What do you do when the marriage you begged God
for feels like it's falling apart? When the person
you love most suddenly feels like a stranger
and you're ready to walk away? Today's episode
isn't just about surviving those moments. It's
about the God who steps in when we're ready to
quit. The trial that nearly broke May Daris and
her husband became the very testimony that launched
a powerful platform helping couples around the
globe. If you've ever wondered if restoration
is possible for you, friend, Don't go anywhere.
This might be the hope you've been praying for.
Hey there. Welcome to the God's Goodness Podcast.
We are your hosts, Josh and Shelly Hankins, and
we're here to share real stories of God's power,
stories of hope, healing, and miracles that will
strengthen your faith. No matter what you're
walking through, we want to remind you that God
is good and he's still moving today. Let's dive
in. Today's guest is Mae Daris, a biblical counselor,
mentor, and host of a Spanish podcast that points
people back to the God who is present in every
detail. Mae's story is unforgettable. At just
14 years old, God called her to ministry through
a missionary visiting her school in Mexico, sitting
in the very same classroom as the boy who would
one day become her husband. Years later, when
their marriage nearly collapsed, May cried out
a raw prayer, Lord, if you're really my savior,
can you save me even when I don't want to? God
answered. He healed, restored, and turned their
testimony into a ministry that now equips couples
across nations. I first met May through the Imagine
Media podcast community with Genele Samuel, and
I knew immediately her heart is pure gold. She
is the perfect person to kick off our new series
with fellow podcasters advancing the kingdom.
May, welcome to the show. Would you please start
us off with an opening prayer? Thank you, Shelley.
Yes, of course. Father, in this time, we thank
you for allowing us to be here together. Thank
you because you have good plans for everyone
who's listening. Thank you for the opportunity
to be able to speak today with Josh and Shelley,
and we look forward to hear your voice. We look
forward to be led by you because you are present
in every detail of our lives, God, and you still
have more for us to accomplish on this earth,
to have purpose, to reflect your glory, to establish
your kingdom on this earth. So let this conversation
be pleasing to you. Let this conversation be
encouraging to the audience and let us worship
you in every minute of this time. Thank you,
Lord. I praise you and I worship you in Jesus'
name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. May today
you boldly share Jesus with women all over the
world, but that kind of passion usually comes
from a deep personal encounter. Can you take
us back to the moment or season when you realized
God was calling you to share his love and truth
with others? Yes. Thank you, Shelley. You know,
the Lord called me to ministry when I was 13
years old. I was still in school and it was through
a missionary. I was in a Christian school and
a missionary came. and she ministered to us,
and I felt the Lord calling me. And it was this
crazy experience where I truly believed I was
going to become a missionary to China or to India.
Back in that time, I am from Mexico, so I was
living in Mexico. And little did I know that
in that same classroom, in that same setting,
it was my future husband, which at the time,
we weren't even friends. Wow, I didn't even like
them very much But a lot has happened since right
many ups and downs many valleys I have not been
a missionary in China I have not been a missionary
in India, but the Lord brought us to the United
States and what's interesting is that Our church,
my husband is an assistant pastor in a church
now, is so multicultural. We have people from
all over the world. And now with the Lord allowing
me to have a podcast in Spanish, and I see the
different countries where people listen, you're
like, wow, Lord, you're really accomplishing
your purpose. But in a way that I never imagined
it to be, you know, in a way that I never thought
it was going to be that way. So that's kind of
cool. Wow. That's amazing how you knew him all
those years ago. And then God said, Oh, this
is your man. Yeah, it didn't happen overnight.
I was 14. He was 15 when we were in school together.
And then we part ways when we went to college,
we went in different colleges. I honestly thought
I was never going to see him again. But recently
I was praying to the Lord to help me remember
certain details from my past because I'm writing
a book and I want to remember accurate stuff,
you know? And so I was like, Lord, can you remind
me how is it that I went from not even liking
this guy to falling deeply in love with him and
over heels for him? And I remember, you know,
he helped me remember that I said a little prayer.
So we stopped seeing each other for a couple
of years. And then I needed a job and I was in
college and there was a conference, spiritual
war conference near my college. And so my friend
invited me to go there. And the way she lured
me in, she said, there's going to be free dinner.
