An enduring marriage is cultivated and strengthened over time, especially as we respond to some of life’s defining moments.
Intro
The “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast is a family discipleship resource from Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh North Carolina. It aims to equip you and your family to be on mission with God, to the end of the street and the ends of the earth.
Andy Owens
Welcome back to another episode of “Gospel Shaped Home.” I’m Andy Owens, pastor of Family Discipleship. I have brother Bryan Nelson sitting across the table from me. Bryan, welcome back.
Bryan Nelson
Hey, thanks, Andy. Glad to be here.
Andy
Yeah, Bryan’s been on the podcast before. I also have a tremendously special and fabulously beautiful guest here to my left. She has never been on the podcast before, but I’m so glad to introduce my wife, Erica Owens.
Erica Owens
Hi.
Andy
Erica, welcome.
Erica
Thanks for having me.
Andy
You’re welcome. Thank you for coming. So why is my wife here sitting with Bryan and I? We’re going to start a new segment on the podcast starting this week. We’re going to spend the next few months, two, three months going through a book by Dave Harvey called, “I Still Do.” And talking about how we as husbands and wives can grow closer and stronger through life’s defining moments. So this is a relatively new book, but Dave Harvey has been a voice in the marriage and marital counseling world for a while. Bryan, you want to mention his previous book and that opening illustration, how it connects to this book?
Bryan Nelson
Yeah. Dave wrote a book, it’s been over a decade now called “When Sinners Say ‘I Do.'” It’s a fascinating, great book for people in preparation for marriage and really for anybody anywhere in marriage, but I’ve used it quite a bit. And pieces from it as I’ve engaged with people. And the whole premise behind “When Sinners Say ‘I Do'”, the title kind of gives it away, right? We step into this blissful union, but we are two people that bring… He uses an illustration of two people that come down the aisle dragging suitcases behind them. And those suitcases are full of all of the life experiences that they’ve had up to that point in life and all the things that come with them, but in those suitcases are also sin. And that sin shapes how they step into marriage and how they relate to one another.
And so the premise of “When Sinners Say ‘I Do'” is really unpacking that reality, how the reality of our sin nature shapes us in marriage and as believers, how we ought to not only recognize that, but understand how we respond to that in one another in preparation for stepping in and for those first years of marriage. So great book, super excited about this one, because I think he piggybacks off of that and presses into new ground.
Andy
Okay. How does that illustration relate to this book? What’s different about this book than the other book, Bryan?
Bryan
Yeah. So where the focus on “When Sinners Say ‘I Do'” was rooted a whole lot in the reality of our sin, the suitcase is still full of all that other stuff and when we step into marriage, what I love about Dave, he says it in a great way, but we are whole people. We’re not just sinners, it’s not just our spiritual lives. So, I think the analogy is just, “Okay, what’s he going to do in this book?” He’s going to unpack all of those other things that were in the suitcase and show how they also go into shaping our marriages and he looks at marriage and you probably want to turn a corner to talk about this, but the whole premise of this book is that he looks at defining moments, what he calls defining moments in marriage. So all the suitcase stuff…
Andy
Comes out.
Bryan
… comes out.
Andy
Yeah. No, that’s good. Thank you. And so what we’re going to do is, we’re going to try to go through a chapter a week, like we’ve done with a few other books on the podcast and we’re actually, God-willing each week going to have a couple from Providence join Bryan and I to kind of unpack whatever the defining moment is in that week’s chapter. And just let them share from some of their own wisdom and experience. But they’re not just any random couples, right? We’re asking couples who are already engaged in some way or another, in some sort of marriage coaching, marriage ministry, marriage enrichment in the church, whether it’s through ReEngage or life group ministry, or just some personal kind of counseling, coaching. So there are people who invest in marriages and like…
Bryan
Are married, right?
Andy
… Yeah, they have their own marriages.
Bryan
That’s right.
Andy
So, okay, Erica, before we started recording, you mentioned kind of this expectation you had either prior to, or early on in marriage about like, “Hey, you’ve got this phase and then everything else.” Can you mention that again?
Erica
Yeah. I think in this chapter, I feel like there was an emphasis on marriages maturing over time and these defining moments coming up over time. And so I think what I had mentioned was when we got married, I think I kind of had this idea that we’d have a few years of the newlywed phase and that we learn each other and things would be hard. But then after that…
Andy
But amazing also.
Erica
… Oh yes, it’s very amazing. And for then after that, we’d kind of coast…
Andy
Amazing. Coasting.
Erica
… you get marriage figured out and once you get to a point where your marriage is good, it stays there and…
Andy
Amazing.
Erica
… realizing that that’s not reality that over time circumstances change. We as people change, but that marriage progressing is something that happens after 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, that nobody has ever arrived and is able to just coast on past successes that we’re always given opportunities to keep trusting, keep loving, whether we’re a year in or 50.
