Hello and welcome back to another episode of Upfront and Undivided with Luke and Dean'na.
Hi.
Hey babe.
How's it going?
It's good, how are you?
I'm doing well.
Good.
It's January, still.
Still January.
Yeah.
What day is it?
Like, why are we starting with this word?
Literally, like I know our son is doing a countdown because his birthday is in 11 days.
Yes, 11 days.
11 days.
Yeah.
Every day it's like, what day is it?
Daily countdown.
Wait until the day and then he goes, no, like what's the date?
Yes.
Because he's counting.
Our boy likes his birthday.
He does.
It's a good thing.
There's a lot of people that like their birthdays.
I like my birthday.
They're not weird.
No, you're the only one.
I am the only one.
I'm not the only one.
I'm the only one you know.
It's true.
Yeah.
You like your birthday.
I do like my birthday.
Yeah.
We've already had this conversation.
We have had this conversation.
You just, you're not.
I'm different.
I'm unique.
Yeah.
Periodically, you like the big fanfare hoopla, but you got to hit it.
You got to catch it when it's there.
You do.
Otherwise it's fleeting.
It's a small window.
Yep.
It's a small window.
I've hit it a couple of times.
I like it.
It's like, woo, we're going to party.
It's your birthday.
I love it.
Yes.
So what is our plan today?
So the topic for today.
Yeah.
Blend it up for success.
Yeah.
See, this is where we need video.
I see your face.
I like that.
Thank you.
I like that.
Because it's like, usually we do a little bit of like a little more small talk than
most, but what happened?
You wanted to jump into this.
I did because why?
So it's a funny story.
So I was looking at my computer, just looking up different Bible verses because I wanted
to be a touch, you know, I like to be prepared to a degree, sometimes more so than not.
And so you came down into the office where we record and all of a sudden you see stuff
about divorce.
Yep.
You're like, wait, what?
Nope.
And I was like, till death do us part.
And if it costs you dying, I'm kidding.
A kid, a kid.
But it's true.
You're stuck with me.
Yeah.
You're stuck with me.
And you're stuck with me.
And I like it.
Yes.
I'm not mad about that.
So what triggered this thought, babe?
Well, because I know a lot of times, because technically by, you know, according to the
book and stuff, we are a blended family.
We are a blended family.
And I know there's a lot of other blended families out there.
And you know, every now and then it just, it kind of hits my head and it hits my heart.
You know, the, what does it, you know, kind of what does it mean to be a blended family?
And what is the thought process?
You know, because I know there's been a lot of times where I say that I'm thankful that
I did not have a child with my ex-wife, that I didn't have to have a connection with her
moving forward.
But I know that, you know, especially in the modern day, you know, with divorce being so
prevalent, not just in the, you know, in the real world, the world, out in the world, but
also for Christians.
You know, unfortunately, the divorce rate amongst Christians is matching the divorce
rate of non-Christians.
It's heartbreaking.
It is.
It really is.
But it's, you know, but then on the other end, it's encouraging to find that, you know,
people do end up getting remarried.
Not necessarily to their original spouse, but they find somebody new and they get married
and you know, and they continue on with the family.
And you know, there's, you know, I know that's a, it's a phrase and I know there was a movie
about the, you know, the his, hers, theirs, and you know, it's, you know, what do you
bring to the, you know, so it's, you know, it's not only are you
bringing, not only are you bringing your memories and your issues and your baggage from your
first marriage or just from your first, you know, your life, but you're also bringing
children and possibly, you know, I know some people use, yeah.
And I know some people talk about, you know, co-parenting and you know, it's like, you
know, you have to share parenting duties with this person that you don't really, you know,
sometimes you don't want to have, you don't want to deal with them anymore, but also,
but you have a child.
You got a divorce for a reason.
Yeah.
Whether it be incredibly shallow or be very, very whatever.
The fact is that you now officially are no longer a part of this person's life in that
kind of capacity.
But you created us this amazing human that is incredibly innocent, that didn't have any
say to any of this.
And now, now what?
Now what do you do?
