0:00

Hey,

0:05

welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After

0:07

God podcast. We're your hosts, Aaron and Jennifer

0:09

Smith. And today we have a little bit of a different

0:11

kind of episode. But before we jump

0:14

in, we'd like to ask you if you would take a few moments

0:16

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0:18

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way you never miss an episode.

0:38

So a different kind of episode,

0:40

huh? So what's on your

0:42

mind? Well

0:44

we, over the last few weeks we have

0:46

been doing, if everyone's

0:49

noticed, we've been starting to promote our brand new one

0:51

year marriage prayer devotional, the marriage gift, which

0:54

comes out in October. And

0:56

one of the main ways that we are promoting

0:58

this book,

1:01

this new book is by being interviewed on a bunch

1:03

of podcasts, which I know

1:05

for you is a little stressful, but it's a, it's a pretty

1:07

cool thing that we've been doing. There's

1:09

just some logistical things that come

1:12

into play when you're on other people's podcasts.

1:14

Cause when we do it together, we're kind of like

1:16

on our timeline, but when you

1:18

schedule it out and you have to be somewhere on time

1:21

and you have five kids, there's a

1:23

little bit more layer to getting

1:25

them set up. And well, also there's a little bit

1:27

of, I get it too, like a performance anxiety

1:29

of like, well, I don't want to mess up what I'm going to say.

1:31

I don't want to say what am I going to say? What am I going to say? Yeah,

1:34

totally. So yeah, we get that, we get a little bit of nerves

1:37

being on these interviews,

1:38

but we've been really excited and grateful

1:40

for the opportunity to not only,

1:42

you know, share

1:44

that space with someone on their podcast, but

1:47

to be able to share the message of our book coming

1:49

out.

1:51

I found that some of

1:53

the questions that were coming and some of

1:55

the things that we got to talk about were

1:57

really encouraging to me because it kind of took us back.

1:59

back over the years and

2:02

some people were asking about our origin story,

2:04

some people were asking about how it is to

2:06

work together, some people were asking

2:08

about. About our dating years.

2:11

Our dating years.

2:11

Advice for dating couples. Yeah. I

2:14

was like, whoa. So it's been really encouraging for

2:16

me and I thought, how cool would it

2:18

be if we gave you guys a little insight to

2:20

what this experience has been like for us

2:24

and also share some of the extras. So

2:26

some of the things that maybe we thought about in

2:29

the interviews but didn't have the time

2:31

allotted to be able to share everything. So

2:34

some of those little extras.

2:36

Before we get into that, I wanted to point out

2:38

though, so we're gonna talk about some cool insights

2:40

and some deeper thoughts that maybe

2:42

we didn't get to share like you just said. Yeah.

2:44

But I wanted to share some of the podcasts that we've been on

2:47

so far. And to be honest, we're pretty honored

2:49

that someone's inviting us into that space, into their

2:51

audience. And it's

2:54

a pretty awesome thing. And one

2:56

of the podcasts, here's a list of the podcasts

2:59

we've been on so far. The Dan Tired podcast

3:01

with Jared Lopes. He's a really good friend of ours for

3:03

many years now. And his episode's

3:06

actually already live. So you can go look for that.

3:08

It's on YouTube and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

3:11

His and her money.

3:13

That one was fun. Yeah, Truth For Your 20s. This

3:15

one was an interesting one because her audience

3:18

is a lot of singles and 20 somethings.

3:20

And so I don't feel like we've talked to that

3:23

genre in a long time, but it was so cool.

3:26

The Happy Home.

3:27

The Arlene Pellecain, which that

3:29

was also a really fun one. And we've been following each

3:31

other for so long. She's also an author. You

3:33

guys would recognize her books, but oh,

3:35

just so cool to be able to like, quote unquote,

3:37

sit in the room with her.

3:39

The Christian Parenting Podcast,

3:41

which was another really awesome. And it

3:43

was a blessing to be on that show. And

3:45

then lastly, now that we're a family with

3:48

longtime friends of ours, Elisha and Katie Boberg. And

3:50

so all these episodes are

3:53

gonna be coming out, trickling out over the next month,

3:55

probably closer to October. But be

3:57

on the lookout for those episodes. And we have eight more

3:59

so far. are scheduled to be interviewed

4:01

on. So don't be stressed out. I'm good. And I think we're

4:04

going to be getting more. And that being said,

4:07

if you're listening and you have a podcast and you would like

4:09

to have us on your show, we can't guarantee

4:11

anything, but if you send us an email to support at

4:13

marriageaftergod.com, we might figure

4:16

out if that's something that could possibly be made

4:18

to happen.

4:19

Cool. So I've noticed

4:21

a real quick, just about podcasts in general

4:24

that they're becoming very trendy in

4:26

the sense that people are,

4:27

it's a, it's a sought after platform

4:30

to be like, creating content

4:32

on. Well, and people are clinging to them. Like I

4:34

have just girlfriends who it within

4:37

conversation or at our ladies Bible study

4:39

night, someone will bring up,

4:40

Hey, on this podcast I was listening to. And

4:43

it just seems like such an easy grab

4:45

and go thing that people are really diving

4:48

into. And so I just want to give a huge shout out

4:50

in general to people who podcast, we

4:52

know what it takes to be on the other end and

4:55

provide the content, to do the research,

4:57

to do the, all the technical, the

4:59

technical aspect of editing it and putting

5:01

it together. Like it just requires a lot. And so

5:04

shout out to them for saying, thank you for your work. Thank

5:06

you for all the people that, that pour

5:08

into important

5:11

information and things that we need to hear about so

5:13

that people on the other side and other

5:15

end of the microphone, the listening

5:17

end can, can glean from

5:20

it and can enjoy it. And I just,

5:22

I also just want to give a shout out to you listening today

5:25

and the supporters that we've had following our

5:27

show for so long

5:29

and just say thank you. Thank you for, for listening

5:32

in and tuning in and being here. Yeah. And

5:34

for sharing the episodes cause that's how you get, that's

5:37

how we get more listeners and new listeners. And

5:39

speaking of, of the,

5:41

the prevailing, you know, growth of

5:43

podcasts, the trend of podcasts, I was listening to a

5:45

podcast with Jordan Peterson. He just happens all the time.

