. Take the things we've said and go dig in. Find out what God thinks about all these questions. What God thinks about children in the womb and raising children. You find out for yourself and come up with your own conclusions based off of what the word of God says, not off of what we say. But we love you, and as always win in prayer so please join us. - [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift and blessing of children. Thank you for creating and designing us with the ability to recreate. What an incredible miracle life truly is. We thank you for the opportunity to build our family and have children. We pray for others to either have not had children yet or are in waiting their first in anticipation. May you lead them in a way you desire them to walk and to grow together. We praise you for all those who have children and we pray also for those who can't have children for whatever reason maybe. You are sovereign and we trust you. We continue to surrender our hearts to you as you lead us in parenting and raising our children to know you. Please help us with our fears and insecurities. Please remind us every day of the purpose we have with our family. May your name be glorified in Jesus' name, amen. - [Aaron] Amen. And guys as always, I just wanna invite you to leave us a review, a star rating. We love those. They're incredibly powerful and effective in spreading the word about the podcast. We love you all and we pray that you guys would just grow closer to God and you chase his will for your life and get his heart on the matter of children. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Having a mission statement for your family isn't required but it can be very beneficial for creating and maintaining the culture of your home. Jennifer and I have never created a mission statement before so we thought we would make one while you listen. If you have been blessed by the Marriage After God podcast please consider supporting it by picking up a copy of our book titled Marriage After God. https://marrigeaftergod.com READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna do something fun and we're gonna talk about creating a family mission statement. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just "Happily Ever After". [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as "Unveiled Wife". [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as "Husband Revolution". [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years, through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God". Firstly, we want to just thank everyone for joining us on this podcast today. We're super excited just to have you join us 'cause this is gonna be an interesting episode. We have a lot in store for you, but first we just wanna ask that you would take a minute to leave us a review. It's easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the app and just leave us a star rating review or comment review. This is one way to support the podcast "Marriage After God" because it allows other people to find the podcast, and we wanna do that. So, please take a moment to help us out there and thank you. [Aaron] Also, our book's out. Our new book, "Marriage After God", is available. It's been such and awesome ride seeing the response we've been getting, and if you have not picked up a copy yet, we'd love for you to go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, and pick up a copy today. One of the most powerful ways you can support us, is by buying our book, and it also supports your marriage and your life. We wrote the book for you. We wrote it to encourage you in the ministry that God has for you and your spouse, so go grab a copy today. [Jennifer] Okay, so we are going to start off here with an ice-breaker question, and Aaron came up with this question, so I'm hoping he has an answer. What is the ideal family trip or vacation? [Aaron] I actually didn't think about it when I said it, so I don't have... Okay, let me think. Ideal family trip. So, I can look back on something we have done that I really enjoyed, when we went to the East Coast, but we did like a plane-drive, plane-drive. [Jennifer] It was over a period of a week and a half, two weeks. [Aaron] Yeah, and I thought that was a lot of fun 'cause we got to fly the portions that I thought would've been boring, maybe. Get to a new area and then drive around, stay for a day or two, go to the next place-- [Jennifer] And here, you said, "Ideal family trip". That doesn't sound ideal for any family. [Aaron] For me! Oh, are you saying ideal for everyone? [Jennifer] Yeah, I don't know if that was your question, but I'm just thinking everyone listening right now is probably shaking their heads, no. [Aaron] I thought that was a fun trip for us. [Jennifer] I think the majority of families, especially with young children, would say flying and driving multiple times in one trip would be a difficult challenge. [Aaron] Okay, I didn't know it "ideal for everyone". Ideal for everyone would be like, going somewhere awesome and staying there for a while. Like, with a house that's comfortable and you have all your family with you, and there's a pool or a beach. [Jennifer] Where would that place be, Aaron? [Aaron] Maui? I don't know. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] What's ideal for you? What would that be? [Jennifer] So, I think you and me just like adventure because I really had fun that time too, that we went to the East Coast, but I think an ideal family trip is visiting family in California. I think that's just because I know it's something the kids enjoy. We usually hit up the beach. We stay there all day. [Aaron] Yeah, that is fun. [Jennifer] I think it's just an easy, kind of, go-to is when you're visiting family somewhere, you're staying with them, and you're just doing something simple. [Aaron] All right, that's good answer. [Jennifer] Relaxing. [Aaron] I'm sure everyone listening has their own ideal. Like, staying home. Eating ice cream, that sounds ideal. [Jennifer] Now that it's summertime, I'm sure there's a lot of people traveling and doing, you know, maybe family vacations or summer trips. [Aaron] Camping. So, we hope you guys are, and we hope that if you can spend that time with your family and doing something fun, even if it's local, like camping in the backyard, you're doing it, 'cause those are memories that your kids will love forever. [Aaron] Oh yeah. So, I just wanna, before we get into the main topic, I'm gonna read a quote from the book "Marriage After God", and it's about this idea. It's from Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] About what idea? Just that you clarify. [Aaron] Yeah, it's about the idea of creating a vision statement or mission statement for your marriage. It says this, "Casting a vision together for the future "of your marriage is an intimate experience "where hope for the future "stimulates perseverance for today." What's awesome about that is, when we create a vision for the future, it doesn't mean we're necessarily planning to the "T" everything that's going to happen in the future, it's just saying like, "This is where we'd like to be." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "This is what, you know, "the trajectory we want to be on as a family." It helps in those moments when it's tedious; when it's hard; when you're going through something and you say, "Well, we're in this together. "We're going the same direction. "We know where we wanna be, and even if we never get "to that exact point in time, or ideal situation, "we're going there together." [Jennifer] Yeah, and in Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God" we really, you know, drive home this idea that this is an intimate experience that you guys get to do together, and it's something to look forward to casting a vision together and having hope for your marriage and hope for your future together and for your family. This is something that we've kept as a valuable thing in our marriage for years, and I enjoy it. I enjoy the process with you, and so even though in "Marriage After God" we don't strictly talk about creating a family mission statement, we do talk about casting a vision together. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] And in the back of "Marriage After God" we even list some questions for you to sit down and have one of those date-night conversations and be mindful of the next five years, the next 25 years and what that looks like, because when we look to the future of things, there is hope there. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think that's important. [Aaron] And we have, like you said, we've always cast vision, planned for the next 60 days, next six months, next year, five years. [Jennifer] We kinda do seasons. [Aaron] We do seasons of that, but we've never sat down and actually wrote down a family vision statement. [Jennifer] Yeah, so even thought we kind of operate out of this same understanding, we've never sat down to do it, and it was actually because of the "Marriage After God" podcast series, which if you guys haven't checked that out, we've been going through-- [Aaron] Yeah just-- [Jennifer] Yeah, 16, 17 episodes about this idea of 'Marriage After God' but several people who we interviewed brought up this idea of creating a family mission statement, and how it has impacted their marriage. I know people share about it online too. So, we just kinda wanted to use this time to, first, encourage you guys in your marriage. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] Encourage you guys to have hope for the future as you vision plan together, but even more so create a family mission statement. That's our challenge for you at the end of this episode and because Aaron and I have never officially done this before or wrote it down, we thought it would be fun to-- [Aaron] We're gonna do it with you. [Jennifer] Do it with you, so-- [Aaron] We're just gonna start talkin' about it in this podcast episode, and we're gonna start coming up with kinda the foundational ideas for our own mission statement. [Jennifer] This was an idea that I had after having those interviews and being encouraged by people because I thought, "So often we hear people say, "'We did this thing. "'We created this family mission statement "'and here it is, or it's still a work in progress.'" [Aaron] That sounds wonderful. Good for them. [Jennifer] That's awesome, but where's the example of doing it? Which I don't know if everybody needs an example of that but sometimes it's helpful to go, what does that actually look like in a conversation? [Aaron] Yeah, how do you have that conversation with you spouse? I feel like every time a couple that we interviewed brought it up, we looked at each other and we're like, "We need to do that!" We wave our hands like, yeah, we just need to do that. [Jennifer] So, the unique part of this episode today is actually that we're gonna be jumping in here in a bit to kind of experience it with you guys. This is like a behind the scenes kind of-- [Aaron] We have not talked about this before recording this. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, you'll hear the candid conversation about how we see our family, where we see we're gonna go, yeah. So, you're gonna join us on this little adventure with us. [Jennifer] Okay, so-- [Aaron] Before we start, why don't you read that quote from "Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Family" by Stephen Covey. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] 'Cause it's in his whole book about creating a mission statement. [Jennifer] So, I will let you guys know that we actually haven't read this book, but I just jumped on really quick and I typed in Google and said, "family mission statement". [Aaron] This is a part of the process. [Jennifer] Yeah, I encourage you guys to do that too. So, we haven't read this book. We probably will in the future, but there was several people who were quoting this from his book, and it says, "A family mission statement "is a combined unified expression from all family members "of what your family is all about, "what it is you really want to do and be, "and the principles you choose to govern your family life." [Aaron] That's cool, and that's essentially what we're doing. We're not doing it with our kids this time. Our kids are, I think, too young. They'll eventually get older and then what we'll do is we'll probably sit down with them and invite them in and we'll adjust 'cause maybe our kids will have other perspectives they wanna bring in. I know that we have families that they have large families, lots of kids, and they bring their kids in, their older kids, and invite 'em to be a part of this vision planning and mission statement. [Jennifer] So, two things, since we're being candid here. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] The first one being, I don't think our children are too small to be incorporated, even at this stage of the game because it's not finalized yet, right? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] This is our initial go at it. And so I think-- [Aaron] And Elliott is pretty smart. [Jennifer] Yeah, Elliott's smart. [Aaron] He'll be like, "Why don't we..." [Jennifer] But I think... Okay, so our kids are six and a half, four, two, and eight months. So obviously, Truit's not gonna say much. [Aaron] I don't know. [Jennifer] But having a family fun meeting, where we're saying, "Okay guys, here are some questions "mommy and daddy have for you", and getting them involved. Maybe even if some of the questions are over their head, it'll still be a fun time to spend together and maybe we'll be surprised." [Aaron] Let's write down the funny answers and then we'll keep those for the future and say, "This is what you said when you were four." [Jennifer] Maybe we'll be surprised by them. [Aaron] That's probably true. [Jennifer] So, I do-- [Aaron] I concede. [Jennifer] The second thing is I wanna encourage those listening, if you do have children, that you do find a way to incorporate them in this process because they are a part of the family; and if you're doing it and you don't have kids yet, that's okay too. You and your spouse-- [Aaron] And I guess it's gonna give them more ownership and be like, "Hey, you are members of this family, "not just people that are in it." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] "You're part of it." [Jennifer] Yeah, and I think what I've gathered from trying to understand this family mission statement saying, is that it's not something that is like, "here are the rules", you know. It's more of something that's supposed to encourage the family unit to be in agreeance and have the same understanding of what those family core values are. So, even though this quote up here says "to govern your family life", I think there's freedom in that. It's not like a list of rules, but it's something creative, a creative way to establish standards and core values. [Aaron] Okay. So, should we do it? [Jennifer] I think we should jump in, yeah. [Aaron] Should we start working on this? I know our kids aren't here but we're gonna start at least with the foundational stuff, maybe? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Answer some questions. [Jennifer] And just again to preface, this is not something that's... There's not a final answer to. We're kinda just jumping in to show you guys how the conversation could go. [Aaron] Well, it's gonna go. [Jennifer] Well, it's gonna go. This is it. [Aaron] This is our legitimate conversation that we're gonna talk about our mission statement as a family. [Jennifer] Okay. You might hear keyboard typing 'cause I'm taking notes. That's how I'm doin' it. [Aaron] Yeah, so you have a question there, but I guess I wanna start with the first one. I know we kind of hit it up, but when you hear "mission statement"... 'Cause I'm sure everyone has their own little definition of it, and you even had to Google it, like, "What's everyone do?" Everyone's got a little different take on it. When you think mission statement, what do you think? Like, is this our one word phrase or few words phrase? Like, when we are out and about we say, "This is who we are!" [Jennifer] Yeah, we get t-shirts made, right? [Aaron] Yeah, we can get some t-shirts made. [Jennifer] That's not a bad idea. The word that comes to my mind is it's a motto. It's a way of being. It's a way of doing life together, and I do think it is something that should be shortened and concise so that it's easy to remember. [Aaron] I agree. [Jennifer] There might be portions of it that are expanded upon, but I think it should be something that is easy to remember. [Aaron] Okay, it's almost like a statement of faith on our website [Jennifer] Exactly! [Aaron] It's like, "This is what we believe, "this is who we are." [Jennifer] Exactly. [Aaron] Yeah, and this is how we're gonna live. Of course, because we're believers and we love the Lord and we love the Bible, that's probably gonna be a big part of this. [Jennifer] Well, yeah. I would assume that Christians who create a family mission statement, it's built upon the Word. [Aaron] Right. Okay, so we're gonna have to have some verses and we'll get to that probably. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, here's the first question. What are some words that describe our family or what we want our family to be? [Jennifer] Hmm. [Aaron] I'm just gonna throw out the first thing-- [Jennifer] Okay, go. [Aaron] I thought of is generous. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And for those listening, a lot of the things we're gonna say, because we kind of have just walked in certain things over the last 12 years that we've been married and even before then. I think there's just gonna be some natural things that come out of us. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But now it's gonna be solidified as, "This is who we are." So, generosity is something I believe has been a mark of our marriage for a long time. [Jennifer] I like that. A word that comes to my mind is, I think I already said it, but "adventurous". Meaning that we find the fun in things. [Aaron] Write that down, "we find the fun in thing", 'cause there could be lot's of different "adventurous." Adventurous like, we like to take financial risks. Or adventurous like-- [Jennifer] No, more like, we do fun things. [Aaron] Okay, that's a different kind of adventur-- [Jennifer] We like to explore. We like to eat. We like to go-- [Aaron] We love change. [Jennifer] We love change. [Aaron] Not too much change but we like new environments. We like-- [Jennifer] Yeah, I would say, not change so much to our rhythms and routines, because those are important but more so just experiential. I don't know how to explain it. [Aaron] Like new environments. [Jennifer] New environments. [Aaron] It goes into the adventurous side of... We like to go to new places. We like to be around new people. [Jennifer] I don't know if we've shared this before but we've kind of done these Saturday adventure days with the kids throughout the summer time. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] 'Cause we go through seasons where it's just easier. [Aaron] We did a podcast about the adventure days. [Jennifer] Okay. So, that's an important thing. When I think of adventure, I think time set aside where we know we're gonna be doing something with the kids, whether it's local or maybe a-- [Aaron] Out of the norm. So, like, we have our normal flow. We have our normal rhythm, and then we're gonna go do something 'not'. [Jennifer] Go on a hike. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Go look at the river. Go whatever it is. [Aaron] Go for a long drive to a new place through a rose garden or apples. [Jennifer] I do, I make... You guys don't know this about me. I make Aaron go out of his way for me all the time because-- [Aaron] She's like, "I found this orchard "on the other side of the mountain. "Can we go?" And then like, it's not open or... I'm just kidding. No, we've actually had a lot of cool adventures just 'cause you Google and find a cool place to go see. [Jennifer] Yeah, even like, we were in Portland this time last year. I remember it was hot and only Elliot was awake, the other kids were napping. I was like, "Will you just pull over and let me go see "the rose garden? "I've been wanting to see it." You know, but it was a fun little detour and it worked out for everyone. I like that kind of stuff. [Aaron] So, adventurous in the fun kind of way, in the environmental kind of way, the experiential kind of way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I would say another word I think of is community. [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] I know it's like an easy buzz word for Christians. [Jennifer] No, it's good. [Aaron] We've made big decisions in our life and one of the main criteria in that decision was community. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Often. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] When moving, our prayer was, "Well, we can't move until something changes "in our community because we have these relationships, "we have these connections. "God has us here." [Jennifer] So, being loyal. [Aaron] Yeah, I like that word, loyal. We walk with people and we don't just say, "Well, "they'll get over it, we're gonna move on "and find new friends." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Not that we've been perfect at this, but community's been a huge part of how we make decisions. Even now we think, "If we ever had to move, "who's are we gonna convince to move with us?" And it's not that we don't like being... Like we couldn't do it on our own. We know that community is so important and we want to take it with us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, I would say a part of that is also walking in light, and we've done this time and time again where it's just being transparent, being able to communicate-- [Aaron] Oh, put that word, that's a good word, transparent. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] I guess it is tied to community, but it's transparent in other things too 'cause our online communities we are transparent with and we don't know any of them. [Jennifer] If nobody knows what he's talking about, we have these online communities who are amazing people. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Who have been following us [Aaron] Facebook, Instagram. [Jennifer] For eight years now. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] It's so awesome. [Aaron] Yeah. So, we try and be the same person to every person we meet. Would that be like-- [Jennifer] Integrity? [Aaron] Integrity. [Jennifer] I like that. [Aaron] I don't know if that's in-Integrity's like being the same person when no one's around. Right? [Jennifer] But also when different people are around. It's all the time. [Aaron] Right, okay. Say like, I'm not showing this person that face, and then that person this face. [Jennifer] I only show you different faces. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I used to have to work on this. [Aaron] Showing me like... I'd be like, "Why do you give everyone the 'good' face?" And then when you get home I get that face. [Jennifer] Yeah, you said, "I want the best of you." [Aaron] Yeah, that was-- [Jennifer] 'cause I had a problem with showing you too much-- [Aaron] Well, I think it's normal. Just as a little tangent. It's easy to let down the face you have on for everyone else, when you're around the person you know loves you. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But we should really say, "No, I'm actually gonna work harder to give the best "to my closest neighbor, my spouse." It doesn't mean we give the worst to our other neighbors. [Jennifer] Everybody else. [Aaron] Yeah, I guess it's just-- [Jennifer] I needed balance in my life when it came to that. [Aaron] Yeah, it's learning how to be real. Like, when you're around someone, you could at least be real and say, "I'm not feeling good right now" or "I'm not"... Anyways, that was a tangent. So, transparent, I like. That's a good word. That's something that's always been, we've always prided ourselves in... I don't wanna say "prided ourselves". Just being transparent. Not wanting to hide things, be open. Integrity is a good word. So, I think community, transparency, generous, let's think... [Jennifer] I would say faithfulness to our Christian walk, to being obedient to God's Word. Our faith is foundational. [Aaron] I like faithfulness though as the word, because it's easy to say faith. Faith's important, but faithfulness means to our faith and to the Word, and to God. [Jennifer] It's like active. [Aaron] Yeah, it's like a movement word. Is that a verb? It's an action word. What are some... I feel like there's other words that we often say. [Jennifer] Just real quick as a side note to those listening. [Aaron] Extraordinary. I just wanted to say before I forgot it. [Jennifer] Okay. That's fine. [Aaron] Extraordinary is a big word for us. [Jennifer] Yes. Do you wanna explain why? [Aaron] Well, we talk about it a lot in the book "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] But it's this idea that we've always had a heart to not just be normal. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And that doesn't mean that our goal was to be special and like how we wanted to have this... 'Cause starting this ministry online wasn't even an idea in our hearts when we first got married, but our idea was like, "Well, let's just do what God wants "and that's going to be extraordinary." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] We went to the mission field for a while and then we went to Canada, and we went to Florida, and we did all these different little things. [Jennifer] I can actually see how even smaller decisions in our life, like buying this house, that wasn't a small decision, but-- [Aaron] It was at-- [Jennifer] But I just think of decisions that we've made together and we've even out-loud said to ourselves, "Well, that's extraordinary", or "That's not the normal way!" [Aaron] Right, well we could do the ordinary or we could do it the extraordinary way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And the reason you brought up this house, for those that don't know, they can actually find a YouTube video about us doing the house process. We bought a, I wanna say a fixer-upper. [Jennifer] Decrepit. [Aaron] But it was a beater-upper. It was really bad. We had to tear down most of the house to fix it back up, but when we thought about it we were like, "Well, this is how we're gonna get what we can afford." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "And then we can make it ours." Which, lot's of people do that, but it was extraordinary in my mind. So, extraordinary is a good word for us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, when you paused back there I was just gonna note that that's okay when you're doing this process together. There's gonna be times when something might be on your heart or right at the tip of your tongue, and you don't know how to explain it. I think that's why the majority of people will say, "You don't just sit down and write a mission statement. "It's a process, and the process is what counts. "The process is the important part "because you're actually communicating with each other "on what matters most to you." [Aaron] Good tip. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, you just mull it over and come back to the drawing board over and over and over again until you narrow it down. [Aaron] Yeah, and I think after we go through this, we'll be able to see these words and think of better words. [Jennifer] Probably. Or use the good old dictionary! [Aaron] Or just the thesaurus. [Jennifer] Thanks, Google. [Aaron] Thesaurus. [Jennifer] Okay, so are there any phrases that we repeat often or say? [Aaron] Yeah, there's a-- [Jennifer] I know one! Go ahead, what were you gonna say? [Aaron] We do hard things. [Jennifer] Yes! That was what I was gonna say! [Aaron] That was... But you know what? That's a phrase that we only started saying when our kids started getting older. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But-- [Jennifer] To encourage them we would say things "We're the Smiths and we do hard things." [Aaron] And so they own it, and they say, "Oh, okay. "This thing that I said is hard, we do those things." [Jennifer] Yeah. What's cool is they've recognized when we're doing Bible time, certain stories in the Bible of people doing hard things they'll recognize and go, "Hey, David does hard things!" [Aaron] Yeah! So, I think "We do hard things" is a important phrase, and we didn't come up with that of course. [Jennifer] But we use it. [Aaron] We use it often. [Jennifer] I don't know where it came from. [Aaron] And it doesn't just remind our kids, it reminds us because how many times a day do we get to this point of like, "Ugh, I don't wanna do this right now." And they're like, "Ugh, we do hard things." [Jennifer] It's the fight against the flesh. [Aaron] Yeah, we just did our lawns for the first time this season, and I just kept wanting to quit. I was like, "I did enough. Next week I'll finish the weeds." And I'm like . And then I go through and I'm like, "Oh, I'm just gonna go "a little bit further and make this look nice. Then I'm like, "Ugh, I just wanna give up." And then I go a little bit further, and I just kept telling myself, "No, I can finish this. "It's like my first time ever doing this, I should be fine." [Jennifer] That same conversation happens to me every single time I go to work out. It's like, you have ten squats on the list to do and you get through four and you're like, "Ahh!" [Aaron] "I should be able to do this." [Jennifer] "Okay, I'll do one more." And then you want to bail out but then you just keep going, you keep going, you keep going. [Aaron] I think it's a good phrase. What's another phrase that we say? Oh, it's kind of a word but we use it as a phrase. [Jennifer] What? [Aaron] "Gotta have self-control." [Jennifer] Oh, self-control. [Aaron] So, it's a word but-- [Jennifer] Self-control. [Aaron] We use it in a sense that we say it probably a million and a half times a day to our kids. "Are you having self-control? "You need to have self-control. "Remember self-control!" [Jennifer] We say it to each other now, too, because in conjunction with "We're setting the example. "We're setting the example". [Aaron] One of us will be having an attitude about something, just tired or exhausted or frustrated; and I'll be like, "Okay, are you self-controlled right now?" We say it a little quieter to each other. [Jennifer] Okay. So, what-- [Aaron] Is there any other phrases? We say other things. [Jennifer] I'm sure there are and we can come back to this if we think about it, but I was gonna ask, "What is it that we value? "What are some things that we really value?" [Aaron] The Word of God. We have to start with that. I know that sounds like the default answer, but it has to be the number one thing we value. It's what we tell our kids is the most important thing, it's what we try and teach them, we try and live it. So, I think the Word of God is... Now, I will say this, and it's something I've been convicted on recently and something that God's been convicting me on for my whole life, probably. I think this, and then I'm like, "But do I actually show this?" Am I in my Word as much as I could be? I don't want to say "should be" because I don't think there's a number or how many chapters or how many words or how many verses, or whatever; but I know in my heart when I'm in and out of it. I know when I'm giving God's Word the attention it deserves in my life. We could feel it. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Recently you've been kind of just overwhelmed with the book launch that-- [Jennifer] Lots of stuff to do. [Aaron] Lots of stuff to do and I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, "I wonder what-I didn't say this to you, but I was wondering when you were in the Word. [Jennifer] It's so funny, it's not funny, it's... Wow, this is really convicting because I know exactly the moment in that conversation where I had this thought that, "I wouldn't be feeling this way "if I was in the Word", and-- [Aaron] When was it? 'cause I was thinking about it. I didn't say it to you, I was just... 'Cause I was just encouraging you and comforting you and letting you know it was gonna be okay. [Jennifer] No, it was really impactful for me, and I've been in the Word since. I think sometimes we just get in these ruts or seasons where we're busy or we're going strong on certain areas of our life, and we don't realize when another area have kind of-- [Aaron] Yeah, we've neglected an area. [Jennifer] Been neglected, and that was happening with me for a couple days. I'd say about a week and a half. [Aaron] Well, me too, and I was feeling... Remember I told you how I was feeling? [Jennifer] Yeah, I think it was compiling. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think the Lord is good. [Aaron] Well, I was just thinking on Sunday, the message was about... Actually the message wasn't about it, but Matt said, "Hey, we can't know all of this in one sitting. "We have to just go line by line, verse by verse, "chapter by chapter, over years of reading and reading, "and re-reading and re-reading, and re-memorizing "and re-stating, and chewing it over." Then this morning, I was listening to J. Vernon McGee, and he was in Isaiah and he was bringing up the scripture that talks about "precept upon precept, line by line", and he was saying... You know, it took five years for J. Vernon McGee to teach through the Bible. That was just him going through one time. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Five years. How much do we go 'precept by precept'? Are we just reading through it? Laying on the knowledge that we're getting out of it. That was another good tangent, but Word of God I think is the most valuable thing. It needs to be-- [Jennifer] Bolded? [Aaron] Yeah, bolded and-- [Jennifer] Italicized? [Aaron] Italicized, highlighted in green, but I think it needs to be more evident in our own lives for our kids sake and for our own sake. [Jennifer] Yeah. What a great tool, this mission statement, to remind us to do that. If this is gonna be a foundational thing that is in front of us by maybe putting it on a plaque in our house or however we're gonna display this once we do finalize it. To be reminded of that, you know, every single day. [Aaron] Yeah, "Let's go back to the Word of God. "What does the Word say about this situation." [Jennifer] So, what other things do we value? I feel like we value-- [Aaron] Stewardship? [Jennifer] Stewardship. [Aaron] Is that a good word? [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Like we value-- [Jennifer] I'm gonna write that down. [Aaron] Being good stewards, which we talk a ton about in 'Marriage after God'. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Because of how important it is to our ministries. [Jennifer] It's like the whole book's message, really. [Aaron] "Are you stewarding the way God's given you well?" That's the whole book actually. [Jennifer] I guess part of what I was gonna say goes along with this. I don't know if you would agree, but recognizing our need verses want in minimalism. Not that we're minimalist people because we have stuff. We have stuff, but I don't feel like we exaggerate and go outside of what we need. Does that make sense? [Aaron] I would agree. I think there's been seasons in our life that, because of discontentment or dissatisfaction or whatever, we've chased after things. [Jennifer] Or acquired. [Aaron] Collecting things, or buying things that we don't need. That's rarer, I would say. I'm not gonna say, "It's not super rare", but we tend to get what we need and not much more. Again, there's plenty of things that we have. [Jennifer] I think we've been good over time of challenging each other or encouraging each other, you know, "Maybe we don't need that thing right now", or "Hey, if you are gonna go get that, think about this." [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] You've done it with me with kids clothes before. "Hey, instead of buying off that website "can we just try and"-- [Aaron] "Because they're not gonna fit in it "in six weeks." [Jennifer] "Or they're gonna be stained up." [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Or whatever the reasoning's were. That was just the first thing off the top of my head. I think that... [Aaron] Stewardship minimalist. Yeah, I agree. We're not minimalist, but we definitely think on a more, "What do we need verses what do we want? "And what do we want, is it something we need, "and is it something we can use and is it gonna be"-- [Jennifer] We're willing to be confronted by that, for sure. [Aaron] Right. What is other things we value? Relationships? [Jennifer] I was gonna say people. [Aaron] People, yeah. I would say this goes up higher. [Jennifer] You can even see this in our kids because Olive really values relationships. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] All of our kids do, but I could just see it in them. [Aaron] Yeah. Well, it's of course, the Word of God points us to-- [Jennifer] God's relationship. [Aaron] I would say that's almost the number one message in the Bible, other than Jesus Christ and him crucified, which everything points to that, is why he died for us is to give us relationship with the Father, and then through that gives us relationship with other people, right? Like, John 17, which we should put down because the next thing we're gonna talk about is scripture, but John 17 is a major one, which is the high priestly prayer Jesus prays for his disciples and for everyone who believes in the message that the disciples bring to the world; is that we would be one. That we'd be unified just as Christ and God are unified. [Jennifer] Yeah, but before we move on to the scripture section, I had some things I wanted to share about the values. So, 'cause this is all about brain-dumping and just getting out of our minds and heart what we believe to be true about our family, to build up this mission statement. So, words like 'creativity'. I feel like we value. Inspiring each other towards greatness. [Aaron] Can I throw in a word? Creating. [Jennifer] Creating, okay. [Aaron] I mean, we've done the self-publishing thing, the blogging, the social media. It's just kind of been a part of what we do. So, creativity, inspiring, but we also create. It's part of us. [Jennifer] Mmm, that's good. [Aaron] Elliot loves to draw, Olive loves to paint. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's good, lots of Lego building. [Aaron] Lots of Lego building! By the way the Lego thing you built yesterday is awesome. It's like this huge city. [Jennifer] It was supposed to be Bleecker St. in New York. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I just didn't get to finish it. [Aaron] I didn't see the signs. [Jennifer] Oh, go back and look at it. So yeah, some of the things that we value are experiences where, being able to go to a museum if we're near one, or-- [Aaron] I feel like that falls under adventure, adventurous, right? [Jennifer] Okay. Yeah, but it's like learning experiences. [Aaron] Well, put learning then. That's a good word. [Jennifer] Learning. So, whether that's-- [Aaron] Learning is a big thing-- [Jennifer] Experiences or books, resources, pretty much anything I can get my hands on for us or for the kids that encourages growth and investment. [Aaron] All the educational films like Marvels, Avengers, and Iron Man, those are really for us. [Jennifer] For us. [Aaron] For us, yeah. Yeah, I think learning is a great word. So, under value... [Jennifer] Does food count? [Aaron] Oh, you know, can I say wisdom? [Jennifer] Wisdom, yeah. [Aaron] And you actually should put food on there because that is a huge thing for us. Food. We love food! [Jennifer] Not just food. [Aaron] God loved food. [Jennifer] I know but the experience of food, like the actual tasting good and figuring out what flavors are there, but then the experience of eating with people. [Aaron] Yeah, so actually food kinda encompasses all these. [Jennifer] Okay so, on our family mission statement it's gonna say, "The Smith family", and then in bold right beneath that-- [Aaron] "Food." [Jennifer] 'Food'. [Aaron] That'll be our... It's short. [Jennifer] Semi-calling Gods word. So, it's like both, right? It's like the Word of Life. [Aaron] Well, God's Word is the bread of life. So, it just literally all fits in. Everyone here that's listening, our mission statement is [Jennifer And Aaron] Food. [Jennifer] This is how our conversations really go in real life, to you guys. We're not makin' this up for you. [Aaron] I'm pretty sure I can fit every single one of those things into food. [Jennifer] We'll figure it out. [Aaron] Yeah. Wisdom, what I mean by wisdom is, wisdom is the application of knowledge. [Jennifer] Yup. [Aaron] 'Cause you can know lots of things and do nothing with it. [Jennifer] Not ever implement it. [Aaron] Yeah, wisdom is like, "Oh, I actually know how "to navigate this kind of relationship, "therefore I'm going to navigate it that way." Or, "I know that I should keep my mouth shut "in this situation", so I could choose to act on the knowledge or not. So, wisdom is taking the Word of God, taking life experiences and letting it teach us and then saying, "Oh, last time we experienced that. "Let's make a different decision this time." [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] We were actually just talking about this in the car. All the experiences the God's given us, hard ones that have taught us things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That a lot of people won't ever experience. [Jennifer] Right, but everyone listening has their own set of experiences that-- [Aaron] That no one else will have. [Jennifer] No one else will have. [Aaron] That God wants to use to teach them wisdom. [Jennifer] Yeah, but wisdom is saying, "Okay, I'm going "to learn from that, and not just learn from it, but"-- [Jennifer] Apply it. [Aaron] "I'm gonna apply the knowledge to my life now "regardless of how easy it is or how it feels to my flesh." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, wisdom is a big one. [Jennifer] Okay, cool. So, moving on, were there any more scriptures that you wanted to share? [Aaron] Think of some scriptures... [Jennifer] One, you brought up generosity earlier, and so one of the scriptures that came to my mind was 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, it says, "The point is this: whoever sows sparingly "will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully "will also reap bountifully. "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, "not reluctantly or under compulsion, "for God loves a cheerful giver." So, I just thought about that. [Aaron] That's a great one. Cheerful giver. [Jennifer] I think it defines how we give, which I love. [Aaron] Yeah we don't ever, I mean we try not to give out of compulsion. As in, "Oh, we must do this!" No, we'd be like, "We want to do this." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, that's a good one. Another one I think of is the Great Commission in Mathew 28, where Jesus literally tells the church what it's job is. It says, Mathew 28:18, "And Jesus came and said to them, ""All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son "and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe "all that I have commanded you. "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." [Jennifer] I love that last portion. [Aaron] Yeah, and we can take this as our individual mandates, but really it's the mandate for the church as a whole, 'cause there's all these different functioning parts. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Discipling, evangelism, teaching-- [Jennifer] Baptizing. [Aaron] Baptizing, all these different things, and we sometimes get to do all of them, and sometimes get to just play at planting or watering. [Jennifer] A portion of it, mm-hmm. [Aaron] It's what the church's job is and I think it should be what our job is. [Jennifer] I feel like if I could summarize that whole verse, it would say, "to make Him known", you know? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Like, to know Him and to make Him known. That's such a big-- [Aaron] Put that down. That's a awesome thing, make Him known. I think that should definitely be in our statement because that is our life. We want our children to do that. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] We want our children to know Him. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] And then we want our children to make Him known. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Is our desire. [Jennifer] Okay, so we want to encourage you guys that as you do jump into experiencing this process of creating a family mission statement, to go to scripture, to see where your family values line up according to His Word, because it is foundational to how we live our lives and do what we do. This was just to give you guys a glimpse into the behind the scenes, Aaron and Jen, and how we communicate through things like this. Being able to share your vision for your family and life, being able to come up with, and create a family mission statement. It's supposed to be a unifying experience of togetherness, intimacy, understanding one another, identifying "who are we" and "what are we doing"? [Aaron] Yeah, "Who are the Smiths?" [Jennifer] Well, "who are they listening, who are you?" And kinda just build this missions statement to look forward to sharing it with your family. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're not done with this. We are going to on our own, now, finish this up; but this was our getting started. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] We started it out. We're glad that you got to join us on this candid conversation of us trying to think out "who we are and what we're about". [Jennifer] Yeah. I did want to share a couple practical things. When you do do a family mission statement, based off of what I've seen and you guys have probably seen too. Some fun ways to have this experience and share it with each other is use a whiteboard, or get some poster paper, or a pen and paper, or like we just did, use your computer, your phone, whatever it takes to make those notes. You can brain-dump and then cross stuff out as you go, but have fun with it. Also, some examples of making it visible in the home. I have some people say, "In this house", and then they list all their words. [Aaron] So, once we're done with it we can put this up somewhere so we're always seeing, "Hey, look what we... "We're not acting the way we say we're gonna act." [Jennifer] Exactly. Some people do the last name in bold at the top and then share the core values or the mission statement. Some people put it in a frame. Some people put it on script, on canvas. There's so many different ways that you can visibly show it in your home and the great thing about that is-- [Aaron] Tattoos, that's a really good one, right? [Jennifer] Just tattoo it on our backs? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] No, but this is a great thing, like you said, to be mindful of how we operate as a family. We can even share as our kids get older, and teach them through it like, "Hey, we're the Smith's and we do hard things. "See it says it right there." So, those are just some things and we wanted to encourage you guys in that. [Aaron] Yeah, and I hope you had fun with us, too. We had fun. We're gonna finish it up, we'll probably do it on a date night or over the next... It doesn't have to be done right away, right. It's something that we can evolve with us. [Jennifer] It's a work in progress and so many people who have shared theirs with ours have said, "It's still a work in progress, "and you can change it and alter it as you go." Remember, you can incorporate your family, your kids and everyone to participate in it, but we did wanna challenge you guys with doing it. Even if it's just the initial go at it like we just did. [Aaron] Start it on your next date night. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That's the reason, you're like, "Oh, we have to go "do our mission statement. "Oh, we'll need a babysitter! "Let's go do this." [Jennifer] Have fun, have fun, have fun! [Aaron] Yeah, and then invite your kids into it also. Not on date night. Go to date night, start it, come home, invite them in afterwards, or on another day. [Jennifer] And you guys don't need a specific set of questions to figure out. What we just did is we just said, "What are some phrases "and words that define our family, "of what we know of our family already?" [Aaron] We just started. [Jennifer] We just did it. Ask each other hard questions. [Aaron] Cool, so we like to end our episodes with a prayer, and so, Jennifer, would you pray for us? [Jennifer] Sure. Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of marriage. May we continue to walk in obedience to Your Word as we seek to fulfill Your will for our lives and our marriage. We pray, we would consider the purpose You have for our marriage and we pray we will work together to communicate what our family mission statement is. We pray we would humbly submit it before You and that it would become a pillar in our family and in our life, that reminds us what we are doing and where we are headed. May this family mission statement build up according to Your core values, be an anchor for our marriage and family, motivating us to live our lives on purpose. May the experience of considering and building our family mission statement be a time of togetherness intimacy and understanding. Thank you for the hope You give us every day. May we honor You with our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen. So, we just want to thank every one for joining us this week and listening to this episode. I hope you had fun with us. It was a lot of fun for us, as I said earlier. But go, start a mission statement with your spouse and with your family, and see what happens. See how it focuses you. You might end up finding out that you're participating in things that don't even line up with what you guys believe as a family. That might be cool. Or you might realize that there's opportunities out there that you could be tapping into because of it. We just wanted to thank you. We look forward to having you next week, and if you have not yet went to shop.marriageaftergod,com and picked up a copy of our new book, "Marriage After God", we'd love to invite you to do so. We thank you for everything. You guys are awesome. All the reviews, all of the comments and stuff we get on our social media, and just all the listens. You guys listening to these podcasts, we just so appreciate you guys. We look forward to having you next week. See you later. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes, also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Join the Marriage After God Movement! Thousands have already said yes and we want to invite you to join them. Learn More Here http://marriageaftergod.com Is love something that we can fall in and out of? Can I still be in love if I don't feel like it? What if I'm not happy in my marriage anymore? If I fell into love once can I fall into love again with someone else? READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna be tackling the question, can you fall out of love in marriage? Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us on another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. We just wanna invite you at the end of the podcast or anytime, really, to leave us a star rating and a review. That helps other people find our podcast, and we also love reading those reviews. So if you wanna take a minute, and again, the easiest way to do that is just to hit one of the stars at the bottom of the app, and that will just give us a rating right there, or you can leave us a text review. We love reading those, so we just wanna invite you to do that. [Jennifer] Another way you can support the podcast is by shopping on our online store, shop.marriageaftergod.com. We have a ton of resources that we've wrote for you guys, including some prayer books, but also, I wanna take a minute to highlight our newest book that we wrote for you, Marriage After God. In fact, today's episode, we're gonna be sharing from Gary Thomas's book, but he read Marriage After God, and this is what he had to say about it: "Marriage After God is not your typical marriage book. "Rather than focus on the common symptoms "of marriage dysfunction and lack of intimacy, "Marriage After God dives into and focuses "on the root causes: the need for faith, biblical truth, "fellowship, ministry, and God-ordained vision. "The Smiths take the wise path of urging us "to grow a better marriage by focusing first "on growing closer to God." [Aaron] Yeah, so we just wanna invite you to pick up a copy of that. We wrote it to encourage your marriage, to find out what God's purpose for your marriage is, and we believe God has a purpose for every one of us in the body, especially your marriage. So please pick up a copy of that book today, and we'd love to get it in your hands. [Jennifer] All right, as always, we're gonna jump into our icebreaker question. Aaron, why don't you start by answering this? What is your favorite game or activity to do with the kids right now? [Aaron] I think I really like wrestling on the ground with the kids. They all climb on top of me. Partly, it lets me lay down for a little bit. Or building forts with our huge, big couch pillows. I think that's awesome. With Elliott specifically, I like practicing drawing. We put on a YouTube show and learn how to draw a dragon or a dinosaur or something like that, and that's a lot of fun. [Jennifer] Yeah, some other games that I would say we've been really into lately is Blokus or Blokus, I don't really know how to say that. [Aaron] Oh yeah, I just played with that them. [Jennifer] So that's super fun, super easy to catch onto, and we've been playing Battleship a lot. [Aaron] Oh, that's a good one. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But he gets frustrated when I win. [Jennifer] Everybody gets frustrated when they don't win. So we're working through some of those things, but yeah, those are some games. [Aaron] That was a good question. [Jennifer] That we love with the kids right now. [Aaron] So before we get into our topic, discussing whether or not we can fall out of love in our marriage, I wanna read a quote from Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, on page 157. "The opposite of biblical love isn't hate; it's apathy. "To stop moving toward our spouse "is to stop loving him or her. "It's holding back from the very purpose of marriage." [Jennifer] Well, I feel like that answers the question right there. [Aaron] Yeah, and well, it's a great start to the conversation, because I feel like people might think, of course, yeah, you can't fall in and out of love, but that's kind of where our world's gone, in the secular world and in the Christian world, and we see it often in emails we get, in messages we get on our social media. We just thought it's a very pertinent topic to bring up with our communities. It's something that we've had to deal with in our own marriage, just feeling that like, well, maybe this isn't gonna work, maybe this isn't right, and just maybe dispel some of the lies about it, think biblically and clearly about it, so that those that might be feeling this way can think better and pursue God in the decision. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, when I thought about this topic to discuss today, the first thing that came to my mind is we need to be aware of the things we're saying, the phrases that we use to describe the life that we're living, the things that we're choosing. And so I just kind of went back to the beginning of like, okay, so where did this phrase come from? What does it mean? [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause we grew up, this is like. [Jennifer] This is what we know. [Aaron] I wanna fall in love. Everyone wants to fall in love. [Jennifer] Yep, or people ask you, oh, when did you fall in love with each other? [Aaron] Right, like it was a day. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, I Googled where this phrase came from, and Wikipedia says this: "falling in love is the development of strong feelings "of attachment and love, usually toward another person. "The term is metaphorical, emphasizing that the process, "like the physical act of falling, is sudden, "uncontrollable, and leaves the lover in a vulnerable state, "similar to fall ill or fall into a trap." [Aaron] I love how it uses those negative phrases. [Jennifer] I know, I was gonna say, as I kept looking into this, I found other phrases like fall asleep or fall behind. Someone else likened it to a surprise, like falling down the stairs. [Aaron] Yeah, there are all these negative connotations with falling, which is really unfortunate, that one of the most, supposed to be the most euphoric and most powerful and magical things that we get to experience is love with another person, and we've turned it into, with our common language and how we describe things, it's so weak, in my opinion. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. It kind of strips the beauty of one, knowing what true love is, and then choosing it, because here it's making you sound like it's just happening to you, that there's no control in any of it. [Aaron] Yeah, and I think that one of the traps of the enemy, you know, falling into the trap, like you said, that's he's taken something so beautiful that God invented and created and something that he's given as a gift to his children, and boiled it down. You know, if he can change the terms and the words and the definitions, then he can change the meanings of thing. And so, I think that's the first thing that our listeners can start to think about, is if they fell in love, right, and I know people are really thinking, like, I think you're just going overboard. What's the big deal? It's just a phrase. But it's not just a phrase, because like you said, if we're not aware of the things that we're saying, we don't realize that we define things by the things we say. Words do have meaning, and if we say them over and over and over again, they have meaning, and if we believe them, like, if I believe we fell in love, then it's not hard to believe that we can fall out of love. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Because the definition, it's something that happened to me, I had no control over it. We were just in this whirlwind, and oh my gosh, the passions, and you're beautiful, and I love you, and oh, we have similar things that we like, and oh, and the way you think, and you're so funny, and all these things, which are totally good things, and they totally add to my attraction to you or attraction to another person and draw us, and actually do invoke emotions in us and feelings. And those are all given to us by God. But if we boil down love to just those things, those feelings, then the moment those things change, the moment those things disappear, the moment those things that we used to be enamored by now bug us, because that happens. Like, oh, it was so cute the way you would say that one thing, and now that way you say that all the time really bugs me, and I don't like it. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, here's the other just sad, sad part about all of this, is that in marriage, we come up against this very thing that you're talking about, is if things change. So let's say there's hard circumstances, or you really get to know each other after years and years of marriage, and there's just things like, as you said, bug you. If we say that we fell into love with one another and that goes back to this sudden thing that there's no control over, who's to say that we can't fall in love even after we're married? [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] And someone else comes along, and no, I've done it again. I've fallen in love again, but not with you. That's dangerous. [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what, I had no control over it. We've actually heard this. I'm sorry, I love you still, but this other person came along, and they're feeding my love tank. [Jennifer] It becomes a justification for sin, and nobody's taking responsibility. That's shat I'm trying to get at. [Aaron] Right, and I think that's what we wanna talk about in this, and where we're gonna try and go with this, is to take away the decision and the control and the thoughtfulness in love is to take away the power of the love in the first place, of what God's doing. The Bible says that God is love. So he invented it, he designed it. It's his creation. It's something that, something that he is love. It existed with him. And so for us to boil it, like, oh, I fell in love, oh, I fell out of love, it's something I go in and out of, and it's not a choice. It's just whatever I feel at the moment. And what's so dangerous about that is the Bible tells us to not operate in our feelings. That's what's called carnal. Our carnal flesh is our feelings, the chemical reactions in our brain, which is exactly what feelings are. You get a burst of oxytocin, and you get a burst of all these different hormones that are good hormones that God created us with, and we define something very spiritual with a very fleshly reaction. And I think that spiritual things definitely bring those emotional reactions, which is why they're good: God made it that way. But love's not defined by those things. And a perfect example is if we're thinking about falling in and out of love, or when things are hard, I must not be in love anymore, or they must not love me anymore, or maybe they've fallen out of love with me or we're falling out of love with each other, I just think of Christ on the cross, you know? He goes into the Garden of Gethsemane, and he prays, Lord, let this cup pass from me. And he's praying that the suffering he was about to partake, that he was about to be obedient to endure, was for his bride. And he's saying, I don't know if I can do this, but I'm not gonna choose. Lord, you chose. And his will was that he went to the cross, because salvation was at hand, for the body of Christ, for the world. And so, if we look at Christ, would he fall out of love when he's on the cross? He's like, oh, this is too hard. I just don't love them anymore. No, he loved us beyond what his flesh wanted, and that's exactly what I wanna talk about. The power of love goes way beyond how we feel, because there was times that you didn't feel in love with me. [Jennifer] No, definitely. In those early years, when our circumstances were really hard, yeah, I didn't feel very much in love with you, and it even brought us to a point of seriously contemplating divorce and separation, but there were other factors involved. Walking in sin, just choosing to isolate from each other time and time again led to that in our marriage. [Aaron] Yeah, we tried. We stayed together. We were friends, to an extent, and there was areas of our marriage, intimacy, sexual intimacy, that wasn't exactly how we wanted it to be. It was actually the opposite of what we wanted. And it led to thoughts in us, sinful thoughts, and I remember me thinking, man, I should have experimented before I got married. I should have had more partners before I got married. [Jennifer] And I remember having thoughts of, well, maybe we're just not compatible, physically, emotionally, mentally. I just thought like, we're not for each other. [Aaron] And wasn't there even a season where you looked outside of our marriage? You didn't go actually do anything, but you desired? [Jennifer] Oh, for sure. [Aaron] Another man, and your heart wasn't with me? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And that is what happens when how we feel is defining what we do. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I wanna get to some of those things that come up, reasons why people would feel as though they fell out of love with one another, because I think it's good for us to acknowledge them and address them, because we're all experiencing this thing called marriage, and if we're not willing to confront the hard things, then maybe our hearts would be prone to wanna avoid them or not confront them, and that's not good. [Aaron] Well, and before you get into that, I think the reason, again, going back of the beginning of this, of like, love being something that you fall into, it's accidental, it's I had no control over it, it leaves room, because that's what we believe about it, it leaves room for us to use that lack of control, like, it has nothing to do with me; therefore, when the things we're about to talk about come up, well, I'm just not in love anymore, and that, you know, that's what it is. You can't force me to love someone I don't love anymore. Unfortunate, but that's how it is. Thanks, God. [Jennifer] And that it's his fault for making us wrong or something. [Aaron] Yeah, or taking away the love or whatever it is, and now we have an excuse that's outside of us. Well, see, I mean, too bad I don't love him anymore. I would love to still love him, but it's just not working out. It's not where my heart's at anymore, and I'm moving on. And so it leaves a back door that you don't have to be responsible to go through. You just get brought through it, without any of your own control, when in reality, that's not true. [Jennifer] Yeah, we want everyone to hear this right now. We have an obligation to each other. [Aaron] It's called oneness. It's called a covenant. It's not just an earthly contract. It's not just like a, well, if you fulfill your end of the bargain, I'll fulfill mine. That's actually not what biblical marriage looks like, sounds like, smells like at all. It's a choice that we make to walk in, 'cause Christ chose to walk in his relationship, going to the cross regardless of how we responded to him. And that's our example. It's exactly the picture we get in Ephesians five. Like, hey, bride, you're the church. Hey, husband, you're Christ. You're the picture of Christ in this marriage, and this is how you act. And so, as long as it's something that happens to us, we have no control over it, we have no responsibility to it. [Jennifer] So, I've gotta bring this up real quick. This isn't in our notes, and it's not the direction we were gonna take it, but I think it's important to ask, and so I'm just gonna put it out there, and then maybe you guys can have a conversation about this with your spouses. We can even talk about it later. You talked about love being a choice. You talked about it being a powerful experience and not something that we don't have control over or based on feelings. My question is, do we fall in and out of love with God? Because I would look at Christian culture and say there's a lot of people that base their relationship with God off of how they feel. [Aaron] And what they get. [Jennifer] Or what they get out of it. [Aaron] Yeah, what they believe they deserve. [Jennifer] And so you see this tendency of flowing in and out of God during seasons of, I'm for him, I'm not, I'm for him, I'm not. And so I think that it's important to consider this question in light of our relationship with him. [Aaron] Well, before we move on to some of the reasons why people might feel like they fell out of love, let's talk about how we fell in and out of love with God, because of our marriage, because of the things that we were feeling and going through and experiencing, the hardships within our sexual relationship, the hardships with the sins that we were choosing to walk in and being unrepentant of, and walking in total immaturity and bitterness and anger that man, you had your own relationship dealings with God where you were just angry at him 'cause you were like, God, I deserve a good marriage. [Jennifer] Yeah, I felt like I did all the right things to equal a good marriage, like it was some sort of formula, so when I didn't get it, I was mad at him, because I believed that he was powerful enough to just make everything perfect, give me everything I want, and it be beautiful, and I believed this. I truly believed that. It wasn't just for my benefit that I had a perfect marriage, that it would be so that we can do ministry together for God. [Aaron] It was good reasons, yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah, there's always good reasons. [Aaron] Well, and we wanna be happy. We wanna have joy in our marriage. But this relationship with God was built on what he owed you. And like you said, you fell in and out of love with God the same way you fell in and out of love with me. I couldn't give you what you thought you deserved in a husband. I wasn't giving it to you. It's not that I couldn't give it to you. I was treating you the way you thought you deserved to be treated. I wasn't acting the way you thought I should act. I wasn't speaking the way you thought I should speak. And so your love with me was conditional. It was based on those things. Your love with God was conditional. And I was the same way. I thought that, all I wanted was a wife that I could love and be with and have sex with and enjoy and that would go and do amazing things for God together, and none of that felt like it was real. I was like, okay, God. I wait for marriage, I save myself, I try and be pure, which, in reality, I wasn't. My addiction to pornography, my other things that I was dealing with. I had a picture of who I was. I thought I was better than I was. And then I'm like, God, you owe me this thing, and you're not giving it to me. And so my relationship with God was transactional. Like, hey, I did this thing; now you do this thing. What are you doing? So I think that's a great thing you brought up, that we think our relationship with God is something outside of what we choose and something that happens to us, or our feelings. Like, I feel close to God, which is so dangerous, because I would imagine there's times when Paul, naked and beat in prison, did not feel close to God. I would imagine when Joseph was in the pit after being thrown in there by his brothers and then sold into slavery and then lied about by the wife and then put in prison and forgotten about by the baker, or the cupbearer, I believe there was times he did not feel close to God, but the truth would be is God was close and was doing something very specific in all of those situations. [Jennifer] Greater than what they could even have imagined. [Aaron] And so, we don't get pictures in those stories of them saying where's God, where are you. God was close, whether they felt him close or not. And that is the reality, that God is so close to us. He's not far off, even when we feel like he's far off. [Jennifer] Was he close to us when we were enduring those four hard years of our marriage? [Aaron] He was probably closer then. When I look back, I'm like, oh, God was there every moment. [Jennifer] But did it feel like it? [Aaron] No, it didn't feel like it. It felt like I was praying and he was just ignoring me. It felt like I was being picked on, or that he was being vindictive, like laughing at me. That's how I felt sometimes. But that's not true at all. So just like we're talking about this falling in and out of love, what I felt about God was false. My feelings were lying to me. [Jennifer] What changed? How did you go from that to being able to choose to love God and remain faithful to him, no matter what? [Aaron] Him confronting me with the truth that what he says is true and what I feel is false. I brought up Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He brought that story to my attention, and said, look what Jesus did for you. And then he was like, are you not willing then to do the very little thing of just loving your wife, even if you can't get what you want from her? Like, what it cost Christ on the cross is infinitely heavier than what it's gonna cost you to say yes to your bride and keep going. And he just revealed the fallacy in me that my feelings are true and that that's how I'm gonna dictate where I'm gonna go and the direction I go and what I believe, and they're wrong. The Bible tells us, and we'll get to that scripture in a minute, just to not walk in the flesh, but to walk in the Spirit. [Jennifer] Let's talk more about that. So, we're gonna first go through a brief list of why people feel as though they "fall," air quotes here, "out of love." [Aaron] So going back to things that don't feel good, and especially when it's in conjunction with your relationship with your spouse. So tough times. [Jennifer] Yeah, hard circumstances. [Aaron] Like, financial situations and pain and suffering and confusion and those sorts of things, crazy things like loss of children. The hard things can immediately make us not feel good. And you know what? When we don't feel good, Christ wants us to lean on him. He wants us to have his strength and his peace, you know, that surpasses all understanding, and when we don't go to God for those things and when we look to our spouse to fulfill them, which we did that. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's so dangerous. I remember feeling so disappointed in you and in our relationship, because you couldn't do the things that I wanted you to be able to do, which only Christ could do. [Aaron] To fulfill those desires in your heart or to take away the fears that you had, the insecurities, and only God gets to play that role in our life, because you know what, I'm a human. [Jennifer] Yeah, you will fail me. [Aaron] And I remember I tell you this, I even told you this when I asked you to be my wife. I said I'm going to fail you. [Jennifer] Yeah, I should have listened. [Aaron] I warned you. I gave you a little, what do you call it. [Jennifer] Framework, I don't know. [Aaron] Yeah, I gave you a pre-warning. This is what you're getting into. [Jennifer] Okay, so yeah, tough times definitely. Needs not being met. So I'm over here thinking, no, I need this from you and being convinced that I can't continue on in my part until I get what I need. [Aaron] Right, so in our situation specifically, we couldn't have sex. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was painful. [Aaron] And that was very painful. [Jennifer] For me. [Aaron] And I'm thinking, in my mind and in my heart, in my spirit, okay, the one thing that my spouse is supposed to be able to give me directly to me physically is sex, and she can't give it to me. Well then, I'm validated in my sin over here, or I'm allowed to be angry like this, or God, how dare you? And so my love for you was dictated by what you can do for me or what you're not doing for me, and vice versa. You put me on that pedestal of holding you up emotionally and being strong for you when you weren't strong, which husbands should do, but I'm not the main source of that. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] I can never fulfill that. That's called idolatry. We can actually put our spouses in a position of God, and what happens is because they're not God, you immediately translate that, we translate that to, oh, they must not love me. [Jennifer] But God is love. [Aaron] God is love, yeah. [Jennifer] Your spouse isn't love, although your spouse is called to love you. God is love. He's the only one that can truly fulfill that. [Aaron] So needs not being met spiritually, emotionally, physically, and I just wanna mention that there are some relationships. I think of veterans that have been hurt physically, or mentally, and they might not be able to fulfill a certain marital role, physically and emotionally and mentally. Does that mean they don't love you? Does that mean you've fallen out of love? No, that's a situation that God's allowed to happen, and that has to be navigated through the Word of God, through the Holy Spirit and patience and perseverance and recognize that those things don't define whether or not you're in love with your spouse or not. And that's a reality for some people. There's some people that will permanently never be able to have sex. [Jennifer] And that's just one thing. [Aaron] That's one thing, yeah. [Jennifer] There's other people who can't walk or can't talk. There's a lot of things. [Aaron] There's people that deal with postpartum depression, wives, moms that go through postpartum depression and might not be able to give emotionally, and that's gonna take a husband to step up more, be like, well, I'm gonna love more right now. I'm not gonna make them feel like I'm abandoning them and skipping out. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so another one would be desiring a different kind of life because of unmet expectations, and you kind of touched on this before, but I struggled with this. I felt like I had these expectations of what marriage should be like. [Aaron] Yeah, what our life should be like, where we should be. [Jennifer] And after years of not receiving that or them being unmet, I started desiring a different kind of life. And that can easily feed a wandering soul. [Aaron] Right, so we fell in love, and we individually had unique pictures of what our relationship would look like, what our life would look like, what our marriage would look like. And so what we do is, well, so I have this picture, picture A, and my marriage is picture Z. Oh, we must not be in love. This must not be right. Something's wrong here. Let's throw this out, start over. And so we look over the fence, or we look other places. So, and this leads to happiness. [Jennifer] Desiring happiness. [Aaron] Desiring happiness. The Bible doesn't promise happiness, but being a Christian should guarantee, if we choose it, joy. [Jennifer] Right, which is more powerful. [Aaron] Which is more powerful, because Paul, when he was naked and beat and in prison, had joy. All the disciples, all of the missionaries and martyrs had joy amidst terrible things. But happiness is not something necessarily promised. Now, happiness can be a fruit of joy, but does lack of happiness equate to lack of love? Like, we're no longer in love, I'm not happy anymore. I wanna speak about this happiness for a second, Jennifer. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, I hear it all the time. People say, doesn't God want be to be happy? [Aaron] Yeah, well not just doesn't God. They actually, and I don't know who has taught them this, but they literally, they start their message off to us about why they're leaving their husband with saying, God wants me to be happy, and I'm not happy. Therefore, I'm leaving. And so, what they've done is they've literally turned their disobedience and their sin into approval by God, because they've equated happiness to God's will. And that's not true. [Jennifer] Is there a scripture in the Bible that says God wants us to be happy? [Aaron] No. Not to my knowledge. But there's plenty about joy in all circumstances. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and that's something that can come amidst, so if happiness is God's will for us, take that truth, take that gospel, to all of the people suffering through terminal cancer. [Jennifer] Or famine. [Aaron] Or yeah, hunger, or loss of children or worse. I can't even come up with all the situations that a Christian might go through, or even a person, and go to them and saying, hey, God wants you to be happy, and then the moment they're not happy, God doesn't love me, or I'm outside God's will. It's a false gospel. The happiness is good, and it comes. But I think joy, the Bible talks of joy, which is a fruit of the spirit. Happiness is not a fruit of the spirit. So if we equate, again, if we take words and we equal them to other things, like happiness equals love, happiness equals God's will, the moment we're not happy, boom, we're no longer in love, we're not in God's will. We can make all sorts of crazy decisions based off of that equation. And it's just wrong. [Jennifer] So, moving down the list, we have two more. One is just experiencing overall discontentment in life. [Aaron] Right, I'm not happy with what I have. This isn't what I want, that I want more. [Jennifer] Just constantly, like you're playing that mental reel over and over and over again about all the things that make you not content, and then desiring a pain-free or comfortable life, which I think everybody, at the root of their heart, wants a pain-free life. But is that a reality? [Aaron] It's not that we need to pursue that. I don't think that's what our goal is in life. But if our goal is in our marriage, if that's our definition of a good, healthy, loving marriage, 100% of marriages are gonna be let down. But that's why we see such a high divorce rate in the church and in the world, because we've defined love with all of these terms. Comfort, happiness, fulfillment, contentment. And if I don't feel those things, boom, I must not be in love anymore. [Jennifer] Okay, so what's the bottom line? [Aaron] The bottom line is love was never intended to be just a feeling. God gave us these feelings as a gift to accompany our love, but when those feelings disappeared, love doesn't disappear. It's called the honeymoon phase. Like, you're enamored with your spouse. Everything's new and fresh. But what happens when it's not new wand fresh? What happens when life's boring? [Jennifer] Or hard. [Aaron] What happens when life's hard? Love in this situations should grow. [Jennifer] And endure. [Aaron] Yeah, because they endure. The relationship turns into one of stamina, endurance, perseverance. [Jennifer] I Corinthians 13:7 says love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Not some things, not the few things that I can handle. It's all things. So if we say that we love one another, we have to be able to bear all things and endure all things and have that kind of perseverance. [Aaron] And it comes down to, that's what Christ did. He endured the cross, because he loved us. And that's amazing. Even now in the church age, in the age that we live in now where God's grace and mercy is just poured out on the world and he's being patient, it says that his patience and kindness is to lead us to repentance, talking of love. Why doesn't he just strike us all down, because we are sinners, you know? He's righteous; we're not. But he's patient with us, and his love for us is in such a way that he shows us by example of how we should love, in forgiveness and patience and endurance, because that's what Christ did on the cross. He took the sins of the world, that anyone who believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. That is love, and if Christ can love that way, and this is what God showed me, is if Christ can love you like this, Aaron, what has your wife ever done that's worse than what you or the world has done to me? Nothing. Literally it doesn't matter what you do to me. It's not unforgivable. So I guess I would just say, if love is based on something that we have no control over, something that happens to us, if love is a feeling, then we're literally basing the most beautiful thing that God has ever given us, love, which he is love, it's who he is, and we boiled it down to a fleshly thing. Like, that is a fleeting, like, oh, some might get it, some might not. And I think we should rather look at love as a muscle that needs to be strengthened. [Jennifer] I like that, exercised. [Aaron] Or, actually, here's a better analogy. Love is a seed. You plant a seed, and then you nurture it and you grow it. Our love started, I should say. We didn't fall in love. Our love started back when we were dating, when we were learning each other. [Jennifer] We were attracted to one another. [Aaron] We were attracted. [Jennifer] We chose to spend time with one another. [Aaron] Yeah, back then, our love was so, if you think about it, our love was so immature, because it was based on very vain things, how we looked, how we talked, how we spent time with each other, things that made us laugh. And now, our love is based on. [Jennifer] So much more. [Aaron] Oh my, so much more. Surviving hard things, flourishing in hard things, renewing in the way we think about each other, communication, knowledge. [Jennifer] Ministering to our kids. Ministering to others. [Aaron] Yeah, having children and learning how to become one in our parenting. So our love now is built, it's growing. I wouldn't say it's a big sycamore tree or something. But I would say it's a tree now, where it once was just this seed that could easily be stamped out if we didn't take care of it. So I think that is a more accurate way to take a picture, is that love was something we planted, we chose to plant. Hey, we're gonna take a risk on this seed. We're gonna love this, and let's grow it. So then, if that's the case, then "falling out of love," air quotes again, is really choosing to let the tree die. [Jennifer] Right, which, I mean, going back to that quote by Gary Thomas from Sacred Marriage, biblical love isn't hate; it's apathy. [Aaron] Letting it die. [Jennifer] Letting it die. [Aaron] Stop watering it, stop feeding it, stop giving it sunlight, smother it, and it can even be worse than that, intentionally harming the love because you want out, because you're not happy, and now doing very hateful, wicked things within the marriage. [Jennifer] Being disrespectful, letting your anger lash out. [Aaron] Cheating. [Jennifer] Cheating. [Aaron] Yeah, unfaithfulness with your heart, eyes, physically. [Jennifer] All things that are lack of self-control, because you're not exercising that muscle of self-control. [Aaron] So here's another quote from Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, and it says this: "Christian love is an aggressive movement, "an active commitment. "In reality, we choose where to place our affections," which goes back to, are we gonna choose to nurture our love seed? Feels so weird. But this tree that we're growing together, as we're being weaved together and we're growing this love. And I just love that picture of that. It's an aggressive movement, an active commitment, that we are not going to just whimsically and apathetically see if love continues on without us doing anything, that we're gonna recognize that it's no, no, I'm going to choose again to love you today, and then when something happens, actually, I'm gonna choose right now to love you anyway. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I like that. This quote, you know, when it says in reality, we choose where to place our affections, I think sometimes we can choose to place our affections on what we see outside the marriage. [Aaron] So, let's just give 'em some practical ways, 'cause now we've dispelled it. You don't fall in and out of love. It's a lie the enemy uses to break up marriages all the time, and as mature Christians, we're gonna pursue loving our spouses the biblical way and saying, yes, Lord, I'm gonna choose to love, because you are love, and I wanna love like this. So what are some practical things that the couples listening can start thinking about, start pursuing and saying, oh, we're gonna invest in this seed that we've planted, at whatever point that seed was planted. [Jennifer] Okay, so first thing I would say is intimacy. I think I had this idea in our marriage that intimacy just happened, and it was something that was natural. [Aaron] It was always gonna be magical. [Jennifer] Yeah, I came to find out, it's actually something that needs to be planned for and prepared for. [Aaron] Sought after. [Jennifer] And requires intentionality. And so, I would say, be intentional in pursuing one another in those ways. And intimacy is a lot of different things. It's not just physical. It's also in the way that you communicate and just being thoughtful of one another. [Aaron] Yeah, but intimacy, the physical intimacy cannot be neglected. [Jennifer] Sure, so important. [Aaron] But the emotional intimacy can't be neglected either. [Jennifer] Either, yeah. [Aaron] The Bible, I just wanted to bring this up, it uses the word knew or knowledge when it comes to physical intimacy in the Bible. It says so-and-so knew so-and-so, and it's talking about sex. This intimacy we're talking about, it's radical transparency, radical openness, that you're not afraid to be naked emotionally, naked physically, naked spiritually before your spouse, and that you know each other, and that's a lifelong pursuit. So, and that combats falling out of love, or feeling like you're falling out of love, or in the truth, choosing to not love anymore. [Jennifer] Yeah, and if you do feel like, you know, not that you're apathetic towards one another, but that you just have some isolating tendencies going on in your marriage, be the first one to initiate intimacy. [Aaron] Yeah, go open those doors, go open those windows. Let light in. [Jennifer] Okay, another one is have an eternal perspective and a hope that fuels your heart so that you can persevere. Having a hope for why we're doing this thing called marriage and what we have to look forward to changed the way that we were able to persevere in our relationship. [Aaron] Yeah, and so recognizing that my wife is also my sister in the Lord. Like, the Bible tells us how to interact with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Then I get to see her and say, well, I'm gonna treat her well. She's my closest neighbor, so I'm gonna love her as myself. I'm gonna use the gifts that God's given me to bless her and to serve her. And so if we recognize that, that we are both part of the body, then we're not gonna mistreat and take advantage of and do things that we wouldn't do to another believer. So, another one is discipline yourself in walking faithfully and humbly. [Jennifer] So real quick, I just wanna read one another quote. I know this is a heavy Gary Thomas episode. [Aaron] Well, this book was hugely influential on our marriage. [Jennifer] Yeah, if you guys haven't read Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, you should definitely go grab a copy. But on page 156, it says this: "One of the great spiritual challenges for any Christian "is to become less self-absorbed. "We are born intensely self-focused. "The discipline of Christian marriage "calls us into the Christian reality of sharing "and enjoying fellowship in a uniquely intimate way. "Maintaining an interest in and empathy for someone else "is by no means an easy discipline to maintain, "but it is a vital one. "It is a skill that must be learned." I love this quote, because I think it's so important to recognize that there is discipline required of us, and there's an obligation, like I said earlier, to one another, to love one another, but to also enjoy fellowship with each other, which is what Gary's saying right here, and to maintain an interest for, an empathy for each other, and again, he says this isn't easy, but it is vital, and it's something that we need to learn. Like you said, it's a muscle that we should be exercising. [Aaron] Yeah, a lot of times, the Bible uses the term walk in love. So it's something that you walk out on a daily basis. In I John, it says practice righteousness. So these are things that we get to practice toward each other, with each other, for each other, on a daily basis, on a moment by moment. And even if you're in a super, super hard situation and season of your marriage, you can right now choose to walk in love with your spouse. [Jennifer] And truly, this is walking in maturity. This is what makes us mature, is by choosing to walk this way. [Aaron] Yeah, so again, walking in maturity. I would say be okay with hardship, and ask God how it can be used to mature you, to mature us? So God, this season's hard. God, I don't feel in love. I don't feel close to my spouse. Help me, show me how I should see correctly. Show me where I can change. Show me how I can love my wife still, love my husband still. How can I serve them? Help me do it in your Spirit. And then another one is the last one, actually, is recognize there's something greater at risk. It's what we talk about in the Marriage After God book, is that our marriages are meant for more than just happily ever after. Having a good, strong, healthy, mature, growing, thriving, loving, intimate marriage isn't for that alone. That's not the end. It's the means to the end. The end is that we are witnesses for Christ, that we are preaching the gospel with our words and our lives, that our marriages are pictures of the gospel to the world, that the husband represents Christ, that the wife represents the church, that their relationship represents an unconditional love that Christ had for his church, and how we interact with each other and how we raise our children and how we treat each other. And so, and not just that, but in I Timothy chapter three, it talks about the ministry of an overseer in a church and how it's a noble task, it's a noble thing for any believer to pursue, any man in the church, and it talks about having one wife and managing their home well, and it says, how can you manage the household of God if you can't manage your own home, right? If there's no self-control within me, if there's no love between me and my wife, if my children don't honor me and cherish me, those are things that the Bible says are results of how we choose to walk with our spouse. And our authority, our power, our message gets diluted or destroyed when we don't love that way. When love is something that we can just fall out of, what it essentially is saying is God can just fall out of love. Like, oh, today I don't love you anymore. And that's just false. He is love. He cannot not love us. And so, we need to show that. And so the greater thing that's at risk is the gospel. And when we don't have a correct understanding and definition of love in our marriage and what that looks like, we show an incorrect gospel to the world. And we need to recognize that. [Jennifer] So, the beginning of this episode started with can you fall out of love in marriage. That wouldn't be the right way to say it. It would be, are you choosing to not love your spouse anymore? And so I think that this is a really important topic, and it's something that we should address, even if maybe you're not feeling this way. If you feel like you love your spouse and you're walking the way you should be biblically, I think it's still important to address some of these things and these practical things that we've brought up and just see, you know, evaluate your marriage and see, are you walking the way that God wants you to be walking, and are you choosing love, regardless of your circumstances and regardless of anything else that's going on? [Aaron] Yeah, and maybe you're not, like Jennifer said, not at that place of not in love anymore, but are you choosing apathy? Are you just not caring? [Jennifer] Are you being lazy? [Aaron] Yeah, are you being lazy? And I think that's something that we should be aware of and repent of if we are. If we're being lazy in our marriage, then we're not loving. We're kind of being self-focused and hoping that our husband or our wife is gonna love us the way we wanna be loved, but we're not gonna give the love the way we wanna be loved. I just don't think that's the way a Christian should walk, and I think we need to, I mean, I'm guilty of this sometimes and need to change. Like, I'm being lazy, I'm gonna step up, I love you. Let's work on this, let's grow, let's water this tree. [Jennifer] I love it. Okay, we wanna invite you guys to join us in prayer. Dear Lord, may we always choose love. May we always have hearts that are motivated by love to be unified, pursuing intimacy and peace in marriage. Thank you for equipping us and empowering us by your Holy Spirit to choose to love unconditionally and sacrificially. We pray against our flesh from getting in the way, and we pray against our selfish ways. Please continue to sanctify us and transform us so that we would be more like you. Protect our marriage from the threats of the enemy and his evil desire to tear us down. Lord, please help us to be unified as one and help us to love each other in the way we interact with each other every day. May our commitment to remain steadfast in our love for each other glorify you in our marriage. In Jesus's name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. Hey, we just wanna thank everyone for listening this week, and we pray that this episode blessed you. We pray that it's gonna cause some good conversations, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Find out exactly WHY God brought you and your spouse together! https://marriageaftergod.com Quote From Marriage After God "Dreaming together is an exercise that is important for every marriage after God to participate in. Setting goals and casting a vision for the future strengthens the bond between a husband and wife, stirring up hope for what may come." "Casting a vision together for the future of your marriage is an intimate experience where hope for the future stimulates perseverance for today." Prayer Dear Lord, We pray we would be husbands and wives who dream together. We pray the dreams and the goals that we consider are ones that you put in our hearts. We desire to be used by you to fulfill your purposes. We want to build your kingdom and not our own. May we remember to submit our plans to you always. If there are things that we dream up that need to wait or need to be pushed aside, please help us to be humble. Help us to let go of any pride so that we don’t pursue what we want but instead only what you want. May we experience intimacy in marriage as we intentionally consider all that you have for us. We also pray we would have fun as we do this as a team for your glory! In Jesus’ name, amen! READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God, [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're in part 13 of the Marriage After God series and we're gonna be talking with Isaac and Angie Tolpin about dreaming together. Welcome to the marriage After God Podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary, one full of life. [Aaron] Love [Jennifer] And power [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we choose boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] So, we just wanted to take a moment and just ask you guys to leave us a review. That's just one way that other people will be able to find the Marriage After God podcast and spread the good news. So, if you could just take a moment and leave us a review, you could leave a star rating review or comment review and the comments are great too because they always encourage us. So thank you guys, for those of you who have already done that. [Aaron] And the reason we're doing this series is to promote our new book, Marriage After God. And if you go pick up a copy today that would just make us feel so blessed, is the reason we're doing all these interviews, all these episodes. And it's also how you can support us. And I hope that this book blesses you guys and we wrote it for you. [Jennifer] So today we have our good friends Angie and Isaac Tolpin from the Courageous Parenting podcast. Thank you guys for joining us. [Isaac] So great to be here. [Angie] Yeah, we're really excited to support you guys. [Isaac] And we love the book. [Aaron] Wow. [Isaac] Yeah. [Angie] It's awesome. [Aaron] Thank you. [Jennifer] Well, we just wanted to take a minute right here and just have you introduce yourself to everyone listening. So maybe share how long you been married, how many kids you have, and what you guys do. [Isaac] I'll start off with 19 years. It's been an incredible journey. How many kids Angie? [Angie] We have eight. [Isaac] So and we're in ministry courageousparenting.com. [Angie] And courageousmom.com. [Aaron] Awesome, so you guys have been doing ministry for a long time but now you guys are more specifically doing it together online with this podcast with your website. How did we meet? How did you guys meet because we do fellowship with you guys. A lot of the people we've been interviewing, we actually go to church with. So people like why do they know all these people, well? They go to our church but we met before gone just together [Angie] Yes we did. I think it was when, it was just years ago when Jen and I met because of Redeeming Childbirth. And she was pregnant with Olive at the time. [Aaron] And Redeeming Childbirth is a book you wrote about childbirth and redeeming it with a biblical mindset. [Angie] It's kind of a discipleship tool for women because I cover topics that normal pregnancy books don't cover like pain, fear, marriage from a biblical perspective-- [Isaac] Yeah the spiritual side of it. [Angie] Yeah, how to walk through pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and young motherhood. [Jennifer] Yeah, and we had just moved to Bend you guys had just moved to Bend and so we met up for coffee and that that was the beginning. [Isaac] It's been a great journey. [Angie] It really has. [Aaron] Yeah, it is, we know how small the world is and how close you can become with someone that you didn't know before, and now you're like, I knew I feel like I've known you forever. [Angie] Now, we are like family. [Jennifer] Okay, so after we share this next story, everyone's gonna wanna be you guys as friends. This is how awesome you are. So we just celebrated an anniversary, our 12th anniversary and we didn't have plans and we're gonna go to dinner and Aaron's like, well, let's invite another couple and you guys were right there. We wanted to spend time with you. And so we invited you to go to dinner and-- [Aaron] To our anniversary dinner. [Jennifer] Yeah and it was gonna be awesome but we didn't know you guys on the way over had prepared questions for us to think about in this year. [Aaron] You use to like what's that game the marriage show where you, the Newlyweds Game? You guys, it's kind of that, you guys asked us all these awesome questions. And it made our date night, it was not just a double date where we just chatted, it was like so much fun. [Angie] It was. [Isaac] That means way we answered those questions, [Jennifer] So is that like normal for you guys or a special? [Isaac] That was the first time plus, you know what, the--- [Angie] So, it was just a special. [Isaac] You're special and anniversaries are so special. [Jennifer] That's true and what a great way to celebrate. And we just love that, it's gonna be a standout one for me, I know that. But I had to share that because I think it was super thoughtful. And for those listening, if you're gonna double date on someone else's anniversary, you should do that. It's time we say, we've got a bunch of questions for you. [Jennifer] Okay, so this leads me into the icebreaker question for today. And it came from one of your guys as questions that you asked us. [Aaron] I think it was the first one you asked us. [Jennifer] So here's the question and it's for you guys to answer. If your spouse was a superhero, who would they be? So you're answering this about each other. [Isaac] Why do you kick it off honey? [Angie] I was thinking about this and I think I choose the whole popular Captain America because when I met when Isaac-- [Aaron] His fist pumping right now. You know, that's right. When Issac and I, 20 years ago, when I met him, he was a new believer and had become a new creation like how Steve Rogers turns into the new creation and then he's just this man of vision that wants to do what's right. And he's a leader that people follow. So there's just a lot of qualities, and he doesn't hide behind a mask. So that, there's the boom. [Jennifer] I love that. Real deal. Cool. Transparency. Yeah. [Isaac] Well, that's cool, I think you're Wonder Woman. Because you are pure. Interesting Yes. And your middle name is Crystal, which means what, honey? [Angie] It means brilliantly clear. Or pure. [Isaac] Angie, you're really good at getting the truth out of people. That's true. Right, she's right. [Jennifer] She is drastic, it's true [Isaac] Exactly, that's all truth, she cares about justice. [Angie] That's true. [Aaron] And she cares about truth. And you have an unbelievable ability to do many things at once which everybody says you're not supposed to be able to do. [Angie] You truly are a super mom. [Isaac] A super mom, that's right. [Aaron] Super mom, it's new superhero I don't know if that show would go very far today. Okay, so Jennifer. [Jennifer] Sorry guys. [Aaron] So Jennifer, what would your superhero be for me? [Jennifer] Okay, so just so everyone knows when we were sitting there that night, the whole time, I was thinking about my answer for you. I was sitting there thinking, please don't say I'm Hulk. Please don't say I'm Hulk. Because out of all the superheroes I was just thinking that's the one that's not like attractive, and he's big and he's angry and I don't wanna be Hulk. And what comes flying out of Aaron's mouth, I think Jen would be Hulk. [Aaron] I did say that. [Jennifer] So, anyways-- [Aaron] But for good reasons, not because you're big and green, and angry. Because you have strength that comes out of you when you need it. And you're smart, and you're intelligent. Now, those were the qualities I was trying to get out of Bruce Banner, okay? [Jennifer] Thank you And then, what did I say for you? Oh, I said, Dr. Strange because you have-- [Aaron] A strange and-- [Jennifer] Yeah, you have gifted discernment and you you know things like-- [Aaron] Yeah, weird things, yeah, weird. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's true. [Aaron] There we go, okay, [Jennifer] Fun little question to ask. You guys can ask each other those listening. It's just fun, I like it, I like ice breakers. [Aaron] So why don't we so as we get into the all the questions we're gonna ask the Tolpins, our good friends. Why don't you read the quote from chapter 13 of the Marriage After God and then we'll get into that. [Jennifer] Okay, it says, dreaming together is an exercise that is important for every marriage after God to participate in, setting goal and casting a vision for the future strengthens the bond between a husband and wife stirring up hope for what may come. [Aaron] Awesome, how does that, does that sound right? Because you guys are dreamers. You guys are excellent at planning. It's when we thought about this chapter, we're like, oh, we have to have the Tolpins [Jennifer] They are like professional goal setters. [Aaron] The ones we interview about this because you are planners and goal setters and dreamers. I don't think you know how to have small dreams. You only know like large, big, like-- [Angie] I'd say Isaac definitely is a bigger dreamer than I am and so a lot of times I find myself running as fast as possible to keep up. [Isaac] And sometimes that's good and sometimes it's not. That's right. Yeah. [Angie] So we've learned over the years to be able to tell where each other are at and be there to support each other, it's been-- [Isaac] But I think it's vital as a marriage to have vision, we are called to have vision and to look ahead, otherwise, we just get sucked into the circumstances of the day and stuck in the mundane. And it's important to have vision. [Angie] And there isn't a lot of growth when you're just sitting there without vision either. So it's one of the things that I think has made us really enjoy marriage and life is just always looking forward to how we can be growing ad what's next, and looking forward. Isaac always makes this joke when his birthday comes around that he doesn't like looking back. He likes getting older. He doesn't care that he getting older too. Oh, it's the best thing. I like getting older too Oh, Yeah He just loves it. [Aaron] People really don't wanna stay young. I wanna, I can't wait to be gray haired. [Isaac] Yeah, wisdom, you get to see your kids get older, more experiences, you've learned more. [Angie] But one of the things that he said about that that's always stuck with me and challenges me because I'm not naturally like that is that if you're focused so much on the past, then you're not gonna be growing. You're always wanting what you had. And so it's just a challenge to look forward and it's a good challenge. [Jennifer] That's awesome, so, have you guys always been dreamers and goal setters in your marriage like from the very beginning? Or is it something that kind of developed over time? [Isaac] I would say that it was from early on actually. And in business, I've always played a proactive role in helping people have goals and vision, and so forth is really important. And I think, you know, husbands need to apply that to their marriages into their family. And I think it's super important. So we have done it early on. Of course, it's evolved over time. [Angie] Yeah, for sure. And now we involve our kids in it too, which we'll talked about later but-- [Aaron] Yeah, we love that because you're teaching them how to be in the moment, and do what needs to be done but also look ahead and prepare. So you've always been dreamers, you've always been planners but have you said it's evolved. What are some of the ways that it's changed over time, the way you used to plan, dream? [Angie] Well, you know what, Isaac actually, I haven't said this him out loud but I think he's actually the one who really taught me how to set goals. Because I worked for him when we met, that's how we met. And I was an independent contractor and had to set sales goals and different things like that. And he would coach the team through how to do that. And we just kind of took that into our personal life because it was so productive. And we saw good results from it. So we started applying it to life and other areas. [Isaac] There's a principle called the napkin talk in leadership, and I just took that same principle to our date nights. Not every single one, sometimes we just hanging out. We do do that. [Angie] I don't see, but we really absolutely enjoy it. [Isaac] But we really love, so we almost have to force ourselves just to go hang out sometimes, but we-- [Angie] We actually had friends who were like, don't you guys just go and like sit? [Isaac] Yeah, we do, we like that, but the napkin talk, I mean which means you pull out a napkin, you have a pen, you write down some goals, and you write down some initiatives, and there's an incredible power when you actually put thoughts to paper. I don't know what happens but it activates action in your lives and in your marriage. And I think that's really important. [Jennifer] I feel like there's a really good practical tip for people listening if this is something that they really haven't done in their marriage, or maybe they've done it in the past, but haven't done it recently, getting out that napkin, getting out that piece of paper, even after listening to this episode and just go for it. It's the kind of place to start brain dump and just get it out of your mind, out of your heart, and onto the paper. [Isaac] And I think you just think of one or two really good questions, it can be that simple. [Aaron] So, I just wanna, I love those tips, the napkin, what was it called, napkin talk? Where you just write down on a napkin and that's awesome. We do something similar. We don't ever do a napkin but we bring a pad or we bring a pad or we do it on our phone, or send ourselves an email. [Jennifer] Actually I have used napkins before. [Aaron] Yeah, I think you have, that's it or worse we get some receipt paper please. [Isaac] Yeah, exactly, whatever. [Isaac] Yeah, whatever you can. But I just wanna real quick highlight why we've been talking about dreaming. And we're talking about this idea of planning together because in this part of the book, we're encouraging marriages to take all of the things we've talked about up to this point, and actually start getting it out of their hearts, and minds and onto paper. Because once we do that, once we have it out on paper. You said, the power of goal setting, there's every single productivity book or success book has some form of write it down, put a checklist, have a to do list. And there's a reason for that is because once it's written down, it's a real thing. It becomes a, oh, that's actually visible and now I'm not the only one who is thinking about it. [Isaac] So true. [Aaron] Other people can see it, my kids can see, my wife can see it and now I can pray about it. And so I just, I just wanna highlight, that's why we're having this conversation is not just to like, let's have big dreams and shoot for the moon. And, but there's a there's a mission involved in what we're doing. So, that we're proactively use that word proactive, we're proactively chasing after God's will for our life and sometimes and oftentimes it takes dumping all of the things that are in our hearts and minds as a couple onto paper into notes and be like, okay, what does this look like in our life? How are we gonna get to from A to B? What is B, so I just wanted to bring that up and then, so that we all know, everyone that's listening is like, oh, like, that's why we dream, like that's why we plan. [Isaac] I think we're wired for progress too. And so when you're able to look at the end of the year, how you've made progress together, and the things you've accomplished together, it's so rewarding. [Angie] And do you have dreams when you first get married. You dream about your life together. And you may think about specific goals, even then, from when we were just engaged to newlyweds. And it's exciting to keep that going. I think it helps you tonight and become stagnant, like you're saying or becoming a marriage is just surviving but instead, you're thriving. And I think that the first few years that we were married too, the napkin talks, a lot of times were Isaac asking specifically how I was doing in my relationship with God, how I was doing in my relationships with my kids, and that this would become an opportunity for us to communicate about what was going on in their hearts and what I was seeing during the day so that he would know how he could back me up when he was at home or what their needs were, so that we could be a better team when he was off work and on the weekends because he worked during the day, [Isaac] It's so crucial because as husbands, if we want our wives' support, then we better be proactively supporting our wives. What things in our career do we want support with? Well, you're not gonna get it unless you've been proactively all along the way, supporting your wife and the things that really matter. [Angie] And I remember there was a time too, someone asked us years ago because Isaac would shoot for huge goals business wise, and he would hit them. And one of the wives of another manager came up to me and just said, wow, you must have to work so hard at home. Is he working all the time? And I said, well, he does work hard, butt we work together and it's a team, we're a team. [Aaron] It's a good little insight. [Angie] Yeah and in, she just kind of looked at me like, oh, and and I remember like we would go out and if Isaac had a goal for work, like if I was gonna shoot for a different amount of sales, let's say you're in sales, he'd always run that by me first at one of our visionary date nights. And he would say, hey, this is what it might end up costing us like, this much extra time, are you in? Are we, do we wanna do it? So it wasn't just him doing it? [Isaac] And then you being pulled along. [Angie] Right and so even though he was running a business and I was a stay at home mom, I felt so cherished and involved in his business because he was involving me in the dreaming process, and just sharing with me even those goals. And then years went by of us doing that. And one night, he just out of nowhere said Do you have dreams that we're not pursuing together? And then that's where Redeeming Childbirth came in and like, oh, in him encouraging me to have a blog. And so it's important that you both are drawing that out of each other. [Aaron] Well, and I think I saw in a second one ask you about the visionary date night thing. We'll get into that but you said that he would invite you in, involve you. I feel like you probably felt that way but it's even more than that. It sounds like you were a linchpin in the process where it not just being involved in like, hey, what do you think about this idea. It's more of a this goal won't work unless we're on the same page. [Isaac] It's crucial, it's crucial, because if the plan doesn't go well, and you didn't from the beginning decide to do it together, guess who your detractors going to be later? The wife, you can't accomplish big things by yourself. And if you set out to do things then they don't go well, it could harm the marriage, if you didn't set out to do it together. [Aaron] Well, and we talked about this a lot in the book is like, it starts without unity anyway. Like, if you're only doing it for if you're chasing after something and she's chasing after something, what are you doing? You're pulling against each other, and you never gonna get anywhere. [Angie] You won't be effective. [Isaac] No, and so you coming to your wife and it's not a permission based thing, it's purely a, we're one. This will only work if we're on the same page so that you show me where it's not gonna work, and let's figure out how to make it work. And not just in business but like, I love that you guys talked about children. And it actually in this chapter, we talk about the different categories that we could be submitting to the Lord and dreaming in. So when it comes to like children and raising our children and discipleship like, hey, what are some of the visions that we have? And it could be as simple-- For our kids. [Angie] as what character qualities do we see already being cultivated in this child? What is God drawing out of them? And how can we encourage that more? What are some of the flaws that maybe we need to work on? And so there's also those kinds of visions and goals with each child to those were always at the forefront of our family, visionary, and time for sure. [Isaac] Well, we would even write down each child's name and go, what does each child need? [Angie] And there were times to where we would evaluate like do we need to have special one on one time with each child like on a regular basis, like for a period of time to deal with a specific topic? So there are so many ways you could go about this. [Jennifer] That's so cool, and when I think about this chapter of the book and the reason why we wanted to encourage couples to do this very thing of dreaming together and talking about these kinds of things is because it is a really intimate experience because you have to communicate, you have to share your hearts with one another. And that's what I'm hearing. [Aaron] You are really transparent. Jennifer] You have to be transparent, you have to have a insights, you have to know your children, you have to know each other. And I just see how unity is built. Trust is built, love is cultivated when a husband and wife intentionally pursue moments like this together. [Aaron] Absolutely, so there's a quote in the book, it says this. Casting a vision together for the future of your marriage is an intimate experience where hope for the future stimulates perseverance for today. How has this been true in your guys' life? [Angie] Oh, I feel like that quote totally suits for the season that we just been in. [Isaac] We've gone through ups and some really tough times too, ups and downs, for sure. And it has been so crucial to have vision and a godly perspective and putting God at the center of our marriage as we go through the challenging times. [Angie] And really that our goals are centered on Him too. I think that that's the thing that keeps you going. He's the hope and when you know that what you're pursuing is for Him and it's not for gain in anything else then it gives you the hope to keep going every day. And you don't focus so much on the circumstances that you might be in. [Isaac] And we're called to not be of this world, be in the world but not of the world. And that goes for marriage. And so our marriage is a witness to the world. And what a great testimony during the hard times when we just grow closer together. [Jennifer] Amen, love that. [Aaron] Yeah, so you were just mentioning about like, they're like for God and human being in the center and Christ being our hope. And that's everything we want people to recognize but when we say dreaming, often we think like, we have lots of dreams. You said when you were married, you had lots of dreams. There's lots of people thinking, I want a big house, or I want to live in this location, or like we have this many dreams. And I'm not saying any of them are bad. But I wanna know, how do we set biblical boundaries? On our dream in planning, because we definitely could like dream of anything, doesn't mean anything should be done? [Angie] I think that that's one of the benefits of having marriage too is that you can hold each other accountable because there will be times you'll both need it, right? [Jennifer] So good. [Angie] And I think that also when it comes to boundaries, I have specific boundaries that I have set for how I react when he shares his dreams because he's a big dreamer. [Aaron] When is really big enough? [Angie] Yeah, I kind of hold my breath for a minute. Three deep breaths. because I'm like, okay, that's really big. [Isaac] Because she thinks we're for sure doing it because I speak with authority, even though I am just sharing ideas that haven't even been fleshed out yet. [Angie] Yes, and so we've had to learn that about each other. And so he always is really, he's a gentle leader with me in that that he'll remind me ahead of time and say, so I don't wanna do this right now but I was thinking, X, Y, Z. [Isaac] That's only after learning for a few years, in our first two years of marriage. [Aaron] Well then ever went to listening husbands. This is a great tip. Hey, this isn't happening right now or even soon but I'm thinking about doing X, Y, Z. That's a great way to prep your wife for a big conversation. [Angie] It totally is. And then it kind of gives me some time to like let it settle, think about it. And then I don't overreact because we had done a lot of really big things together in business and in planning a vineyard. And we had, yeah, we had six of them in those 10 years. So we really had done a lot. And so, his track record led me to believe that every time you had a dream it had to happen. [Aaron] Because it's been that way. [Isaac] Yeah, and if you want your wife's support then you've got a pre-frame ahead of time like that because otherwise, when I was shared dream without pre-framing it, she would instantly sometimes look for the challenge where I'm too optimistic, she's more realistic. And that's why God put us together, because the differences are such a blessing when you embrace those differences and you respect each other. [Aaron] It's almost like God had a plan for your marriage. [Angie] Amazing, right? [Jennifer] And something that I'm hearing as you guys talk or is that this practice of dreaming together is also practicing communication and learning each other. And so another tip for those listening is learn each other, figure out how each other's going to receive things and adapt your relationship so that you guys can work together as a team and not always end up in arguments or disappointments. [Angie] One tip in that direction is that timing is everything which is one of the reasons why I think our date nights were so successful. It wasn't in the heat of the household. [Isaac] Chaos. [Angie] You know what I'm saying and so-- [Isaac] Handling are you making dinner for our children and me and I thought about this idea. [Angie] Exactly, and I thought you would. [Isaac] So husbands, it's super important to think about the timing of when to bring certain things up, challenges, good things, dreams. And sometimes you're gonna save a list for your date nights, it's super important. [Jennifer] Angie, could you just share to the wives timing for when you're sharing things with your husband, maybe what does it look like on a wife's end? [Angie] On a wife's end regarding the dreams since-- [Jennifer] Timing. [Angie] So right away, when they come home from work if they're someone who's working away from home not a good time to talk to them. Give them some time to so and and I think that night times are actually good after the kids have gone to bed. That's also a good time to talk about it, I wouldn't suggest that for the wives though as much because we just kind of are starting to relax and then it's brought up it can create some anxiety for some women. But the guys generally can handle that but you would have to judge your spouse. [Jennifer] Yeah, for sure. [Angie] But I think that they appreciate us being considerate to them in the same regard that we appreciate being considered. [Aaron] So I have this thought about, we talk about boundaries because like we can dream again of anything but what is God one, and building a, this is for me and for you guys, and everyone that's listening. Beginning to build a track record where we as individuals, as a husband and a wife, and as a marriage, submit everything to the Lord. Instead of like, hey, I have this idea. Let's sell the house and let's move over across country and start a this organization. And everyone's like, whoa, whoa, what? What are you talking about? But having a track record of like, hey, here's an idea. Let's start praying about this today and see what happens. And then learning how to follow through with things or learning how to say no to things after it's been evaluated, prayed through and sought out with counsel, so that when a husband brings up an idea, there's not this fear of like, well, is this going to end up like what happened last time where we're going to change that do something and then fall on our face, and then have to start over again, and then chase after something that follows. Does that make sense? [Isaac] It makes perfect sense. And just because something is good fruit doesn't mean it's fruit we're supposed to pick. So it's really important to have God at the center and be praying about it. It's like in the vineyard, if you have a whole bunch of fruit on a plant, you can't leave all that fruit there. Otherwise, it's gonna make bad wine. But if you cut half of it off, all the energy goes into the right fruit that we're supposed to pick, and it makes great wine. And that's the same thing for a marriage. [Jennifer] I love that. So when dreaming together, there's going to be times where there's gonna be awesome things that come that come up and get on the list that you probably can't pursue, or maybe the timings not there, and you guys have to navigate that together. [Angie] And I think sometimes too, depending on if you're a natural dreamer and you like to dream about a lot of things, sometimes it's not God's will for your life. And that's where you have to be willing to dream but be willing for God to say no. Or to say, no, not now. Because sometimes that's His answer too. And so and that's part of why I think that he's given us protection and having a spouse because we can kind of ground one another in the times when we need to. But we can also be one another's biggest cheerleader in those times when we know God's pushing us forward. [Isaac] And that's crucial 'cause husbands if you get off track, and you're not listening to God and you're in the flesh, and you just go and do something, it could be catastrophic for your family. And I have an experience where we went all in on a business venture, and it failed. And we lost everything financially for a period of time. And that was my responsibility. Now, my wife faithfully supported me, followed me through the challenges, and through the good times but that was directly a cost of me being confused and not paying attention to what God wanted. [Aaron] Oh, it's awesome that you can you can see that. And for those that are listening can learn from what you guys walked through. So that gift that God gave you, that that resource that he's given you that story is now a testimony that can warn other believers. [Angie] Yeah, we have lots of stories like that was a good story [Isaac] Oh, we do. Winning and losing. [Angie] That's right. [Jennifer] Speaking of winning, what are kingdom benefits of dreaming together and setting goals? [Isaac] Well, I think the first Kingdom benefit is your kids are watching everything you're doing. And if you're trusting God, and surrendering everything to God and working as a team together, you're modeling for them for their future marriages because what we're raising future adults, right? [Angie] That's right, yeah. And we also want them to see us pursuing God's dreams and His visions and being workers in His fields also. And so, right now with Courageous Parenting, this is a new thing that we're working together in ministry, I've been doing it for many years. And Isaac, of course, was always a missionary wherever he was, but now we're full in with Courageous Parenting. And it's a different feel around the house, everybody is involved, everybody helps out in some way from Austin helping to edit podcasts to Megan helping with the baby, and it's just, and they're behind it. That's the cool thing is that they see the vision because they wanna see other parents get impacted and they are constantly encouraging us too so. [Isaac] And I think if God is for something, it's gonna have some impact on the kingdom of God and so that's the fruit too. [Aaron] And so it's constantly saying, Okay, Lord, what do you want? Here's what we have and here's ideas that we have. How does this work into your plan? [Angie] It's really about stewardship. Actually, all of the goal setting and everything is all about stewarding. I love that. Our hearts, our lives, our children, Our resources. [Angie] All our resources. And so I remember when we had the vineyard before we planted and cultivated the vineyard in our other property, we would look out at this field and go, what should we plant there? And we would pray about it, we'd dream about it. And we thought, all different kinds of ideas. And we did have a vision for hosting weddings there one day and different things like that. But God moved us on to a different vision which I'm glad that we're here. It was definitely God's will for us to move, but yeah. [Aaron] So, I think of this, I can't remember the how the quote exactly goes but the answer is no to 100% of the questions you never asked, right. [Isaac] Yeah. [Aaron] Because like if you don't ask her you can't get a yes or no. So it's just a no. And I feel like that's how we should see this idea of dreaming as a couple as marriages for the kingdom of God and saying, okay, Lord, we have this amount of resources, we have these relationships, we have these talents and gifts that you've given us. Man, we could do this, we combine this, and just throw it all out, and then start praying over it which is what how we we direct the readers and what to do when they dream. And then start making actions. So what's a practical way that you guys dream and then plan, like okay, here's a dream and we've actually feel like this is where God's leading us [Angie] Always involves a whiteboard. [Aaron] Turn aways because they are-- [Isaac] Whiteboard or journal, I think you start on a whiteboard, afterwards ends up on a whiteboard. But yeah, I think it's so important to get things on paper, pray over it, of course, and then really vet it out and have some action steps towards it and understand each other's roles. There was some dreams where Angie's role was to praise and be supportive and take care of the family while I was doing something. There's other dreams we've done where we're both very, very active and immersed together in it. [Angie] And then there were times where Isaac would take care of the kids so that I could write and he was more active with the kids in the vineyard and taking that on, and then I would pull back away from that once that project was done. And I was all in and he would be able to slip away more towards work. And so it's kind of a dance. [Isaac] But it's so important. [Aaron] I love that idea of a dance. [Isaac] Dance, so important to have good communication, though, because things are constantly moving. [Aaron] I think a part of that good communication is having end zones. Small, like if it was just an indefinite like, hey, you're gonna watch the kids and I'm gonna write, and who knows when, that wouldn't be a healthy season. [Angie] No, you do have to have boundaries. [Aaron] So, you set boundaries and then it wouldn't be how easy is it of, if Isaac said, hey, I'm gonna be working 12 hour days for the next, who knows how long and let's see what happens. That wouldn't be a healthy. [Isaac] Here's a super important point to that which is husbands when you set a deadline for how long the sacrifice is gonna be, you better deliver. Because if you go past that deadline, your wife is gonna lose trust for you as you dream together-- [Aaron] Track record. [Isaac] There's a cost. [Aaron] You wanna have good track records within this process. [Jennifer] Any want your word to be as good as gold. [Angie] Yeah, that's awesome and what I'm thinking when you guys are sharing all this is details. So when you're writing this down when you're making an action plan or strategy put some details and dates and times, and very specific things that will help guide these boundaries. [Aaron] That's good baby. [Isaac] That's was really good. [Aaron] So, as we come to a close, I want to ask you, it's so easy to just say, We're gonna be big dreamers and big planners, and we're gonna get all these practical steps and... What is the foundational perspective biblically that we should have in all of this because the Bible talks about planning. [Angie] And He talks a lot about our marriage, I think it comes down to what our marriages really for, God. [Isaac] To glorify God. [Angie] It's not about us. And so when you realize that your marriage isn't about you, and that it's meant to be a light to the world, and that you are bearing God's image to them, your perspective changes and that's for all of us. It doesn't matter what you're doing for work or if you're in ministry, we are all part of the body of Christ. And we all-- We're all in ministry, this is our, yeah. Exactly. Everyone is a missionary wherever they are. They're all lights and ambassadors. [Isaac] Yeah, it's to fulfill the greatest, the Great Commission, and to glorify God in everything we do, and we've always believed that the things we're gonna do, it's gotta have some kind of positive impact on people. And that doesn't need because every-- [Aaron] When you say positive, do you mean like in a faith way and in a biblical way? [Isaac] In a biblical, faith focused way. And I'm not saying everybody, every goal has to be like that. But I've had goals that weren't, like investing in resources, and I lost deeply. And I did not get my wife's approval. [Aaron] That's for another podcast. [Isaac] It's for another but I just want to warn you that God is in control, and we should fear Him, and not the world. And really obey him by our actions. [Angie] I think too, we mentioned stewardship, and one of the verses that comes to mind is about our treasures and building treasures in heaven. And I think that as we're setting goals as a couple, and we're remembering these foundational truths about marriage that we keep in the back of our minds that we're building for Him, and we're building for the kingdom of God in heaven because we're partnering with Him and the Great Commission and-- [Isaac] So good. [Angie] And that we're gonna experience pushback because whenever you do something that God's calling you to do, you're gonna experience some pushback. We have enemies, we have our own flesh And God cares about our sanctity through the process of the journey of life as well and so hard dreams are good because they bring out those things that need to be sanctified in you. [Isaac] Yeah, I mean, often I have said if you're not salty, you might not even realize there's a battle. But if you are salty, you're fully aware because you feel it. And there is a spiritual battle at hand. And as you press in and set goals together and try, and do things for God's glory, there is an enemy that hates that. The good news is God is way more powerful. but you need to be aware, and you need to pray. [Aaron] So, do you guys, in all of these conversations we have there just can be an inkling of, well, that's good for you. And I understand that God's got this call because we use this idea of call. Is there anyone in the body of Christ that's exempt from the things you're talking about? [Isaac] Not at all, you could be doing any position, it be in any kind of circumstances, any kind of financial situation. And it's the same truth for every married couple. [Angie] And the reason why is because God wants people, He wants their hearts, He wants to be reconciled to everyone. And so He may place you in a place that's really hard. But I think that God would ask of you to think big, think and view them the way He views them, and would He want you to have a goal or a dream that's gonna impact that other co-worker that's in the cubicle next to you. [Isaac] I would also say there's nothing worse than when you go out to dinner and you see couples not talking to each other, or looking at their phones, ignoring each other. And that potentially, is because they're not making progress together and doing things for God as a team. [Aaron] And I feel like, Jen, you might be able to speak into this a little bit, that setting, you said heavenly treasure like treasures in heaven, treasures above. The Bible tells us to look above to think on things above and not on things that on earth, and setting goals and pursuing heavenly things and always looking up. When I think of those couples that are sitting and not looking each other, it's because they are only looking in one direction, which is down, because we're not up, we are of the Earth currently. And I feel like that pursuing as a marriage, do you feel like as we consistently look up, it keeps our focuses off of us? [Angie] Yeah, yeah, totally. [Aaron] And that's what we wanna encourage everyone listening is this isn't just because we want plan that million dollar orphanage in another country that might be absolutely someone's calling in, and we gotta ask for them. But it's just the fact that we have we a heavenly calling. All of us as believers, we were part of the body of Christ. And that body is doing something and it's it's led by the by the head Jesus. [Jennifer] We all have gifts and to know those gifts in one another and call them out and say, hey, have you ever thought of like, I would have never even started a blog if it wasn't for Isaac starting it for me and saying here, you should write. I mean that's really your gift. [Isaac] You use your gift, here you go. [Angie] He kind of did that. I mean, this was way back before we had cellphones. He was crazy about the internet just came out sponsor. [Aaron] Oh man. [Isaac] Man, I think what happened is I said, you should start a blog, and you're like, oh, no. Some of you should start a