And I also know, you know, outside of divorce, there's, you know, there's a lot of single
parents out there, you know, that didn't necessarily go through a divorce or, you know, especially,
you know, single parents that happened from a casual relationship, you know, where there
was no real commitment.
There was no real commitment.
There was no emotional connection.
You know, especially not a spiritual connection, but all of a sudden there's a child.
And it's like, you know, so I've been kind of trying to go down the rabbit hole and look
and read and learn.
It's like, what did that possibly look like biblically?
Right.
You know, or around the first century and versus what does it look like now?
And you know, I know we love to talk about communication, especially in relationships.
And it's like, so it's as we're looking at it now, knowing that we have some experience
in this, what tips and strategies for communication could we help with that would make things
so, so again, so that you could have success in this, you know, because ultimately that's
what we want.
We want success.
We want to walk in victory.
We want to walk according to the kingdom principles of God.
Right.
So how can we best do this knowing that this is our situation that wasn't necessarily in
the plan of God?
Correct.
And how do we do that?
And I would say that that would probably be the number one.
Number one, we have to identify and have to take our responsibility of, father, this wasn't
your original intent.
This wasn't your plan, whether that be you married somebody and you married somebody
out of the will of God, that would be your and mine.
Right.
So our first marriages were not God based, even though mine, I would say he was a Christian,
I was a Christian, but we were incredibly unequally yoked.
How does that even work?
Well, it's real simple.
It's not even like he wanted to live in one place.
I wanted to live in another.
He liked a certain color.
I liked a certain color.
I consider those shallow.
It's all of a sudden you're serving God, but one is walking in the freedoms of God where
the other one is wanting to hold the other one bound by the laws and the legalistic and
you're basically suffocating another person.
And so your translation, your interpretation, that's a better way of going, your interpretation
of the word of God is completely different.
One is spirit filled, one is not.
One is running after the attributes and the character of God.
The other one just wants to stay saved and use the grace of God to continue to do what
they're doing.
But it's okay because God's got me and everything is fine.
Everything is fine.
Right?
And so I would consider those kinds of things and I wouldn't necessarily say that was necessarily
completely my because I was just as at fault.
Again, we've already talked about these things before another podcast.
I've taken responsibility for my thing.
God said no, I did it anyway.
It's just not simple.
So in those moments, what do you do?
How do you go about this?
You start in the word of God where it talks about and I think you have seen it when you
were going through your studying where it said Moses was talking about if somebody is
committed adultery.
Yeah.
Or one of the versions I saw is indecency.
Indecency.
Or indecency in their heart.
Indecency in their heart.
So that actually makes it even a bigger umbrella.
And so God graciously gave people an out.
And what you saw in the scriptures was you saw basically the reason why was because the
people were so hard hearted that they didn't want to change.
They didn't want to forgive.
They didn't want to walk in reconciliation.
They much rather wanted to hold on to the bitter.
Or the other side of that, they didn't want to walk in covenant.
They didn't want to walk in covenant.
Because it's not just the person forgiving but the person that stepped out.
You can be as forgiving as you want to and as much as God has asked you to.
But if the other person doesn't want to stay in covenant, they're going to walk.
I mean that's it.
And that's something like when we had Patty and Stuart talking, right?
And this is a family that, yes, they had been married once before and then they were in
the process of getting a divorce.
And they both decided, they had to both decide, I'm not letting go.
You know what?
Bad idea.
Let's not do this.
Let's do a do over.
And let's rebuild this marriage properly and showing that it can be done.
So again, those moments where you and I have friends or people that we've encountered and
said, well, it's not even worth saving and you want to go, oh, it's not so far gone.
The only time it's so far gone is when God says, period.
And the only time I was, in my marriage, I was willing to die there.
Like literally, I was going to die there.
And if it were not for the Holy Spirit, even in the midst of me having an emotional affair
in the moment and me literally like in my mind, I'm like, I can't do this anymore,
but I'm here.
I committed.
This is what we're doing.
The Holy Spirit said, woke me up in the midst of my junk.
It still fascinates me to this day how gracious our God is that he woke me up in the middle
of the night and I heard audibly the only time I've ever heard God's voice like that
say it's time to go.
That is it.
That's the only time I ever heard any of this.