And being a broke college girl, free dinner was
like, you know, sweet to my ears so I went there
and my husband was leading worship and so he
was leading worship and he saw me I was all the
way in the back I wanted to just I honestly just
went there for the food and he saw me and then
when he stopped playing he came to the back and
greeted me and invited me for coffee. At that
time I was resenting the Lord. I had gone through
a lot of struggle and a lot of pain and I had
decided to stop going to church. So he invited
me for coffee next day. We went for coffee and
his mother, he's a pastor's son. So his mother
was a counselor. And so after we talked and caught
up, we hadn't seen each other for two or three
years. He said, why don't you talk to my mom?
And I was like, no, I don't want to go to church.
I don't want to. I want people telling me I'm
wrong. No one wants to hear that. Yeah, but he
convinced me and so I went to talk to my mother
-in -law who became my mother -in -law in the
future. She became my counselor first and the
Lord brought me back to church and the rest is
history. But through that I needed a job my in
-laws had at the Christian school. So they gave
me a job in the Christian school. He was working
in the Christian school and that's how we started
a friendship. and then eventually got engaged
and got married. So what was interesting though
is that at that time, I really felt that I was
so unfit to be his wife because he was already
serving in ministry. He was already like, you
know, the pastor's kid. He was like so involved
in church and I was so broken. I had a terrible
childhood, very difficult. And the Lord literally
saved my life through my counselor, through the
church, through the community of faith. And so
I thought I was so unfit for him, like so. I
was so broken that I was not up to par for such
a great guy. And it has been so gracious from
the Lord to help me and help us learn that he
is the one who makes beauty from the ashes. He
is the one who transforms things. He is the one
and he respects our decisions as well. I mean,
he was praying for a wife and surely, I'm sure
his parents wanted like a wife already made,
you know? already ministry, already, you know,
preaching, teaching, whatever. And he chose me,
right? But I think that one of the things that
God honored was the fact that I was actively
seeking the Lord. I was actively, you know, passionate
about Jesus, even though I was so broken. And
so I believe that the Lord, you know, supported.
his decision for choosing me and my decision
for choosing him, even though it didn't seem
at the time that we were at the same level, if
I can call it like that. And later on, years
later, we had a lot of problems and I think those
kind of problems helped him humble himself because
he was like this great Christian that had it
all together. And when he was able to sin in
ways that hurt our marriage, it was a humbling
moment for him. to say, I need Jesus to, not
because I know all of this, not because I know
how to sing in worship. I'm a worship leader
and this and that. I got it all together. He
had to learn also that he had to guard his heart.
right, against sin and against the things of
this world. And for myself, when I was so broken
and I worked so hard with the Lord for him to
heal me and everything, years later I was also
sinning against my husband. And for me, it was
an identity issue because I got to a point where
I thought I was never going to overcome. And
specifically it was sexual sin. And I thought,
of course I'm going to deal with sexual sin because
my mom dealt with it, my father dealt with it,
my grandparents dealt with it. And so it's just
a matter of time that I'm going to be sinning
this way and I won't be able to. You know overcome
this and and it was a time of of a lot of defeat
in our marriage And it was embarrassing. It was
shameful because both of us were serving the
lord at that time we switched churches and we
stopped going to church and And we thought we
were never going to serve the lord ever again.
Our our marriage got to a point of brokenness
that it was very embarrassing very shameful because
In our case, it wasn't a matter of ignorance.
It was not that we didn't know better. It was
not, I think it had to do a lot with pride in
our hearts and selfishness. Little by little,
it was the little steps that breaks the marriage.
It's those little foxes that really destroy the
vineyard. things that I wanted for myself and
I was thinking about me more than him. I wanted
to be happy and I thought that pursuing this
sinful activities were going to make me happier
because I'm bored in my marriage, because it's
the same old, same old, you know? And it was
those little lies, Shelly and Josh, that really
opened up the doors to the big stuff. And what's
hard when you are in a leadership position, it's
very hard to get help because you're the one
who's supposed to be setting up the example.
You're the one who's supposed to be leading.
You're the one who knows better, right? And I'm
so grateful, so, so grateful that there was a
couple of people that we were able to reach to.
And even though our hearts were hardened, even
though our hearts were not in the best And you
know what? It's so easy to talk about when somebody
else hurts you, but it's harder to talk when
it's your own sin that's hurting you. It's so
easy to give testimony of how God healed you
and helped you overcome this and that when somebody
else sinned against you. But it's a lot more
challenging. It's harder. I think it's humbling.
to be able to say, no, it was my own sin, who
put me in this position of affliction to the
point that we were gonna get divorced. Can you
imagine? We were going to get divorced. Wow.