5:47

And he was talking about how

5:50

it's becoming a, the prevailing way that

5:52

people are getting their information

5:55

because, and it makes sense because it's so hard

5:57

to trust a lot of the mainstream

5:59

things It's like, what do

6:01

I believe? And so I think what's happening is that

6:04

there's a lot of people there, they're running to the

6:07

actual people of the world. Like what, what

6:09

is, yeah, who's saying what? And

6:11

I'd rather get my information from this person. This person

6:13

seems much more trustworthy than this conglomerate

6:16

over here. So I think that's what's happening. And

6:18

so I just, again, I want to praise all those people that are

6:20

just trying to come out and especially those

6:23

believers who are trying to use this platform,

6:27

audio and video to proclaim

6:29

Christ and the word of God and

6:32

using their lives in a way to do

6:34

that. I just think that's so cool.

6:36

Now with that, I do

6:38

want to encourage just like with any other

6:40

form of entertainment or books that we read,

6:42

I just want to remind everyone that we

6:44

do need to filter it through the word of God because

6:47

sometimes we can be so, you

6:49

know, we can admire someone and really like

6:52

believe in what they're standing for and

6:55

listening in and gleaning from them. But

6:58

is that person and is what they're saying

7:00

in accordance and lining up with the word of

7:02

God? Because I think, I think that

7:04

we need to put a filter on no

7:06

matter, you know, who we're listening to in the world.

7:09

That's so good. There's a good

7:11

example.

7:11

I'm not going to get name names, but

7:13

there's, there's people out there that we look to

7:16

and we're like, man, this is, this person is conservative and

7:18

they have some values that I have. I

7:20

agree with them. They say lots of things that I agree with.

7:22

And then they have things that

7:25

you don't agree with and you got to be careful. We got

7:27

to be careful to not elevate any person.

7:29

It doesn't mean you can't listen to that. It doesn't

7:31

mean you can't,

7:32

you know, tune in, but

7:34

just filter it. Yeah. We got

7:36

to be careful that we're not putting someone

7:38

in a place of that. They shouldn't be in

7:41

our hearts. So yeah, same with us. Yes. Filter

7:44

us. Okay. With that being said,

7:46

we also have really exciting

7:49

news, which Aaron, I don't think you knew I was

7:51

going to mention, but

7:52

they're not here on the notes. I

7:55

told Aaron when we started, Hey, today's episode's a

7:57

little bit different, so don't go off the notes. Okay.

7:59

because I'm the one who is like always

8:02

don't go off the notes. Don't go off the notes, Aaron. I mean,

8:04

stay to the notes. Yeah. Okay. Now

8:06

I'm confusing myself.

8:08

Okay. So Aaron and I've been talking a lot. Really

8:10

it's been Aaron talking to me a lot about this idea

8:13

of when we first launched the

8:15

marriage after God podcast back in was 2018 or 19. We

8:20

started with a video aspect and

8:22

we sat at our kitchen table in our old house and

8:25

there was a layer to it that we had to set up and

8:28

some technical aspects of it.

8:31

If you've been following us since then you've seen our

8:33

videos. Yeah, because we had them on YouTube for a long time.

8:35

They're still up, right? They're still up, yeah.

8:37

So it was us kind of just podcasting

8:39

in front of a video and after some

8:42

time and we had more kids, we

8:44

took that aspect down or out

8:46

because...

8:47

What I wanted to do is we wanted to simplify

8:50

it to make it possible that we can keep doing it because it was getting

8:52

to this point. It's like, Aaron, I need time. I

8:54

can't do this. So I was like, okay, I want to keep doing

8:56

with you. Let's just do the audio. Let's take away

8:58

all the other things.

8:59

And then we went through a huge transition of moving

9:02

and I feel like that took a really long time. So

9:04

now we're at this place where we've been

9:07

doing this

9:08

podcast all year. The marriage

9:10

after God this season has been really

9:12

long but really awesome to do. And

9:15

then all of a sudden Aaron was inspired and felt like... Well,

9:17

a friend of mine just brought

9:19

up, he's like, why don't you do videos again? I was

9:21

like, I don't know. But

9:23

it made me think because I was

9:25

going through our YouTube channel, we have quite

9:28

a few videos from early on, from five

9:30

years ago, because we've been doing this podcast for that long,

9:33

that some of them have 81,000 views, 65,000 views.

9:37

And we know that some people like the visual

9:39

aspects over the audio. So

9:42

we know that there's different types of listeners out there. And so

9:44

we were just really excited to share that news with you. It's not 100%

9:47

set up right now, but

9:50

hopefully in the near future, we will be

9:52

ready to launch the video side of things

9:54

again.

9:54

Yeah, and you listeners can actually be praying for

9:57

me because I'm trying to navigate the logistics

9:59

again of doing...