And I can genuinely say, I don't know for sure if divorce is what God intended, but
the fact is that he was ready to move me out of that space at least in that moment.
And then everything else kind of just took its course.
And then, ultimately you.
But would I much rather had had happily ever after the first go around with my beautiful
girl and our whole little family in town?
Yes.
Same with you.
Same with me.
If you want to be honest about it, because a lot of people would go, wow, are you serious
right now?
You guys are talking like you'd much rather have been with the first person.
Yeah.
Because with all due respect, guys, anybody that has ever been through a divorce, that's
hell on earth.
It sucks.
That's like a slow death.
That's going to a funeral every day and the person never dying.
And I've explained it to people.
Even if you want it, even if you want divorce because of what has been done to you, when
it happens and it's finalized.
It hurts.
Yeah.
I mean, I know I said it.
My wife was unfaithful.
She cheated on me with a guy that was living in our basement.
And when I got the certificate in the mail that said I was officially divorced, I cried.
I cried.
I felt like the world's biggest failure.
And like whenever I had that moment, I pond my ring and I cried.
Because at that point, same thing.
I could physically feel myself breaking in that moment of that breaking of that covenant.
The two become one and then all of a sudden, how do you undo two that become one?
And I wasn't a Christian at the time.
Yeah.
That in itself is the reality.
So again, this is us being transparent.
This is us being upfront and letting you know straight up, listen, if this is something
that you're even considering, get into God's face, get into God's face, get into God's
face and have him walk you through it.
So go ahead, babe.
So we say all that to say that, yes, that was not the original design.
That was not the original plan according to God.
Again, you knew how much this was going to hurt.
And again, I believe they say it, Jesus said it in Mark 10, what God has put together,
let no man put us under.
Nobody can break apart what God has put together.
That's right.
No matter how hard you try, no matter how many pieces of paper involved.
But I say all that to say kids happen.
A lot of times people want kids at the time and then it happens.
Some people are not expecting kids and kids happen.
And I think what's weird, not weird, different nowadays versus like biblical days, because
biblical days was if outside of the extremely rare cases of divorce, because I don't have
numbers in front of me, but I'm going to assume they were very rare that the Jewish people
got divorced.
Right.
Well, the fact that Joseph, when he found out that Mary was pregnant, was going to put
her away in secret.
That tells you how incredibly you don't do that.
You know, so it's like if all of a sudden you were say a single parent, that was not
a long season because either your in-laws would take you in because you were now a widow
with a child.
Even if you were just a widow, your in-laws would take you in because that was the custom,
that was the tradition, that was the law.
And if there was no family, then your family would kind of take you back or there would
be a community around you to take care of you.
So there wasn't really this once you're divorced or once you're a single parent for years on
end.
That just wasn't the culture.
So, you were taken care of as soon as the mourning was over, as soon as the mourning
process was ongoing.
I was talking to you beforehand because we know in the story of Ruth with her mother-in-law
Naomi.
Ruth's husband died, so she's living with Naomi and I can't remember the other lady,
same situation.
It was the other sister-in-law.
It was Ruth and this other lady had married two brothers.
The two brothers died in combat, I'm assuming.
And so they're living with Naomi because that's what you do.
And Naomi's like, well, my sons are dead, my husband's dead.
I don't have any other sons to give you.
So if you want to go back to your people, you can, but I'm going to go back to my people.
That's when Ruth is famous and says, you're my family.
Wherever you go, I'll go.
Your people will be my people.
Your God will be my God.
I think Goosebumps are really funny.
That was such a good one.
Yeah.
And so a lot of people know the story.
She then goes, they find Naomi's people, Ruth marries Boaz.
And so that's kind of how it happens.
And I was saying before, if Ruth would have had a child before the husband died, all of
a sudden that child would have then gone with her and then Boaz would have been the child's
father.
Correct.
It's like, that's kind of how it would have happened.
So I think there's this, because divorce was so rare then, and that's not how God wanted
it, and because there wasn't really a single parent situation back then, it feels odd now,
especially when you're trying to look at how to do this biblically, because in a way you
only have half the family structure to work with.