If you've been listening for a while, you know
we love sharing stories where God moves in unexpected
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X39. All of that. was very interesting but a
lot of people think that Christians have it all
together and we're this perfect person and it's
like no we're dealing with the same problems
everyone is dealing with and to reach out to
others it's hard to find like who do I reach
out to you know where do I even start you know
like what do I share and who's dealt with this
and it is hard. Because it is hard, you know,
it's like that imposter syndrome Like how could
me this mess of a person help other people, you
know after I've been through all these things
and done all these things But God has that that
power to transform anybody From a hot mess to
someone who can lead by example and it's because
of those things that we've gone through that
make us more I don't know powerful and our ability
to help others I hear a couple of things in this
and one is a story where Shelly and I were doing
a corporate fast together We just her and I and
she wanted to do four days and I just got off
of a 40 -day fast Wow, and I was I was scoffing
in my head, you know like four like that's nothing
like what are you gonna get what kind of results
are you gonna get with four days and I walked
into the kitchen and I got instant revelation
that from God, that four days is like 40 days
for a married couple, because it's exponentially
more powerful to have a spouse pray with you
know that built in where two or more come in
my name. And it's one of the reasons why the
devil attacks marriages. So roughly why attacks
that he's so tenacious about destroying marriage,
because once he separates you, it's one on one.
But when it's both of you, it's 40 on one. And
it's a lot harder for him to go after a platoon
size element than it is for him to go after a
single individual like the sick fat calf that's
cut off from the herd. It's a lot easier for
him to pick on the outskirts than it is for him
to dive right into the middle. And so, you know,
we've gone through, you know, we've been married
15 years, we've gone through many, many an attack.
And so we can relate to a lot of what you're
saying we know. And the other part is when you
hit that rock bottom, you know, that Christians
also hit, there's a resource that we have that
non Christians also have, but they refuse to
use. And that's Jesus. We have Jesus on our side.
They do too. They just don't acknowledge it.
They won't accept it. They don't want to know
that there's a God that loves them. Because as
you said, it calls out their sin, it calls out
what they're doing wrong. And so we have this
resource that we can come and humbly say, Oh,
Papa, I messed up. You know, Jesus, I don't know
what's going on with me. I'm like a crazy person.
Please help me. And this is something that other
people just don't do. And yeah, we are we are
just as imperfect as the rest of the world, but
we have perfection to help us. Amen. Amen. And
it's just so beautiful because Jesus became our
lifeline. And what's remarkable is that he became
our lifeline even when we were hesitant to hold
on to it. Because when we were at the point of
getting divorced, I was looking for attorneys.
We were living in the U .S. already. And it was
almost like in my imagination, I say sometimes
you have to use your holy imagination. I was
seeing Jesus as this lifeline wrapping around
my body, my wrists and holding me. And me almost
like letting go grip with my hands. and saying
I can't I can't do this and maybe I don't even
want to do it but if you live in me if you are
truly my savior can you save me even when I don't
want to and I know that's a crazy prayer but
can I suggest that God allows sometimes space
for crazy prayers? where you understand that
your flesh is winning, but is the power of the
Holy Spirit living in you who's saying, no, no,
no. I am your savior even in your worst. I chose
to love you even when you were still sinning.
I'm not choosing to love you or to save you when
you're all cleaned up and just crying out to
me with pretty prayers. And so for me, in that
season, it was that. It was really messy. It
was knowing the power, that power, Josh, that
you talk about, oh my goodness, you hit it on
the nail, you know, because we had had before
that, we were involved in marriage ministry.
And there was a lot of like even prophecies and
words of knowledge and a lot of things that spoke
to our marriage about how the Lord was going
to use our marriage. And yet we are here in 2010,
completely defeated, completely, you know, all
our dreams shattered. We were completely lost
because when you sin will never satisfy you.
Sin will always destroy you. And yet you cling
to it as if that's the thing I need in order
to be happy. Yes. Sin feels like freedom until
you try to stop. Yes. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
So because of the Holy Spirit living in us, to
your point that what we have is Jesus, I think
that was literally our lifeline even when we
didn't want to at times. And what was interesting
is that for one day I would wake up and would
say, okay, yeah, I'm going to fight for our marriage
and we're going to get through this. And then
the next day I was like, no, that's it, we're
done. And then my husband was experiencing the
same thing. We were never on the same page. It
was never a moment where we both were like, okay,
we're gonna fight for this, right? Our hearts
were hardened. And that's what happens when your
heart is hardened. You want to defend yourself
more than the marriage. You want to be right.