9:59

video and I've since gotten

10:02

rid of certain equipment and things that I used to

10:04

have and I'm like, okay, how can we do this affordably?

10:06

How can we make it look good? What's it going to take? What's

10:08

it going to take? I don't know how to do like lighting and all

10:10

that stuff.

10:11

We'll figure it out. We're going to figure it out. But we're excited

10:13

about it, which also means just, I don't know, I'm

10:15

kind of looking at the end of this year and then into

10:18

the new year, 2024 and just

10:20

going, Hey God, what do you want from

10:22

us and for this podcast? So

10:24

I'm excited about that.

10:25

So speaking of these podcasts that we've been

10:28

interviewed on, what was one of the first impressions

10:30

that you've gotten, not out of a single

10:32

one, but just out of doing these podcasts? What

10:35

stood out to you?

10:36

I think the very first thing for me

10:39

was just some of the questions

10:41

for when you jump into a new audience, they always

10:43

say, give us some background, you know,

10:45

let us know who you are. And so we always start

10:47

off with our names and our children and how they

10:49

are. And that's great. But then we kind of went back

10:52

to a little bit of our story

10:54

and it was just really fun to remember because

10:57

we don't do that from our day to day. You know, we're not thinking

10:59

about 17 years ago, what

11:01

that felt like. And it's not, it's not a common

11:04

thing that comes up. It just felt good.

11:06

I like that. What about you? I was,

11:09

I was getting nervous when I'm going

11:11

into someone else's podcast because I don't listen

11:13

to every podcast that I can't, I don't have the time

11:15

for it. I, and so I just don't know. I

11:17

don't know the people. I don't know their

11:20

mindsets. I don't know their audiences. And so I

11:22

get a little nervous, but I've been really, it's been really refreshing

11:24

because

11:25

all the ones so far that we've been on have

11:27

been so beautiful. And these people are so

11:29

genuine and so kind and they love God.

11:32

And they're like, they pray for us and they ask us how

11:34

they, you know, what, how we can pray for them. And

11:37

I'm

11:38

just refreshed. I'm like, wow, there's so many

11:40

people out there going back to this idea of this platform,

11:43

podcasting, people that are just, they

11:45

want to use their, this, this thing

11:48

to encourage people and to tell people about Jesus

11:51

and to, to give them tips and advice and

11:53

just, I don't know. I was really encouraged by it.

11:55

I was also encouraged by how they would say,

11:58

you know, I've been following you for a long time.

11:59

I'm so proud of you guys or so encouraged

12:02

by your ministry. That's always surprising to me. Yeah, because

12:04

you just never know who knows what. And

12:07

so for them to be able to just give us that encouragement

12:09

and also to let us know like, I

12:11

love your new book coming out. Like

12:13

it just is making

12:16

me so excited. Like, okay. Yeah.

12:18

Because they're not told to say that and they,

12:20

they usually, they say those things before we're recording.

12:22

Yeah. Which is really encouraging also because

12:25

it feels more, it's genuine. They're telling us from

12:27

their own heart. Yeah,

12:30

it's been really good. But another

12:32

thing that I've been thinking about, because again, going

12:34

back to our past and

12:36

like where we began our origin story, because

12:38

we like Marvel and that sort of thing, but

12:42

is recognizing and it kind of blows my

12:44

mind that we've been doing this for over 12 years.

12:48

Like 12, that's a long time. I've never

12:50

had a career longer than this in anything.

12:53

This is our career. Yeah. And

12:55

it's praising God. We've had so many different

12:57

things go on in our life with

12:59

this ministry and this, this business and what

13:02

we've been doing. And it's, it's evolved

13:04

and changed and we've seen, you know, crazy

13:07

growth and then stalling out and everything

13:10

between, but we're still doing

13:12

it. And God is so good that he's, he's totally

13:14

allowed us to do this.

13:16

Okay. So 12 years into

13:18

this career, we'll call it

13:20

ministry business, working together,

13:23

but it's been a lot longer of us together.

13:27

And so

13:27

we're, I mean, we're at 16 and a half years, a little

13:30

bit more than that, uh, married. Yep.

13:33

And then plus our dating and engaged years, but

13:35

let's go back.

13:36

Yeah, let's go back to then because we did a podcast

13:39

truth for your twenties and we were kind

13:41

of talking to our 20 year old selves and giving them encouragement.

13:44

Our marriage is almost in his twenties. That's

13:46

crazy. So let's take it back there first

13:49

and start at the beginning of us. Yeah. That

13:52

was an awesome podcast because her audience

13:55

is again, it's where we were

13:57

once long ago. Yeah.

13:59

I always like to ask what's one thing you would

14:02

tell your 20 year old self.

14:03

And actually because, um,

14:05

we were talking about marriage, she went back and said,

14:07

but this time I'm going to ask you, what would you tell

14:09

your newlywed self? So

14:11

it kind of immediately threw me into this emotional

14:15

place of remembering where

14:18

we were at those that first few days,

14:21

weeks, months of being

14:23

a newlywed. Yeah. Because those were the, those

14:25

four and a half years were the times that we

14:28

had the most struggle. Not that we haven't had sort

14:30

of since,

14:30

but most struggle in a specific area, which

14:33

is intimacy, which some of you may know, some

14:35

of you may not know, which is another reason why I

14:37

was so encouraged to do this podcast today, because

14:39

I thought as much as we were talking to

14:42

new audiences on other people's podcasts,

14:44

there's probably a lot of newer listeners

14:46

on our podcast who probably didn't know,

14:48

you know, what our story looked like.

