30 Year Anniversary Part 2

[00:00:00] So welcome back to seeing God in the everyday and we change locations again. We did! We did! Trying new things! Yeah, the only bad thing about this is right now. We're having a typical Florida day.

[00:00:31] It is raining, thunderstorms so you might be, you want to be here in some thunder or seeing some light and flashes in the background. It's okay, we're dry, we're safe, we're good to go. We're under a good cover.

[00:00:44] It's not a bad thing to me, I love a good Sunday night. This is home. Yeah, when you grow up in Florida, you kind of get used to this stuff and you know, you

[00:00:52] just deal with it and work with it because it's basically all summer longs is what you do. But we wanted to give back into our story. We did 15 years of our marriage and we were ready for the next 15 years.

[00:01:07] So if you didn't lose your life, go back and check that out. If you're not caught up to us, go back and listen to how I'm getting caught up. Where we left off last time though is... Yeah, it was like a little bit like that last year's storm.

[00:01:22] It was a little rumbling. It was a little rumbling, so we left off. We were still living in Texas and we were going through some situations at church. Going through a little bit of church heart that was happening.

[00:01:33] A little bit of growing and we were starting to separate what it came to our personal lives and our spiritual life. Even we were kind of going two different directions, even though we were still in the same house, we had four children from... We had 10, 6. Reads? It was 10, 4.

[00:01:55] If there's six years apart. Yeah. So it's 10, 4, 3 and 1 and a half. Yeah. So 80. So we were at a situation where we were decide we're going to leave the church that we were serving in. We were actually going to walk away from church ministry. Right.

[00:02:15] But we still had a desire to serve God. We... We did more done with the politics and things that we had discovered happened in... That church stuff. Yeah, that organized church stuff. And it kind of helped us as we moved forward.

[00:02:31] But when we were in the middle of it, it was very difficult because we were kind of... I had my ministry, you had the children in the home and we were kind of moving in two different directions. Let's be honest about it too. It wasn't just a... Wow.

[00:02:47] We've realized that, you know, we've come to the Cephystony that this is not what God has asked and this is not what we're willing to participate in anymore. There was part of that, but there was a whole big bunch of bitterness that we had allowed

[00:02:59] to get along too. Yeah. So we were walking away pretty bitter and pretty hurt. Pretty not on the same page. Yeah. And we felt that we were wronged. And when you get wronged or uphills and you're starting to carry her...

[00:03:16] You don't realize the things that you're doing and how you're hurting other people. Right. Things are happening to me. So then I started actually hurting some other folks. Vekin' I, we were hurting each other.

[00:03:29] The kids were kind of not being the greatest parents to the kids and stuff. We were shielding as much as we could that kids are smart. Yeah. And now we never wanted to be that ministry family where the kids resented God in the church

[00:03:44] because of the parents or ministers. We had seen that. I had so many friends and so many people that we had talked to over the years that their children actually resented the church and resented ministry because their parents were either treated bad or selling it. Right.

[00:04:02] And a lot of ways it was because the children had expectations put on them to be perfect. Right. And kids can't be perfect. Yeah. Adult can't be perfect. Yeah. So we decided what we're going to do is we're going to continue ministry but we're

[00:04:18] going to leave our troubles behind. Right. And there were some other good things. We're not in a different way. Right. Yeah. We were going to just serve out outside the church and a different ministry. But we were just leaving our troubles behind.

[00:04:30] It was when we moved from Texas to Florida. Everything would have been great. Everything would have been fine. And what we found out was, number one, if you don't deal with your troubles and your things where you are emotionally, personally, spiritually.

[00:04:47] You just carry them with you to the next location. And we found out that we did that. We got into a situation with a ministry outside the church and it didn't work out. It didn't, number one, give us an outlet that we thought we were going to have.

[00:05:05] But it also didn't provide force at all. We had been the plan. Right. So it was the job that we were going to. Right. So it was going to be the source of income and then it wasn't. It was like a row. Okay.

[00:05:21] So after a few months of that, we stepped out of that. And then we were in a situation where we couldn't get a job. Literally could not get a job. Yeah. Well, any of y'all that are old enough? Just remember 2008 was a bad year for the economy. Yes.

[00:05:40] Nationwide, 2008 was a bad year for the economy. It was a particularly bad year for where we moved back to. Right. We had grown up on the Space Coast of Florida and that's where we returned when we left Texas.

[00:05:53] And there's always jobs there because the space center is a huge employer. And then there are all kinds of support contractors in the entire county around the space center. There are support contractors everywhere that are always hiring.

[00:06:12] So getting a job historically has been a simple thing that you're reasonably competent, you know, you could go to our home county and pick up a job pretty quickly. And then, you know, we were very passionately as the economy was changing nationwide.

[00:06:29] There were cuts being made in the national government that cut NASA's budget that shuttered the space shuttle program, which was the lifeblood of our area. We couldn't find work. And we had some savings. We moved back home.