You fight for your happiness, quote unquote,
but you're digging a deeper hole. And so the
fact that we had the knowledge of the truth was
not saving us in the terms of our hearts were
hardened. So we were not allowing the truth of
the word of God to penetrate and do the life
giving thing that it was going to do. We needed
help from someone else and I think that it was
just the Holy Spirit, His power who held us.
It was His Consciousness at what time I was saying,
I can't believe Lord that you brought us to this
country to save my daughter's life because that's
the reason we came here. And now her soul is
going to be lost because now he's going to be
one more of the statistics of divorced parents.
and now our marriage is gonna be lost. I can't
believe this is gonna happen. And in the sweet
voice of the Holy Spirit, he told me, because
I'm a very straightforward person, I don't understand
run arounds. I need to hear like straightforward
messages, like even in my, you know, day -to
-day relationships. And so I heard his voice
saying, it's not me doing this to you. It's your
heart that is like a stone. And I was outside
in my garden. I literally saw like a big boulder
in the gardens. And I thought to myself, that's
my heart right now. It's like this big boulder
that is not allowing anything new to grow from
the ground. It's keeping everything underneath
dead. And it was that little moment of illumination,
of revelation, of rescue from the Holy Spirit.
where I picked up the phone and instead of calling
the attorney that I was trying to talk to, I
called this mentor that I hadn't spoken to her
for years. And I started crying and I said, you
know, my husband and I are going to get divorced
and I don't know why, but I just wanted to let
you know. And she knew us since we were teenagers.
And she started crying and she started praying
for us and she offered us Biblical counseling.
And that's what started everything. That's where
we started turning the corner. She suggested
that my husband would speak to her husband. And
when I first suggested it to my husband, I think
I even suggested it with a wrong attitude. I
think it was like, you know, because you're wrong
and you need to talk to somebody. Telling you
you're the problem and you're like, you're also
the problem, buddy. Yeah, yeah. So it wasn't
even pretty, you know? It was like that. But
it was those moments of life giving from Holy
Spirit, from Him just really rescuing us in our
worst moments. Where I don't know, He inclined
His heart and my husband, I think it was the
counselor, our friend, they're our friends now,
that He called him and my husband decided to
pick up the phone. And we started having counseling
separately because we couldn't even agree together
to have counseling. Again, we knew so much Bible
that it would become a battle of Bible verses,
you know, just to defend your position and to
justify yourself and justify your sin. And so
how important it is to not weaponize scripture,
to not weaponize knowledge. to not weaponize
that. Whenever we turn it into a self thing,
to a self -centered thing, that's where we should
know we're off. It's no longer about him. It's
no longer about his kingdom. And so, yeah, go
ahead. I was just gonna say, you know, there's
two ways to study the Bible, and I just learned
this the other day. There's a method called exegesis
and a method called eisegesis. And the method
of exegesis is you study the Bible to understand
it. Which is what you should do as a pastor as
a as a parishioner as a regular Christian But
I said Jesus is you use a Bible passage to support
your own ideology You'll see it often uses an
attack, but you also see it used by the church
You know when they have a belief system that
so -and -so should be excluded or so -and -so
It says such -and -such and they're just quoting
a Bible passage out of context to support their
ideology. It is a very dangerous a way to perceive
it. And, you know, you were mentioning how you
were, you know, reading it and trying to get
meaning out of it. And that's differently than
trying to understand it. Correct. Correct. And
it's so dangerous, especially when your heart
is hardened. Right. Especially when you're not
humble enough to be taught and corrected and
encouraged by his word. And so that's how cults
are made. Right? When they instead of doing proper
exegesis, they just take Bible verses out of
context and they form a whole new religion, a
whole new cult out of it and they use it for
their own personal advantage and their own personal
gain and to oppress others. And so it's very
easy to see it in a cultish type of way. It's
harder when it's about your own heart and your
own relationships. But we can do the same thing
as Christians, you know, we run the risk to do
the same thing. And that's why to me it's so
important to understand the value of community,
the value of mature Christians that can speak
into your life and show you what's already there
in scripture, but that you have maybe a blind
spot. You're so set on your ways, especially
in a marriage relationship, for instance, right?