14:51

And so parts of sharing today was to

14:53

give you a little glimpse of that.

14:54

So I don't think we're going to share what we shared on that

14:57

episode. Cause we want you to listen to it, but what

14:59

we could do is I think

15:01

we can go into that idea of those first

15:03

few years of what

15:05

we encourage other people with.

15:07

Yeah. The besides

15:09

like actual marriage stuff on a very

15:12

personal level, I think I would go back

15:14

to my 20 year old self and say, Hey, start

15:16

you jitsu now. If you haven't started in your

15:19

younger years. No,

15:22

but seriously, because I found a love

15:24

for it in my, in later

15:27

in life, I can just see how much better

15:29

I'd be, how much more energetic I'd be, how much more time

15:32

I've had. If I started then,

15:34

and it probably would have given me a really good physical

15:36

outlet for, you know,

15:38

dealing with some of the things that we were dealing with

15:40

varied. Um, for me, in

15:42

my twenties, I would, I would

15:44

go back and definitely encourage myself

15:46

with the truth about pornography

15:49

sooner. And in

15:51

say, get, go get around guys that are going

15:53

to tell you to knock it off. And

15:56

I would do that back then. Cause that was very

15:58

destructive in our early years. and

16:00

just in general in my faith, in my walk.

16:04

And so if you're struggling with that, I wanna

16:06

encourage you in the same way I would encourage

16:08

my 20 year old self is, is you are

16:10

free from it. Walk in that freedom

16:13

right now.

16:14

Don't wait, don't minimize it, it's

16:16

serious. Yeah. What would you

16:18

tell, you know,

16:20

what would you tell 20 something year

16:22

olds that maybe are single, that they're not even

16:25

into a relationship yet, not

16:27

even married yet?

16:27

I actually, I was thinking

16:30

we should probably start doing some more episodes

16:32

in the future about talking to singles

16:34

and engaged people. Younger generation. Yeah, because,

16:38

gosh, I think they have a lot more

16:40

obstacles to overcome than we did growing

16:43

up, because with

16:45

social media, with all media,

16:48

the way the world is and the way that people

16:51

meet each other now is so different. And

16:54

I know, and if anyone doesn't say it's different, everyone

16:56

says, no, it's the same as it always has, no.

16:57

We live in a different world. And

17:00

so I think we're just encouraging young

17:03

adults who are seeking, who

17:05

are desiring that. It's one of the reasons

17:07

we wrote the 31 prayers for my future has been in future

17:09

life books.

17:11

And it might be,

17:14

you might think if you don't have those books, like, oh,

17:16

it's just praying for that person. No, a lot of it,

17:18

and a lot of the comments we get on the book, a

17:20

lot of the reviews are, well, this actually

17:22

made me think about the kind of person that I want

17:24

to

17:25

be. Because as you're praying for the person you

17:27

desire and want to be

17:29

in God's will with, you're actually being

17:31

confronted with, am I that person?

17:32

Exactly, and

17:34

instead of seeking for the one, and

17:36

I have my own thoughts on the one, but

17:39

be the one. Be the husband,

17:41

be the wife. Prepare yourself

17:44

now for the kind of man

17:46

or woman you desire to be for your spouse.

17:49

Instead of just looking for that person that fits

17:51

all the, you check all the boxes for yourself. Make

17:55

sure you're checking the boxes for yourself. That's

17:57

good.

17:58

So, you know.

17:59

as we got to, as a part of this

18:02

interview, reflect

18:03

and evaluate and talk to our 20 year old

18:06

selves,

18:07

would you say that there's benefit for anyone

18:10

listening no matter how old they are? You

18:12

know, thirties, forties, fifties. Oh yeah,

18:14

we talked about so much different types

18:16

of things and talking

18:19

about our past. You know,

18:21

I heard someone once says memories

18:24

aren't there like remembering the past isn't there just to

18:26

hold onto the past. They're there to teach us about the future.

18:28

Biblically, this gets played out when

18:31

God often was asking the people of Israel

18:33

to set up monuments and stacks

18:36

of stones and different things to

18:39

remind them not of

18:41

like, well, look how hard it was back then, but hey,

18:43

look at what God has done. And so

18:45

if you're listening, there's something really powerful

18:48

about sitting down and reminiscing like,

18:50

wow, let's talk about what God has

18:52

brought us through. But do you remember that season when it was really

18:54

hard, I was struggling with this, there was a sickness and illness,

18:57

a physical thing, a fight we were going through,

18:59

whatever it was. And you look back

19:01

at that stuff, not to be like, wow,

19:03

that was hard, but look back and say, wow, look what

19:06

God did and look at how God

19:08

leads us and guides us through things. So it's

19:11

a really cool thing to

19:13

look back and reminisce on how

19:15

God has led.

19:15

So in looking back at kind of our

19:18

beginnings and sharing, especially for newer

19:20

listeners, give them some of that backstory

19:22

of us and reminisce about what God

19:24

has brought us through. You've

19:27

already mentioned those first few years were really

19:29

hard for us. So we struggled with intimacy

19:33

and couldn't enjoy

19:35

sex with each other for those first

19:37

four years. It was really hard. It

19:38

was almost non-existent in a marriage. And

19:42

there was a lot that came of that because

19:44

I mean, if you think about it, intimacy affects

19:47

how we interact, how we communicate, how

19:49

we make decisions. And

19:52

it kind of just poured out all of those

19:54

emotions and everything we were dealing with poured out into

19:56

every aspect of our marriage. And so we were really, really,

19:58

really, really, really hard to

19:59

understand.