Andy
Yeah, that’s good. And I don’t know if we said this, we’re talking about chapter one right now. We all three read chapter one. So on page 17 of chapter one, kind of in the middle of the page, he says… He asked the question, “What are the unique points of trouble and transformation that visit us as our marriages mature, as we navigate the realities of job and financial challenges, keep our heads above water in the kiddie years, raise teenagers or adult children, empty the nest, suffer, age, or prepare for final goodbyes? What moments define a durable marriage?” So he’s kind of… After being married for, I think 35 years is how long he and his wife had been married when he wrote this book is looking back on their marriage and seeing what kind of turns in the road were key in shaping a healthy, durable marriage for them? Is that fair?
Bryan
Yeah. And I think what’s so cool in what we’ll find as we walk into this book, the defining moments may not be what you expect. Some of them are events in life that you might think happen in the course of becoming husband and wife and progressing through the family dynamics. But a lot of them are not… I just think he capture some really poignant things going ahead. So.
Andy
Yeah. And he does it in a really fun way too…
Bryan
Oh, gosh.
Andy
This first chapter is really fun to read. It’s very humorous. I didn’t know what a burning man festival was. And we actually… Erica highlighted some of our own personality differences when I was trying to describe to her the immaculate reception which he mentions in this chapter, a NFL football moment for those of you who don’t know. So anyway, let’s see.
Erica
I think one thing that is helpful as I was reading the first chapter, I was wondering, okay, what specifically is the defining moment? Which I think he’s going to go into more detail in later, but there’s a juxtaposition for him between the everyday ordinary and then kind of these defining moments. And I don’t think he’s wanting to say these ordinary moments aren’t important, because they are, and most of our life is made up of them. But I do think there’s a relationship in the way that we’re living our ordinary moments in that, the way we’re being shaped in those and the patterns that we’re walking in are also going to define the way we’re likely to respond in some of these defining moments.
So I don’t think we can expect to be not attentive, not in God’s Word, not exercising patience in love in these ordinary moments and then expect when this defining moment pops up, that it’s just going to flow out. I think often our walking in the ordinary moments is going to be preparing us for the bigger decisions that have to be made in these bigger circumstances that play out in life. So I wouldn’t read it being discouraged that our every days don’t matter because they do.
Bryan
Right. And vice versa, the defining moments shape how we live the in-between too, right? That’s the beauty of it. He hones in on the defining moments, but says really clearly, most of marriage is lived in the in-between.
Erica
Yeah…
Andy
Yeah.
Erica
… and it’s still important, the in-between.
Andy
He says on page 20, “We often encounter weaknesses or personality differences in marriage and instantly try to moralize them.” And this is probably kind of come up more as we read through the book, but this is something early on in our marriage, I think I probably regularly did, because I was in a sense focused on sin and grace and spiritual realities, but it was easy to assign, to just lump everything into that kind of category or realm and assume if Erica did something different than I did or viewed something differently than I viewed it, then I could immediately just start assuming that there must be some sin problem underneath, at the bottom of this or that even when there was some weakness, something that, whether it was myself or her are struggling with, the only answer is the spiritual answer. The only answer is sin.
And he’s saying not in any way to undermine the importance of sin and God’s grace as the remedy for sin, but rather recognizing that we are complex people and that things like our family history, our physical weaknesses and limitations, disappointed dreams, all of these things also have a significant impact on who we are and therefore how we should love and care for our spouses. I wrote a note that recognizing who Erica is and how she is wired, helps me know when I need to be more prepared to show forbearing love, living with her according to knowledge, to use 1 Peter 3 language. It’s going to help me build a more healthy and durable marriage if I’m understanding her more accurately, more thoroughly, the complexity of who she is, does that make sense?
Bryan
Makes perfect sense and doing that, right? So, back to his point, he’s not saying that sin doesn’t exist in us, but doing that understanding that what may be driving her at the moment may not be and likely isn’t often personal sin, but all of these other things that make up who she is.
Andy
Yeah.
Bryan
Right.
Andy
One of the things we thought might be helpful is for Erica and I even just to share, that’s really why I wanted to invite her to be on the episode today, just so that we could talk through what this has looked like for us. And so I encouraged her to think about maybe a defining moment and I did as well, and we came up with the same one. So Erica, I’m going to let you set the stage for this moment.
Erica
Okay. Well, we lived overseas for seven years and came back about two and a half years ago. And what prompted that coming back were some emotional, mental health struggles for me, which isn’t a secret. Anybody who knows us knows that that was the case. It was pretty hard to hide. So, things unraveled pretty quickly those last couple of weeks. And neither one of us was expecting to come back to the States, that just wasn’t in our game plan. And so when I was going downhill and Andy was seeing it and we were realizing, or at least I think I was thinking first that a trip to the States may be necessary. His first response was no way, like that’s not the route we’re going. I immediately felt pretty trapped, struggled a lot with his decision. And I did ask him if he would speak with some other people just about what we were going through.
And he did, he reached out to some other folks. And pretty soon after talking with other people, I saw a real change in him towards me of just compassion, grace instead of a, no, this is not something we’d consider. I really felt cared for and loved by him. I saw that I was a priority for him that our…
Andy
I didn’t ask her to say these things, but I’m glad she is.