And so I feel that there's a lot of single parents, divorced single parents, trying to
look at the Bible, trying to look at the church and say, how can I do this?
And I feel that there's a lot of people that are trying to make up help.
They want to help.
I believe there's a lot of pastors and counselors and stuff like that in the church and near
the church that want to help and they want to provide.
But in a way, this wasn't part of the plan.
So it's like, I can't give you a really cool scripture that helps you through this situation
because there is no scripture for that situation.
Right.
The one that comes close in my mind is that he has called us to take care of the widows
and the orphans.
In my mind, the widows would be considered the single parents because in our church we
have both male and female, both single dads and single moms.
So it's taking care of people.
It's the church rising up into their position and saying, I'm your community.
I'm your family.
I'm the place where you get to go and seek shelter, find help.
I'm the one that I get to be your family now.
It's just that simple.
I get to be your family now.
We've had single people come and live in our home before and they didn't have any other
family around them.
And it's like, hey, you're our family now.
This is where you get to be.
This is what you get to do.
It's like you're under the blessing of our home, the covenant of our house.
You get to partake and be blessed with those same things.
And so I want to say that's probably where us as the church, us as the body of Christ,
where that scripture comes into play.
When we are working at full capacity, when we are all working according to what God has
designed each one of us individually to do, I believe that there should be no lack.
Even when something of this nature happens, even when there is only one parent in the
home.
Quick story, our friend, my bestie calls me up, texts me first and then calls me in that
was this about a week or so ago, two weeks ago and says, New Year's Eve, wasn't it?
It was New Year's Eve.
One of our youth's mom, a young man in our youth group, his mom passed away.
And first thing she says is, what can we do?
What can we do?
And I said, what do you need from me?
What do you need from me?
And she's like, can you and Luke do something?
Can basically financially?
And this is not the left hand telling the right hand what they're doing.
This is not us tooting a horn, guys.
Understand me.
This is us saying, when you see that there's something going on, you need to see what you
can do.
I said, I will meet you the next day.
We meet the next day.
We go and we fill in their kitchen pantry, their fridge, their whatever they need.
Get some money together.
I make some phone calls.
Get your parents involved.
Get one of my other besties involved.
Say, you're meeting us there.
This is what we're doing.
This is what we need to do.
And it's that.
I may not have thousands of dollars, but I've got 20 bucks.
I may not have this monumental amount of money or something of that nature, but we now have
a huge trash bag full of practically brand new shoes in our trunk given to us from a
friend, some friends that want to pour out to some kids that I teach.
That may not have shoes.
You heard him saying it's the church being the church.
It's that aspect.
And so one of the things that has been built on both of our hearts is when it comes to
the blended family, we have people say a lot of times, my goodness, you guys, like y'all
are legit.
They all have like, you seem to really have this together.
Right.
And the reality is just like our marriage, we had to cultivate our new blended family.
Mary had to learn how to lean underneath the shelter of a father because she had been rejected
for so long.
She had to learn how to trust you.
And our running thing is periodically we still go, do you do trust him?
And the reality is, is she does.
She does.
Because you've proven you have a track record.
You've stayed faithful.
That being said, this is the part that we also want to bring to the table today, unless
you're wanting to say something else.
No, no.
You're going to wear out so beautiful.
I will speak for myself.
When me as mom, I'm the one that's bringing the kid to the table.
I'm the one that's saying, I have a child.
I come as a package.
When I say for better or for worse, it's not just with me.
It's with our girl.
That means me as mom also has to release what I think, how I believe, how I've been raising
her for the last seven years and saying, oh, I got to trust you to discipline her.
I got to trust you to love her.
I got to trust you to communicate with her.
Were there times where I would have to stand in between the two of you and referee and
say, hey, hold tight.
You're getting a little gruff.
Then I'd have to also turn and look at her and say, but you need to allow him to love
you enough to discipline you.
Because we have a father in heaven that if he didn't discipline us, it was because he
didn't love us.
If Luke didn't love you, he wouldn't take the time.
He would just let me be mom and let me just do whatever and we would be married and Gabriel
and I would be a separate entity.
Right.
That sounds so weird.
So weird.
It's like we have a side family as opposed to a whole family.