19:59

we were really affected by what we

20:02

were dealing with circumstantially. But

20:04

spiritually, God was refining us and

20:07

drawing out of us things that

20:09

we didn't even know were there, and

20:12

He wanted to mature

20:14

us, I believe. And looking in hindsight,

20:16

you can see the growth that we experienced during

20:19

that time

20:20

and came out better for it on the

20:22

other end of

20:24

really Him bringing us to

20:26

the end of ourselves and knitting

20:28

us together to be one.

20:30

Yeah, on

20:32

the surface, you could see

20:34

the things that we've physically struggled with,

20:36

like our sex life and those sorts

20:38

of things, and the struggles of being newlyweds

20:41

and finances. But

20:45

when you get to look back, that's when you can

20:47

have an easier time seeing the spiritual connotations

20:49

of everything that was going on. We

20:51

can recognize that we had

20:54

idols made. Of each other, of

20:56

sex, of our marriage, of

20:59

things that we believed we deserved. And

21:01

God wanted to deal with those things. We had

21:03

selfishness in our hearts and pride and

21:06

all sorts of things that all of us

21:08

bring into our marriages. And

21:11

God was in a very

21:13

specific way, in a very suffering

21:16

way with us, using the

21:18

circumstances of our marriage and the things that we were dealing

21:20

with

21:22

to cut those, per se,

21:24

out of us. To bring into the surface,

21:26

as you know, like being refined and all that dross

21:29

gets brought to the surface.

21:31

And looking back helps you see that. Because

21:34

in the midst of it, it's very hard to see, like, what's God

21:36

spiritually doing to us? It's a good practice to

21:38

try and do that. It's very hard to do. But

21:41

looking back, you'd be like, wow,

21:44

God

21:45

definitely used that

21:47

to grow us, to mature us,

21:50

to refine us. Yeah, as

21:52

we were

21:53

reminiscing and talking about kind

21:55

of our backstory, I

21:58

was looking at the hand of God,

21:59

in light of our family and

22:02

thinking, okay, those first handful of years

22:04

were so hard for us to be intimate

22:06

with one another, that I wasn't even thinking about

22:09

having kids

22:10

back then. It was like, I was almost grateful

22:12

that we didn't because how, I

22:15

mean, we weren't getting along and we weren't

22:17

figuring things out. I remember

22:19

thinking I'd be really angry at God

22:23

if you got pregnant. There were, like, if

22:25

the one time that we tried and then all

22:27

of a sudden I'm like, great.

22:28

Well, there was a lot of layers

22:31

to this. And like, I already used the word

22:33

refining, but the Lord has changed our perspective

22:35

even of children over the years. And

22:38

so now, you know, we're 16

22:40

and a half years in, where we

22:42

have five kids. One, their first is

22:44

almost 11 and

22:46

our youngest is three. And so just

22:48

looking back over the years and saying, wow,

22:51

God, look at what you did in us, that we

22:53

came from

22:55

what seemingly felt like

22:57

failure and frustration

22:59

in the beginning to now

23:02

a flourishing family. Like, to me, that just

23:04

really blesses my heart. And I'm so grateful

23:06

that over the years, he gave us the

23:08

courage to say yes and

23:10

to be excited about building

23:13

our family and having children. And I

23:15

can only imagine what that

23:18

feels like for others, looking back in hindsight,

23:20

maybe for people who have struggled with infertility

23:23

or struggled like we

23:25

did, or maybe they put off

23:27

having children because of finances. And

23:29

if you could look back over the years

23:31

and see the fruitfulness

23:33

now, it's just, to me, it's exciting.

23:36

And it's a blessing to be able to see that bigger picture

23:39

come to life.

23:40

Yeah, and that's the encouragement for

23:42

you listening, is if

23:45

you were to just look at a snapshot

23:47

of our life, there was, actually,

23:50

I'll often bring this up, that we've had

23:52

more good years now than we've had bad years.

23:56

And that's a reality and a truth

23:58

statistically for marriages that... that

24:01

make it through hard things, that they don't

24:03

just give up, that when you push through

24:05

and you make it, at

24:08

whatever time you make it past that hard thing,

24:11

you will grow

24:13

more years past that and you'll

24:15

have experienced better days.

24:17

And I would add to that that even

24:20

some of the hard things that people deal with,

24:22

there is no end date, there is no

24:25

getting over it. Sometimes, like when you think about

24:27

grief, it's like that

24:29

will always be with them, but it's still something

24:31

that they can endure together. And

24:33

so my question, Aaron, is what is the thing

24:36

that gets

24:37

us or any couple through

24:39

that? It's

24:41

the rock when we build our foundation

24:44

on the rock. So when we have Christ

24:46

as our foundation, we have His word

24:49

to fall back on. The Bible

24:51

tells us that we comfort those with the comfort

24:53

that we ourselves receive. So we can

24:55

only comfort someone else because we've received comfort

24:57

ourselves from God. And so-

25:00

I'll tell you what, I tried for a long time to

25:02

draw from my own strength and my own ability

25:05

and my own knowing. And

25:07

you just get depleted so fast. You

25:10

can't sustain that.

25:11

You can't. It doesn't get

25:13

us far enough, but God gets us all

25:15

the way. He gets us to

25:18

the finish line when we rely on Him.

25:19

So no matter where you're at in your marriage today, we

25:21

wanted to encourage you to keep tracing after Christ,

25:24

keep Him at the center, keep Him as

25:26

your rock and your foundation because He

25:28

is the thing that will

25:31

help you endure and get through and

25:33

feel closer today than you were

25:35

yesterday or the day before. Right?