When we get into a moment of, I'm fighting for
my own side that you have to cross over to this
side and agree with me and tell me I'm right.
And you acknowledge that you're wrong, right?
Because it's not enough for us to hear that you're
right. You want the other person to say, I am
wrong, you are right. And we almost want them
to say, I bow down to your righteousness. But
how beautiful it is when there's a community,
when there's, I'm so grateful. I don't even know.
I can't literally remember. How is it possible
that after so many years not talking to this
person, I thought about that person. I'm sure
it was Holy Spirit. And to just reach out to
her, you know, because we also reach out. I also
reach out to another couple that were in marriage
ministry. And all I got from her was like, I'm
so sorry. Like, oh, you know, like, okay, you're
gonna divorce, I'm so sorry. And I was so discouraged
by that. And I don't know, God was just so merciful,
so gracious. It took us about maybe a year and
a half, close to two years. to fully recover,
if I can call it like that. However, our lives
change forever. There are things that now we
protect our marriage in ways that we didn't know
we needed to protect. We took resolutions and
decisions of how to really treat our marriage
as a sacred thing, a sacred gift from God and
understand the depth of covenant. covenant relationship
and how God is the one who holds our covenant
together and so we had to take practical steps
right practical things so there are spiritual
decisions that we made like we try to pray together
we study the Bible together we don't do it super
often and we're not like great are doing it every
day but we we understand the power that Josh
was talking about in the beginning And it's true.
We practically speaking, for instance, we let
go of passwords, so we don't have passwords.
His phone doesn't have a password that I don't
know. My phone doesn't have a password that he
doesn't know. Same thing with our emails. And
several things, right? Decisions for quite a
while. My job included traveling. And so I stopped
traveling and things that we decided to do, but
rooted in the truth of God, covenantal relationship
and marriage, how beautiful and sacred his gift
is, not in rules and regulations that, oh, now
I have to follow this, no. God had to change
our hearts first before we could make any practical
changes to protect their marriage. This reminds
me of a couple things I learned early on in the
marriage. You are on the same team. You're not
fighting each other. You are fighting evil entities
coming against your marriage. And another thing
was choose your heart because if there are kids
involved and there's divorce, you're going to
have to have separate holidays, travel arrangements,
living arrangements. You know, that's a lot of
work and that is hard. And if you're staying
together, then the hard could be working on the
marriage and fighting the enemy and bringing
God into it to heal it. And so choose your hard
and remember you're on the same team. Yes, yes.
And from time to time, it's hard to remember
that. But prayer really helps us because when
we pray together and He's able to hear my heart
as I'm pouring out to the Lord, and I'm able
to hear His heart as He's pouring out to the
Lord, that does something so powerful to my brain
and my heart where I can say, oh yeah, we're
on the same team. We were not destined to be
against each other, you know, and that really,
really helps me to get out of the funk whenever
I want to go back to a certain form. By the grace
of God, never again we had struggled with the
things we struggled at that time. One of the
decisions we made was to take the word divorce
out of our vocabulary. And I had to train my
brain. I literally had to train my brain because
I come from my parents divorced, and then they
remarried to different spouses, and then they
divorced again. So I come from, you know, divorce,
it was a commonality, right, in my lineage and
my heritage. I had to train my brain with the
power of the Holy Spirit and say no, I'm going
to, whenever we have issues and problems, I'm
going to choose to not think about the word divorce.
I'm going to choose to think about how God wants
to help me change, you know, find the solution.
What does he want to change in me? How am I supposed
to grow in this, right? Choose in what you're
going to think and choose what vocabulary you're
going to take out of, you know, your brain. And
so, by the grace of God, it's been over 15 years.
We are involved in marriage ministry again. He
rescued us in ways that we never imagined, right,
that he would. Because for a time we thought,
okay, ministry is over. You know, we were too
damaged to serve the Lord. So we just become
a regular Sunday attendee and, you know, and
give our tithing offerings and that's that. But
it's so awesome when God chooses differently.
and it's humbling and it's just it just makes
you stand in awe of your savior you know and
say wow you are choosing me to be your instrument
in your hands and it's it's been just gorgeous
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and this ministry is focused on bringing this
marriage course to all the parts of the world,
especially those where they cannot afford. to
purchase nothing, right? And so we have trained
couples. Our last training was in five different
countries. We train pastors and we train because
what we want to do through this ministry, we
are part of it. There is Joe and Stephanie are
the leaders. We want to put them in their hands,
in the hands of the pastors and train them for
them to cultivate it within their communities
and their churches. So you have you know this
marriage course in Pakistan and in the mountains
of Argentina and in Cuba and you know from time
to time when we do training we also share our
testimony and I start crying but because I'm
so I don't have any other words to say but in
awe of saying God how is it possible that you
still choose us and that you still want us and
that you still love us and that you still bring
your worth forth through us and it's just gratitude
and such an encouragement to not want to go back.