For those out there that have the blended families, for those out there that are thinking
about this kind of situation, for those of y'all that don't even have children, that
aren't married but want to be married and potentially want to have children one day,
guess what, guys?
You need to come together and you have to have... How are we going to discipline our
kids?
It's not just the finances.
How are we going to do our finances?
How are we going to run our household?
What are we going to do?
How do we go about this?
And also, how do we do traditions?
How do we do traditions?
I think we've done a podcast on that as far as how do you do traditions or do we create
our own tradition?
What is this going to look like?
This is a solid conversation that you want to have.
This is a solid... You got to have this kind of conversation because otherwise, even if
you're not a blended family and you are a family and he has his ideas, she has her ideas,
listen, guys, you got to get on the same page and know that it's going to look different.
Babe, you bring the masculine, the strength.
You bring something to the table that I do not possess and that is the way that God created
it and I get to bring something that you don't have, the softness that it's going to be okay.
I promise.
Just trust me on this one kind of situation.
And that's the key.
It's trust.
It's trusting each other enough to say, hey, this isn't exactly what it is that I think
it needs to look like.
But even just having those moments of, let's talk about it because I would let you, not
at the beginning, not at the beginning.
Trust me, guys, it was hard.
It was hard.
But I finally... This is what the Holy... Listen to me.
This is what the Holy Spirit said to me and this is before we got married.
And it makes me cry every time because I heard the Holy Spirit say to me in my spirit and
he said, if you try to change him, you're going to destroy him.
Everything that Luke was is everything that I love and everything that I went, ah.
Because our running conversation when we tell people, and we've had to explain this to our
girl and to our friends even, when I say Luke was everything I needed but not anything that
I really wanted.
Listen, I was incredibly attracted to this man, St. Liam.
He's hot.
Listen to me.
He's hot.
Six foot three of... And so what you do is you... But that surface, what you've got
to grab ahold of is how does he respond?
How does he act?
How does he respond to my kid?
He's never been a dad before.
I'm seven years into this.
I get to be the veteran.
I get to be the one that brings some knowledge, some wisdom.
And he had to die to some of his thoughts.
How he... Listen, sweetheart, this is how she responds.
Now I'm going to let you parent her and be the amazing dad that you are.
And let's do this together.
Let's team up together.
Do this together.
I keep saying together and that's what it is.
We've got to communicate through this together.
And I love how you touched on it.
The trust because... And in my mind I'm thinking with a lot of these, the discipline, the traditions,
how are we going to do this?
How are we going to do school?
All the serious questions and the not as serious questions, what if my kid's in trouble?
What if our kid needs to be praised?
All of those.
Yes, you're not going to have a serious conversation about every topic that could come up.
That's impractical.
But you're going to have conversations about... We did our best to have these conversations
about different situations that might come up.
But through those conversations and through other conversations, we built that trust that
when the moment happened and something needed to be said or done right then, there was that
trust where you could leave your hands off for a little bit and I could do something.
And then we were able to come back together and talk about it afterwards and be like,
hey, you could have handled that a little better.
Or hey, that was a good call.
In my mind, I'm almost thinking about when an officer goes through something and it's
like, yep, that was a good shot.
Right.
It's like, yep, you did right in that situation.
But it is.
It's that continual conversation of... I mean, you should be having conversations about
everything as a married couple in a relationship before you're married.
And kids is just another aspect or just another conversations that you get to have.
Because again, you could sit there and say, well, we have this relationship as a married
couple and we have a relationship as a parent and child over here and keep them completely
separate.
I know some people do it.
I don't know how they do it, but they do it.
Because then you get the... if you decide to have a child together-
Which we did.
Yeah.
Which we did.
And you have this weird double standard of children and that just... it does.
That jacks up the whole thing.
It feels weird.
It just... it jacks it up is what it does.
It does.
And what I keep hearing, because I kept saying together, together, together, right?
What I keep hearing is this.
Just like our relationship started off with 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient, love is
kind, okay?
So we go through all of that.
What does that look like?
What does love look like?
If we are not giving that same 1 Corinthians 13 to our children, we're hypocrites.
It's the bottom line.