[00:06:46] But again, when you have enough savings to get you through what you expect to be a short transition because this other ministry job was going to pan out and become your source of income. And then that fell through.

[00:06:58] We went through that savings pretty quickly and then replacing it was difficult. Yeah. And so I think one of the hardest points through that was I remember going to a job interview for a pretty large company and in Melbourne.

[00:07:14] And the girl literally sat across me and said, listen, you're too overqualified for this position because we know that once you, you find another job, you're going to just leave us. Right. And I was like, no, you know what I'm saying?

[00:07:29] I have four kids that need to eat and we're living off credit cards. And it was, I think that was one of those things. It was a frustration that was brewing up. It was we hadn't dealt with some past hurts. We were fighting now. Well, almost everything.

[00:07:49] I was no longer providing for my family because we literally were paying everything off on credit card. We were moving money. You know, we were playing the shell game which many people end up doing in that situation. And then we decided, you know what?

[00:08:05] We had this situation years prior where we went to an evocation to Walt Disney World. And we took the kids and we went and I had a conversation with one of the guys. It was actually one of the bus drivers.

[00:08:20] And I had a conversation and they were like, yeah, Disney's a great company. Work for even if you're a part-timer, you get benefits. You get medical benefits. You and things. And I was like, you know what? Here's what I'm going to do.

[00:08:32] I'm going to start working at Disney as a part-timer at least and we'll get benefits. And we'll get something coming. And I can maybe do those from there. And the thing is we were living in no versus a time which is about an hour and a half,

[00:08:49] hour and 40 minutes of cutting on traffic. Dry, which is not horrible. But every day and then it did turn into a big thing because it was working like nights and things like that.

[00:09:00] But what happened is that you took two people who were already not on the same page. And you took one of them and gave him a night shift job driving buses an hour and a half away from home. And then an hour and a half commute back.

[00:09:18] What you were getting home, 435 of clock every morning? Yeah, it was crazy. Just about the time the babies were waking up and wanting to be tended to and loud and playing. And Daddy wanted to go to sleep. So it put us on a completely flipped schedule. Yeah.

[00:09:34] And he was stressed out not getting rest. I was stressed out trying to keep four kids quiet so he could get rest. It did not help the bringing together a family at all.

[00:09:42] And what it is, it just magnified what was happening between us and it just it made us start where we had done so well. We're laying our marriage and working together and planning things out together and achieving goals together. We now we're going completely opposite direction.

[00:10:01] And no longer we were working together. We were actually fighting against each other and it was just bad. It was really bad. I could remember some situations where we were just losing it. I could remember sometimes getting out of the shower and just being incredibly angry.

[00:10:20] When angry and I went here. Yeah. And one of the things that we started doing is we started noticing this. We really, it wasn't like we were completely running away from this. We felt trapped. We felt like we couldn't do anything about it.

[00:10:38] And one of the things that we started to realize is that we need to make sure that we know what we believe.

[00:10:47] And it was in the middle of that whole thing that we were going through that, you know, the Holy Spirit, you know, basically slapped us or something. And even though we weren't connecting together yet, we actually came up with a thing of listen.

[00:11:02] We need to know what we actually believe you. Do we actually believe this about God? Do we actually believe this about the Bible? Do we actually believe this about the marriage and family? And a lot of that went back to, you know, it was, it was bad. Yeah.

[00:11:18] It was very bad and you were depressed and I was hurt and it, you know, you all know that when you're in that place, it spills over to everything else. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:26] And, you know, we had a 10 year old who had just been picked up from the only home he had really ever known. He had played football. He had been active. Yeah. He had had friends. And now we were in this place where it's not stable anymore.

[00:11:39] There's not a known, we're going to be able to pay for things. We're going to be able to put you in your activities. We're going to, all right. His world was gone. Yep.

[00:11:48] And then we had a four year old who, my gosh, you know, once friends, talk about a little social bug at that point. You know, he's, he's bizarre.

[00:11:58] I need friends and I need, I need to be out there and he was fun and he was goofy and he was, and his little personality was just getting squash. Yep.

[00:12:07] And then we had a three year old that we were beginning to realize, we were fighting some struggles that weren't standard kids struggles. Right. He was having trouble expressing himself.

[00:12:21] And we were beginning to realize my, my sister-in-law is at, at the time and still is a special needs teacher in the school system. And when we were describing to, she and my brother over a meal, some of what we were dealing with,

[00:12:36] she said, you need to have him tested this sounds like classic autism spectrum. And, you know, he throw that into the mix and then she was right. That's exactly what it was. So thanks, Lynn. You're awesome. That's what she got about.

[00:12:52] But that started its whole other thing of, okay, so how do we properly parent so that he has the coping skills he needs? And then we had little miss one and a half year old who's trying to be a toddler. He was a baby. He was a baby.

[00:13:09] He was a baby. And all of that stuff, and it spilled over into our ability to properly parent our kids. Right. And they were bearing the brunt of this at home. Yeah. And he was the thing is that because we didn't trust church. Right. We were isolated.