I see I look back at that period of our time
with our lives with such funk and sin and ugliness
and And I'm like, no, I don't want that anymore.
Now, again, not to say that we don't have to
stay vigilant because I believe in that. I believe
you have to guard your heart. I believe you have
to stay, you know, fighting against the enemy
because he's going to try to come back around.
You know, you close the front door and he's going
to try to walk through the back door or the doggy
door. But experiencing the goodness of God and
how he's able to turn your mess into your message.
I'm going to use a cliche right now. Your painting
to purpose is just so beautiful that it also
gives you the strength to say, I don't want to
go back to that. I really don't. This is beautiful.
This is awesome. It amazes me that you knew the
word and all those examples of You're like, I'm
not good enough to be used by God, but then he
used murderers, prostitutes, all the likes. And
they also felt the same exact thing, like God
can't use me, you know. And it's just a testimony
that he can use anybody who's willing and able
to walk in the way he guides us. Amen. Do you
have any other tips? I know you mentioned that
you guys were praying together. and then you
did some counseling. Anything else that you would
advise people that want to restore their marriage?
Choose to humble yourself. If you can start by
choosing to humble yourself, and that means if
you choose to be okay with not being the one
that is completely right in the room. Choose
to say, There are things I have to learn and
my spouse is not completely wrong because I think
that it starts by those little things where I
stand firm in what I want, how I want it, the
desires of what the things that I want start
consuming me. They start taking precedent over
my relationship. The Bible says that we should
value others more than ourselves. And if you
think about it, when we start fighting, even
in the smallest things, we start choosing ourselves
before the other person. We value ourselves more,
our opinion more, us being right, us wanting
this, us more than our spouse. And that's the
reason why, when Paul is teaching this, I think
it's in Ephesians, he's giving the example of
Jesus and saying, no, you valuing others more
than yourself should look like Jesus. When he,
being God, chose to stop being God and came to
us as a human being, that's how much you should
value the other person more than yourself. I
think that we can start by making a decision
because When we get into entanglements in marriage,
we get so caught up by our feelings or many times
men get so caught up by their reasoning, their
logic. So we can get caught by logic or feelings.
But if we can use this beautiful thing that is
volition, that is choice that God gave us. He
didn't give that to any other living creature.
He gave human beings volition, choice. And you
can choose, regardless of how you feel, that
you're gonna value your spouse more and therefore
you're gonna create the space for asking for
help or prayer or having a conversation or creating
space for a solution. But it's so hard to create
a space for solution when we are not valuing
our spouse more. And the only way that I have
found that that is possible is by humbling ourselves
and saying, you know, there might be something
I'm not seeing. Let me humble myself. Let me
think about myself. less, not less in terms of
diminishing myself, but in quantity of time.
And let me think about my spouse more and value
her or her more and make space for whatever it
is that we need to grow. Mm -hmm. That reminds
me of this one book I bought and I've been going
through ever since. It's called Pray for Him.
And one of the prayers is, help me love him like
you love him, Lord. Because he knows the person
he was meant to be, and I don't, but help me
see it and treat him like that, like he's supposed
to be treated. Yeah. Yeah. Back in that time,
years ago, I did this devotional for wives, praying
wives, right? Because then you say, pray for
your husband or in the case of the husbands,
pray for your wife. But what do you pray? And
that, I think that matters. Because I do believe
that sometimes we can do very selfish prayers.
And at least I, maybe I'm the only one, I don't
know. But I was a very selfish prayer. I was
like, God changed him. God, make him see how
this is wrong. God, can you help him see how
what I'm telling him to do is right and we should
do it because I know that you're telling me to
do this and he's opposing it, so can you please
change him and tell him, right? So most of my
prayers were like that. I mean, God glorifies
himself, even with the selfish prayers, right?
I did this study about a praying wife and I love
the four things out of the whole thing that I
kept with me and I actually wrote it in the back
of my Bible. Four things to pray for your husband.