Erica
I saw that caring for me was more important than ministry to Andy, which I think is actually a really hard battle ground for couples, especially that are in full-time ministry because ministry is such a valuable, important thing. But…
Andy
Well, and there’s a lot of backstory, obviously. She just basically gave a 90 seconds summary of that, but there was a healthy amount of longing to be faithful and to persevere in a hard ministry context. But there were also times where I probably struggled with idolizing longevity, perseverance, stick to this ministry and was pretty close-minded about the possibility of changing stations in ministry. But when she says unwilling to talk about it, I knew that Erica was in a really low place, but I was in danger of closing my heart off towards her out of fear that it might open the door to us not continuing on, but I told her, I said, “I’m not talking to you about going to America this summer. Don’t ask me again. We’re not talking about it.” Something like that.
Erica
Yeah. And so…
Andy
Not very kind or gracious.
Erica
Seeing the Lord change his perspective, because essentially what was happening is my struggles were coming in sharp contrast to where we were and what we were doing and seeing that we could not continue well where we were…
Andy
And we’ve tried to pursue some options, some avenues to get some help there and they weren’t coming to fruition. They were just closed doors. And so there were some other people giving us counsel that it may be a good idea to consider coming back to the States.
Erica
So seeing his response to… My heart is asking the question, what’s going to happen if it doesn’t work out for us to continue staying here? And I think seeing his heart soften, seeing him willing to do whatever was necessary to care for me, it was pretty amazing to be on the receiving end. Like I have thought several times about what if that had gone a different way? And I really don’t know where I would be, where we would be. So it was very much a defining point and that’s something that could have really divided and I think threatened to divide us in that moment, instead became a unifying… We’re on the same team together. We’re working through this together. I felt supported and cared for which definitely helped in healing and in progress for me. So just seeing how the trajectory of our marriage and our lives was really turned and shaped by Andy’s response to the circumstance that he was in, that he didn’t care for. I didn’t want this circumstance, but it was here regardless. And we had to decide, how are we going to respond?
Andy
And I’ll say to wrap this up, the thing that the Lord used in that moment specifically for me was another brother speaking the truth of God’s Word in a gracious, but very focused and relevant way, applying it to my circumstances. I have now for 15 or 20 years, loved and delighted in the truth of God’s sovereign wisdom and power over all things, Ephesians 1:11, “He is the God who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” And his sovereignty and his purposeful sovereignty as Piper calls his providence is precious to me. And this brother said, “Andy…” He knew right where we were and we had talked through this stuff. He said, “Andy, right now is the time where you’re going to have to decide, do you really believe that God is sovereign? And are you going to rest in his sovereign goodness that if he wants to get you back to Turkey, that he can, and he will, but that it’s clear that your wife needs something different right now.”
And it was the word that I needed to hear. And I could feel the Lord in a sense, pricking and softening my heart. And it was kind of a all hands on deck from that moment forward to just caring for Erica and trying to discern what was best to get her the help that she needed. And we were on a plane three, four days later. So anyway, that was a pretty big defining moment. They aren’t all that big or like significant. They can be smaller moments, but those are kind of… At least that’s an example from our lives of the sorts of things that he’s talking about in this book. So.
Bryan
Guys, so I just want to say this, because I think this fits perfect in the book with your example. What’s remarkable to me, even hearing you all, because I’ve known this part of your story, but to hear it again in light of what we’re reading is amazing. What started as Andy looking at Erica, you and really saying this is your lack of trust in the Lord in this moment of crisis turned into it being a lack of or addressing trust, but ultimately it wasn’t Erica’s trust, it was your own heart trusting the Lord that in that moment he had you all and he had not abandoned you in what… And in his providence, he would bring about what was good and right. And Harvey says, “It’s in those moments…” He says at the end of this chapter, “How we respond in those kinds of moments in marriage determines whether we stumble along separately or we move forward together toward maturity.”
It was a defining moment for you all. You could have walled your hearts off toward one another, but in that moment, God’s kindness to you was that he softened you and the issue, which seemed one thing at first, really you found out was another, and here you are today, right? What grace?
Andy
Amen. Praise him. Yeah. The book again is called. “I Still Do” by Dave Harvey. If you’re interested in reading it along with us, we’d be delighted for you to read along a chapter a week as we have some couples from Providence come on to discuss it with us. But even if you don’t, I think it will still be beneficial and encouraging to hear from these brothers and sisters from our church over the next couple of months. So thank you for tuning in today and may the Lord from the fullness of Christ pour out grace upon grace on you to help your marriage more accurately reflect his saving love and his glory. So thanks for joining. Hope you’re encouraged.
Outro
Thanks for listening to this episode of the “Gospel Shaped Home” podcast, produced by Providence Baptist Church of Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information and resources from Providence, visit us online at pray.org. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please consider subscribing and leaving your review on Apple Podcasts.