[00:13:25] We were very isolated. And our parents were there. Right. But your parents are your parents and we love our parents and stuff. But at a certain point, you just struggle with sharing these things with parents. Right.

[00:13:40] And so both our parents were there for us and helped us tremendously. So many ways. And there's so many thank yous and we love you guys so much for what you did because you helped us in so many ways.

[00:13:52] But in this thing, this was something that we really had to work through ourselves. And we were because we weren't in a church. We had no friend group. We had no one to fall back on and it was just hard. Yeah. It was very, very hard.

[00:14:08] One of the things we know what to do. We didn't. But one of the things that was an underlying and we're both. I think Hillary would be we're both pretty dog on stubborn. Yeah. So there was a lot of this that was happening.

[00:14:21] We weren't even admitting to each other even though we were dealing with it. Right. But there was still that underlying thing of all the way back. We talked about this last episode, all the way back.

[00:14:32] One of the commitments that we had stood strong on from the beginning was we're not going to split. No. We're going to cut it out and work three times up. So but in order to figure out how to do that,

[00:14:46] we had to do exactly what we're talking about and go, okay. This is not work. What we've been doing is not working. Right. So how much of what we've been taught is worth holding on to. How much of what we think we believe do we actually believe? Right.

[00:15:02] And who's the source that it's coming from and are they reliable? Right. You know. And that's where and so in the middle of all of this, we decided to, we're going to move closer to Disney. Because now I'm now working in a different area in Disney.

[00:15:19] And I'm moving up into management. Right. And you've been doing full time to do it. And I'm doing full time position and they are fast tracking me into management. So we decided we're going to move to the central Florida area to Disney.

[00:15:35] And this place turns into being a huge help for us. This place turns into being a place that because it allowed us to have a safety net. Right. Because I was getting a stable job. We were getting help insurance as I'm like that.

[00:15:54] Which was key in getting the three year old. Yeah. The assistance that he needed and giving us the information that we needed to parent him well. Right. We decided that what we're going to do is because we can't afford to live here. Because we're a large family.

[00:16:12] So we decided what we're going to do is we get an RV. Right. And we're going to full time RV it. 1982 class A with orange, shag carpet y'all with you. It was beautiful. It was a great piece of thing that caught fire three times.

[00:16:26] But propane tank never ran out. No. I don't know. It was a miracle propane tank because we never filled it and it never ran out. And we lived in that one for a year. Right. And then we bought another one that we lived in for two more years.

[00:16:41] What happened now is that we were starting to get healthier. Right. We were starting to solve some of the issues with the external things. We were health insurance. We now had food. We now were paying our bills.

[00:16:57] Even though we ended up at the worst part of our thing. We actually ended up having the declared bankruptcy. Right. Through all of this. But Charlotte, you're told us we should have done earlier. Yeah. We were so stubborn and so trying to make it on our own. Yeah.

[00:17:13] Y'all said, help when you needed it. Yeah. When you need it. Get help. That is definitely one of the things that we tell people. And we want to encourage you if you're watching this. Is that when you need help get help. So our external things.

[00:17:26] We're starting to come into alignment. You know, Benjamin was going back to football. Right. You know, all these little things were starting to come back into alignment. So one of the things is that we hadn't figured out and solved the things in between us.

[00:17:42] Because we still hadn't figured out and solved the things that nothing got yet. So in the middle of all this like I said, we went back and you hear this term a lot. Now it is of deconstructing your faith.

[00:17:55] One of the things that we did is we did that. This was, yeah. What? Over 10 years ago. Right. When it wasn't quiet. We did a perfect. But we said these were the things that we knew to be true no matter what. Right. God was God.

[00:18:12] Jesus was a son and the Holy Spirit has been sent here to live in us and to help us and to Be our Comparer. Other than that, we really didn't. We even threw like God is good. Yeah. We took off the table. We took off the table.

[00:18:28] We took off all of that out. We took any of the religious practices that we had been trained up in. We were like, okay kids we are not going to pray over meals anymore because so far as we can see there's no command to do that. Right.

[00:18:49] You know there's that's a ritualistic behavior that we've been trained in and if it's not. If it's not actually something God's asking of us we're not going to put the expectation of ourselves. We went pretty extreme on every. Right.

[00:19:01] Yeah and some of those things because where I went to college to become a minister and then we went to seminary, there were a lot of traditional things that we were taught plus you grew up in a church. Right.

[00:19:13] We just took it for granted like this was in the Bible. This is how you're supposed to be. And then we started to realize we go wait a second. This is not in the Bible. What does the Bible actually say? What does it actually mean?

[00:19:26] What does it do? What do you know, what is it and how much of how we've been functioning has been based on actually the traditions of men. Right. And it had been very destructive. Yeah.

[00:19:37] So what we started doing is we started to break that down of our personal faith and our personal relationship with Jesus and our personal relationship with God and our personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. And when that started happening, well number one it made it worse. Right.