25:39

Yep. Okay, so we also shared a little

25:42

bit about working together in some of these interviews.

25:45

So did anything come up from that? Yeah,

25:47

it made me, after

25:49

talking to Jared Lopes from Dad Tired, I

25:51

wanted to, I got excited

25:53

about potentially

25:56

either me or us being on other types

25:58

of podcasts like business podcasts.

25:59

or a finance podcast or writing

26:02

podcast. I was thinking, yeah, there's

26:04

areas of our

26:06

life and experiences that we have that

26:08

everyone gets to benefit from. Like

26:10

they read our books and listen to our podcasts,

26:12

but we don't really talk about how

26:16

we do it. Or- The technical.

26:18

Yeah, and the processes and the things that we've

26:20

learned over the years.

26:21

Do you remember like, I think it was a few

26:23

years ago, I'm the idea person

26:25

in our family. So I feel like I'm always coming up

26:27

with exciting things to do with you,

26:29

but remember I said, we should start a business podcast

26:32

and share like how to do husband and wife,

26:35

like a podcast for husband and wife

26:37

who work together,

26:39

encouragement, but also practical.

26:40

Yeah, I actually created a Google

26:43

docs folder for a long time ago

26:45

and we started putting ideas in it. This could be a good idea.

26:48

Well, if you're listening and that's

26:50

something you'd like from us, let us know on Instagram. Doing

26:54

a second podcast would be

26:56

logistically difficult. Maybe in our next two years.

26:59

Empty nesters. But

27:02

I really did get encouraged in sharing

27:04

about just

27:06

how we've come to learn

27:09

to work together because it wasn't like it, there

27:11

was a desire there for sure to serve God, like

27:13

right up front in our marriage. But I think over

27:15

time we realized that it takes a lot.

27:18

Our communication wasn't

27:20

perfect. And so even still today, we still

27:22

work on communication when it comes to our work. Well,

27:25

can I say that one of the best bits of

27:27

advice I can give to anyone listening who they

27:29

do want to do stuff with their spouse, they want to work, they want

27:31

to do ministry is that

27:34

scripture, if you're faithful with little, then you'll be faithful with

27:36

much, is do

27:39

it with your spouse who will ministry

27:41

of some sort in any aspect and

27:44

make that a part of your life. So

27:46

when I asked you

27:48

to be my wife, I said, I don't

27:50

care what I do, I just want to

27:53

do it with you and for God.

27:54

And so my life was open

27:57

in a sense of like, K God, whatever you

27:59

want us to do.

27:59

let's do, I want to do it together. And

28:02

we, we did, you

28:04

know, youth group together. We,

28:07

we did all sorts of things together early on,

28:09

we went to Africa together, we went to the

28:11

mission. So even before we were writing books

28:13

and podcasting and blogging,

28:15

and I would say this, it was a lot of little yeses

28:17

that evolved

28:19

and grew us over time into

28:21

bigger ones, into bigger ones. And

28:23

so whether you do it perfectly or not,

28:25

whether you have if you wait until

28:28

you have everything exactly right, and you know how

28:30

to communicate perfectly, and you know, you'll

28:32

never do it. And so it's like, if you

28:34

have the desire, just start doing it, start

28:37

seeking out the Lord together, and figure out

28:39

whatever that,

28:40

that thing is, start little,

28:42

and work your way up to bigger things. I love

28:44

that. And it doesn't mean that you have to quit your day

28:46

job to do it either. Because lots of times

28:48

God will allow a husband and wife

28:50

to work or be home with the kids and homeschooling

28:53

or do what whatever it is that

28:55

is what you're pursuing.

28:57

And then there's that there could be extras on the

29:00

side, because we did that for a long time where we

29:02

pursued

29:03

extra. Well, we had our both, we both

29:05

had our day jobs. And then we started a

29:07

photography business to get out of debt to get

29:09

out of debt, because it made money. And so we did it together.

29:11

And then on Saturdays, and on the weekends, and in

29:13

the evenings, and whenever we had time, we'd

29:16

be shooting family shoots and babies and

29:18

weddings. And

29:20

so this kind of leads us into the whole message

29:22

of marriage after God, which is another part of

29:24

being interviewed

29:26

that we got to share about that I wasn't expecting. So there

29:29

was a couple of questions. We were

29:29

going to be talking about this new book, but it just

29:32

naturally went to the previous

29:34

book that we just wrote marriage after God. Which makes me really

29:36

excited because sometimes when

29:38

you work on a big project, like a book and marriage

29:40

after God, the message that kind

29:42

of sums up our entire ministry, what

29:44

we're trying to encourage couples with is

29:48

so you do it and the excitement around

29:50

it hovers for a while. And then you move on

29:52

to the next project, which for us is this the

29:55

marriage gift, which we'll talk about in a minute, but to

29:58

go back and to remember

30:01

the importance and the value of marriage after

30:03

God and what we poured into that book was

30:05

really important to me and I'll just highlight

30:07

that you said that this book essentially sums

30:09

up the

30:10

The heart yeah this ministry.