If we are not being led by discernment, if we're not being led by the spirit and the
presence of God, because how many times were it would be just take a second, don't be so
quick to respond.
Give her a moment to voice her opinion, talking about Gabriel, and listen, our girl has opinions
that are strong and a lot of them are so, so right on and she just... girl wants justice.
She just wants everything right.
We love that about her and we love that about her.
And so what do you do?
Well, you do the same thing that you have with the same conversation as far as your
marriage.
I'm not saying it's the same at all.
Your relationship with your children is completely separate from the relationship of your marriage.
Those are two different relationships.
But what I am saying is we need to be patient and kind and gentle.
We need to be understanding.
You hear the scripture that says, don't provoke your kid to wrath.
Don't be a bully.
Don't sit here and demand your way.
Don't sit here and say, you're going to parent somebody by saying, well, because I told you
so, listen, that doesn't fly.
That only flies so far.
Give them understanding.
Give them a biblical principle to stand on.
Give them the word of God.
Because when you do that, what happens is when you do have the moments of a check in
your spirit, you don't know anything else except that I don't know how many times I've
looked at our beautiful brown eyed girl and said, sweetheart, I don't have a piece about
this.
And as much as she wants to kick against me, she's known at this point that, okay, mom
shoots straight.
Okay, dad shoots straight.
She knows that we're not just blowing her off.
We're not just trying to demand our way.
We're saying, hey, what does God say?
And especially because we've done our best to do that not in a religious way, not in
a flippant way, not in a, wow, gee, it sure seems like God talks to you when it's going
in your favor.
Because we've used it, I feel we've used it right.
Because we do.
It's just like it is.
It's like with everything.
It's treating your kids according to the word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit, listening
to that discernment.
Because we do, we get the Holy Spirit, we get that discernment in us.
And it does.
Because I came into this marriage with a whole lot of expertise on how to raise kids.
And I was wrong.
I was wrong.
I was raised different.
The military is really good.
I love it so much.
The military is really good on how to act and be disciplined and to not worry about
what you have to wear tomorrow.
Not the best at how to raise kids.
Yeah.
You are to be seen and not heard.
And that is not the way that I have.
Or if you're heard, you will sound off in the proper manner.
Yep.
And that is not the way I have raised my girl.
And the kicker of it is, is you and I were raised very similar in that.
And I think that that's what's happened is with our beautiful girl, we've given her room
to have that voice.
We've given her room to express what's happening so that way we can help her maneuver the way
that God has created her to be.
Listen to me.
She's not a wild child.
No.
This isn't like you get to let your kid just go run free and figure out this life on their
own.
You're a parent.
Yeah.
Be a parent.
Set boundaries.
Set expectations.
Yes.
That makes them safe.
The thing with, the thing with that, as far as like kind of going back to your full umbrella,
as far as what you were talking about, God himself set certain expectations and certain
boundaries in our life to keep us safe.
When he did not give us the option for divorce at the beginning, it was because he wanted
to keep us safe.
When he said there are certain statutes and limitations and certain things that I want
to bring to the table for you, these are certain things that I want you to do, who I want you
to be, it was because he wanted to keep us safe.
Even don't eat from that tree.
Don't eat from a tree.
Just to keep us safe.
To keep us safe.
You didn't... Listen, I don't know how many times we've looked at our children and say,
you know, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, they're like asking a question and we're just, and usually our responses, because
you know what, sweetheart, you don't need to know that right now.
Yeah.
That's not something you need to know.
I don't want to hurt your... That's not something good for your spirit right now.
Yeah.
Or that's too grown for what you need to know right now.
They understand that.
Our sweet guy, he knows, Sebastian, what is one of our number one things that we're supposed
to do?
Your job is to keep me safe.
Yeah.
Gabri, what is our job?
To keep me safe.
Yeah.
Okay.
That will be until we die, which is that simple, to keep you safe.
When we start doing things God's way, okay?
So whether you are married, single, whether you're a single parent, whatever it is, whether
you're a blended family, take that time, get in God's face, learn what he wants for that
family, what he wants for your family unit, whether it's you singularly, whether it's
you and a family, whatever that is, ask him to direct your steps.