[00:19:53] And our family because between you and I. Yeah. And it caused a lot of more of the flare ups, a lot more of the things because of you know. Well when you start asking God questions like that like who are you and is this really true?

[00:20:09] It begins exposing things in your own life. Right. And it brings things to the surface and expose this things. And then you get to work through those things. Right. Well, it goes back to those things of protecting you when you didn't need to be protected.

[00:20:23] And going back to those things that started back in Texas. Right. We then started uncovering those things. So now that we kind of had an understanding of God was we started under covering some of the other stuff which then meant we had to work through that. Right.

[00:20:39] And it was scary. It made it very hard. And just to let you know, you know. If you're married and you've been married for a while and you've got this stuff in your past and it might not even bad stuff.

[00:20:52] It might not be but it's the way you treated each other. And you have to now open that up and start looking back and going hey 10 years ago. This is how I looked at you or this is how I felt like you should have looked at me. Right.

[00:21:08] It gets a little dicey sometimes. Those things are hard to hear and hard to say. Yeah. And that stuff's hard. It really is hard because it's not it's almost easier if you screw up and you go, oh, you screwed up so I forgive you we can move on.

[00:21:23] It's harder when you say hey I believe this about you or I thought this about you or I felt like you thought this about me. Right. It's almost like that's harder to deal with.

[00:21:37] That's a level of honesty and vulnerability that you you're not sure in the moment we're right now because we worked through. Yeah, but in the moment you're not sure if I tell you the truth about that what you going to do with that. Right.

[00:21:51] Are you going to still choose me? Are we going to be able to get through that? Right. And again, you know. We were now about what 17 years. Almost 20 years into our marriage. It was the conversation in the target parking lot. Yeah. That was it right around 18 years. Yeah.

[00:22:11] And so we and aren't even doing a majority of our life together but we still held stuff back. Right. We still worked sharing stuff with each other. And the enemy, you know, Saint was just using this.

[00:22:25] I mean he was having a field day in our marriage because he was just throwing these darks in throwing these things in. And because we didn't know what we believed, we didn't know what we were supposed to tell each other. And then it just all blew up.

[00:22:42] It was very difficult. So I do want to encourage you if you're going through that or you need to go through that. Right. It's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. It's going to take a lot of crying.

[00:22:55] It's going to take a lot of being honest. Right. And but on the other side, you get to see the benefits. And so let me encourage you to, you know, we're talking about how when you deconstruct

[00:23:10] your faith like that, when you begin to ask all the questions of God that you kind of come into this place where you're not sure what you believe. Hang on with that. Keep asking him because what we have discovered through that is that.

[00:23:24] If you are somebody who is asking those questions not because you are not being honest, like you're you're asking God that kind of literally in an attitude that you're ready to smack him down no matter what answer he gives.

[00:23:38] That's not going to be productive, but if you're asking honestly and you're going Lord, you know, I've built my life on this and this and this and this and this and I don't even know. Right. I don't even know any more can you what's really you.

[00:23:54] It is terrifying and it's especially terrifying if you've grown up in the church. Right. Where we pretty much have been told what you should believe. Right. But guys, God is faithful to that.

[00:24:06] He is so faithful to that and it's terrifying and it's scary and you don't know if you're going to come out on the other side. But his promises true that if you seek me, you will find me. Right.

[00:24:19] If you ask him those questions, he will answer them if you're listening. If you're really really listening to hear those answers, he is speaking to you because this was his purpose from the beginning and creating you to begin with. He wants fellowship with you.

[00:24:37] He wants you to understand who he is. Right. And he wants you to understand that in truth. You know that Jesus said that there will come a day and indeed now is. Right.

[00:24:47] When those who worship me will worship me and spirit and in truth, that is what he is wanting and that's what we were wanting. Yes. We didn't want lies anymore. We didn't want platitudes and traditions. We wanted what was real because what wasn't wasn't working. Right. Yeah.

[00:25:03] And it was hard because the step down because of the you had to acknowledge, you had to do all these things. It was unbelievable. Yeah. I'm wondering if it's definitely going to work.

[00:25:16] But as we work through those things and we are working some of these things with our children and helping our children understand some of these things because what was happening is,

[00:25:27] and this is what happens when all couples go through tough times is that the kids don't get it directly. They usually get affected indirectly. Right.

[00:25:40] But so they were starting to acknowledge some things indirectly that went all the way back to Texas with Benjamin and then some of the stuff where all of a sudden we went from being able to basically live like everybody else did to now, you know, we were.

[00:25:59] Six people in a dog in a dirty square foot. Yeah. And then our feet. And then our feet. And so one of the things and this is where we're so grateful for the time that we were here at Disney. Yeah.

[00:26:13] And if you haven't figured out our mystery location and we're actually at the wilderness campgrounds at Walt Disney World, this place was so pivotal because number one it did like I said, it gave us that umbrella for those external things that were stripped away from us that we didn't have.