30:13

Yeah, the books called marriage after God and we

30:15

started the podcast because of the book because of

30:17

the book and that was five years

30:19

ago and so if you have

30:21

not got a copy of marriage after God and can

30:24

we just strongly encourage you

30:26

go to Amazon pick up a copy of marriage

30:28

after God and you'll see what we're talking about because we talk

30:30

about how God led us

30:34

Really step by step. Yeah, all these little yeses

30:36

and how God used our unique situation

30:39

our unique marriage our unique gifts and talents and resources

30:42

For him when we say yes to

30:44

him and the encouragement to you through this book

30:46

and through the podcast is just to encourage you guys

30:49

to look at your marriage and to Like

30:52

offer it up to God and say God what

30:54

like Aaron said what experiences what testimonies

30:57

what gifts what resources do we have?

31:00

from the both of us that we can use to

31:02

serve you and to honor you and to

31:05

do things for your kingdom that only our marriage

31:07

can do because there's unique work out there that an

31:09

opportunity that he does

31:11

Have for us. And so ours looks

31:13

like this books and podcasting and

31:16

social media There's a lot out there.

31:18

That's not it. Yeah, that's not it So

31:20

like Aaron said if you haven't had a chance to read marriage

31:22

after God We highly encourage that the

31:24

subtitle for marriage after God is chasing

31:27

boldly after God's purpose for your life together So

31:30

if you've been kind of stagnant or you

31:32

feel like you're in a place where you're wondering like

31:34

what what's my purpose? Or what's our purpose? You know I

31:37

think that this would be a great resource to dive in together

31:40

with your spouse and we give questions at the end of

31:42

each Chapter two to like get those conversations

31:44

rolling. So

31:45

I'm speaking of purpose. This is actually in one of

31:47

the one of the podcasts interviews we did

31:50

Someone asked I can't remember which podcast

31:53

it was What is one of the

31:55

biggest struggles you see marriage is having and

31:57

I brought up lack of purpose these

32:01

couples not seeing their marriage having

32:03

a purpose or they have the

32:06

wrong purpose

32:06

as in. I was gonna say when you have, when you

32:08

don't have a purpose for your marriage, you tend

32:10

to be self-focused. Yeah,

32:12

like how is my spouse serving me? How

32:15

is my spouse making me happy? How is my spouse,

32:17

how is this marriage fulfilling

32:19

me rather than what is our marriage

32:22

for? How can I serve my spouse? How can I love my

32:24

spouse? How can I fulfill my spouse? So

32:26

it's a, yeah,

32:27

God's purpose

32:29

for your marriage

32:31

changes your focus. So anyways, I just wanna bring that up that,

32:33

I think that is a big problem that marriages have is they don't

32:35

have a purpose. But you do. But

32:37

you do. That wasn't even

32:39

in the notes. I know. That's good. Okay, so Aaron,

32:41

why don't you give them a brief overview

32:44

of the marriage gift? I know we've

32:46

talked about it a little bit, but is there anything

32:48

else that you wanted to share about this

32:50

book that's coming out October 17th? Yeah, this is a,

32:52

it's a one-year marriage prayer devotional. And

32:55

we've been doing prayer emails for years

32:57

and people love those and they're a lot

32:59

shorter prayers that we send out. And

33:02

we have prayers that a husband prays for their wife and a prayer

33:04

that a wife prays for their husband. But

33:07

this book is one year

33:09

of prayer specific to your marriage that you can pray

33:11

individually or pray with your spouse. Ideally,

33:14

our hope is that you get to a point where you're

33:16

praying these with your spouse. And

33:18

ideally, ideally, our hope is that

33:21

this book encourages your marriage to be

33:23

prayer warriors, that even

33:25

beyond this book, that this book is just a catalyst, it's

33:27

an inspiration, it's a launching pad

33:30

for your prayer life. And I know

33:32

there's a lot of people that wonder, how

33:35

do I pray for my spouse? How do I pray for marriage? I

33:37

literally just got an email this morning from someone who listened to

33:39

the Dad Tired podcast. And he said,

33:42

how fast can I get this

33:44

book? Because I don't know

33:46

how to pray for my wife. And I was

33:48

like, well, it comes out in October, I said, you could pre-order

33:50

today.

33:51

And I told him, I was like, but until then, why don't you

33:53

join the prayer challenge that I have, which is our

33:55

email, prayers. But

33:57

that's why we wrote this book is that, Jennifer

33:59

and

33:59

I, we desire

34:01

marriages to be standing in the gap for each other

34:04

and also that their marriage will be praying for

34:06

others and that they would recognize that

34:09

the reason we call that the marriage gift is because

34:11

prayer is a gift from God that we

34:13

can talk to him directly That we can come

34:15

before him and we can we can carry our

34:17

spouse at times into the throne room of God But

34:20

it's also that your marriage is a gift to

34:23

each other. Yeah, so The

34:26

marriage gift it's it's a it's got two meanings to

34:28

it multiple meanings But it's 365 prayers

34:31

for our marriage the marriage gift. Why

34:33

don't you read this subtitle?

34:34

It's a daily devotional journey to

34:36

inspire encourage and transform us and

34:38

our prayer life Which again like Aaron

34:41

already mentioned this is just a catalyst

34:43

you guys to grow your to

34:45

grow your prayer life and to hopefully give

34:48

you the words that maybe you didn't know you needed

34:50

or Couldn't formulate yourself because

34:52

you've been in despair or for whatever

34:54

reason or topics

34:55

and areas of your life that you don't even think to pray For

34:58

and the prayers are brief enough that they

35:01

give you those words But it would be

35:03

so easy to add on to

35:05

it and to because you know all the details of your

35:07

life You know what your spouse is going through so you

35:10

can easily add to it in your own words

35:12

in real time What you want to be praying

35:14

for but we did try and cover

35:17

all the different areas of marriage that we?

