Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Richie & Timari Brower
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR000133A
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00:01 The following program
00:02 discusses sensitive issues related to addictive behaviour. 00:05 Parents are cautioned that some material 00:06 may be too candid for younger children. 00:10 I'd like to introduce you to some friends of mine today. 00:12 They have been 00:14 through the very worst in a relationship 00:16 and struggle with all of that means 00:18 and the very best. 00:20 It's an absolute incredible story. 00:22 So welcome to Celebrating Life in Recovery with Cheri, 00:25 I'm your host. 00:26 And today, I pray this changes your life, your relationship. 00:31 Come and join us on the cafe. It's an amazing story. 01:02 I love going from week to week and bringing different topics. 01:05 This topic that we're talking about today, 01:07 and we've talked about before is marriage 01:09 and how do we get real enough. 01:12 You know like I got married 01:13 and I thought I was going to be all of that. 01:14 I was going to be the best wife, 01:16 I was going to really, 01:18 you know, I was just going to wow Brad with everything 01:21 that I brought to the table, 01:22 and then he started acting out a few times. 01:24 I'm like "Who is this guy?" 01:26 He does not deserve a wife like me, you know, 01:29 because we're so arrogant with that 01:30 and we're so damage and we all come 01:32 at relationships in different way. 01:34 And I remember God one time had me look at Brad 01:38 and I was thinking anything but, 01:40 I want to be a good wife at this point 01:43 and had me look at him and he said, 01:44 "What if underneath all that this is an Abraham 01:47 or Isaac and this is Moses," 01:49 and he just doesn't know it 01:51 and he's got to see it in your eyes 01:52 and I'm thinking in my eyes, 01:54 I want to look in the mirror and say, 01:55 I don't think he's seen any of that and God said, 01:57 I want you to repent and I want you to look at him differently. 02:00 I want you to be different towards him 02:02 and I had no idea what that meant. 02:04 And so we're going to talk to some friends of mine today, 02:07 that I know have different stories 02:09 but similar experiences. 02:12 We're trying to figure out 02:13 how to be real in a relationship. 02:15 And I want to say Richie and Timari Brower, 02:18 thank you for joining us again. 02:20 We've had you on before. 02:22 I loved you since the first time 02:24 I saw you in the community doing the teaching. 02:27 And so, when I talked about that moment, 02:30 when we decided to get real in a relationship 02:32 and God confronts us about what we're thinking 02:35 and what's going through our head. 02:37 I want you to go there but first, Timmy, who are you? 02:40 And where did you come from long before you met him, 02:45 you know, because we all come from somewhere? 02:47 Sure. 02:48 No, I thought similar to you coming into marriage 02:53 that this is going to be wonderful and great 02:54 and had no concept 02:56 that my past was going to have any impact 02:58 on our new exciting and bright future 03:01 that we were creating. 03:03 I came from a pretty dysfunctional background 03:07 but thinking it was really normal, 03:08 and this is just how family life is. 03:11 And my parents divorced when I was five, 03:14 and my mom and I moved to Hawaii from the West Coast 03:17 and I started travelling from Hawaii back to Seattle 03:20 to visit my dad every summer by myself when I was five, 03:23 because that's just normal. 03:25 And, you know, you make friends on the airplane and all that. 03:29 And what we didn't... 03:32 both of my parents got remarried really quickly, 03:35 and so the first time 03:36 I came back to my dad's life was different. 03:40 We were a farming family 03:42 and the family that had just splintered 03:45 had become a new family. 03:47 He had remarried. 03:48 They were now four kids and another one on the way 03:50 and I was plunked right down in the middle, 03:52 and it was kind of one of those scenarios 03:55 where there is a lot more kids 03:57 than there is care available and... 04:00 And even with you coming back, you know, 04:03 looking for whatever that image of you and being daddy's girl 04:08 and all that kind of stuff, 04:09 you're looking to move right back into that 04:11 and it's not spots not there anymore. 04:12 No, that spot was kind of blown up 04:16 and you know and I can say for my, 04:20 you know, then new stepmother. 04:22 I think she had a really-really rough road to hoe. 04:25 She was very isolated out in the middle of nowhere 04:28 with a whole passel of kids 04:29 and now one more that wasn't hers 04:31 and it was, it was a recipe for disaster. 