[00:26:33] And then while we were doing this, we were able to start to repair some of the stuff in between us.

[00:26:40] And then we used kind of Disney and some of the stuff that we had being here in the parks to help repair some of the stuff with the kids. Right. And provide for the kids in ways that we never would have done.

[00:26:54] Here we were basically, you know, bankrupt completely impoverished. You know what the kids were we were going to Walt Disney World every weekend. Literally their school room. Yeah. We're here, yeah, because this is where I used to break them for our homeschool. This was a fantastic week.

[00:27:12] We homeschooled all four of our kids and you know, we would load up a backpack and a picnic lunch in the morning. And we would come and because you were in management. Yep. We had free access to all the parks all the time.

[00:27:30] So we would, um, we would come up and we would come to the campground and eat a picnic lunch and do some schoolwork. And then take a boat ride over to the magic kingdom and play for the afternoon.

[00:27:44] It was a great incentive. If you can tell your kids hey, if you get your schoolwork done, we'll go ride roller coasters. Great incentive. You know, it's so we were able then to start repairing some of that stuff with the kids and encourage the kids.

[00:27:59] And it helped us. It really did help us because it was a stress reliever. We were able to then we were getting reward for the work we were doing. Well, we learned how to play again. Yeah, we learned how to have fun. Right.

[00:28:13] You know, because we weren't having fun in our marriage. We weren't having really more to have a lot of fun with the kids. We weren't having fun doing anything for all work. He was all duty and work. And this is our mission.

[00:28:24] And this is what we have to do. And this is the responsible thing to do. And this is, it was oppressive. Yeah. And we learned how to play and take joy in our family and enjoy in our marriage again.

[00:28:35] And and run through the caves at Tom Sawyer Island and all that stuff and just have fun. Keep an end moving here. We're going to keep going. Two seconds. That joy in the marriage thing and the learning to have fun again.

[00:28:50] I will never forget there was one really pivotal moment. You know, you said that being here helped us kind of repair some things from the past. They had happened. One of the things that that definitely Benjamin are oldest and two a lesser extent.

[00:29:05] The others really grew up with was that that fishbowl experience of being a minister's kid. You know, you're a minister's kid. Why don't you behave right? You're a minister's kid. Why are you, you know, whatever what that did is that turned him very inward.

[00:29:21] It turned him very self-conscious. And so being outwardly simply or outwardly goofy. I will never forget we were on Main Street USA in the magic kingdom. And they were doing the dance party parade, right?

[00:29:40] And they came down on the floats of everybody's dancing and they're inviting people out into the streets to dance with the music and with the characters and you know, the kids are going nuts for this. Our kids did that. Yeah, there's a sitting there watching it.

[00:29:59] Well, they literally pulled back away from it and said, it was a don't notice me. Don't look at me. I can't have fun like that because it will be judged. Right. And I went home and cried that afternoon. And I went, what have we done? Yeah.

[00:30:18] What have we done to our children in the name of proper behavior? And if there was anything that we took away from that, that part of our dream experience, it was that self-consciousness is just as destructive as arrogant pride. Yeah. It is the same thing.

[00:30:36] They are both arrogance and self-consciousness are both rooted in pride. And they've got to be got rid of, you know, they're destructive. Yes. Yeah. And I think flipping that to just a year or two later, seeing those same kids,

[00:30:55] remember one night at closing, and we're walking back from Splash Mountain. And we're doing cartwheels and, you know, down the main road, we're the freight comes. And we're just being goofy and dancing and jumping up and down and just having a great time.

[00:31:17] So yeah, there was a huge change that happened. And again, this is why we look very fondly on this place. You know, I'm not joking around everything that I think was you wanted to accompany me. Yeah.

[00:31:30] But I mean, everything that the company does, but looking back for this place and our family in that part of time, it was remarkable. After being in the RV for a couple years, we then decided we wanted to get a house.

[00:31:43] We want to give more comforts to say what we move through. When your neighbors are constantly moving it out. And it was fantastic meeting people from Canada, meeting people from all over the United States. Your neighbors changed and it was never boring. But we needed to.

[00:31:58] Yeah, and the kids needed to have some friends that were under the age of 65. Yeah. And so what we decided is that we wanted to find a house. We spent searching everywhere. And this is where God, I truly believe we had blessed us.

[00:32:12] Now, we're now, we've worked a lot of things out. We're now on the mindset now we are back working together. And it was good. And we know what we believe now, right? We've spent time putting basically our faith back together, our family back together, our married back together.

[00:32:30] So we get a house, we get a house in Claremont, which that was a blessing, complete blessing. We should not have been able to forward anything in the city that we chose. We drove, we knew he needed to be able to get to work.

[00:32:43] And so we knew we were shopping for houses and we drew a 30 mile radius around Walt Disney World. And we said, okay, we will check every community inside that radius. Yeah. And we found this one community that we loved.

[00:32:55] It man, if it was going to be the ideal place, it was this place. And then we looked at home. Prices. That place. Yeah. Well, okay, that's going to have to be a God thing. And God just kind of sat back and went, good.