35:20

Experience and so it's not that

35:22

you weren't reading the same prayer every day Like there's

35:25

ones on on finances and being a good sewer,

35:27

but there's also ones on intimacy. There's ones

35:29

on being friends there's ones on having

35:32

fun there's ones on affirmation and

35:34

building each other up and Just

35:37

sin. Yeah, you know being healthy

35:40

Talking about our words or being

35:43

a team in marriage. So there's

35:45

a lot of different Aspects

35:47

of marriage that we try to cover in this book,

35:50

but really it's just a tool

35:52

and a resource that we wanted to offer a couple

35:55

who desires to grow spiritually

35:57

and intimately with the Lord

35:59

together. Can

36:00

I bring up one secret intention

36:02

we have for this book? What's that? Is that

36:05

the topics of these prayers,

36:08

one of our heart's desires is

36:10

that they become topics

36:12

of conversation. Yeah.

36:14

And depth and intimacy

36:17

with your spouse where not only you're

36:19

praying this prayer, but it becomes like,

36:21

hey, you know, this actually brings up

36:23

a good point.

36:25

Why haven't we thought about this?

36:27

Or how are we doing in this area or how

36:29

are you doing in this area? And

36:31

so one of our secret intentions of the book

36:33

is that we pray it brings a deeper level of intimacy

36:36

between you and your spouse, bringing up

36:38

areas to discuss and to pray over

36:40

and to navigate through that maybe you haven't

36:44

before.

36:45

And so I

36:46

hope that happens. That's good. When we

36:48

were doing these interviews, again,

36:50

I forget too, which podcast

36:52

it was. We've done a bunch of them so far. But I remember specifically

36:55

talking here and about the power of prayer

36:58

and marriage and how there

37:00

was a time early in our marriage because

37:02

of the things that we were experiencing that my faith

37:04

was rocked in a negative way.

37:07

And I felt angry and frustrated,

37:10

almost fragile. Like I couldn't go to God in

37:12

prayer or didn't want to. I don't, I can't remember

37:14

exactly, probably a mixture of those feelings, but I

37:16

did get to share that you stood

37:19

in the gap for us spiritually. You didn't do it every

37:21

day and you didn't do it perfectly, but there were so many

37:23

times that you prayed over

37:25

me, even if it was a quick brief before you

37:27

left the house prayer. There were other

37:29

times that, you know, before we went to bed at night

37:32

that you prayed a long prayer. And

37:34

I remember looking back in hindsight, like

37:36

just feeling so grateful that

37:39

you were able to do that for us because

37:41

I was in a place where I couldn't. And I know that there's probably

37:44

people listening today that they might

37:46

wonder, well, I think I could do that.

37:48

I think I could pray for our marriage, but I don't know if my

37:50

spouse can. And I'm telling you, it's worth

37:52

it. It's worth it to stand in the gap.

37:55

It's worth it to be praying for your marriage, even if your

37:57

spouse can't, and it will inspire

37:59

them. It will.

37:59

encourage them. You did that for me.

38:02

You helped me cling

38:04

onto my faith and my hope in

38:07

God in a time when I didn't have

38:09

the words and I didn't have

38:11

enough faith to go there

38:13

in prayer with the Lord, but it

38:15

was super encouraging. And so if you are able

38:17

to do that in your marriage, I just want to encourage

38:19

you guys to do that.

38:21

And just one more

38:23

note, even when both

38:26

of you feel like you can't go to God or

38:28

don't have the words, we have a

38:30

Savior who is forever

38:34

praying for us. Interesting for

38:36

us. And so our encouragement is that we

38:38

can be a part of that, we can participate in that

38:41

and be praying for each other. And so that's what we want.

38:44

Well, thank you guys for

38:46

listening to this very different episode,

38:48

but I hope that it encouraged you today and

38:50

gave you a little bit of insight into a little

38:53

bit to our past, but also what we're dealing with currently

38:55

with these interviews and just gearing up

38:57

for this new book coming out, which

39:00

we're very honored to be able to present to

39:02

you guys. Even though it's not

39:04

a normal podcast episode, I thought it'd be fun

39:06

just to end with the growth spirit like

39:09

we've been doing. And this is just a

39:11

monthly focus where we encourage you guys

39:13

to grow together by

39:15

doing something specific. And so this month is

39:18

keeping your eyes on the prize and doting over

39:20

each other. Aaron, I feel like we got the opportunity

39:22

to do this and do over each other in some

39:25

of the interviews we've had where random

39:27

encouragement would come pouring out of us. As

39:30

we're reminiscing about our past or the things that God's

39:32

brought us through, we've gotten to encourage each other.

39:34

And so that felt really good. So our encouragement

39:37

for you today, which I know that was

39:39

unique for us for podcasting, but for

39:41

you listening, just take some time reminiscing

39:44

over the years. What has God done

39:46

to bring you in your journey? Draw

39:49

out the positive for each other. Draw out the positive

39:51

and just do over each other and encourage

39:53

each other of what you've seen along the

39:55

way.

39:56

Awesome. Let's

39:58

pray. Dear Lord. Thank you for

40:00

today. Thank you for our marriage. Thank

40:03

you for the journey we've been on together. Every

40:05

challenge and every victory has been worth it.

40:07

We pray you would continue to lead us and guide

40:09

us. We pray we would be able to keep

40:12

working together in marriage to further your kingdom.

40:14

Please

40:14

mature us and shape us through your word as

40:17

we pursue you together. May

40:19

you be glorified through us and may your

40:21

will be done.

40:22

In Jesus name, amen.

40:50

Amen. you