04:35 There the food was not always 04:39 where it needed to be like on the table 04:41 that we doesn't have lot and it wasn't 04:43 because necessarily we were poor, 04:44 just no one was looking out for those kind of things, 04:47 and there was very little adult supervision 04:51 and so we got into a fair bit of mischief. 04:54 I think you could use the word and it... 04:57 When you talk about mischief and I don't know 04:59 if it's the same in your household 05:01 that it was in our 05:03 'cause sometimes we could be really cruel with each other. 05:05 Yes, that kind of mischief. 05:06 Yeah, 'cause sometimes when you hear that word, 05:09 you're thinking, oh, they played 05:10 or they threw rocks into a lake or they broke a window 05:13 but it's like when you get dysfunction 05:16 and you get kids that aren't supervised, 05:18 they can really terrorize each other. 05:20 Yeah and there was, 05:21 there was some domestic violence involved too 05:23 from the parental standpoint. 05:24 And so we were acting out the pain 05:28 that we were all experiencing of, 05:31 you know, we clashed, we didn't get along. 05:33 I came in I think kind of princess like, you know... 05:36 And everybody is a threat, 05:38 everybody else getting attention. 05:39 Exactly, exactly, and so it was just, 05:42 we were all pitted against each other 05:44 and we had moments where we really got along 05:46 but they were few and far between. 05:49 And so, I was kind of living 05:51 a double life of my summer life, 05:54 where everything was chaotic and bad and then my... 05:59 Laying out on the beach... 06:01 Really, yes. 06:02 In the light, I'm so jealous, I'm thinking, 06:04 I could see those two worlds, really different worlds. 06:07 Yes, they were and I did like my Hawaii life, 06:11 so don't get me wrong, I lived in Hawaii twice 06:13 and it's a good thing to live near water and beaches, 06:17 but it really created in my head 06:21 a very easy way to compartmentalise of, 06:24 you know, you act like everything is good 06:27 even when it's not. 06:28 Right. 06:29 And that kind of became, 06:31 I would say a theme for a good portion of my life 06:33 and I'm still repenting of periodically, 06:36 because I didn't know 06:39 that having a double life wasn't normal. 06:41 Right. 06:42 And so when we got married, 06:46 I thought having a double life was still normal. 06:48 So what's really interesting to me 06:50 is that you ended up doing that double life, 06:53 went to school, in college, 06:56 I know that you guys met at a... 06:58 Summer camp. 07:00 Summer camp and so, 07:02 but you could do that very well, 07:04 you could adapt really well. 07:05 You could disassociate really well. 07:07 You can turn around on a dime 07:09 and smile everything's fine really well. 07:12 And be pretty proud of it too. Yeah. 07:14 I mean it wasn't just how I do it. 07:15 It's like, oh, no, I did it 07:16 and I did it well 07:18 and there's a level of arrogance 07:19 that I could be that slick. 07:21 Yeah. 07:23 I guess the reason I'm kind of slowing down 07:25 in the story right here because I meet, 07:28 I have so many people that I love. 07:30 And when I first meet them, I can see that. 07:32 And I'm thinking, 07:34 I hope that God gets you to repent of that, 07:36 to walk away from that 07:37 because you could see underneath all of that stuff, 07:40 those masks that this is an incredible person, 07:43 but we don't know that, you know. 07:45 And so you're saying even meeting him, 07:47 I could wear that mask easy. 07:49 And I wouldn't say it was something 07:50 I did usually intentionally, it was like, oh, 07:52 I'm going to put on my happy face 07:54 it was just, you know, 07:55 when it's the lifestyle that you come from. 07:57 You know you don't, you don't notice it really 07:59 when you switch to you know being, 08:02 oh, I'm not happy but, 08:04 you know, everything is falling apart 08:05 but I'm going to look like everything is pristine. 08:08 And so, it wasn't something I consciously, 08:11 you know, set out to manipulate or deceive. 08:15 But I think that, 08:16 I think those of us 08:18 who grew up in a really dysfunctional home, 08:19 that's something that we kind of wear 08:21 a second skin without even realizing it. 08:24 And then we get into relationships, 08:27 it causes difficulty. 08:28 So you guys meet, you... 08:33 You're going to fall in love, you're gonna do it all right. 08:35 Of course, because we're good like that. 08:38 I love that because it's just what who we are. 08:40 Right, well, you're working for the Lord. 08:42 So do you have any other choice, 08:43 I mean than to have you happily ever after. 08:46 So we got married 08:48 and what we, what we didn't know 08:51 is that the past comes back to get you, 08:54 and I have a background 08:56 that includes incest and child abuse 08:58 and amongst all of that and you know, 09:02 you would like to think 09:04 that sexual abuse just goes away 09:05 because you're out of the situation. 