[00:33:11] Thank you for recognizing that. Yeah. Well, it's funny because the woman who sold us the house was so glad to give it to a young family who had the kids. Because she raised her family there. Because she raised her family. And it was just a wonderful thing.

[00:33:26] And so we got this house. And then. So things are going well, but we're still even though we've come to the place where we know what we believe. Right.

[00:33:36] And we're going to be part of what we had come to believe was that we do believe in the God of the Scriptures. Right? We are followers of Jesus Christ. And we do believe in the community of believers. We absolutely believe that.

[00:33:51] That we cannot live outside of community. We need. Right. Community with other believers. We were not convinced that that community had to take the shape of an organized church. Right. And we still are convinced of that to be quite honest with you.

[00:34:06] Yeah, we still have some hanging upstairs. I'll be honest with you. But we had just moved into this community that we were in love with. Yep. One of the things that we loved is there's a huge waterfront park where they have all kinds of community

[00:34:18] events throughout the year. And that one of these events. Our kids were invited to a vacation Bible school at an organized church. Yes. And they came home with the fire and they said, Mom, Dad, can we? And he went, I worked some days and stuff.

[00:34:37] So I don't really care. I'm not part of it. I thought that. You make that decision, babe. And I kid you not. My statement was how long is this vacation Bible school? Because y'all, you got to understand.

[00:34:50] My background is I had been a children's ministry director at rather large churches. I ran the vacation Bible school. I was a new everything that goes on behind the scenes and I was not a fan. I looked at them and I said, so how long is this thing?

[00:35:07] Okay. So it was only a Friday Saturday Sunday. It ended on Sunday because, you know, a few end-of-month Sunday you get all parents in church too. That's how that works. Literally my statement to the kids was, I guess we can put up with a church for one weekend.

[00:35:22] Yeah. Yep. That was how that went. So, news to say it was a good situation. They loved on the kids. The kids had gotten some friends. We had started attending that church and we attended that church for quite a few years.

[00:35:43] At one point I was asked to be the director of the youth. Right? I made a mistake in saying yes. God taught me a lot in that situation. It was like the things in the past where even though I was doing something, God was still teaching me,

[00:36:06] God was still using me whatever, but it wasn't the best that God had for me. Wasn't necessarily the ideal, but he uses everything. Yeah. So in the middle of all of that, what it is, it caused a big shift and what was happening

[00:36:23] in our home because now I was no longer a good option for me because now I had to be off on certain days for church. Right? And so what it happened was there was this divide that actually was kind of placed on us.

[00:36:41] If you're going to do this, you need to do this. We prayed over it and we really thought we were seeking God's face on it. Well, we worked with this. But I think there was an opportunity there. And there was also the pressure of expectation.

[00:36:57] So it was pressure that we didn't want to hurt somebody or fail somebody or... And I wanted again, this was going back, you know, I'd love to ministry that was growing and thriving and I enjoyed it.

[00:37:10] And so there was that as well that growing back into something that I really enjoyed doing. Going back to it, again, it's not a regret, there's not a regret thing. Is that I look back at that and go, this was not God's perfect will for us.

[00:37:27] It was permissive, his permissive will for us. He allowed us to do this. Right? He taught us a lot in this, but this ultimately was not what he really wanted for us. And so after a couple years of being at the church and doing ministry there,

[00:37:48] we just felt like it was time. Yeah. It was time for us to change. It was time for us to go. Now, at the tail end of that, God had really just kind of spoken to me. I mean, just clear as day about worldwide ministry.

[00:38:06] And traveling, mission work and also was speaking to you about starting your own business Right? And you're impacting the community. And so everything was kind of changing and was more thing And we didn't know really what to do.

[00:38:26] And it was one of those things where, you know, when you take on a large role in an organizational church, where you're on staff and you're helping to make decisions and run things. And there is the expectation that you're there when things are happening there. Right?

[00:38:45] And then God goes, okay, this was for, I used this for a season to get you to hear. I taught you what you needed to know. And I told him, he taught us so much while we were there at that place about who we are. Right?

[00:39:01] And the gifts that he had placed in us and the things that he wanted to do through us and with us that we had kind of never known before, you know, it was an old ministry.

[00:39:15] Back before the whole deconstruction thing was this is the formula for how you do following God. Right? So it was almost like, you know, advanced level reconstructing. Yeah. Going, okay, now you know who I am. Now let me teach you who you are in me.

[00:39:34] So as we began to understand more who we were in Christ and what our calling was, then we started getting excited about things that we were seeing that God was opening after us that I don't think we would have seen before. I agree. I agree.

[00:39:50] And I think that also it's solidified so many things, you know, plus, you know, with working in the spirit and working in our giftings we had done that but not in the way that we learned. Right? Not the degree that we became so, yeah. We gained more understanding.