blog, oh, no. Okay, I'm starting a blog, and I started a blog. [Angie] You edited it. [Isaac] And I started a blog, and I'm writing, I'm writing and the only reason I started a blog was so that she was started blog. And that's how she started hers. [Jennifer] Did he buy a book? That is actually, no. [Jennifer] That's awesome, before we wrap up, I really want our listeners to benefit from your guys' wisdom on parenting. And so I just wanna ask the question, how have you guys incorporated dreaming together as a family with your children? [Isaac] I think it's so important to include your kids in the process. It's fun. It is really fun. And one of the interesting things is that everybody has New Year plans and so forth. We just started start those more toward November going into the new year. And what we do is we run a session with the kids and we go, how did this year go? We have them. [Aaron] Is there a whiteboard involved? There's a whiteboard. Yes. [Isaac] And we have them rate the different areas of life, spiritual. [Angie] How did they do in that category? [Isaac] Yeah and we talked about it. And then then we do another session where they set intentions for the new year. And we just still got the-- [Aaron] I like intensions, it's better than resolutions. [Isaac] Yeah, intentions is good. [Angie] It good intentions and Isaac always takes a picture after they have shared what they are, and takes a picture so that he can put it up on the screen the next year. And he also kind of texts us randomly throughout the year goes, how are you doing on your goals? [Jennifer] Wow, [Angie] It's really for-- [Jennifer] Seriously, that's awesome. [Angie] Yeah, our oldest daughter, Kelsey, is at college and she actually just texted me a picture of her goals that are on her wall next to her bed. That was a huge win. So even like, all the kids really enjoy it, even our three year olds had goals this year to stay potty trained and get candy. [Isaac] What's awesome for that is-- [Jennifer] I would like to get candy bars. [Isaac] When they rate different areas of their life. It's so neat to see all the kids in the family rallying for them, no, you're more like an A, you are not a C. You're not-- [Isaac] It's awesome. [Angie] It was really encouraging because they would all give feedback and and say, oh, well, have you thought about this goal? And they would like add on to it and so it was really fun. [Isaac] Self evaluation is an incredible gift. [Jennifer] And it sounds like it doesn't matter what age children? [Angie] No, I mean, Eli was with us and he's four months old That's awesome. He was adamant. Sometimes in our age. [Angie] Self training. [Aaron] Taking solid foods, stay cute. [Jennifer] Awesome, thank you guys so much for your insight there. I know that it just is blessing everyone, everyone's probably gonna wanna redo all their-- Resolutions. --new goals for 2019. Okay, so the last question we have for you is, in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Angie] Well, I think that we kind of talked a little bit about it before, just that our marriage would reveal the image of God to everyone, to our children to the world around us. And that we'd be striving to one another. One of the images that comes to my mind is in life trials because we have definitely experienced those in 19 years of marriage. When you're both chasing after God or running after him in that hard time I think you're gonna meet there and you're gonna be stronger versus if you're-- [Isaac] Stronger together. [Angie] Versus like if a husband loses a job or a wife is ill, or you could name whatever trial you're walking through, if one person starts working harder to fix the problem versus running to God first, there's a difference in how your marriage is revealed to your kids and the strength of marriage. [Isaac] And then when we say our wedding vows, almost everybody has in their wedding vows or some part of the marriage ceremony is to become one flesh. And do you really believe that? Well, if you do, then you're going to treat your bride or your husband like they are yourself. Because we really do become one. And when you become one, like Angie said, you become way more powerful for the impact for the kingdom of God. And we've always held that as the most important vision. [Jennifer] Well that was incredible. I could just listen to you guys all night, and that's awesome. [Isaac] Well, if people want to, they can go find them at courageousparenting.com, or through their podcast, Courageous Parenting but you can get anywhere podcasts are. And they should definitely go check out their podcast because we don't talk nearly enough about parenting. And that's all they talk about, like this. They talked about the painting like-- [Jennifer] This is we glean all of our needed parenting. [Aaron] You guys have blessed us over the years by your gift of knowledge and parenting, your wisdom in parenting. And so we've been totally blessed by that. So not just the planning stuff that we've seen in your life, but all aspects of your life we've been blessed by, so thank you for honoring us and blessing us by coming on our show. [Isaac] We've been so blessed by your friendship and love what's happening with the ministry here. [Aaron] Yeah, thank you. [Jennifer] I also wanna mention you guys are really active on social media. So where can people find you if they wanna follow you daily? [Isaac] Courageous Parenting and-- [Angie] Courageous Mom. [Isaac] And Resolute Man. [Angie] Yeah, so on Instagram, that's where we're the most active for sure, I'm courageous.mom and he's resolute.man. And then on Facebook. [Aaron] Awesome, so, at the end of every episode, we end in prayer. So if you guys wanna join me in prayer? [Isaac] Yeah. [Aaron] Dear Lord, we pray would be husbands and wives who dream together. We pray the dreams and the goals that we consider are ones that you put in our hearts. We desire to be used by you to fulfill your purposes. We wanna build your kingdom and not our own. And we remember to submit our plans to you always. There are things that we dream up that need to wait or need to be pushed aside, please help us to be humble. Help us to let go of any pride so that we don't pursue what of we want but instead only what you want. May we experience intimacy in marriage as we intentionally consider all that you have for us. We also pray we would have fun as we do this as a team for your glory. In Jesus name. [All] Amen. [Aaron] So, we just wanna thank everyone for listening. This has been part 13 in this 16 part series. There's a couple more, there's a few more awesome interviews coming up. So, I hope have you guys next week. Thank you for joining us. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at Marriage After God calm and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary an marriage.

Join the Marriage After God movement and order a copy of our new book today. https://marriageaftergod.com Quote From the book: “...what we see as inadequate, God sees as enough.” Prayer *Dear Lord, We thank You for the way you created us and we thank you for your rich provision. Thank you for equipping us for the work you have for us to do. May our eyes be opened so that we can see all of the wonderful ways you have equipped us. Use us to encourage our spouse in the ways you have equipped them as well. We ask that you use every one of our marriage to bring you glory and to spread your gospel. We pray against fear and against the temptation to bury the gifts you have given to us. We ask that you remove our insecurities far from our hearts and help us to trust in you. We pray that we would walk in confidence as we chase boldly after you and as we pursue doing the very things you created us and created our marriages to do! In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage after God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're in part 11 of the Marriage after God series, and we're going to be talking with Katie and Elisha Voetberg about taking inventory. Welcome to the Marriage after God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through vlogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage after God. So today's guests are Elisha and Katie Voetberg from the podcast Now That We're Family. [Aaron] So before we get to the interview with Katie and Elisha Voetberg, we would love to ask anyone that's listening if they have not already to leave a review for us. That helps other people find the podcast. It helps the rankings in iTunes. So if you have a moment, leave us a star rating, leave us a text review. We'd love to see that. [Jennifer] We also wanna invite you guys to check out our new book Marriage after God, which is available at our store. So just go to shop.marriageaftergod.com to check that out and get your copy today. [Aaron] Yeah, that's the whole point of this series, is we're promoting our book coming out on June fourth, and we would love for you to get a copy of it. But following in the series, we're almost done with it, and we're excited to have you. Okay, Katie, Elisha, friends of ours. [Jennifer] Thank you for being here. [Elisha] No, thank you! [Katie] We're so stoked to be here today. [Aaron] We're here in our garage. Usually we record in our office, so there might be a little bit more echo, but this fits all of us. It's this fun little setup we got, I love it. [Jennifer] And it's in person. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So I feel like it's just fun all around. [Aaron] So thanks for joining us, and no one is probably gonna know you, so why don't you guys tell everyone who you are, how long you've been married, kids, stuff like that. [Elisha] Right on, yeah. So my name is Elisha Peter Voetberg, and this is my lovely wife Kathryn Joy Voetberg, and we've been married for three years now, and we're pregnant with our third child. [Jennifer] Woohoo! [Elisha] So we've got a two-year-old. Yeah, we're really pumped. We've got our two-year-old, Leon Tucker, and our daughter Lucy's just about a year, and then we've got our third baby on the way. And we love being a part of fellowship with you guys, doing fellowship. [Aaron] Oh, I forgot to mention we go to church with them. [Elisha] Yeah, that's right. That's a huge highlight for us. And we're just really excited about life with each other and seeing what God can do through the family unit and through marriage. [Aaron] Cool, and that's why you guys started your podcast, was you loved what God was doing in your marriage and in your family, and we'll get into some more of your guys' background in a little bit. But yeah, if you haven't checked out their podcast, it's Now That We Are Family, and you can just search for that on iTunes or anywhere you can get podcasts, actually, so. [Jennifer] Awesome, okay, moving right along. [Aaron] This is our fun little section. We love this part. [Jennifer] Yeah, we wanted to invite you guys to join us for the icebreaker question, which is, what is one of your funniest marriage moments? [Elisha] Funniest, Katie? [Aaron] Katie has one, and she's prepared. [Katie] I am prepared. No, well, I would have to say one of our funniest marriage moments is probably the most ironic marriage moment, 'cause it was actually a fight. [Elisha] That's true. [Katie] But people think it's funny. [Elisha] It's funny now, right? [Katie] Yeah, exactly. [Aaron] Not in the moment, but it is absolutely funny now for everyone else. [Katie] Exactly, so it happened at our honeymoon, and I think it was the first wake-up call Elisha had to who he had married. [Aaron] Oh, no. [Elisha] Yeah, so yeah, I guess I'll tell the story. Katie and I, you're gonna hear more about our families, but we were both brought up in big families, and Katie's family was extremely strict when it came to sugar intake. And my family definitely was health-conscientious, but certainly not as strict regarding sugar as Katie's family was. [Katie] Nowhere close. [Elisha] Nowhere close. [Aaron] Yeah. And I think it was day four of our honeymoon, and I viewed our honeymoon as being a time that was celebratory, and you can kinda splurge. [Aaron] Yeah, which means it doesn't matter what you eat. [Elisha] It doesn't matter what you eat. [Aaron] You can have as much as you want. [Elisha] Exactly, that's how I was viewing it. And so, it was the evening of our fourth night, I think, the fourth day in our honeymoon, and we decided to get a little treat for a movie that we were gonna watch. And so, I got a pack of Skittles, just like the normal size. It wasn't the super size, it wasn't the party size. It was just the normal serving size of Skittles. And Katie didn't want anything, and that really blew my mind. I was like, you're not gonna get a treat? She goes, no. She was like, I'll have some of yours, which is classic, right? [Jennifer] Yeah, you're like, no you're not. [Elisha] Classic, yeah, exactly. And so, we started watching the movie, and I had a few Skittles, and then Katie took three Skittles and she told me that that was gonna be enough for her. [Katie] No, I had, okay, yeah. Okay, I guess, but this is a classic like, let me help you tell the story, honey. But I ended up eating 11 Skittles. [Aaron] She remembers the exact number. [Katie] Which was splurging for me. And Elisha was like, you're counting your Skittles? But then I took the Skittles away from him. [Elisha] Yeah, after I had eaten maybe 20 or 25 Skittles. [Katie] That's a lot of Skittles. [Elisha] Yeah. [Katie] Up until this point, I'd maybe had like one. Anyways, like, my family, I'm one of 11 kids, and we would split a bag of Skittles and make it last for two or three days. [Aaron] Wow, that's incredible, actually. [Katie] Anyways, yeah, so it led to kind of a crazy fight, and since then, I realize that I am the one that most people don't agree with on this story. [Aaron] Yeah, Skittles are usually a single-event, single-instance candy. [Elisha] Yeah, that's how I viewed it, exactly. She wanted to save it. [Aaron] It's one serving, isn't it, like, the whole bag? [Elisha] Exactly, I thought it was one serving too. [Katie] I wouldn't believe it, and we had to read the back. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] That is funny now, for sure. [Elisha] It's funny now. Well, you know what's funny is that we're laughing about it, but she was dead serious at the moment. She grabbed the bag from me. [Katie] I hid 'em. [Elisha] Yeah, and I thought she was being playful and kind of flirtatious. I was like, oh, come on, give me the Skittles back. She's like, no, we'll finish 'em later, like we can have 'em tomorrow or the next day. I was like, are you kidding me? I want them now. [Aaron] I wonder how many people are gonna really relate to this. They're like, this is exactly how we are with Skittles. [Jennifer] That's so awesome. [Aaron] We both would get our own bags of Skittles. [Jennifer] For sure. [Aaron] And our own bag of, what else would we get? [Jennifer] And remind each other that we're not sharing. [Aaron] Please don't have any of mine. Get your own bag if you want some. [Elisha] I don't think Katie can view you the same way anymore, now that she knows that. [Jennifer] That's okay. Okay, so we're gonna, we always share a quote, and we're gonna share a quote from Marriage after God from chapter 11, Take Inventory. Aaron, do you wanna? [Aaron] Yeah, so what we see as inadequate, God sees as enough. It's a smaller part of a bigger quote in a bigger context, but the idea is that oftentimes, we might see things that we have in our life, abilities, skills, and they're not good enough for God or adequate for what God wants to do in our life or through our life. And so we think we need something else. Oh, I don't have what it takes, that kind of mentality, but it's exactly what God's already given us, and he requires and desires us to invest it as we have it. It doesn't mean that we don't get better at things, but that's kind of the context of this, and we're gonna talk about this idea of taking inventory and we're gonna ask the questions to you guys, 'cause you guys haven't read the book yet, which is totally fine. [Elisha] Right. [Aaron] Because I think we all can learn and start to understand in our life that God's given us things, and he desires us to invest them, and not because we're trying to commend ourselves to God, but he wants us to invest them for his sake, for our sake, and it's because we love him that we invest them. So that's the quote, and then we can get into the topic and some questions for you guys. [Elisha] Cool. [Aaron] Are you guys excited about the questions? [Elisha] I am excited. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] Okay, you guys are a young family figuring out what God has for you as a couple. How has that journey been so far? So you can describe things like how you feel about it, highs and lows, or maybe a significant story that stands out to you? [Katie] Yeah, so I think there have been a lot of highs and lows in our three years of marriage, and I think our first month of marriage was kind of indicative to that. Elisha was making I think $1800 at the time working at a restaurant, and our rent was 1150. So I don't even know how we quite managed to make it all work that month. We were doing a ton of odd jobs, and we started three different businesses our first month of marriage, and got pregnant. [Aaron] A little bit of things. [Katie] Yeah, like all of those moving parts I think really affected the last few years, but I think it's been so cool to see how God has worked to make all those things work together, even though there was such a random smattering of things over the years. And I think we've had so much fun, even though we didn't always see the plan, and I think what's cool now is that we trust the process so much more, and we trust each other so much more. We trust God. There were so many things through starting those businesses. Like, well, one of 'em provides for us now. It's a network marketing company, and I think it really has not only provided for us now, but it allows us to pursue our passions, and it helped give us thicker skin to handle rejection and stuff like that. So there were a lot of ups and downs just in that, you know, when you start one business. Elisha was getting his real estate license, so that was new for us, being employed, and then being unemployed it feels like when you don't have a deal. But I just think it's really cool that now, when we're uncertain of today or what tomorrow holds, 'cause I feel like as entrepreneurs, that is life. We just trust each other so much more, and we're like, you know God's gonna work these things together, and we see how he's using those things we started in our first few months of marriage now. [Jennifer] I think that's so encouraging, what you're sharing, because I think everybody has that tendency to wanna know what the next hundred steps are, like, see that bigger picture right away. But I think what you're saying is so encouraging to hear, to remind ourselves we have to just be able to trust God and trust our spouse with just that next step. [Elisha] Mmhmm. [Aaron] Yeah, Elisha, how do you, so, you guys have started businesses, making barely ends meet, which all of us have been there. Some people that are listening right now are probably right there right now. And you're just trying to figure out life. You guys have been married for three years, you have kids. You're just trying to figure out a lot of things, which is totally good, totally normal. But has there been times over the last few years that you feel like you're not moving in any direction, or how could God possibly use all these random difficulties and where we're at in our life? [Elisha] Absolutely. I know there's been numerous times where I've had those exact thoughts probably verbatim in my brain, and even looking back in retrospect over three years, and even though that's not a lot of time to some people, it's enough time for us to really realize that God does work all things together for good. There are some things that I know he's gonna continue to work out over the next 10 and 20 and 30 years of our life. But when you live, early on, month to month when it comes to your paycheck, and then you get pregnant in the middle of that, and then you get pregnant with your second child when you're kind of in the same position, it really makes you realize that the Lord does provide, and I think that that has helped me really embrace the season for what it is. I know that so often, everybody wants to arrive, right? You wanna be there, whatever there is. [Aaron] Yeah, whatever that there is. [Elisha] Whatever that is. [Aaron] How do we get there faster? [Elisha] Exactly. It might be a level of your income. It might be the size of your home or the quality of your vehicles that you're driving, but looking back over these last three years and seeing what the Lord's done, it's made us enjoy the journey and enjoy the process and trust the Lord in that. And when I look at those times where I was questioning what the heck I was doing with my life and what the Lord was gonna use with these things that I was doing, I look back, and so far, he's been so faithful to, in spite of me, a lot of times, use them for his purpose and for his glory. [Aaron] Yeah, so, I love that, and you know, this topic we're talking about, take inventory, is off chapter 11 of our book, and the idea of the chapter, we're not gonna go into too much of it, is that we can look at our lives and realize that there are, not certain things, that everything in our life, the inventory of our life, can be evaluated and looked at and say, okay, Lord, how are you using that season of life, that idea, that business that we wanted to start or that passion we have or that pain we felt? And so, what you're kinda saying is you've been looking back and saying, okay, I didn't know what I was doing then, but God's using that now. [Elisha] Yes. [Aaron] So when you look back over the last few years, and we're gonna get into your family in the next question, you look back over your life, taking this idea of inventory, can you guys pinpoint, be like, oh, wow, these things in our life, this way we were raised, certain giftings we have, talents, that's our inventory, that's what's on the shelf for us. Can you name a few of those things, and then we're gonna go into family next. [Elisha] Sure, yeah. We'll stick with our marriage so far, 'cause we haven't gotten into Katie and I's growing up experience, but I look at the businesses that we started in that first month, or even the job that I was doing. I was a bartender at the time, and obviously, you're dealing with people. You're dealing with all sorts of people as a bartender, and it's so easy for me to look at that season of life as being, man, I was just there to get tips and to go home and to pay rent. [Aaron] Right, meaningless waste of time, yeah. [Elisha] Exactly. [Aaron] However you feel about it. [Elisha] Yeah, exactly. And of course, I was interacting with eternal beings every day, whether that was my coworkers or my boss and my managers, and then, of course, the patrons that were coming and consuming alcohol, or buying food at the restaurant. And so I look back and I think, man, the Lord was preparing me just to have empathy and sympathy for all types of people. And then I think of the businesses that we started in that first month, and it was funny, 'cause we really acquired a lot of skillsets because we were kind of hacks when it came to, one of those businesses was an online music academy because I'm a musician, and I wanted to be able to offer my music lessons in an online format, and neither Katie or I were video people or really recording-type people. [Aaron] Yeah, but you guys did a good job. I remember you guys, it's still up, right? [Elisha] It is still up. [Katie] It is still up, yeah. [Elisha] It's effective, and people still use it. But we just figured it out. We just decided to dive in and go for it, and that was good for me to get over my pride and to let go of that perfectionism mindset that so often keeps us from taking any action. [Katie] And I think too it was good for us because, like, I remember when we first got married and you were a little more focused on your image then, and I was kind of like, I don't know, I was kind of a hack. I think I made you a little nervous, the way I threw around my image. [Elisha] Let's just do it, let's just do it. [Katie] Yeah, I was like, let's just do it, put it up. And I remember the first time I showed you a video that I was gonna post on Facebook. It was just a little parody I made, and Elisha's like, you cannot post that. Like, there is no way. [Elisha] That's funny. [Aaron] You're like, it's going up. [Katie] Yeah. Well, through Voetberg Music Academy, we ended up doing a lot of those little commercials or little parody videos together, and I think that that really, I mean, we use that now. [Elisha] Yep, absolutely. [Katie] And it just really helped us swallow our pride I think and just go for things. [Jennifer] Explain that a little bit more when you say we use that now. [Katie] Well, we use that now on YouTube is probably one of the biggest ways that we use that in just family vlogging now that we're a family on YouTube as well. And I think that that is kind of what spawned the podcast, because if we hadn't gotten enough confidence to just document our lives, I don't think we would have ever taken that next step to podcasting. [Aaron] That's good. So right now, what you're currently doing for the Lord, for your family, you can reach back into the inventory of those experiences and the inventory of those challenges, the trials and errors, and use that now and feel more confident in moving forward and, like you said, you wouldn't have been able to do it now if you didn't try it then or have those experiences. That's awesome. [Jennifer] That is so cool. Okay, so we touched on that we were gonna get into your families a little bit. Katie, you mentioned that you're from a big family, so how do you guys see the unique ways that you were raised or maybe family type being used for what God has you doing today? [Elisha] Yeah, so I was one of 10 children, all from the same mommy and daddy, and my parents are still married. They stayed married throughout our entire childhood, and they're in a great marriage. [Aaron] Which is rare these days. [Elisha] Yeah, and Katie is the oldest of 11 children, where it's same mommy and daddy for all the kiddos, and they're in a vibrant marriage right now. And so we were both homeschooled and brought up just with very Bible-centered homes. We read the Bible every single day as a family at the breakfast table, and sometimes at the dinner table, and I think that when I look at my history, not only was it an extremely enjoyable and relationship-rich time that I loved with my siblings and with my parents, and I know Katie feels the same way. [Katie] Yes. [Elisha] About her childhood, where we both just look back at them with really fond memories. I see that because my parents and Katie's parents, but I'll speak for myself right now, Because my parents become comfortable being unconventional and being counter-cultural, I grew up with this mindset that there are so many blessings in being different than the world. [Aaron] I like that. [Elisha] And I think my parents were the ones that were convicted by the Lord, and obviously, I was just along for the ride as a child and I was following in their leading, but they really exemplified to me that yes, a lot of times, initially, making those decisions to have many children or for the mom to stay home and be with the children and homeschool them or to take 'em out of the public and homeschool them, they can be challenging up front, and they can be challenging even for an extended amount of time. But the payoff is so worth it. So I think that growing up with a big family, in a big family and with parents that really trusted the Lord with their finances, with how many children they're going to have, it made me realize that I've adopted a lot of these mindsets not even knowing it. And so when I hear people that are my age say, well, we couldn't afford to have children now, I just think to myself, well, yeah you could. Where's that coming from? And I think that statements like that are so commonly accepted in our culture and in the world and they're never challenged, and I just don't believe that. I believe that you could probably find a way to afford to have children. I think that you can find a way to afford for the mother to stay home and not go to work and to even homeschool her children. And I think you can find a way to have a romantic and fun and flirtatious marriage, even while you have a bunch of kids, because I saw it exemplified to me. [Aaron] Yeah, that's the magic right there. [Elisha] Yeah, and so I'm not saying that I know how to do it; I just believe it can be done, and I think that Katie feels similarly. [Katie] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think sometimes, there is this mindset of, we have to do things how everyone else does them, and I think the way we grew up, like, I had some of the best years of my life living in a tent and a trailer, you know? Like, we did that for two years so my parents could save up a down payment for their house, and they had six kids at the time, but those are some of the best memories of my childhood. And I think sometimes, we have this misconceived perception that, oh, we need to earn this amount of money or we need to take our kids to Disneyland or we need to be able to provide these things for our kids, and I just don't have that perspective at all. Because of the way I was raised, I just have incredible relationships with my parents, and I have such amazing memories of growing up in unique situations. I guess my experience helps dispel some of those societal norms. [Aaron] Yeah. So you, you have a lot of resources at your fingertips from the way you were raised, the versatility, the flexibility to make decisions that might be, hey, if we slow down here, we can speed up over here, or if we lessen what we're spending money on over here, we can have money to do something over here. You have those things at your fingertips to use now because of how, and you didn't even get to choose it. [Elisha and Katie] Exactly. [Aaron] Right? 'Cause that's kind of some of the things that we like to point out and we want our listeners to know, fortunately your family stories are powerful and just relationally rich, and then some people listening are gonna be like, well, I didn't have a family like that. My family wasn't that great. I didn't have strong Christian parents. But our point in this idea of taking inventory is that your story and your family doesn't give you something extra. It's what God has given you. And my family story's different, similar in some ways, but different. Jennifer's family story's different. And we we don't have your story to use in what God has for us to do ministry in, right? [Elisha] That's right. [Aaron] We use our story, the inventory that we have that God's given us. And so, that's kind of what's awesome about taking inventory of our lives, is our listeners can take inventory and be like, and I wanna encourage them that are listening not to throw out their story 'cause it's not your story. [Elisha] That's right, absolutely. [Aaron] Because they do have inventory, and God wants us to look at what we have and what he's given us and say, here you go, Lord. [Elisha] That's right. [Aaron] So here's my family and how I was raised, the good things and the bad things that happened to me as a child that I had no choice in, and how do you want me to use this for you, Lord? How do you want me to invest this? How do you wanna redeem this in my life? How do you wanna turn it into something for you, not for me, not for my sake. And so, maybe that gives someone listening right now peace and actually some courage in their own inventory. [Jennifer] Yeah, and something I wanna highlight is just that how cool that God would have you guys here on the show and be able to share your story, 'cause I think it will be an encouragement to someone. 'Cause like you said, there's other ways of living that have been expressed and accepted in our culture, and your story's different, and the fact that you're here and you're sharing and whoever's listening could be encouraged by this, I love that. [Aaron] Yeah, that story by itself right now, whether it has any other implications in your life, could potentially minister to someone today, which is amazing, right? [Katie] Incredible. [Aaron] And that's just one small way that God uses what we are, what we have that he's given to us, is just by saying yes to him, which is a theme that we mention throughout our whole book, is saying yes to God. [Jennifer] Okay, so when we say yes to God, sometimes insecurities flare up, fears, things like that. So what are some of your biggest insecurities when it comes to using your gifts and talents for God? [Elisha] You know, it's funny, 'cause I think that, even piggybacking on talking about our family, our unique story and our unique experiences can often be debilitating to us, and we can oftentimes find ourselves experiencing paralysis by analysis because we feel like we're from such a unique perspective, we can't relate with people. How are we gonna be able to connect and really encourage and exhort, whether that's fellow believers or minister to people that are not saved, and oftentimes, I mean, you can look at that from two ways. One, I feel extremely strong in my faith because of what my parents have done before me, but it also makes me realize it's not about me. It's not about Katie. It's about Jesus Christ. And I think of, is it II Peter chapter one, I think it's verses three and four that whereby are given unto you all things. [Aaron] That pertain to life and godliness, yeah. [Elisha] That pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who's called you to glory and virtue. And that's not the prerequisite. The prerequisite for that is not coming from a Christian family. The prerequisite for that's not coming from the fourth generation or fifth generation of Bible-believing Christians; it's being in Christ. [Aaron] It's being in Christ. [Katie] That's good. [Elisha] It's being a new creation in Christ. But the cool thing about that is that legacy is a real thing, and you have the ability in Christ to start a new legacy. We were just at my grandfather's funeral a week and a half ago, and it was really powerful to be there with his six children and then 42 grandchildren. [Aaron] Wow, that's incredible. [Elisha] And this is my mother's father, and to hear his story of being orphaned at 12 years old, heavily abused, on the street starving, an alcoholic father who ended up being a felon, never knowing his mother and never knowing the love of Christ in his home and making a decision to follow the Lord at 16 years of age, and the legacy that's come from that. [Katie] It's incredible, and we get to benefit from that. [Jennifer] That's powerful, wow. [Elisha] Absolutely, yeah, really is powerful. [Aaron] Wow, love that. [Elisha] And so, to get back to your question, insecurities, I think it's so easy to feel inadequate, 'cause of course, apart from Christ, we are inadequate, but that's not where we're at anymore. So you need to accept the reality that hey, we're in Christ, we are a new creation in Christ, and we do have all things pertaining to life and godliness, and therefore, we are equipped. And so I think our youth can play a factor in that, not feeling old enough. [Katie] I definitely think that plays in too. You feel like, well, I don't have enough experience, you know, life experience. [Aaron] I know, you're not allowed to have a podcast about family yet until you've had a family for a super long time, right? [Katie] Exactly, exactly. [Elisha] Exactly, that's right. [Katie] So I think we do wanna be thoughtful in that and share what we're experiencing more and what we're learning in the moment versus teaching, 'cause obviously, our oldest is two, you know what I'm saying? Elisha and I have been married for three years. [Aaron] Right, there's things you actually don't know, and that's fine. [Katie] Yes. So I think we want to be wise and cautious in that, but that doesn't mean that we can't encourage someone who's in a similar situation. [Elisha] Yeah, and I think that even though there's so much that we have yet to learn and that we need to learn as life goes on, I know that Katie and I are really excited about family, and we're excited about growth, and I think that regardless of what stage of life you're in, if you're in Christ Jesus, you can be excited about the future. [Aaron] Ooh, I like that. [Elisha] I know that's where we're at right now. [Aaron] So that sounds very similar to ours. When we launched Unveiled Wife and then Husband Revolution, how long were we married? Five years? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And people even asked us, how long have you been married, like, older people, which rightfully so asking us, but I always tell people, we're not marriage experts. We've never proclaimed to be marriage experts. That would have been wrong of us to do. We're marriage storytellers. [Jennifer] Yeah, storytellers. We're sharing our experience. [Aaron] How are we failing, what's God teaching us, and again, going back to our book, one of the themes is like what you said, it's not us. It's not my experiences that is changing anyone's hearts or that has any value, other than Christ using it. And it's his story. It's his vocation, it's his ministry, not ours. It's his message, not ours. And so, as long as we're going back to the very thing that's changing us and transforming us, like, the gospel's the power of God unto salvation, right? The gospel and Christ in us through the Holy Spirit, that's what we're doing in this world. So we've had the same exact inadequacies and fears almost every time we launch anything. Launching this podcast, we were like, we don't know how to do podcasts. So I hope that encourages people listening to realize, wow, if God's calling me out, and not if, he is calling me out and wants me to follow him and wants me to use my life and the inventory of my life for his glory, they should be encouraged to know that even if they feel doubt and fear, that it's not them anyway. It's Christ doing it. [Katie] Exactly. [Elisha] Amen. [Jennifer] I think it's important to note we have a real enemy who does not like us using the gift and things that God's given us to glorify God. [Aaron] No way, yeah. [Jennifer] And so there's gonna be opposition to that, and I think our flesh is sensitive to that. So sometimes it does come in the form of insecurities or fears and things that we're afraid of, but it's just temptation from the enemy to try and distract us. [Katie] That's a great perspective. [Aaron] Yeah, but I love that you guys use wisdom and thoughtfulness. I don't think we should test God and run into the middle of the street and say, save me! [Katie] Definitely not. [Aaron] We need to present, again, going back to the taking inventory, we don't just say like, oh, I'm gonna use this thing in my life this way. No, we say, okay, Lord, here's what I have. This is what you've given me, this abuse as a child, your grandpa story, or my godly upbringing, or this schooling I went to. Whatever it is, these gifts, these natural abilities that you've given me, here you go. What do you want? How do you wanna arrange this and turn it into a clay pot or a basketball hoop or whatever it is that he wants to mold it into. [Jennifer] It's in humility and submission to his will and his purposes, which leads me to the next question. I'd love for you guys to share on this. What's the purpose of all the gifts and things that he gives to you, or to us? What is the purpose? [Elisha] Yeah, I think big picture answer is it's for God's glory and for the furtherance of the gospel. [Aaron] Yeah, we talked about this on Sunday, didn't we? [Elisha] We did, that's right, a few days ago. And the way that plays out practically with each couple I think is obviously gonna look different, 'cause there are so many different skillsets and passions. And it's fun when you accept that big picture of, man, this is for God's purpose. It's for his glory. It's for the furtherance of his kingdom. Then it almost makes it like a fun game to figure out what your skillsets are and how you can be a part of the puzzle and the pie, realizing, wait, it's not about me. I don't have to get all the credit. [Aaron] Yes, yes. [Elisha] In fact, I shouldn't get all the credit. Like, how can I fit into the strategy that God has? And I think obviously, Katie and I are in the journey of figuring that out, and something that we both talk a lot about is being aware of the desires that are on our heart, and the Lord I think oftentimes places those on your heart, and then also being open to counsel. And you can speak to this, Katie, but I think that we've gone back and forth of caring too much about what people think of us, whether that's close friends and relatives, or even people that we don't know personally, but they have their opinion online of us and we'll let that influence the action we're taking. But then you can swing the pendulum and say, well, forget what people think. I'm just gonna do what I wanna do. And there's obviously, the Bible talks about there being safety in the counsel of many. And so I think finding this place where you say, man, the Lord's put something on my heart. I wanna have a community of counsel that I can go to and be humble before, knowing that they can totally see blind spots in my life, but then also realizing I don't wanna make decisions based off of the fear of man or what somebody might say to me. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] So good, and I find so much encouragement in several things that you guys have already shared throughout this episode, things like have fun along the way, enjoy the journey, and I love that, and I just wanted to take note for everyone listening, and for everyone who's gonna read the book Marriage after God, because sometimes, we just tell it like it is and encourage them to do. But I want them to hear this. It is a journey to be enjoyed, and it is something to have fun with yourselves when you're figuring it out. And so I just wanted to make a note, I love that you said that. [Aaron] And the highlight in your story, just all the unique variables, we call it inventory, that God has equipped you guys with to do the unique thing that he's having you do, whatever that looks like. It could be a business. It could be just you working nine-to-five jobs, you just being a mom, but how you guys work together with your gifts and talents, we don't know, but you guys are trying things and chasing after what God wants for you and saying, okay, Lord, okay, that's not it? Okay, cool, and we'll take the experience from that. We're gonna use it for the thing that you do want us to do, and that it's this organic thing. 'Cause God knows the complete picture. [Elisha] That's right. [Katie] He does, yes. [Aaron] It says many plans are in the man's heart, but it's the Lord that directs the steps. So we have these plans, we have these ideas, and we say, if the Lord wills it, and then we take a step, and you say, okay, that's the right step. Oh, no, that's the wrong step. Let's go to this step, let's do this way, and we let him direct us. And what's awesome is along the way, whether you have reached that goal, whatever that thing is, like you said, we always have this picture of what it might be, and we actually don't even know what it might be. We just think, it's usually probably compared to someone else's thing. [Katie] Probably. [Elisha] That's usually what it is. [Aaron] But like even right now, just by you saying yes to him in all of these decisions, you're saying yes to him, and you begin to see him not only change you guys, make you guys more in love, stronger in your marriage, better parents, better brothers and sisters in Christ, but then also, you get used to grow the kingdom, just along the way. Whether you ever achieve that position or ministry or goal or whatever it looks like, it's happening along the way because you're saying yes to God, and I think that's amazing. [Elisha] Yep. [Aaron] So, do you feel like God is currently inviting you two to do anything specific, like, as you guys have been navigating with all these gifts and talents and resources? [Katie] Yeah, well, I think that it's, like we mentioned, it has been a journey. I think it's so cool to see how the Lord has had us work together in little ways right off the bat, because there is no way we'd be able to even do the projects we're working on now if we hadn't taken those little steps, and I think of with Voetberg Music Academy, where I started recording a live show and we started getting into video, but I was so insecure talking in front of a camera in front of Elisha. I wasn't insecure about the camera. [Aaron] Elisha, turn around please. [Katie] Yes! [Elisha] Exactly, she would tell me to leave. [Katie] He'd have to leave. I had a crush on Elisha since I was eight years old, and I tried my entire life to impress him. [Aaron] Oh, that's awesome. And now he's standing there in front of you. [Katie] So then after we got married, I was like, I can't do this, and he was so good at it, and he was so good at communicating that, I don't know, there was just no way we were going to ever be able to talk to a camera together. And I think it was so cool, because I started my own YouTube now that I'm a mother before we did anything online, and it was cool how that just built my confidence, and that was a little step. It was just a hobby and a fun thing, but I do think the Lord was using it to build my confidence for us to be able to start doing video together and starting the vlog, and then starting, and I think it also gave you confidence too. [Elisha] Yes. [Katie] In the flip side, to see me just putting my life out there and people being encouraged by it, and that gave you the urge I think to have us jump into that together. [Elisha] Absolutely. [Katie] Which again led to the podcast, and I do think even though we are young and we are really newly married and a new family, we do have a desire to encourage family and encourage biblical rules and encourage seeking out what God's word says about family in a culture that is so starkly opposed to just the biblical worldview. And so, I think that's our goal, and that might look different throughout the years. The mediums we use to communicate might look different, but I think for both of us, that's what God has placed on our heart, to just encourage young families in our stage of life and newly married couples. [Aaron] Yeah. So I just wanna encourage you guys, 'cause I know you both, we go to church together, we know most of your families. Whether you have direct experience with being parents of large families and have been doing for ages, or you have a two-year-old, right? [Elisha] Yeah, that's right. [Aaron] You have more experience in this than many people, because I grew up in a family of two. You grew up in a larger family, but not the way you guys did. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And whether or not you are directly experiencing it, which you are, just with a much smaller size right now, you were drawing from that inventory of how you were raised and the experience that no one has had, rarely, 10 children, 11 children, parents that stayed together that not just stayed together but love each other, 'cause that's a big thing. [Jennifer] Yeah, there's parents that stick it out. [Aaron] Lots of people, they stayed together, but it wasn't very joyful, right? [Elisha] Right, right. [Aaron] And so that's what's awesome, is whether or not you feel completely qualified, you're more qualified than me to talk about it, just by the experience you had, now, as long as we stay humble and we submit to the Lord and say we're gonna do it your way, 'cause it's his story. So I just wanted to encourage you guys that. I think that's awesome you're starting. I think we need more people, more believers. That's the whole purpose of this book, is to say yes to God and say, God, here's what you've given me. How do you wanna use it? [Elisha] Yes, amen. [Jennifer] Okay, guys, this is the last question, and it's in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Elisha] In our own words, what is a marriage after God? [Katie] Okay, you go first. [Elisha] This isn't fair, 'cause we haven't read the book yet, guys. [Aaron] This is exactly why we're asking. [Elisha] I see. You know, God invented marriage, so I really do think that he gets to choose what the purpose of marriage is, what marriage is, what the end goal is, and something that Katie and I have really been contemplating over the last few months is that when you are joined in holy matrimony, you don't then start to try to become one; he makes you one. And so therefore, you start to act like one. And I think that so often, and this carries over into our faith. We think that when you are made new in Christ, from the day you're saved, you're a son of God. [Aaron] Oh, I love that, yeah. [Elisha] You are free from sin. You're able to live as a son of God. That doesn't mean that you don't need to learn some things, but you're learning to act how he's made you to be. I think it's the same thing with marriage. Oftentimes, we think, man, we need to become one, when in reality, you are one. He says, when two are joined together, they should no longer be called two, but they should be called one. And I think that once we've started to realize that more and more, we've realized that when I make decisions that aren't to the unity of our marriage, it hurts Katie, and similarly, if it's a negative decision, and if Katie makes a negative decision, it hurts me, whether you want it to or not. And I think that once we've started to have our minds transformed, you know, our minds are being transformed because we're renewing them and starting to believe what God says about who we are as Christians and then who we are as a married couple, we start to walk that out, we start to be one. And so once again, that's just one area that God has spoken to about marriage, saying hey, you are one. There's no more two, there's no more Elisha and Katie. You are one. I don't care how you feel. I don't care how she thinks or you think, you are one. So you better start learning how to act like it. Otherwise, it's gonna be a pretty miserable journey. [Aaron] Ooh, I love that. That's awesome, yeah. So a marriage after God is one that recognizes they are one. [Elisha] That's right. [Aaron] Like, not becoming one, they are one. And so, I love that, because you're right. We're not becoming something. We are it the moment we said yes. [Jennifer] Let's live it out. [Aaron] Yeah, and so, either we're living it out or we're fighting against it. [Elisha] Yes. [Aaron] So that's awesome, amen. So, where can people find you at? What are some websites? [Jennifer] 'Cause we know people got encouraged today. They got inspired. They wanna know more about you. [Elisha] Sure, yeah, well, you already mentioned our podcast. It's Now That We're A Family, and then we've got our YouTube channel, which is also called nowthatwereafamily. [Katie] Yep. [Elisha] And Katie's on Instagram at @nowthatimamother. [Jennifer] And she's super active there. She does live videos and interviews people. [Aaron] And her photos are awesome. [Katie] Yes, I was able to interview Jenn. That was awesome. [Elisha] Yeah, that's right, exactly. [Katie] Yeah, and are you? [Elisha] I'm on Instagram. [Aaron] Yeah, is yours @nowthatimafather? [Elisha] @nowthatimafather. [Katie] @nowthatimafather, yeah. [Elisha] That's right. Yeah, so that's really where you can find us, and then our website's nowthatwereafamily.com. [Aaron] So we just wanna encourage our listeners to go follow them and check them out. They have large families, large, awesome, godly families. [Jennifer] And they're growing theirs. [Aaron] And they're throwing theirs, and God's using them. [Elisha] Right on. [Jennifer] Okay, well, at the end of every episode, we just encourage everyone to join us in prayer. So Aaron, would you like to close us out in prayer? [Aaron] Dear Lord, we thank you for the way you created us, and we thank you for your rich provision. Thank you for equipping us for the work you have for us to do. May our eyes be opened so we can see all the wonderful ways you have equipped us. Use us to encourage our spouse in the ways you have equipped them as well. We ask that you use every one of our marriages to bring you glory and to spread your gospel. We pray against fear and against the temptation to bury the gifts you have given to us. We ask that you remove our insecurities far from our hearts and help us to trust in you. We pray that we would walk in confidence as we chase boldly after you and as we pursue doing the very things you created us and created our marriages to do. In Jesus's name, amen. [Jennifer] Amen. [Elisha and Katie] Amen. [Aaron] So thanks for joining us today, Katie and Elisha Voetberg. We love you guys, and we thank you for your story and your testimony. [Elisha] Mm, thank you guys, seriously. Thank you for your ministry. [Katie] Yes. [Elisha] And, I mean, I don't know if you guys are gonna keep this on, but. [Aaron] Oh, yeah. [Elisha] But just as an example you guys have shown to us I've really been thinking about this the last couple of weeks, is your guys' consistency in your faith and in your marriage and in your child training. That's a huge blessing to me as a new father. [Aaron] Thank you. [Elisha] Then also just in being in consistent community, being in consistent fellowship with our local body here. I just know that you'll be there. I know that you're a phone all or a text away and that you will be there on Sunday, and I see you guys being so faithful in your Bible times as a family, and I just never want you guys to question not only the work that's taking place in your own family, but the encouragement that is to me as a believer and I'm sure just to the global body that watches that. [Katie] Yes, you've been such a blessing to our family. [Jennifer] Thank you for sharing that, that's awesome. [Aaron] Thank you, well, yeah, I appreciate that. [Elisha] Actually, I'm gonna say one more thing. Just 'cause I don't know how many people you're gonna have on your podcast that go to your local church, but being the father of a two-year-old boy, I've really started to think more and more about child training within the church service content. And we've been going to church for almost two and a half years now with you guys and seen how you guys have been able to really train your children to sit in church is so inspiring. [Katie] Oh my goodness, yeah. [Elisha] You guys, I know that most of you listeners probably are never gonna have an opportunity to sit in church with Aaron and Jen, but their kids are so well behaved. They sit on their laps, and the only reason that's so remarkable to me now is because I've got a two-year-old, and it feels like I'm in a jiu jitsu match throughout the entire church service with him. [Katie] Yeah, we're trying to take notes from Aaron and Jen. [Elisha] Yeah. [Aaron] Well, thank you. [Elisha] Yeah, no, it's true. [Aaron] Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that. [Jennifer] It is about consistency, I would say, just to encourage others out there. The children just, they're awesome and they're a blessing to us. [Aaron] And it takes lots of hard work, and lots of prayer, and lots of screaming in pillows. [Katie] There you go. [Aaron] So, hey, thank you, that was really encouraging. We love you guys, and all you listening, we love you, and we thank you for joining us, and we pray that you will continue on in this journey with us as we have a few more episodes in this series. We'll see you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

If you would like to support this podcast please consider picking up one of our marriage books. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com DESCRIPTION We think every married couple would agree that a little encouragement goes a long way! Marriage can be difficult and the enemy is good at convincing us that we should shrink back in our issues, isolate from one another, and try and get through it on our own strength. But we need to be reminded of who we are in this world, that we are loved, and that our marriage is valuable. We need to be reminded that our marriage has a great purpose for God's Kingdom. Every marriage needs this. That is why we are giving you 7 ways to encourage your married friends in this week's Marriage After God Podcast episode. We share a handful of ways you can be reminding your married friends that their marriage is worth fighting for, that they should be drawing close to God, and that they are being prayed for by you! As Christian husbands and wives, we should be encouraging other Christian husbands and wives, our dear friends, and the very people who are part of the same body, one body, Christ's body! Let's be the kind of friends that are loving, sacrificial, and willing to serve. Let's be light in people's lives. We hope this episode inspires you to reach out to your friends today, let them know they are not alone and that their marriage is valuable. The Lifegiving Table: Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time - by Sally Clarkson -> https://amzn.to/2Vn2xpS READ: [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna share seven ways to encourage your married friends. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, [Aaron] love, [Jennifer] and power [Aaron] that can only be found by chasing after God [Jennifer] together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us for the first episode of 2019. [Jennifer] Woo hoo! [Aaron] Yeah. And we just wanna invite you to leave a review. If you've been enjoying this podcast since last year and are just loving the content, if you wanna help get the word out, one of the best ways to do that is to leave a star rating, which is super easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the iTunes app, if you're listening on iTunes, and you hit a star rating, that's enough. And if you want to do more, you can actually leave a text review, and we read through those all. They're really encouraging and yeah. We'd just love to invite you to do that. [Jennifer] We'd also like you to know that one of the ways that this podcast is supported is through people like you shopping through our store. So if you would like to check out just the resources that we've created for you for your marriage to encourage you guys, go to shop.marriageaftergod.com. [Aaron] Okay, so let's start off with our icebreaker question. Jennifer, what is one thing you are passionate about? [Jennifer] Well, something I don't know if they know about me is I'm very passionate about art. I love all things art, but specifically painting and restoring furniture. So like, I just got an old desk for Olive and it was multicolored and had designs on it and-- [Aaron] It was unique, yeah. [Jennifer] It was very unique, very bold dark blue and green. But I just, I covered it all with some chalk paint and did this kind of antique finish on it. It turned out really great, went to Hobby Lobby, got some knobs for it, so just doing kind of creative things like that, I love jumping into projects like that. [Aaron] Yeah, and you're good at it, too. [Jennifer] Aw, thanks. [Aaron] You should actually post some pictures from old art projects you've done in the past, like the blue lady-- [Jennifer] Maybe I'll do that. [Aaron] And I'm thinking of the Jesus painting you did a while ago. You're actually really good at it. [Jennifer] Thanks. What about you? [Aaron] Yeah, something I'm passionate about, I'm actually passionate about, and this wasn't planned, but I'm passionate about helping people with their businesses. Maybe people don't know this about me, but I do a little bit of consulting here and there. I don't do it publicly necessarily, but like, lots of our friends I've helped with their businesses, with their websites, with the creative, the marketing, I actually really love it. [Jennifer] Yeah, you're good at that, too. I feel like you have just something unique about you where you could just seriously look at any kind of business project, any goal that someone has and go, oh yeah, this is what you should do to make it awesome. [Aaron] And sometimes it works. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, but that's what I'm passionate about. I like the one on one consulting-- [Jennifer] The going back and forth. [Aaron] The going back and forth, the brainstorming, the ideation. [Jennifer] Ideation, that's what you're good at. That's awesome. [Aaron] So that's what we're passionate about. There's a lot of things we're passionate about, but those are some specific ones that people might not know about us. Okay, so we have, before we get into the main topic, we have a quote from the book, The Lifegiving Table, by Sally Clarkson. [Jennifer] This is a really great book if you guys wanna jump into for, well the subtitle is Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time, and she talks a lot about just creating your family culture around the table and she gives ideas on how to do that. She even gives recipes in the book, but on page 219 she says this: "Having deep, meaningful relationships "is not just a pleasant addition to our lives, "but an element essential to our identities." [Aaron] That's good. And it's about what we're talking about today. [Jennifer] Yeah, so we're gonna be talking about friendships and specifically your friends who are married and engaging in community with them. [Aaron] And specifically on how your marriage can be an encouragement to those other marriages. Because a part of being a marriage after God is not that it's just about us and what we're doing in the world and God's using us for, but that we are walking with other Christians as the body of Christ, for his purposes, for what he's doing, and one of those things, man, the New Testament, I feel like almost everything that's said in the New Testament is about our relationship with one another. You know, especially the Book of Ephesians, which is the relationship book, it's about our relationship with God, our relationship with each other as husband and wife, with our children. And so God loves relationships. [Jennifer] Yeah, he does. [Aaron] He came because of relationships. He died for relationship. [Jennifer] And Sally actually mentions just before that quote that I just read, she mentions how God created us in His image, and if He's a relational being then we are as well. [Aaron] Yeah, and that's exactly what we are, and I feel like one of the things the enemy does is makes us wanna be alone, wants to get us away from community with other believers, makes us feel like we're the only ones who think the way we think, or every time I get close to people, I get hurt. Which is funny, 'cause that's exactly how relationships work, they're sticky. [Jennifer] They're messy, yeah. [Aaron] They're messy. And you're probably not close enough to someone if you're not feeling hurt sometimes. Doesn't mean that we should be hurting each other, but it's just, it's natural for that to happen. But the enemy doesn't like it. He doesn't like us being connected with one another, closely tied together, 'cause we're stronger together. It's true in every aspect of life. You see it in the animal kingdom, you see it in the human kingdom, and when we're together, when we're unified, when we're one, when we're walking together, we strengthen each other, we're less prone to being attacked, we're less prone to falling, and when we do, we have someone to pick us up. Right? And so we're gonna talk a little bit about how your marriage, you listening right now, can encourage other marriages. [Jennifer] And it's so important 'cause I mean, when I think about some of the kingdom work, the things that God has us purposed to do, I think about evangelism and I think about telling, sharing the gospel with people who don't know Him. [Aaron] Yeah, the lost, yeah. [Jennifer] Right, the lost. But it's also so important to remember that even as Christians, we need to be reminded of these things, we need to be reminded of who God is in our life and how He's working and how He's moving in our life, and I think that's such a great thing about friendship is we can do that for each other. And that's why I'm really excited about this episode, 'cause we're gonna give you some kind of practical things and just encourage you to be those type of people in your relationships with your other married couple friends. [Aaron] Yeah, and if it wasn't for other marriages encouraging us, we would not be here today. [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] As in, we'd probably be divorced, but we had couples who loved us enough to dive into our messiness, to peer in, to say hard things to us, to encourage us, to be there late into the night. You know, we've talked about this in past episodes, you talk about it in your book, but just all the tears, all the laughter, all the late nights, all the food. There's all these things that were incorporated into our relationships and people loving on us and walking with us. [Jennifer] And we all need that. Like, even those listening, they're probably going well I need that. I just wanna encourage all of us to be the people that we need in our lives. [Aaron] That's a good one. We need to be the people. Yeah, we need to be the example, we need to. And you know what? Sometimes we don't feel like we can be that person, but we still should be. Because it's the times that you feel like you can't be it that you probably need to be it. [Jennifer] So this is really funny, it reminds me of growing up, my grandma used to say 'cause we'd all eat a bunch of food when we got to her house and then we'd all just wanna like, lay around on the couch and she'd go, 'kay it's time for a walk, 'cause that's the best time to take a walk, is when you feel like you don't-- [Aaron] You wanna go to bed. [Jennifer] Yeah, when you feel like you wanna go to bed or when you feel like you can't. [Aaron] And hasn't science like, proven that now? It's like, it helps with digestion to go for a walk after you eat? [Jennifer] I don't know, I just remember my grandma always saying it. [Aaron] Grandma knew things. Yeah, so-- [Jennifer] So here's our encouragement to you, to go take a walk. No. [Aaron] Yeah, go get some food, take a walk. No but, I feel like this is important to, 'cause we all have friends, but how many of us have friends that we know intimately, that they're more like family to us? And I think it needs to be happening more in the Church. If we realize that being a part of the body of Christ literally means that we are unified with other Christians, not just well yeah, I go to church with so-and-so and oh yeah, they're nice but they don't know anything about you and they're never in your life. And we can't do this with every single Christian, but we can do it with some. [Jennifer] Yeah, and those who are already closest to us. [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, so why don't we just get into the seven ways? [Jennifer] Let's do it. Okay, you wanna start with number one? [Aaron] Yeah. You mentioned a minute ago about the gospel and how in evangelism, preaching the gospel to the lost, but when I read the Bible, when I read the New Testament, it's all about reminding the believer of what the gospel says. It's pretty incredible if you think about it. Doesn't mean we shouldn't preach the gospel to the lost, that's what we preach the gospel for, is for salvation, that Jesus would be preached and that people would turn their hearts to him and that they would join the body of Christ. But those that are in the body of Christ, I believe we need to be preaching the gospel to each other more often, not just assuming like, oh everyone, yeah, we're saved, we got the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. It's the thing that changes us, and many of the hard things that we walk through in life and like, our sins and things that we might have a hard time escaping, is because we haven't, either we've forgotten the gospel or we haven't truly understood it. Because the gospel is the thing that saves us, it's the thing that transforms us, it's the thing that makes us be like Christ. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Yeah, so I wanna read this scripture, it's Romans 1:16. Paul says this, he says, "For I am not "ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God, "for salvation to everyone who believes, "to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And so in encouraging our friends, I think one of the most powerful things we can do is constantly be reminding them of the gospel, that we were once sinners lost in our sin, deserving the wrath of God because he's a just God, but because God loved us so much, John 3:16, he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish under the wrath that we deserve. Jesus took the wrath we deserved, and if we believe in him and we follow him, we actually receive salvation and grace. And our relationship with God is made new and that's the gospel. [Jennifer] Preach it. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] It's so good. So here's the thing that I know that this episode is for us to get our minds on our friends and how we can be a vessel of God's love and grace toward them, but when we say what you just said, when we have a heart directed towards our friends in reminding them of the gospel, what does that actually do for us? Like what's, there's benefit there. [Aaron] I think it's like, practice first of all. Practice preaching the gospel. You know, sadly I believe many Christians don't even know what the actual gospel is. And so saying it over and over again, it not only reminds us, but it gives us practice on how to preach the gospel. And you're preaching it in a safe environment 'cause you're preaching it to someone who already believes it. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] And you're reminding them, so you're loving them and you're saying hey, brother, sister, all these things that you're walking in right now, filter them through the gospel. Remember that we actually, what we deserve is eternal punishment. And but because God loved us so much and he sent his son to die for us, we don't get eternal punishment, we get all of the benefits of being a son of God and a daughter of God, which is what the Bible teach us, that is the gospel. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I just feel like if we're sharing the gospel with our friends, if we're reminding them of who we are in light of God's love story, then we're gonna be reminded of that constantly. It's gonna be on the forefront of our minds. [Aaron] Exactly, it will. And I think about when you have a brother and sister walking in sin. Like let's say you have a married couple, friends of yours, and the husband's not necessarily loving his wife as Christ loves the Church, which is what Ephesians five teaches us. Or you have a wife not walking in reverence or submission to her husband and you say hey, I just wanna encourage you guys, do you remember what the gospel says? Like, if you recognize what we should've gotten but what we do receive, it actually brings us back to a place of healthy reverence and fear for the Lord and it reminds us of his goodness. And then you know what? It often brings us to repentance. Lord, you know what? I'm so sorry. Change me and make me like you want me to be because I love you and you've given me everything that I don't deserve. It reminds us of how we can be and who we should be and who God's made us to be and who He sees us as already, which is awesome. So the gospel I think is the most powerful thing we can continually be doing in our friends' lives, and like you said, it reminds us, too. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so moving on to number two, and when we were going through the notes, I actually asked Aaron, isn't that the same as number one? And so I'm gonna let Aaron explain it, but it's share with them the truth of God's word. [Aaron] Yeah, so it definitely is. The gospel is a part of that, but there's often just practically, think about how many times for you, you've been going through something and I remind you of certain scriptures-- [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] That are truth and promises, and instead of you walking in the feeling, you're like, oh I can actually look at that and start thinking on that and dwelling on that. [Jennifer] Okay that's good, and I've had other friends reach out to me through a text message and you know, share a verse with me and just let me know that they're thinking about me and praying for me, and that is really powerful. So sharing God's word-- [Aaron] Yeah, there's nothing more powerful than the word of God. [Jennifer] Yeah, so sharing God's word with them, and practically, it could look like a phone call, a text message, a card, you know, all those things. Word of mouth, when you're sitting in front of them with coffee. [Aaron] Yeah, a little note on this, we've gotta be in the word of God. [Jennifer] In order to share it. [Aaron] To be prepared to share it, 'cause our friends might come to us and just mention something that they're going through or the way they're talking you just think like, oh man, I think they need to hear this. They're not thinking about this correctly. And then finding that scripture and saying, hey can I just read something to you? What's awesome about the word of God is instead of it just being my opinion, I think you should do this. Even if my opinion is founded in the word of God, it's still just me. But I can say hey, I just want you to know that like, lemme read this to you. Now what has to happen is they have to argue with the Bible. [Jennifer] Yeah, the authority of God. [Aaron] Yeah, as long as we're coming in a heart of love and encouragement, and our heart is to help them grow and we're gonna treat them the way we wanna be treated. Man, scripture is powerful. The Bible tells us that the word of God does not come, it goes out and does not return void. Meaning it's going to accomplish what it's going to accomplish. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's really good and I was just thinking, if your friends are married, chances are you, even if you don't know the specifics of what they might be going through in that week, you know that marriage can be difficult, and so you can just find a verse that's gonna encourage that. Like, does that make sense? [Aaron] Yeah, and you could be sending them like, large portions of scripture. Be like, hey can I encourage you today to read this chapter? And just say, look out for this word or look out for this. You know, I feel like God's heart for you is He wants you to know this about Himself. He wants you to know this about yourself. And on top of that, encouraging your friends to be in the word of God. Saying hey, are you guys reading? [Jennifer] Yeah that's huge. Challenge them, yeah. [Aaron] Jennifer we talk about this often, the times that we feel ourselves slipping into this routine of a little bit of bickering, which is totally sinful, we've talked about this in the past. [Jennifer] Just poor attitudes. [Aaron] Poor attitudes or just bad perspectives, discontentment. We realize man, we haven't been very consistent in the word of God. We've gotten out of sync, because the word of God puts our minds on the spirit rather than the flesh, and when we're not in the word of God, our natural tendency is just to walk in the flesh. So just continually reminding them. [Jennifer] A couple weeks ago I had, we were over at some friend's house and I was sitting on the couch with the wife and I asked her, I said so you know, have you been reading lately? Are you getting into a routine of being in God's word? And she shared with me that she had but it was kind of a struggle, and so I got to encourage her. And then she goes, what about you? And I was like, oh man, this is so good that I asked that question because I needed it myself. And I had just-- [Aaron] And you're like no. [Jennifer] No I was honest with her, I go you know, it's been really hard for me to get up in the morning and I wasn't doing that and so it challenged me to then change. And so I just think you know, being willing to even go to those hard places and ask those hard questions knowing they're probably gonna ask you back, it's good, it's all good. [Aaron] And you bring up a really good point. I think this is why a lot of people avoid saying things, because we know internally that-- [Jennifer] It's gonna come back to us. [Aaron] Well, the moment we say it, either we're lying or we're a hypocrite or we're doing it. [Jennifer] But this is also why we need that. Like, we need this. [Aaron] Yeah, walking in light as he is in light, as Jesus prays for us in John 17 and in first John, chapter one, he says if we have fellowship with God, then we have fellowship with one another. And if we walk in the light, then we, we'll have fellowship with one another. So the light that we walk in is doing and saying the things that God wants us to do, even if it means that we're going to also be told the same things. And that's the point of it, is that we're growing together and being built up together. And so man, you're right, saying something means you're gonna be vulnerable and have to be told the same thing or at least hear the same thing because you're saying it out of your own mouth. [Jennifer] Yeah. And just a practical note for this portion of this episode, what are some hard questions that they can ask their friends besides are you in the word? 'Cause I know another one is hey, have you been submissive to your husband? How are you guys doing in that department? [Aaron] That's a hard one to ask, right? [Jennifer] Well I know you and the guys usually ask, what do you guys usually ask? [Aaron] We ask each other does your wife feel cherished? And often the question is, and we wrote this in our book, my pastor always brings it up, could your wife say today that she is the most cherished woman she knows? And so for the husbands listening right now, I have a question for you. Is your wife the most cherished woman she knows? Could she say that? And if you can think to yourself I don't know if she would say that, you need to ask yourself that question. You need to figure out how to walk the way Ephesians 5:25 tells you to walk. [Jennifer] And then when you're catching up with your friends who are also married, who are also husbands and wives, be willing to ask each other hard questions like this, because this is what's gonna encourage us but also change us. [Aaron] And if someone who says they're your friend says it's none of your business, then you should ask yourself if that person really sees you as a friend. [Jennifer] Or be praying for them even more. [Aaron] Because it should be our business. I think of Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother Abel, this is in the beginning of the Bible, and God comes to Cain and says where's your brother? And he says what, am I my brother's keeper? And the point was is God asked him where his brother was at, which means God was asking him where his brother was at. So do we know where our brothers are at? Or we can just say like, I'm not my brother's keeper. And in reality, that's not loving our brothers at all. [Jennifer] Right, if we love them we'll know where they're at. [Aaron] And we're actually supposed to be keepers of each other's hearts and relationships with God, and we walk with each other and it's safe, and so yes, we are keepers of our brothers and we just have to realize that. And so, that means I'm accountable to other Christians. If they ask me hey, is your wife cherished? I'm responsible as a believer to say truthfully yes or no, not get out of my business. Because if I don't want another Christian in my business, then am I a Christian? Because we're all a part of the same body. [Jennifer] Right, it's all one body. That's really good. So for those listening, if they have been resistant to let people into those intimate parts of their lives, this is a challenge for them to hear, to give maybe not everyone, maybe just a handful of people that permission. [Aaron] Yeah, and for those that are feeling that, like oh maybe we're not letting people in, go read Proverbs 18:1. It's a good scripture to talk about that kind of person who does that. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so let's move on to number three, and it's be friendly. Proverbs 18:24 says, "A man who has friends "must himself be friendly, but there is a friend "who sticks closer than a brother." [Aaron] That's powerful. Like, it seems totally simple, right? But if you wanna have friends, we gotta be friendly. Like, so are we just being friendly, are we reaching out? Are we opening up our hearts? Are we laughing with, or are we just like sticks in the mud, which is how I can be sometimes. [Jennifer] Are we being vulnerable? [Aaron] Yeah, are we being vulnerable? [Jennifer] Are we being truthful? Because sometimes you can be in a room with people and you can kind of just tell, you know, they're not-- [Aaron] Yeah, we're surface level. [Jennifer] They're being surface level or they're not being open with me. [Aaron] Yeah, and friendly is like not, like we just kind of were talking about it before, not being afraid to let people in, not being afraid to be seen and known. [Jennifer] Yeah. I feel like being friendly also comes with thoughtfulness. Like, you have to be thoughtful of each other and maybe even what each other likes. Like, I have a handful of girlfriends who I know what kind of coffee they like and I can randomly drop it off for them when I know they're having a hard day, or you know, just little things like that. I think thoughtfulness is such a big part of friendship. That can be an encouragement. [Aaron] And I think of friendly, there's a word I also think of, of light. Like, are we light around our friends? Do they feel like it's always this work to be in our presence? Or is it light to be in our presence? And that's kind of what I think about friendly. We've had relationships in the past, Jennifer, that they always felt heavy. Not that they were necessarily going through heavy things, it just felt like work to be around those people. And we made it a point to like, not be those people. So there's times that we'll ask hey, how are we being as friends? Are we easy to be around or are we hard to be around? [Jennifer] I also wanna make a note that we never let those relationships go just because they felt heavy. We felt it was our responsibility to be accountable to them still and to love them still and to be-- [Aaron] Took more work. [Jennifer] It did take more work, but I just wanna encourage those listening, if you have relationships, be praying for those couples and maybe talk about this, you know, with them, but don't give up on them. [Aaron] Or even say the hard thing and have them over for dinner, have no kids around and say, can we just share with you something? We love you, but you're hard. That's the truth of it. Hey we love you, but it's hard. Like, there's these things that have happened, and can we work on this together? How can we help you? How can, is there something you haven't recognized? But having those conversations means that you're being friendly. Like hey, we want to be in this relationship with you. We don't wanna just, 'cause the easy thing to do is you just write it off. And some people say let's dust our sandals off. That's the easy thing to do, but that's not what we do to the others in the body of Christ. We don't just dust people off. [Jennifer] Yeah, I would say a marriage after God is loyal and faithful and loves deeply and cares about the hearts of those people. So we don't just walk away from them. [Aaron] Now there are, we're not gonna get into this, but there are biblical reasons to cut off relationships. [Jennifer] Well, if you and your husband have set boundaries and those boundaries are being broken, absolutely I feel like that's necessary. [Aaron] Or if there's unrepentant sin and it's been called out but is not being, and those people aren't being willing to change, then the Bible tells us to avoid those people. But we're talking about normal Christian relationships, friends, not someone who's walking in unrepentant sin. [Jennifer] Okay, so be friendly. Aaron, do you wanna hit number four? [Aaron] Number four is be hospitable. This one could be hard, especially if you want your house to be a certain way all the time. [Jennifer] Like you have expectations. [Aaron] Yeah, or the people that you might, the friends you might invite over have more kids than you do or older kids or younger kids or, there's lots of scenarios that could be-- [Jennifer] Different dynamics. [Aaron] Difficult to say let's open up our home and have people over. But man, the Bible, God, the word of God tells us that we should be hospitable people. First Peter four, eight through nine says, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, "since love covers a multitude of sins. "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." So there's, I mean those are two verses that are super powerful in themselves, like love covers a multitude of sins? Which means if we can love with a Christ kind of love with our Christian brothers and sisters, there's a lot of things that that covers. It's pretty incredible. Now again, if someone's in unrepentant sin, that's different than someone who's come to you and repented of their sin. But our love can cover it, but the showing hospitality to one another. [Jennifer] What does that look like practically? [Aaron] Practically it means, hospitality means to open up what's ours. It is available. What I have is available to you. [Jennifer] And I wanna encourage people on this because sometimes we can look at a situation and think well, we don't have enough, and then therefore you're not gonna be hospitable in that moment, but how many times have a friend texted us and said they're in town, can they stop by for dinner? And I kind of like, I look at everything and it's halfway made and I'm thinking that very same thing, I don't think that there's enough, and then they get there and I spread everything out and it was a perfect amount. It was like exactly what we needed. [Aaron] Well and also just on that side of things, like of not having enough, the reason for having them over isn't because we have enough, it's to-- [Jennifer] It's because we wanna share it with them. [Aaron] It's because we're gonna share what we do have. [Jennifer] What we do have, yeah. That's good. [Aaron] And so we can, this is practically for us in the way we think and for those listening, hospitality is not sharing what you don't have, it's sharing what you do have. And so being willing to share, it's as simple as hey, you absolutely can come over, we would love to have dinner for you guys. We may not have enough to make you super full, so if you have anything you wanna bring, do it. But otherwise, just come and we will share with you what we have. [Jennifer] Now, there's other hospitality, too, where you kind of plan and prepare for it, knowing that you wanna bless this family or that family or that couple. [Aaron] So you save up for it. [Jennifer] And you save up for it or maybe they have a bigger family and you don't have enough utensils, go and get some plastic and just have a nice dinner on paper plates and plastic utensils. [Aaron] And there's something beautiful about having a little bit, too. And there's nothing wrong with having a little bit. You mentioned the bigger family thing. That's actually a good thought, 'cause sometimes we can feel, we can evaluate relationships and say well, me and you, we only have one kid, so we don't need to invite the family over that has four because they should do the opposite, like it's gonna be harder for us to accommodate a family of six because we're not used to that, so therefore, someone else should do it. But in reality, there's something beautiful about inviting that big family over because how often does that big family get invited to places? [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] We've actually had a situation in our own fellowship of big families saying we'd love to be invited over, we'd love to be thought of that way. [Jennifer] Yeah. So I have another example, when we were first married and we were in Christian community, we actually expected people to be hospitable to us because it was just us, and we could easily just come over and spend time with families. [Aaron] Yeah, we did have a one-way expectation. [Jennifer] We had a one-way expectation because we didn't have any kids and it was just easier, that we never invited really people over. I mean maybe a handful of times, but not-- [Aaron] Yeah, you're right. [Jennifer] Not very often. And I just thought about that just now, and so I just wanna encourage those listening who maybe they don't have kids, all the more be willing to open up what you do have and share that and build those relationships with people in a different life stage because there's good in all of it. God has created us to be able to encourage one another no matter where we are in our different life stages. [Aaron] Yeah and I think on the other side of that, we also didn't have much, we had not a lot of money, we didn't have a lot to give, we didn't have like, 20 plates and all these things, right? So we had this mentality of like, well since we have less, people that have more should take care of us. But Jesus points out the woman who gave her last mite, and he says she gave more, 'cause she gave out of her poverty, than that rich man who gave out of his wealth. And so there's something spiritually powerful about having the heart of hospitality even when you have little. [Jennifer] Yeah, and not letting expectations trip you up or stop you. [Aaron] No, but just out of a heart of like, God, I don't know how we're gonna bless these people but we'll share what we have. And invite someone, they may say no, but open up your home and open up what you have to other believers. And you never know, you might, we've seen this before. There was a time that me and you, I'm not trying to just toot our own horn, but we blessed a friend of ours who was in a much different financial situation than us, and it blew their mind. Because they're like, why would you give to us? We could've totally taken care of this and we're financially stable, when we were not in that place. And it actually totally ministered to them and showed them a level of generosity that's never been shown before to them. Just because we were obedient, we didn't think like, well they have enough, we don't need to help them. That's not how we were thinking. [Jennifer] No, we felt like God was telling us to do this and we were just trying to be obedient. [Aaron] Yeah, we were like hey let's bless so-and-so with this. And so the hospitality part of this is just a, it could be a powerful ministry tool to grow the Church, to build each other up. So why don't you do number five? [Jennifer] Okay, number five is be sacrificial. [Aaron] Which kinda ties in. [Jennifer] Yeah, I mean, I was telling Aaron, being sacrificial is kind of required with all of these. Whether it's time, energy, resources, whatever it is, but we just wanted to point out that a marriage after God, when it comes to their friendships and their married friends, they're sacrificial. They're available to other couples. They can be inconvenienced by them. [Aaron] Which is a sacrifice of our comfort. [Jennifer] And our time. [Aaron] Like getting a call in the middle of the night to help someone. Being up late with a couple to cry with them, to pray with them, to read to them, to support them. There's many ways, sacrificially, financially. Like oh, this person, so-and-so needs rent or groceries or whatever, or a date night. So yeah, just sacrificing our time for them, our talents, our energy, and just realizing that what God's given us isn't just for us, it's to be used for the body. [Jennifer] Yeah, John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, "than to lay down one's life for his friends." Are we doing that? [Aaron] Yeah, do we lay ourselves down or do we think like, well I would've done that but that was too inconvenient. [Jennifer] So I want those listening to do something real quick. Just the first couple that pops into your mind, your friends, your close friends-- [Aaron] Ooh, I like this. [Jennifer] Who are married, when was the last time you were sacrificial for them? That you expressed love in a sacrificial way? [Aaron] So just think about it, and then I would take it even a step further and say call them, text them. And as a couple, do something for them. [Jennifer] Find a way to love them. [Aaron] Yeah. Just go out of your way for that couple. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to number six is pray for them and with them. [Aaron] Ooh. Praying for them's easy. [Jennifer] Sometimes not. [Aaron] I guess you're right, yeah. [Jennifer] Sometimes people struggle with prayer. But Aaron and I, a large portion of our ministry is to encourage you guys with prayer to pray, to be warriors of prayer, and this is important. [Aaron] I think of the scripture that says, it's the greatest commandment. The Pharisees came to Jesus and they said Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? And he tells them, he's like you tell me. And the Pharisee says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. And in that situation, the Pharisee challenged him and said well, who's my neighbor? Well, we know who our closest neighbors are, it's our spouse. And then our other neighbors are brothers and sisters in Christ. And then there's our physical neighbors that live nextdoor to us. So we know who our neighbors are. But loving your neighbor as yourself, how many listening wouldn't love someone to pray for them? We get messages all the time of saying could you pray for me? Can you pray for my marriage? So if you want to be prayed for and prayed over and prayed with and thought of in that way and taken care of in that way, then love your neighbor as yourself. [Jennifer] Yeah, be those people. [Aaron] Pray without ceasing for your brothers and sisters in Christ so that they won't stumble, so that they will be encouraged, so that they will be strong and walk in purity. And be encouraging in the word of God and strengthened to do ministry and be healed and blessed and like, all the things that you would wanna be prayed for, pray for them. [Jennifer] Yeah. And sometimes you can go out of your way to ask them hey, what do you need prayer for? Hey, I'm praying for you right now, what can I pray for you? Text them, ask them. You know? It's powerful. [Aaron] A pet peeve of mine is, and we all have done this, I'm gonna pray for you and then don't pray. So make it a point. I've made it a point any time I tell someone I'm gonna pray for them, if I text it, if I, I stop in that moment and I pray. [Jennifer] Yeah, me too. [Aaron] I've just made it a habit because I didn't wanna be that yeah, I'll pray for you and just, now it's now a phrase that we say. Of like, I'm thinking of you. No, let's be in prayer for each other, because this world is wicked and the enemy wants to destroy us and to steal from us, and we just need to be battling for each other. [Jennifer] I was just thinking like, there's a whole spiritual battle going on and obviously the enemy hates marriage because God created it and God loves it and God uses it-- [Aaron] He hates everything God made. [Jennifer] Yeah, which means that all of our marriages, not one of us is outside of this truth, and that is that our marriages are under attack constantly. [Aaron] Yeah, and our faith and this, and Christ's Church just as a whole. So we need to praying for each other. You know, you pray for us, we'd love that. Pray for our marriage. [Jennifer]Thanks. [Aaron] Pray for our children. Pray for our families. So prayer is one of the ways you can encourage your, oh and then praying for them, like with them. Be in the presence of your friends and say we're gonna pray for you right now. [Jennifer] Yeah, maybe when you have them over that week for dinner, just set some time aside to say hey, we'd love to pray for you. [Aaron] Speaking of prayer, I was just at a friend's house today and he was telling me how his wife's just dealing with headaches, and I said let's go pray for her. And so before I left, me and him went down and we prayed for her. [Jennifer] That's awesome. I didn't know that, that's cool. [Aaron] And why don't we do that more? Like, why don't I do that more? And I'm talking to myself right now. We need to get in a spiritual habit of just praying for each other. I think a lot of things would change in our marriages. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to the last one, number seven. [Aaron] Serve your friends. Serve 'em. I think if the scenario that Jesus did when he was in the upper room before he went to go die on the cross and he geared up his garb, wrapped it around his waist, got a bucket of water and a towel and he walked around and he scrubbed all of his disciples' feet. And he says do this, what you see me doing, do for one another. So, do we serve each other? Now, speaking allegorically about the feet, are we willing to touch our friends' dirty feet? What I mean is like, are we willing to get dirty with our friends and get into the muck and the mire of life and the painful things and serve them? [Jennifer] I know you said this in the beginning, but had our friends not done that with us, the people who became our friends by serving us, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be here today. [Aaron] And Jesus wants us to do that. He wants us to be willing to touch our brothers and sisters. Like spiritually, physically, emotionally, that we are part of their lives so close that, and for the purpose of cleaning and washing and purifying. [Jennifer] As you're saying that, cleaning and washing, I'm thinking like, we are all part of one body, okay, and if, let's take my body. My hands don't say I'm not gonna touch your hair, I'm not gonna wash your hair, and so I just go without washing my hair for a year, that would be really nasty. [Aaron] Yeah, if you had off-balance hygiene, you would not be approachable as a woman. [Jennifer] Well so take it in light of the body of Christ and his bride, who he's coming back for who should be spotless and blameless-- [Aaron] Is going to be. [Jennifer] And beautiful, then we should be willing to serve different parts of the body for this reason. [Aaron] And this doesn't mean that we serve the ones that can serve us back and serve the ones that we click well with and serve the ones who are easy to be around. We serve all of them. [Jennifer] So I keep going back to this picture of a body, I know it's funny, but-- [Aaron] That's what the Bible uses! [Jennifer] As you're talking I'm like you're right, so like, my hand can reach back and scratch my back but my back can't really do much for, [Aaron] Your back can't do much for-- [Jennifer] For anything. [Aaron] Yeah, your hands do that. [Jennifer] But it is holding me up, so. [Aaron] There you go. [Jennifer] This is just really interesting. [Aaron] But that's what we do, so are we servants? Are we servants? Christ, he says he didn't claim the royalty and the fame that he could've. Instead, he came as a servant, humble, as a child. [Jennifer] And the Bible tells us to walk as he walked. [Aaron] Yeah, so do we have that heart? Is our heart to lay ourselves down for our friends? [Jennifer] So hopefully those listening are just right along with us going yes, we're gonna serve our friends today. What are some practical ways? What does this look like, what are some ways that they can serve? 'Cause maybe they want to serve but now they're just wondering okay, how do we do that? What should they know? [Aaron] Well, I think of just some simple practical things, helping them. Do they need help with anything? [Jennifer] Well you have to know their needs. [Aaron] You have to know their needs. So shooting a text. Last year I tried getting in the habit of randomly texting friends from our community, just saying hey is there anything you need? Often they say no, but then there's time where they're like actually yeah, like we could use this or we really need a date. We've just been in the thick of having new children and we have not had a date in weeks. [Jennifer] So babysit your friends' kids so they can go have a date. [Aaron] Yeah. Maybe they're just, maybe there's some sickness. Hey, can we come over and just clean your house? Just wanna, we're gonna clean your house. You relax, we're gonna bring you food and I'm gonna scrub your toilets and I'm gonna clean your floorboards, and I'm gonna do your dishes, and just relax and you don't have to worry about it. Those are physical needs, those are just things that all of us would love. Like, if someone just came over and cleaned our house sometimes, I would be so-- [Jennifer] Or yard work. [Aaron] Or just came over and I'm like hey, so-and-so's in the backyard mowing the lawn. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] That would be so cool. [Jennifer] The other day, we've been trying to consider what we can do for our neighbors and how our neighbors are just right there-- [Aaron] Yeah, our actual neighbors that live nextdoor to us. [Jennifer] Every day, that we see. And we were leaving our house and there was a little bit of snow that piled up on the driveway, and one of our nextdoor neighbors was push brooming the snow out of another neighbor's driveway, she's an elderly woman, and I just thought how cool, he's amazing. Like, way to go. And that inspired Aaron to then go to her nextdoor neighbor and do the same thing for her. [Aaron] Well, you did actually encourage me to do it, which is good 'cause we're a team. And I went over there and it took me 20 minutes to go sweep her, the snow off of her driveway, and it's another elderly lady, and she was actually walking out to go to her mail and it was, her driveway was so slippery. [Jennifer] Oh, really? [Aaron] Yeah, and so I was like hey, can I just take this to the mailbox for you? It was like, right across the street and she was like yeah, absolutely. It was awesome. It was just a little thing. [Jennifer] So when we serve people like this, it brings blessing for those who are on the receiving end, but it also sets an example. It inspires people, it makes others want to do nice things and be thoughtful and serve and be the hands and feet of Christ. So I think that all around, it's so important to be servants. [Aaron] So I just wanna end with one more scripture to close out this topic before we pray for them, and it's the reason why we would want to do any of this stuff for brothers and sisters in Christ. For our married couples that we're friends with, for those that love God and are part of the body. In John 13:35 it says, "By this, all people will know "that you are my disciples "if you have love for one another." And in first John, John says, "Do not love "in words only, but in deed and in truth." So we show our love by the things we do for each other. And that kinda love should be so supernatural that when the world sees how we love each other, they will know that we're disciples of Christ. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] And in John 17, Jesus says, "The world will know "that God sent me by the love you have for each other." So not only will they know we're disciples of Christ, they'll also know that God sent Jesus. [Jennifer] So we have to be doing this. [Aaron] It's the ministry that we have in the world. [Jennifer] It's the ministry. [Aaron] It's what our whole book's about, actually. [Jennifer] Yes, yeah. Which, a great-- [Aaron] Not to plug it, but I'm plugging it. [Jennifer] No, but since you went there I'm just gonna say, it comes out in June, you guys, and a great way to encourage your married friends is go through this book with them. [Aaron] Ooh, that's a cool idea. [Jennifer] I know they can't do it now, we're gonna be going through a series leading up to the book launch, but I just feel like if couples can be going through this book together and asking each other questions about it and saying what ministry are we doing for God's kingdom? Oh my gosh, I just, my mind is blown by just-- [Aaron] The movement that would start. [Jennifer] Yeah! Yeah, it's incredible. [Aaron] We're excited about it. We thank you for joining us today. I pray that these seven ways to encourage your married friends blessed you, and I pray that it charges you or excites you or it gets you moving in the direction of unity in the body. More and more marriages and Christians in general would just be unified in loving each other in this way. [Jennifer] And don't wait. It's not next week or the week after-- [Aaron] Today. [Jennifer] Start today! Just do it. [Aaron] Alright, so before we close out, we've been committed to praying for you at the end of each episode, and so we're gonna pray for you. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the friends in our lives. Lord, give us a heart of encouragement for them. Give us words that will affirm them and give strength to their marriage relationship. Show us how we can love our friends better and help them know You more. May we be witnesses in this world by how we love one another and walk with each other in truth and in light. Help us be more vulnerable and open with our friends. Help us to create an environment where our friends feel safe being vulnerable and open with us. May we use what You have given to us to bless them. Inspire our hearts with creative ways we can serve them and confidence that our purpose as friends builds Your kingdom. Please keep the enemy and his evil schemes away from our friends. Do not let his plans of destruction prevail. Protect our friends' marriage and fortify them, O Lord. Give us hearts to see our married friends walk strong and faithful. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. Alright, so we thank you for joining us this week, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