09:07 And oh, if only that were true but it's not. 09:10 And so I brought that in to our marriage 09:14 not even realizing it 09:15 because I didn't have... 09:17 We got married, we got engaged when I was 20 09:19 and married right after I turned 21. 09:21 And I was still in school, 09:23 Richie was recently out of seminary or pastoring already 09:26 and we didn't have the language to be able to wrap around. 09:30 Oh, oh, now what? 09:32 Right, because I know a little bit about your journey 09:35 and you decided not to, 09:38 you know, some people really do decide 09:42 I want to do it right 09:43 and we're not going to have sex, 09:44 and we're not going to fool around, 09:46 and we're not going to push those boundaries 09:48 before our marriage, so you did all of that. 09:50 We did, we were super careful 09:52 and I'd like to say all of that was for very chaste 09:55 and moral reasons, those were there too, 09:58 but I think that looking back 09:59 I think that there was a part of me 10:01 that was really, really afraid to even open Pandora's box. 10:04 And so, if we don't play there, 10:05 then I don't have to worry about it, 10:07 again not a conscious decision 10:08 but so I was really, really comfortable 10:11 having very little physical relationship 10:14 because it felt safer, 10:16 but then we got married 10:18 and all of a sudden Pandora's box is right there 10:22 and accessible and it opened with force 10:26 I would say on our honeymoon. 10:28 So let me just say because that's intense, 10:30 but did you know some of her background stuff 10:32 before you married? 10:34 Did you know about the abuse? Did you know about... 10:37 No, there were some indicators before we were married, 10:40 but I don't think either of us connected the dots 10:42 before we were married to say, oh, that means this, 10:46 so it was like what's that about. 10:47 And we knew that there were some things were messed up. 10:49 You know her family, 10:51 there's things messed up in mine, 10:52 and we just kind of thought that must be you know... 10:55 Love will make it all go away. 10:57 Yeah. I know. 10:59 And you know there's some truth about 11:01 but we've got to do the work. 11:02 Yes. Sure. 11:04 So, you get married honeymoon you said, 11:08 all the sudden everything now by force. 11:11 What do you mean by that? 11:12 It means that we didn't know that we just didn't know 11:15 what we didn't know and so you know 11:17 we found physical intimacy to be incredibly challenging. 11:24 You know it doesn't happen like the movies boy howdy 11:27 and that's even, I think that's true 11:30 just from an inexperience standpoint, 11:32 let alone when you add trauma to it 11:35 and so, you know, 11:37 when sex didn't work on our honeymoon, 11:39 it started a cycle for us of Richie feeling rejected 11:43 and abandoned and so, you know, his response to that 11:47 was to get angry and in the face of anger... 11:51 An abuse kid. 11:52 Yeah, I ran away emotionally and so, 11:57 but then that made him feel more abandoned 11:59 because I just rejected and left him. 12:01 And so then he would, you know, emotionally pursue 12:04 and then I would keep backing up 12:07 until the cougar hit the corner, 12:09 and then I would come out with force 12:11 because they do have a lot of words 12:13 and I did use them. 12:15 And even saying that 12:16 when someone says, for you, Richie, 12:18 I'm sure is that you are going to stay here, 12:20 and we're going to work through this 12:21 and you're going to hear me, 12:23 and you see in her eyes, she's already gone. 12:25 It is the craziest thing for a couple 12:28 to want to scream at each other like 12:31 this shouldn't be happening like this. 12:33 I love you, you love me. 12:35 We can work this out 12:37 but we're saying it in anger and in fear, 12:40 and nobody hears anybody. 12:42 Right. Yeah. 12:43 You were going to say something. 12:44 I was just going to say, you know, 12:46 part of what was has been so challenging 12:48 is that everything that I knew or thought 12:52 would be an expression of love 12:55 because of her background and her story was not love. 13:00 It didn't feel like love, 13:01 it wasn't received as love and so that, 13:03 you know, it just created this place 13:05 where I'm dealing with my own feelings 13:07 of rejection and abandonment touching my story, 13:09 and I'm trying to figure out how to love her in her story, 13:13 but I don't understand her story 13:15 and everything I try comes off wrong 13:17 and it's jut this incredible hopeless mess. 13:21 It is incredible. 13:22 I remember and the first time 13:24 that that I felt Brad's breath 13:28 on my neck 13:30 and all the sudden it triggered all of my abuse 13:33 and he was just leaning over to kiss me and just say, 13:36 you know what, I just love you and I was repulsed. 