[00:40:12] We grew. Right? And the past of schooling that I had been given was that you plan, you scheme or you strategize and then you execute it. And then you execute it and then you can go back and you can actually look checkmark each

[00:40:27] box that you did right to serve God right? And if you quantify the results and there is a, there is a return on your investment then you have followed the spirit of God. Right? And what we were, what we were learning was that was not true. Right?

[00:40:42] And that there are elements of that. But if you're not doing exactly what God's called you to do and if you're not walking in the spirit, if you're not using your giftings the way he gives them to you and doing it

[00:40:54] in this appropriate way, you can, you can make all the list and all of there but you're not having an impact. You're not having a lot of money. And if you do have the quantifiable results, it's not necessarily God who is moving here.

[00:41:09] You, you may very well have done a fantastic job of running a great program and manipulating people very effectively. And that is not what we wanted to be doing. Right? Because we were now at the thing is that we didn't want to manipulate people and to follow God.

[00:41:25] Right? We wanted people to find him who he really was and it be able to worship him. You're in an interest. And that no matter what situation they're going through, no matter where they live, whether

[00:41:41] they were in a church, whether they were in the middle of India or Iran that they would still be able to worship him because they knew who he was and it wasn't based on a program. It wasn't based on a religion.

[00:41:56] It was based on their relationship with him. Right? And it's not based. The reality of the goodness of his character is not in fact dependent on the quantifiable result of I prayed for a boat and got a boat.

[00:42:11] You know, I may be living in squalor and in poverty under an oppressive governmental regime And you know what God still could, God still moving and God still active right? Right?

[00:42:23] And it kind of puts just to where we are today, which we'll get into that in more of you on the everyday, as you join with us. So in the last few years, it's been amazing. Yes. God has blessed your business.

[00:42:38] You started a business five years ago of doing the thing that you had as a child's heart desire. I love how God brought that around. And so now that's very successful. And it's a huge blessing not only to the community, not only to those who you get to

[00:42:57] Minister too, but you're like a little mini missionary because you are reaching people It going into the homes of people who would never invite a Christian or someone. Yep. You know, you're telling me how you're holding, you know, their children and you're praying over their children

[00:43:17] while you're teaching them to swim and you're praying over their home because you go to their homes to teach them how to swim and stuff like that. And that's just a minute. It opens conversations all the time, so back up real quick. Yeah, I'm a private swim instructor.

[00:43:30] So that was the business that I started. I had always, you know, from the time I was a kid, junior high. My plan in life was I was going to grow up.

[00:43:42] And I was going to go to school and I was become going to be certified as a special education instructor. And I was, I was going to teach, oh, scam likely, just called us. So I was going to teach special needs kids in the public schools.

[00:43:56] And that was going to be my thing. Y'all, I still don't have a college degree yet. That just didn't happen. But you know what God did give me? God gave me my own son who had me to somebody with a heart like mine to effectively parent him.

[00:44:11] And then through him, God taught me more and has opened doors to put two things that I absolutely love training kids that need individualized attention.

[00:44:23] That need somebody who sees past all the quote unquote problematic behaviors to see the heart of the little image of God that God has created there. And to love them and to care for them and to teach them.

[00:44:39] So he's taken that and put it together with my love of all things water, you know, I grew up on the Atlantic coast. I'm a water baby. He's put that together and opened up so many doors.

[00:44:51] And it is a ministry and through, I don't know how many times I've had parents go, how are you so patient? How can you put up with that? Oh my gosh, I'm at the end of my rope.

[00:45:03] I have counseled and prayed with and held and loved on mom and daddies who are at the end of their rope. Not seeing any hope, you know, is my kid ever going to get better? Is my kid ever going to learn what they need to learn?

[00:45:16] Am I a horrible parent? Are they a horrible child? No. You know, no, you're not. And it is, it's a case of being invited into homes and bringing the love of Christ and getting to put hands on kids and prays. And see dramatic changes. Yeah, doing ministry.

[00:45:35] Doing ministry right where God put in and you're not in a church building. No. You're actually in their home and their pool. Yep. And it's an awesome thing. And then for me being able to start traveling, God, like I said, put it based on my heart.

[00:45:52] That was going to start traveling and teaching and preaching the gospel. And it's been awesome because I've been able to teach kind of what we've gone through, right? In a way.

[00:46:03] But also being able to not teach tradition, not teach religion, not teach, but teach the personal relationship and being able to help pastors and leaders, especially younger ones that, you know,

[00:46:19] it's difficult if you're trying to keep up with the expectations, either of the expectations of your church, your expectations of your senior pastor or your board or your deacons or even the church members. Right.

[00:46:38] You're never going to fulfill those expectations who you need to be filled, who you need to be trusting on and who you need to be working with as Jesus.

[00:46:47] You need to work with God and what God has laid out and teaching those things and not worrying about the other stuff, the other stuff will take care of itself. Which means you can know him well. And yes, which also means you need to trust him.

[00:46:59] And that's one of the biggest things is that over the years we've grown because we've seen him faithful, more and more. That we trust him now. We just open up and say, okay, God, this is what you're going to do.