You start seeing budding of heads, you seeing wills, everybody wants their own way, how
they want things done.
Remind everybody that's involved that God gets to have the final say here.
He's ultimately, well, you're the parent, you get to, no, no, no, no, no.
We've apologized to our daughter.
We've come back to her and said, you know what?
No, you're right.
You're right.
You're actually right in this.
No, I believe that God spoke to you and this is how we're going to do it.
And taking that time to be humble enough to say, all right, father, how do you want to
do this?
Yeah.
Okay.
So again, I keep going back to it, but I do, I'm like doing a Rolodex of people in my head
right now that I see.
And I want to speak to the ones that are blended.
And I want to say shalom right now to your home.
I want to speak the word of God over your home, over your minds, over your hearts, not
just financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, all of this stuff.
I'm asking that God gives you discernment, that you break off all of your preconceived
ideas of how you think this needs to go.
That just because you're the man doesn't mean that you get to rule and reign with an iron
fist and do what you want to.
Just because you're the woman doesn't mean that you get to manipulate into whatever and,
oh, I'm the girl.
So I get to, you know, you hear what I'm saying.
This isn't how this goes.
I'm the nurturer.
I know what the kid needs.
No, it takes both of you.
Guess what?
It took both of you to make this child.
It takes two people to make this child.
It's going to take two people to raise this child.
So come together as a team.
Stop being competitive.
This kid is not territory.
It's a soul.
It's a being that needs to be nurtured and grown properly.
It needs the strength of the dad, the gentleness of the mom, and the strength of the mom and
the gentleness of the dad.
It takes all of it.
It takes all of us to do it together.
Yeah, it's true.
Was there anything else that you wanted to?
That was it.
I was really hit though when you said that it's not a competition.
It's not a competition.
Because it is.
I mean, it is not a competition.
I don't want to say it is, but it is.
You're right.
Because I think, I feel like too many people, especially when it comes to blended families,
when they're dealing, especially when they're dealing with their ex, it's a competition.
How can I be the better parent?
Or I'm stepdad, so therefore I get to spoil, and the biological parent gets to discipline.
It is.
Or the stepparent feels like they have to prove themselves or that they're never going
to be completely fully accepted.
That was something that you dealt with.
That's why we need the Holy Spirit in the midst of this.
It's just not simple.
We say that all the time with every podcast that we have, genuinely communication, all
of it.
It's going to take the Holy Spirit in order for you to succeed in this.
And follow his lead.
Take wise counsel, but ultimately, even in that wise counsel, the only one that knows
what's going on fully in every one of those hearts that are involved is him, is God alone.
And follow his lead.
Die to yourself.
Dying to yourself isn't just dying to your spouse, it's dying to your child.
It's laying your life down.
It's serving and guiding and showing them what it is to live a fulfilled life with God,
to have a relationship with the Father.
It's good when our children see us saying, you know what, let's pray about that.
Let's ask God to give us some wisdom on this.
And then watch our hearts change right in front of them.
And then them going, wow.
Mom and dad said sorry, mom and dad said they were wrong, or mom and dad just literally
where they could have said one thing.
How many times has Gabriel said, oh my gosh, I totally was waiting for you guys to say
no and here you're saying okay.
It's allowing the Holy Spirit to direct you in that because that's the only way you're
going to have perfect peace.
You got to be on the same page too as a team, as the husband and wife, you've got to be
on that same team.
Because how many times have we looked at each other and said, what do you think?
What is the Holy Spirit telling you, babe?
Because I want to make sure that we're hearing the same thing.
And not just dying, but killing preconceived ideas.
Bottom line, bottom line, because it is not going to look the way that you think it is.
You proclaim the goodness of God, proclaim the scriptures, believe what is right, believe
that your family will prosper, that they will live and not die, that they will live in the
land of more than enough, that you know what I mean?
That you guys will love each other all the days of your lives and you will never change
your minds in this.
Believe this, stand with this, stand firm in that, but cultivate.
You got to put in the work.
We do.
All right, babe.
Is that good?
That was awesome.
All right, guys, have the best week.
Have a great day and have a great journey.