13:41 And both of us knew at that moment 13:43 we're in trouble and none of us had words, 13:45 and so that's what you're saying, 13:47 it was that that real 13:48 that it was not what he was saying, 13:50 it was not what he was doing until the anger came in, 13:53 but it was like all of this stuff is triggered. 13:55 Yeah, I know Richie was, he was being tender, 13:57 he was being thoughtful, he was... 13:59 I mean we were both inexperienced but I mean, 14:03 but just entering into that arena 14:05 which I had so purposely chosen to stay out of. 14:09 And again unconsciously 14:10 so I didn't know that the freight train was coming 14:14 and so that really set us up 14:16 for years of that cycle of reject, 14:21 and Richie feeling rejected and then abandoned 14:24 and then angry, then me retreating. 14:27 And we just did it back and forth 14:30 and that became our crazy cycle of what we do 14:33 when we don't know how to do better. 14:35 And when you say crazy psycho, 14:36 because I know that at the same time 14:39 being in ministry, 14:40 you're still going to the church 14:42 and doing those gigs, 14:43 you're still ministering, 14:44 all of that kind of stuff is still happening. 14:47 And yet inside this is like a storm 14:51 that is, it won't go away. 14:52 That's right. 14:53 Well, and what's sad I think is sometimes in the church 14:55 we have this idea 14:57 that if you're a good Christian that, 14:59 that none of that, none of that stuff will happen. 15:01 It won't, it won't be there, God will just take it all away. 15:06 And so that, 15:07 I think I don't know 15:08 if anyone intentionally taught me that, 15:10 that's just kind of what I picked up 15:11 being living in churchy environments. 15:14 All I have to do is better devotions, 15:16 pray more, have good faith. 15:18 Right, exactly. 15:19 If I do those things, 15:21 my problems will magically disappear. 15:22 We'll love each other well, 15:23 we'll go out and save the world for Jesus and we didn't... 15:27 Did I tell you I love you 15:29 even when you say that kind of stuff 15:30 I feel, I just love you 15:32 because I know that you don't believe 15:34 that now but at that time everything in you believe that. 15:37 You bet. 15:39 And that's where early programming of oh, okay, 15:42 I don't know how to deal with the chaos that is true. 15:44 So I will just put on my ministry face 15:46 and we will go and act like 15:48 everything is very pristine 15:50 when in reality 15:51 we are falling apart and this is, 15:54 you know, we've been married for three weeks, 15:56 you know, I go back to school 15:58 and think oh, yeah, that's good. 15:59 And I was a theology major... 16:00 How was your honeymoon? 16:02 It was great no, 16:05 but of course you don't say that... 16:07 To anybody. To anybody at all. 16:10 And so that, I said we just had years 16:12 of really committing to do better 16:15 but not having the tools to know how, 16:17 we had no idea 16:19 how to make a transition because between 16:22 where Richie came from, you know, 16:23 which was a lot of chaos as well and where I came from. 16:26 We both had a lot of dysfunctional habits 16:29 that we didn't know weren't right. 16:30 We believed a lot of lies, because how can you. 16:34 You can't come out unscathed. 16:35 You know this idea of resilient children 16:37 is both completely true and not 16:39 because resiliency suggests 16:41 that you're going to go back to your original state, 16:43 it doesn't happen... 16:45 Because it wasn't in the original state. 16:46 Right. 16:47 There wasn't something that was healthy. 16:49 Exactly and it even changes your DNA and your biology, 16:50 I've been reading neuroscience slightly 16:52 and it's really amazing 16:53 but, you know, 16:55 you can't go back to the original state 16:56 so you bring all of that with you 16:59 both habitually as well as the, you know, 17:02 what you saw modelled 17:04 and when you bring it into marriage 17:05 and go yeah, let's do a good job... 17:08 But you know even and I know that both of you know this, 17:12 but I want to say this out loud 17:13 because it's we start to even say, okay, I get it. 17:19 We just need to talk to each other. 17:21 But we're talking to each other through our dysfunction. 17:24 So you're not hearing the things she's saying, 17:26 you're not hearing a thing he says 17:28 and everybody is triggered even more by that 17:30 all just wanting to dialogue 17:32 so it really is. 17:34 When we talk about we have an enemy 17:35 that is very strategic in saying, 17:37 you know what, you think you're going to be one flesh, 17:39 hello, you know. 17:41 So we have an enemy that says, I'm not... 17:42 It's going to be like 17:43 you're talking two different languages 17:45 and I love what you guys say, 17:47 because you say and for years we were in that vortex. 