[00:47:12] We just trust that you're going to do it. It's not just trust that it's going to happen. We just trust that you're, you know, and it's not blind. It's not a blind faith where we're just stepping off into the abyss.

[00:47:22] We've seen God moving this so we just trust that he's going to continue to move. It's good at 30 years to be in a really good place. Yes it is. To be able to be honest with each other about who we are.

[00:47:38] It's good to be honest with each other about your job and my ministry, it's a hard ministry together. It's good to have part in those things. Well, that's a whole lot of the levels, you know.

[00:47:50] Yeah, that's a whole lot of the level of seeing, you know, how the kids are now stepping into not becoming ministers. No, but they are ministering where they are. They're a ministering where they're at. They're sharing the gospel. They're encouraging their friends.

[00:48:06] They're even calling their friends out in times when it needs to be done and they're hurting for their friends and they're hurting. All of these great things, these great qualities of who we are supposed to be is followers of Christ. Right.

[00:48:22] And we're seeing it in them and it's just fantastic to see. We're just grateful. Number one that God took the time was patient with us.

[00:48:32] We're grateful that he has put all these different things in our way that we were able to go through, you know, going to Virginia, being in the military, having the situation in Fort Worth and Dallas.

[00:48:46] You know, having the situation, girls, and here in Florida and working at Disney and all this stuff. We're so grateful of all those things that we've gone through because they've increased our faith.

[00:48:59] They've made the creator, it's made God more personal to us and that we can see where he's moving. We can see and we can trust where he's moving. And I used to joke that I was not a very good lump of clay.

[00:49:19] You know, the the scriptures that he's the potter and you know I earlier on, I was definitely the lump of clay that kept wanting to jump off the potters wheel because you know it was scary or it hurt or I got dizzy spin and around like that.

[00:49:35] And you know but. But we've learned to trust him. Individually and with how he's joined us together to the extent that it's okay to sit there and go, wow, I'm being kind of pinched a little bit here.

[00:49:49] Oh, you're cutting some stuff off now and what are you doing with that and you learn to trust that his character really really is good. Yes everything that he cuts off.

[00:50:01] We needed to be kind of way in order to beautify you in order to make you a more usable vessel in order to, you know, to fulfill the purpose that he designed and created you for.

[00:50:13] Yeah and yeah and now we're at the point now we're seeing we're even our individual things are together as one. Even our individual likeings and stuff now we like together and we are molded more and more together which is just a fantastic thing and amazing thing.

[00:50:32] And it's a lot of fun, it is a lot of fun with you last 30 years. Yeah. That's the tough but it's been over all it's been awesome.

[00:50:40] It's fun to it is it's fun to be able to go back and you know I'm I'm a big one for the whole the Ebenezer stone moments you know where.

[00:50:48] As the as the Israelites were traveling you know through the wilderness they would set up stones of remembrance Ebenezer.

[00:50:57] And and say this is where God did this and this is where God did that right and it's fun at 30 years to sit down and you know making these couple of episodes has been awesome because we've had these conversations of okay looking back.

[00:51:12] Where are the places that God did these things and man it's it's been fun to go. It was sometimes those little in consequential moments yeah.

[00:51:23] That you look back and go ah that's when he did it that's when he made me realize this or that's when he made me see that and you or that's when he broke this away and it's done you know.

[00:51:35] Yeah and again that's the whole thing of what we're doing with our ministry here the seeing God in the everyday is taking those times to see those little things where God's working. We're God's showing you an exposing things to you and maybe exposing things about you.

[00:51:52] So that he can mold you and he can make you into something amazing. Yeah it's just a lot of fun we've had a great time doing these two episodes.

[00:52:02] Thank you guys for watching thank you guys for listening we had a great time doing these and we really appreciate you watching and listening and leave comments and encouragements we love that also ask us questions.

[00:52:16] We understand that we went through these things and we're telling you these things and we're putting these things out in the open because God's kind of placed a call on us that we're going to be helping people.

[00:52:28] There's a lot of couples out there a lot of families out there that are going to be exact same things we did there's a lot of former or youth pastors and pastors who are struggling and hurting.

[00:52:38] And they need encouragement and so that's kind of one of the things that we want to do with our ministry.

[00:52:44] And last we just want to encourage you to see God to look at him everywhere just everywhere he's at in the beauty of your family and the beauty of your spouse.

[00:52:56] Guys we've been in those tough times we've shared that with you don't sit there and let the enemy tell you that that this can't be recovered. Don't let condemnations sit on you and tell you that your guilty and always will be.

[00:53:11] You know you may be guilty okay let's face that we were guilty of some stuff. Yes we were right we were guilty of some stuff but there is forgiveness that has been paid for. Yep and receive that forgiveness and then let him restore you it's good.

[00:53:25] Yes it is good. It's really good. So guys thank you all so much we love y'all continue to see God in your everyday. See you next time.