The Bible tells us that the crucible is meant to refine, and God will allow us to go through things in our lives that will act as crucibles to bring us to a place where the dross of our character can come to the surface. Consider supporting this podcast by buying one of our marriage books today. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com READ: [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna talk about asking God to search our hearts. ♪ Whoo ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life-- [Aaron] Love-- [Jennifer] And power-- [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God-- [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ [Aaron] Welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. [Jennifer] The most amazing podcast you've ever been listening to. [Aaron] Yeah, if you're married for sure. Actually, I think we have people that are not married listening to us. [Jennifer] Hey, that's good. Yeah. It's awesome. [Aaron] Which is awesome. As usual, we wanna invite you to leave us a quick review. A star rating is the easiest way to do it. All you have to do is scroll to the bottom of the podcast app and hit the star. But if you have a little bit of extra time, you can leave us a text review also, and that helps lots of people see the episodes, see the podcast, because it comes up in the rankings the more reviews they have. So that'd be awesome if you can do that. If you've been blessed by the show, we just invite you to do that. [Jennifer] And thank you to everyone who has already left a review and star rating. We really appreciate that. [Aaron] Yeah, there's tons of 'em. We have over 600 star ratings, and like 70 or 80 text reviews, which is amazing. [Jennifer] And so encouraging to us. [Aaron] Yeah, I go through and I read 'em, and I send 'em. I'll text pictures of 'em to my wife so she could see what they say. They're really encouraging. So we wanted to also invite you to check out our online store, shop.marriageaftergod.com, where my wife and I have written a 30-day devotional bundle for husbands and wives. We've also written a prayer book bundle for husbands and wives. And it's also where we're gonna be launching our new book next year, Marriage After God, which this podcast was started because of, and that comes out next year. So if you wanna support our podcast, if you love the content, just go to shop.marriageaftergod.com. [Jennifer] For those listening who, like you said, maybe aren't married yet, we also have a book bundle for them. Oh, yeah. And it's prayers for your future husband and wife, so you can check that out as well. [Aaron] Thank you for that reminder. So that's how we get support for our podcast. If you love it, if you wanna support the podcast and the content, check out our store, and pick up one of our books. That'd be awesome. So before we get into the topic, I'd love to do an icebreaker. And this is something we're gonna try doing. It's a new part of our show. And so it actually reminds me of when we used to lead a marriage table back at our old church, babe. Do you remember how we do icebreakers in the beginning of all of the sessions? [Jennifer] Yeah, it was super fun. I think it was just a way for people to get to know each other on a real quick, kind of surface-level basis. And so I think it'll be fun. I think it'll give our listeners just a little bit more insight into us. [Aaron] Yeah, and sometimes it'll be fun. There might be like a little game or something. I don't know yet. [Aaron] So here's the icebreaker. What is your favorite candy? [Jennifer] Mm, that's a good one. I have lots of favorite candies. I tend to lean more towards the chocolate, which when I think of candy, I think of hard, sour tart things. So I don't know how other people would answer this, but I would just say like a good Snickers bar, good chocolate bar. [Aaron] Do you like the nougaty center? What's in a Snickers bar, peanuts? I don't even know. Yeah, there's like caramel, nuts, the nugget, all of it. [Aaron] Mm. [Jennifer] Or is it nigget? I don't know. Nigget? [Jennifer] I don't know what it's called. [Aaron] I think it's nougat. Noo-jit. Okay, so now you ask me an icebreaker question. [Jennifer] All right, so you're drinking a cup of coffee right now. Yes. What do you like in your coffee? How do you take it? Let everyone know. [Aaron] Black, nothing. I don't put anything in my coffee. ♪ Boring ♪ Just kidding. I like it that way. Just espresso and water. Hot water, of course. So that's... I don't know if anyone knew that about me. I just like black coffee. Yeah, it is boring. I don't put any sugar, no cream. I don't even like eggnog in my coffee even though I love eggnog. [Jennifer] I've never even heard of someone putting eggnog in coffee. Why would you even say that? [Aaron] Like an eggnog latte. [Jennifer] Oh. I'm not really a coffee drinker, so I don't know what's available. I don't know what's out there. [Aaron] Yeah. It's the season for eggnog, that's why I brought it up. I'd rather just have a cup of eggnog with a cup of coffee next to it. Okay, so icebreaker done. But another thing we're gonna add toour podcast is I'm reading a book right now, and I'm gonna read a quote from it. And so I think what we're gonna try and do is just take little quotes as we're reading through books and materials that we are checking out and going through. And the one I'm currently reading is Letters to the Church by Francis Chan. And the quote is on page 78. And it's this. Scripture is clear. There is a real connection between our unity and the believability of our message. If we are serious about winning the lost, we must be serious about pursuing unity. And I just love that, because we've been talking a lot about unity in our church lately. A theme in our life lately over the last few years has been unity, just learning to fall in love with the body of Christ and fall in love with other believers in the way the Bible has called us to. So that just really spoke to me last night when I read it. [Jennifer] So I love that quote, and I think it's pertinent to what we're gonna be talking about today, specifically just introducing what we wanna talk about today 'cause it kind of started out with a little messiness in a relationship that contributed to what we're gonna share today. Do you wanna-- Yeah. Share a little bit more about that? So in our, in our small home church, we have a handful of families. And when you walk so closely with people, there's just going to be some messiness sometimes. There's gonna be stickiness. There's gonna be hard things. It's why the Bible talks a lot about our relationships with each other. The majority of the Bible is not just our relationship with God, but how he desires us to walk with one another. [Jennifer] Right, which I really appreciate that about the Bible. I think that it gives us all the tools, and encouragement, and guidance on navigating the messy parts of relationships. [Aaron] Yeah, and-- [Jennifer] For the purpose of unity, which is what you just shared on. [Aaron] Exactly. And we're not gonna talk about the specific situation. We're not gonna talk about the specific people. [Jennifer] Well, here's the thing, is everybody listening right now can relate to this. No matter what relationship that you're a part of, there's gonna be messiness. [Aaron] So what all of our listeners can do is as they hear what we're talking about, they can superimpose their own experiences to fill in the blank, because we don't need to give those details. Because what we wanna talk about is what happened-- [Jennifer] After. [Aaron] Because-- Yeah. Of that situation. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] So maybe you can give a little bit of synopsis of what happened over the last few days, and maybe what led up to this. And we can talk about our conversation we had. [Jennifer] Okay, so there was this relational messiness that was going on. And you were sharing with me late Saturday night that on your way home God had used that situation to prompt your own heart to kinda confront some things. [Aaron] Yeah. I took what was going on, and in the midst of what was going on immediately began to internalize and look inward and say, okay, who am I in this scenario? Who am I at home? And I felt like God started just really pointing out in me things, and calling out in me things, which is I believe is what we should be doing. Whenever we confront hard things, whenever we walk in trials with our brothers and sisters, I feel like the fleshly response is to look outward and say, oh, look at this, look who's at fault. This happened, they did this. But the spiritual response should be to look internally, and say, who am I? [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] What does God wanna do in me? How does God wanna use this situation to change me, transform me, make me more like him? [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. Yeah, so we were sitting on the couch that night after the kids went to bed, and you started sharing this with me, kinda like as if this situation pulled up a mirror to your own life. And what was the specific thing that God revealed to you? [Aaron] He revealed to me a few things. He revealed to me, specifically, my harshness at times with my children. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Although I've been growing a lot, and we're trying really hard to disciple our children well, and be consistent with them, and discipline them well, and train them well, and raise them well, and love them well, I have some areas of my heart and areas of my character that need to be changed. And he used this hard situation in other relationships in our fellowship to show me this. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. So what you didn't know going into this conversation with me was that I had also been wrestling with some similar thoughts just about the way that I sometimes react or respond to the kids. And earlier that day was just a struggle for me. And I just was short with the kids, a little negative in my responses toward them, and I felt really bad about that. And we sat there for about an hour and 1/2 weeping over these types of responses, because our kids don't deserve that. Our kids don't deserve us to be short-tempered, or quick in our responses, or what are some of the other things? [Aaron] Harsh stares, the way we look at them. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] The words we choose to use. The way we word our messages to them. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. And it's not that we're like this all the time, but there are specific situations or circumstances that happen that we respond to in this way. Fleshly, yeah. Fleshly. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. [Aaron] And what's funny about this in how God works is our conversation on the couch that night started out as a debrief of what we've been dealing with outside of this conversation. This wasn't even a conversation we were having. And then it just mutated very quickly into a very internally focused, intrinsically-focused conversation about our own, we should call it sin. Mm-hmm, yeah. 'Cause that's what it is. Us not walking rightly, and us walking in the flesh is sin. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] The first thing I think of is the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience. Us not being peaceful with our children, us not being patient with our children, us not being kind or gentle, it's sin. 'Cause right before that statement about the fruits of the Spirit is the fruit of the flesh. Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And although we were going through something very hard, and what I think happened is we were already spiritually sensitive because of the things we were going through in the other relationships. [Jennifer] Well, and we were kind of talking, the conversation started out with the different perspectives of that situation and kind of going to God and saying, what's going on, what's happening, and what needs to happen for reconciliation or unity within the body, within these other relationships? And then, like you said, it kind of just internalized. And I feel like what happened sitting on the couch with you that night is it was almost like God had a bucket going down into a well and he was drawing it up. And it was like the bucket was pouring over. That's a good illustration, yeah. [Jennifer] And I felt like he was pulling it out of me, all these things that I wasn't really struggling with in that moment until all of sudden, the light shined on my heart. [Aaron] I think I said one phrase and it just triggered this whole conversation, and softening of our hearts, and a revealing of our sin, and a conversation that led us to just dive in of who we are, what we do, are these things gonna remain, or are we gonna change them and remove them? [Jennifer] Well, I remember, too, a few days before this was happening, I remember driving down the street, and I had the same conviction about my role and relationship with my kids. And I brushed it off with the justification of, well, I'm not as bad as some people, or I don't do it that often. And I had these justifications that made me just kind of push it aside. And we should never push aside convictions like that. And I was realizing that-- But it's so easy to. [Jennifer] I know. -Sometimes. I know, it really is. [Aaron] 'Cause confronting those things makes us feel ugly. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And that's not fun. [Jennifer] Yeah, so all a sudden, my flesh goes, well, you're not that terrible, you know? Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] When really, the things that I was doing, I should definitely stop and recognize. And so, man, that was a good conversation sitting with you on the couch that night. [Aaron] It was a necessary one. And so why are we bringing this up to our audience? Are we talking about parenting right now? No. [Aaron] No. [Jennifer] No, it actually has nothing to do with parenting. [Aaron] No. In our case, it had to do with parenting. It also had to do with we had some conversations about our marital relationship. [Jennifer] Yup, and how we treat each other in certain circumstances. Yeah, the words we use. Are we walking in the roles God's called us to? Or are we going outside those? Are we fighting against them? Because we've grown so much in those areas, but at the same time, we can't forget that we aren't perfect yet. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] That God's still sanctifying us, and he's changing us, and he does it in specific ways. And so I just wanted to bring up a scripture that illustrates just really well. It's Proverbs 17:3, and it says the crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts. And Proverbs uses this illustration several times. And a crucible is a big, ole hot pot that you would throw metal into, and it melts it down. And you melt it, and melt it, and melt it, especially with precious metals like silver and gold. And what happens is the more you heat it up, the more you boil it, the dross, the impurities, float to the top, and then you can scrape it off the top. And then you keep heating it, and then more impurities come up to the top, and you scrape it. That's what a crucible on a furnace is for, for gold and silver. And I believe God was using this situation in our church with some of these relationship that we were having that we were navigating issues with as a crucible for our hearts. It was a spiritually-sensitive situation. We're being required to be in the spirit, and being praying and asking for the Lord's will, and seeking after his answer for what's going on. Which then brought to the surface in our hearts some thingsthat he wanted to scrape away from us. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's definitely what it felt like sitting on the couch with you that night. I just felt like he was-- It was kinda painful. Like drawing it up, yeah. But it was good. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] And I remember at the end of it, you said, "Well, we need to change." And then I cried some more, and said, "It's so hard, I don't know how to." And you're like-- Yeah, you're like, "What do I do? "I feel like I wanna change, "and what?" And you weren't saying just you. It's us. Us. Yeah. [Aaron] But you're like, "I feel like I want to, "but I don't know how to." [Jennifer] And you said, "We just do. "God's already given us the Holy Spirit that empowers us, "and we just need to." [Aaron] Yeah. And for those that are listening, I'm sure they can think, remember we talked about the filling in the blanks? They can think of a situation or something in their life where they're like, I just don't know how to change. Like what do I do? And what's amazing is, and it sounds too easy, and I'm not trying to downplay the difficulty and the struggle that our spirit and flesh have with each other at times, but we can just change because we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Do you remember the illustration I gave Eliott this morning during Bible time? We were talking about the Holy Spirit empowering us, and I used his-- [Jennifer] Oh, yeah, Tony Stark. Yeah. [Jennifer] Our son's obsessed a little bit with Iron Man. He thinks he's the coolest guy ever. [Aaron] Yeah, so I was reading in Galatians, and it was talking about being empowered. And I told Eliott, I said, "Eliott, do you think Tony Stark "would be powerful without his suit?" And he's like, "Well, no, he's just a man." And I said, "Well, but his suit gives him power. "He can fly, and shoot blasters." And I was giving all these little illustrations. And I said, "That's what the Holy Spirit is." [Jennifer] You could see kind of a light bulb go on in his head like, oh, yeah. [Aaron] I said, "Without the Holy Spirit, "we can't do anything." Which the Bible tells us, we can do nothing to please God without the Spirit of God. We can't do anything apart from the Spirit. But with the Spirit of God, we can do everything. Everything that God wills for our lives, we could actually accomplish through the power of the Holy Spirit. And yeah, his eyes did light up, because I equated the Holy Spirit to Iron Man's suit. It's much more powerful than Iron Man's suit. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] We have the living God inside of us. We have the power that resurrected Christ from the dead in us. Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And so on the couch, I was like, "I'm not trying to be harsh, "but I think we just have to change today. "We cannot continue in what we were walking in. "We cannot continue to give ourselves excuses. "We cannot continue operating the way we've been operating." I said, "We just have to change." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. And then you also said, you said, "We need to ask God to search our hearts, "and in humility, confront the things that he brings up." [Aaron] Yeah, like the dross. Mm-hmm. And deal with it. [Aaron] Allow him to search us. And that actually came, so right at the end of the night, I made a phone call to a friend, and I told that friend. I said, "Let God search your heart." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And I get off the phone, and immediately this conversation broke out with us. And it's like, not to be a hypocrite, I must take my own advice. Yeah, yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And I was like, well, am I allowing God to search my heart? So I just said, "We need to let God search our hearts, "search within us, "and show us the things he wants to cut out of us, "he wants to change in us." And I wanna read all of Psalm 139. It's Psalm of David, a man after God's own heart. The Bible calls him that. God calls him a man after his heart. And as I brought up on Sunday when I was talking about this topic and what God was doing in us, I asked everyone, I said, "Do you want to be, "do you wanna be people that are after God's heart?" And everyone raised their hands. Yes. And said, "Yes," yeah. [Aaron] And said, "Yes." And I was like, "Well, we have a template for that. "We know someone who when they sinned against God "and were confronted by God with it, "confessed, and repented, and turned that moment." There was still consequences in life, but he was a man that showed us like, oh, when we walk this way, we can turn and walk the other way, and we can please God with our life. And so Psalm 139 says this. Oh, Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to Heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret intricately woven in the debts of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, oh God. Oh men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, oh Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. And what's so powerful about this scripture, first of all, it's beautiful. Mm-hmm. Just David's ability to write poetry and song. He's very talented. But also his ability to show us the vastness of God's knowledge of us. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] That he knows us better than we know ourselves, better than anyone knows us. He was there before we were formed, had thoughts about us before we were formed, knew the days of our lives before they existed. And yet at the very end of this, he still asks this all-knowing God that knows everything about him to search him, and to know him, and to know his thoughts, and for the purpose of finding any grievous way in him. And I just think if David did that, as people with the Holy Spirit in us who searches our hearts would sit down and say, Lord, is there anything in me you want out of me? I think it's important for us as believers to do that. [Jennifer] Yeah, I know. It's just so beautiful. And I love how you brought up that God already knows us inside and out, every which way before we were even born. He's the one that knit us together. He is the one who made us in the secret place. And I think that that helps us trust him when we cry out to him and say, search me, oh Lord. We can trust God. Right. [Jennifer] Because he's the one that created us, and he already knows us. [Aaron] Yeah, and he desires us of our own will to invite him to search us. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Because we can be oblivious. [Jennifer] Yeah, we can. [Aaron] It's not an excuse, but often we use it, the ignorance and obliviousness, as an excuse of like, well, I didn't know, or well, how am I supposed to, I'm not perfect. We use all these words, like you said, "Well, I'm not that bad." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And I've done the same thing. When I come to these thoughts that the Holy Spirit's prompting my heart, I say, well, I've changed a lot, and I used to be much worse, and therefore, I'll get better eventually, and it's not that bad. [Jennifer] Well, we can't be blindsided if we are growing in spiritual maturity to think that we've ever reached the pivotal place at the top where we're just like perfect. Yeah, we're there. [Jennifer] We're not there yet. We'll never be there until we're in the presence of God, and we have to stand before him. [Aaron] It's a great point is we're not there yet. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And so, A, can we humble ourselves enough to recognize that we're not there yet? [Jennifer] Well, we have to. -Yeah. We need to. [Aaron] Yeah, the Bible tells us that if we don't humble ourselves, we're gonna fall. And I don't wanna fall. I don't wanna, in our scenario, lose our kids. I don't wanna just continue in these every once in a while or every so often things that we deal with, and then embitter our kids to us. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. Or set the example so that when they're parents, they respond in this way. Let's just end it. Let's stop that, and show 'em the right way. [Aaron] And ask God on our knees, change us. Make us better. Show us how you want us to be the way everlasting, right? Yeah, 'cause who benefits from when we cry out and say, search me, oh God, of course we benefit from that if we walk out and pursue what he has for us in purifying our hearts and purifying our lives, but who else benefits? [Aaron] The body, others, our children, our spouse, our neighbors. It increases unity in the body of Christ with other Christians. Other people benefit from us inviting God to search us, and change us, and draw things out of us. And what's awesome is the Holy Spirit's already doing this. His desire is to sanctify us and transform us from the inside out. But there's something powerful about acknowledging and recognizing that he wants to do that. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And then it's almost like opening the curtains or taking the glasses off, you're like, oh, like yes. I'm gonna look for the things you wanna show me, so when you show me, I'm not gonna slough 'em off. I'm not gonna justify them away. I'm gonna say, that's something you're showing me. Okay, I'm gonna change it. I'm gonna walk in your spirit you're giving me, good Lord, to help me change it. We woke up that next morning, how did you feel? [Jennifer] Lighter and braver. [Aaron] Braver? Brave's a good word. [Jennifer] Yeah, I just felt like we could do this. And the coolest part is that we're doing it together. You could've had that revelation from the Lord and just continued on and maybe ask God to search your heart without ever having that conversation with me. But because you entered into that conversation with me, we're able to not just have had an awesome conversation where intimacy took place in that moment, especially-- I was just thinking the word intimacy, yeah. Over our children. That was so beautiful to me. But that we get to keep each other accountable and walk through it together. Day-to-day, we're asking each other, "Hey, how've you been? "How've you been with your attitude? "How you've been with your responses?" That is what marriage is, that's a part of what marriage is for, why God created two becoming one. [Aaron] Yeah, to help sanctify us, to transform us. Yeah, so it's not just your journey with God, although, that's important. It's our journey together, and how God can move through our marriage. [Aaron] Yeah, and the next day, man, it did feel lighter. It did feel like we can accomplish anything with God. It also empowered us. It made us ready for what God had next for us. And I don't know, I just wanna encourage everyone listening to consider the things we're saying. I asked everyone on Sunday. I said, "Go this weekend, ask God to search you." And it is scary, and I'm pretty sure there are people that haven't done it yet, because they're like, okay, am I ready for this? Am I, you know? [Jennifer] What's God gonna show me, even though you probably already know. [Aaron] Yeah. What's funny is just me even mentioning it, I bet you anything, things just immediately came to people's hearts. Well, what did I keep saying on the couch that night when I was crying? Do you remember? [Aaron] Um, we said a lot of things. You kept saying you can't, or-- I kept saying, "Why did you even say anything?" [Aaron] Oh, yeah. [Jennifer] Like three different times, I'm like-- And oh, yeah. "Why did you even say anything, why did you bring this up?" [Aaron] Yeah, "I don't even like that you brought it up." [Jennifer]But I didn't mean it. It was just my flesh-- No, it was out of your heart, yeah. Yep. Not wanting to confront certain things, but I know it needed to happen. And I'm so thankful. And I remember telling you, "I didn't bring it up. "God brought it up." Yeah, the Lord did. Which I'm grateful for, I really am. [Aaron] Well, yeah, and-- [Jennifer] And don't you feel unified in our marriage that we know that we're trying to tackle hard things with parenting? Together, yeah. [Jennifer] Together, yeah, I just love that. [Aaron] And what's funny is the more you're with someone, the more you're one with someone, the more your issues are the same. I think when we-- [Jennifer] We start copying each other. [Aaron] When we first got married, I had my issues, you had your issues, and we've slowly worked through a lot of them. Mm-hmm. Right? And now we're on the couch crying about the same thing. The same thing. [Aaron]Like our horrible parenting, or our horrible attitude. I might be exaggerating a little bit, but I feel like I'm not. Like that God wants us better in these areas. Well, here's the thing. I don't think it matters what level. I think that if it needs to change, he's gonna prick your heart about it. Yeah. And it's our job to have the courage to face it and allow God to transform us. That's the point. It doesn't matter what the level of harshness is if there's any harshness. God wants it. You know what I mean? [Aaron] Yeah, well, level is a good word. 'Cause you actually mentioned a while, you've talked about how if something you were walking in a sin wasn't to the same level of something I was walking in-- [Jennifer] I disregarded it. [Aaron] You would be like, well, it's not that. [Jennifer] It's not as bad as that guy. Yeah, at least I'm not like my husband, and the things he's walking in. [Jennifer] Stop justifying, Jen. [Aaron] We can actually, we do that. [Jennifer] I know. [Aaron] There's things that God might wanna change in us, and what we do is we say, well, it's not one of the major sins, so it's not that big of a deal. And God's like, wait, no, I'm not okay with any of it. The Bible tells us to be holy as he is holy. What that means is that we're pursuing the holiness, which means we're practicing it. In 1 John, it tells us, it says, he who practices righteousness is righteous. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And that's what God wants. He wants us to practice it, and he teaches us these things. And so-- [Jennifer] What's the challenge for them? [Aaron] The challenge for them, the challenge for them is to sit down with their spouse, and ask God to search them. As David said, search me, oh Lord. Know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous ways in me. [Jennifer] And if there are grievous ways and he reveals them to you, which he will, he's faithful, and he wants this for us to have the courage to change. [Aaron] Yeah, and to realize that you can change, and be transformed in those areas because the same Holy Spirit that just revealed those things to you lives in you empowering you to be different, to be a new kind of human. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] As The Bible Project always says. A new kind of human that we can actually be godly people. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And it's a journey. Yeah. And so that was our encouragement for everyone today is to do what we just did. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And then to do it often. We're gonna do it more often. We're gonna be kind of a constant prayer of like, okay, Lord, is there anything in me? Change me, make us new. [Jennifer] Yeah. Well, speaking of prayer, we ended the last episode on spiritual stamina with a time of prayer together, which I really enjoyed. That was really awesome. And we just loved that so much that we believe that there's a necessity to be praying with you guys. So at the end of every Marriage After God episode from here on out, we're gonna end with prayer. So you can look forward to ending each episode with us, and we just invite you to join us in prayer wherever you're listening. [Aaron] All right, I'm gonna pray. Dear Lord, thank you for your holy word that guides us and challenges us to be transformed. We desire to be mature. We desire to be who you create us to be. We lay our hearts down before you. Please search our hearts, Lord, and see if there be any grievous way in us. Prune our hearts. Cut out what is sinful and unfruitful. Strip away the bad and replace it with your good. Reveal to us the areas of our lives that need to be repented of, that need to be changed, that need to be transformed. If there is anything we have been hiding, anything we have been avoiding, anything we have been unaware of, please open our eyes to it all and give us the courage to confront it. Lord, help us to deny our flesh and embrace the righteousness through your Holy Spirit living in us. May we never be prideful. May we never be convinced that we don't have room to grow. Search our hearts, oh Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. [Jennifer] Amen. [Aaron] So I hope that blessed everyone. Prayer is important. God calls us to pray without ceasing. And so have this conversation with your spouse, get in prayer, and see what the Lord reveals. So we thank you for joining us this week. And we hope it blessed you. We hope God's working in your lives. That's our constant prayer for you all. And we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.