17:52 Actually we want to do better but we didn't know how, 17:54 I mean like we used to talk about the communication thing. 17:57 It was so bad when we first got married. 17:58 Again, things you don't know aren't normal. 18:00 I have a radio in my head 18:02 and when conflict starts to rise 18:04 so does the volume of the radio in my head. 18:06 I can feel, I can hear full symphonies, 18:09 full orchestras and his voice would just go away. 18:12 So you dissociate really well. 18:14 I'm a pro learning to repent of that too. 18:17 And, but, so he would come to the end of a conversation 18:20 that had been highly conflictual 18:22 and he be like, and he like, did you get it. 18:23 Have you like, oh, I'm in trouble 18:25 because I had no idea we just talked about it. 18:28 I just, I wasn't, I wasn't, I went to my calm place 18:31 which again, I learned really early 18:33 that's the safe place to be chaos can go. 18:35 But if you go into the calm place in your head, 18:37 you're going to be okay. 18:38 And, you know, I'm looking at you, Richie, 18:40 knowing that you spent your life alone 18:42 wanting to connect and feeling like 18:44 you're not good enough, I'll never be good enough. 18:47 So when she disappears, you are alone. 18:49 Yeah, it just felt like, well, when we tell our story, 18:52 you know, I talk about how when I met her, 18:55 I felt the aloneness begin to leave 18:57 and I thought oh, 18:59 I could never be alone again, 19:00 that could not be my reality 19:02 and then we got married 19:04 and I found myself right next to her, 19:06 but completely alone, and it wasn't just me, 19:08 she was alone too. 19:10 And the amazing thing was we were great actors. 19:12 So while all of this was going on, 19:14 I remember we went to some meetings one day, 19:16 and a good friend of ours saw us comes through the doors 19:19 this meeting any comes and he's had his hand and says, 19:21 "Oh, you two are just the perfect couple. 19:24 You're just the perfect couple." 19:25 And we've just been fighting in the car and we were, 19:29 you know, as Timmy said, 19:30 you don't know what you don't know. 19:32 We were trying to act, we just were good actors 19:34 and we were playing the part. 19:36 And you've learned it your whole life, 19:37 your whole life. 19:38 The whole life set you up for this role. 19:40 Yep. Yep. 19:41 But this role kills us. Yes. 19:44 So you are alone. You're feeling hopeless. 19:48 You're trying to do this by yourself. 19:49 You're working harder probably doing more jobs, 19:53 setting up more ministry things, 19:54 because I don't know what to do here. 19:57 So what happens? 19:59 Well, we start church planting 20:01 because that's a very peaceful... 20:03 That's exactly what you should do next. 20:04 That's exactly what we should do next 20:07 and it was completely providential 20:09 what God did. 20:10 It started out with a negative conversation 20:14 which unfortunately much impetus 20:17 can come from negative conversations 20:19 but which is like 20:21 you just need to get a job, okay. 20:23 I was in school, he's like you need to get a job, 20:24 I'm like fine, I'll get a job then. 20:27 And with that attitude and head bubble and... 20:31 And so I found a job at a homeless shelter 20:34 for women children non-denominational. 20:37 And I was going to go save a different world, 20:39 because this world wasn't working, 20:41 and I got there and didn't know 20:44 that I had real issues with women. 20:46 I didn't know that. 20:48 And now I'm working in an environment 20:49 where literally there's roughly 60 women and that's all. 20:52 So I'd just say just for women to me 20:55 because a lot of people don't touch on this 20:57 is when we're damaging and families that break up 21:00 and divorces and all that kind of stuff. 21:02 I don't think we realize all of those women issues 21:06 and mother issues and that disconnect 21:08 and God is saying, 21:10 "You surrendering yourself to me, 21:12 and I have to go to all of those places 21:15 and get you to trust me to open that up," 21:17 and so for him to set you up 21:19 where you are surrounded by women, that is... 21:22 I'm just proud of God, 21:23 I want to kiss him all over the face. 21:25 I want to say how do you do that where you, 21:27 it's not a forced healing. 21:30 But he says, "You're asking for healing 21:31 and I'm going to have 21:32 to take you through some painful places." 21:35 And he put such beautiful amazing women in my face, 21:39 in my face. 21:41 And I mean literally 21:44 you know ones who would say, 21:45 "Honey, let me just pray for you," 21:47 and would go like this and they want to hold my hands. 21:49 Yeah, it's like, well, I'm good. 21:51 Yeah, I'm great, thanks, 21:52 you can pray on your side of the room. 21:54 And of course, I didn't go of course, 21:57 but inside I'm going... 21:58 I don't know how to be touched, 22:00 I don't know how to open up that way. 22:01 Well, certainly not like that, 22:02 I mean this whole mixing of spiritual relationships 22:05 and real life thing I've never tried 22:07 that before and it was, it was messing with my facade 22:11 because if my thought is, my facade is pristine, 22:15 and then now you're trying to enter past that, 22:17 what does that do and that created, 22:20 I would say more chaos at home 22:22 because it disrupted me and I didn't know what to do. 22:26 And so, you know, 22:27 I came home more disrupted 22:29 and that did not help our relationship. 22:33 There was so much pressure with, 22:36 you know, what was going on in her story 22:38 and then our church plant was harder than I had thought. 22:41 We've kind of been the golden children 22:42 so everything we touch would turn to gold 22:44 in this project... 22:45 No, it's not. 22:46 It was hard work and it was not taken off like a rocket ship 22:49 and so everything was just a pressure cooker 22:52 and crushing us both in our own areas 22:55 of brokenness and woundedness, 22:57 and we had no idea that's what was going on 22:59 but that's what was happening. 23:00 That was happening and it's really interesting 23:03 when God starts to allow you to get touched by someone 23:07 and then you feel a little taste 23:09 of what intimacy would be like 23:11 and now you wanted in your home. 23:14 Yeah. 23:15 But we didn't have that and we... 23:18 I wouldn't say that, yeah, 23:19 we didn't know the depths of what we didn't have 23:22 because our templates were so broken. 23:25 You know we sometimes make a joke, you know, 23:27 sometimes those red flags that come up. 23:29 They've been broken off at the bottom 23:31 so they can wag as much as they want. 23:32 You're never going to see him 23:34 because they're not there anymore. 23:35 And so, you know, 23:38 we found ourselves working really hard 23:41 and really trying to love well. 23:43 I mean I can say we had no tools 23:45 but we were determined and I think, 23:47 if I were to say that if there is anything 23:49 that God infused into us during that season, 23:52 it was just perseverance because we tried everything, 23:55 we read so many books, we were so determined. 23:58 I think I can truthfully say, we turned over every stone 24:01 trying to figure out is there a better way 24:03 or is this really all there is to hope for. 24:06 And so what you are saying is that man, 24:10 we have to heal, it has to be real. 24:13 And I love you know because, Richie, 24:15 we talked to you on another program 24:16 when you talked about, 24:18 you eventually grab some mentors 24:19 did all that kind of stuff. 24:20 These women were life changing 24:23 and so God really started to change things 24:25 but you said something at one point 24:28 about contempt and anger and those kind of things 24:33 because those are some real big things bitterness 24:35 where all the sudden, 24:37 I'm looking at you and I hate the fact 24:38 that I have to confront all this and it's your fault, 24:42 because we tend in relationships 24:43 to really blame each other, you're crazy. 24:46 You brought all this stuff. 24:48 And so, how do you get past that stage 24:50 because I know you're not there now. 24:52 It's true, we're not. 24:54 You know, it look different for both of us. 24:57 Like for me, 24:58 for a lot of our marriage we just kind of, 25:00 we agreed that Timmy was really the issue right, 25:02 because of her past and stuff 25:04 and there was really very little light 25:06 on my story for a lot, 25:07 first eight and half years of our marriage. 25:09 And so, I don't know 25:11 if I would have been thinking 25:13 about this word contempt is that how I felt 25:15 but I definitely was very comfortable 25:17 and happy to believe 25:19 that it was all her issue, right. 25:21 Because this wasn't something 25:22 and we're going to break and then come back 25:24 but this wasn't something that you pretended to believe, 25:28 it wasn't that you were in denial 25:30 and hiding this from her 25:31 that you literally felt this was your issue. 25:34 If you got your stuff together, we would be okay. 25:37 So we're gonna take a break 25:39 and I want to say for any couple 25:40 out there that is saying right now me too, that's us. 25:45 You know that kind of thing is that, it is amazing 25:48 when we can break denial and say, 25:50 "God, can you fix this." 25:52 And if you shut your eyes right now and just say, 25:54 God, can you fix this, you will hear the sweetest yes, 25:58 you ever heard. 26:00 And so we would be right back because I want to hear. 26:02 I want to let you see the rest of their journey 26:05 and what God Himself could do in a relationship. 26:07 It is absolutely amazing. Be right back. |
Revised 2016-10-31