And it had nothing to do with me and what I wanted.
And one, the first one was to pray for him that
he would love Christ more every day. Number two,
it was to pray for his problems, that God will
help them with his problems. Many times it's
possible that husbands don't share about their
problems and their concerns and their worries
because they like to protect us and they want
to spare us, right? Or maybe sometimes they are
not very good verbalizing what's going on in
their minds, you know, or they're so logical
that they said it in two words and that was it
and we didn't catch it because we were expecting
the... emotional charge of the problem, and they
said it in two words, and for us, that was not
a problem because he didn't have the emotional
charge, right? So to pray for their problems
and that God will help them lean into their Savior
to resolve their issues and their problems, even
the ones that don't verbalize or communicate
with us. The third one, it was to grow in their
love for us as a spouse and protect them in their
covenant relationship as a marriage to protect
their sexual life. And that was the fourth one,
to protect their sexual and emotional life in
ways that we might not be able to see or understand.
And so I took for a while, you know, this seriously
to start praying for him in ways that had nothing
to do with me, but that had everything to do
with him and his relationship with the Lord.
And it was so beautiful. I actually, I was trying
to remember without opening my Bible. I just
opened my Bible and I'm reading it. Oh, I think
one of them is, I've appealed to God in prayer
to help my husband succeed in his work. How many
times you ask him to say, do God grant him success
in his work, in the work of his hands, you know?
And that was life changing for me. It helped
me value my husband and get out of my little
circle of selfishness and self -centeredness
and thinking just about me and how I wanted my
husband to make me happy. And the result of that
has been so beautiful because at the same time,
my husband was praying, you know, and now we
serve each other. Now we end up making each other
happy, but by not demanding from each other.
And I think that's another thing. Once you stop
demanding, you start enjoying the gift that God
has given to you with your spouse. It's a funny
thing you mentioned. You went from prayers, change
him Lord, to pray for him. And the cover of the
book has changed him with the change crossed
out, and it has pray for him. And so yeah, when
you shift your perspective and... It changes
things. It reminds me of the brother, you know,
that had the speck in his eye. And God says,
you got to take the log out of your eye first,
right? We need to do a reflection of ourself
before we can truly see what flaws are in someone
else. If we can't see the flaw in our life, we
have no business speaking on someone else's.
Correct. And that requires humbleness, really.
That's the theme. It's almost like God created
us to be humble. And we refuse to it and we run
the other way Right down from the garden, you
know, the the entirety of our life has been running
from humbleness and making ourselves our own
gods Correct. Correct. Yeah and not understanding
how much that destroys Yeah, one thing that I've
been asking our guests to share is did you have
a Bible verse that anchored you through the years.
Wow, I do have a lot of them. I think my most
recent is Psalm 90, 14. I think it's 90, 14.
It says, let the meditation of my heart and the
words of my mouth be pleasing to you, Lord, my
rock and my Redeemer. And this is because I was
very quick to talk and very slow to listen. And
my husband is a very quiet man. So part of that
restoration included me learning how to please
God, not to bite my tongue so I appease my husband,
because I think that's the wrong motive. If I
want to bite my tongue to appease my husband,
I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. But when
I understood that the meditation of my heart
will be connected to the words that my mouth
speak and the motive should be that I please
my Lord, then everything changes. And why should
I please him? Because he is my rock and he's
my redeemer. He's the one who rescues me. So
he is worthy. that I change what I think, what
I think of, what I meditate on, what I talk,
how I communicate to my husband and the rest
of the people, and anchors me in saying, I do
it because he is my rock. He is the one sustaining
me every day. And he is the one rescuing me.
So of course it's worth it. Of course the hard
work that it comes with talkers like me. It's
worth it. So that's one of my favorites. Thank
you for sharing that. And thank you for sharing
and being vulnerable and sharing all that you
went through. And I hope it was powerful to our
listeners. Yes. Thank you for being humble with
us. It seems to be the theme of our show. We're
practicing. And, you know, in all honesty, we
know that the enemy is not involved in everything
that happens to us. We know that we have to pay
consequences for our bad decisions. But there
is no doubt that he also does attack us. And
he also hates marriage. He hates children. And,
you know, we need to really reflect on ourselves
to see, you know, maybe I'm not the problem.
Maybe my spouse is not the problem either. Maybe
it is an external attack. And this is something
that we can find out through prayer through self
reflection through humility, as you've discovered.
Correct, correct. And just to clarify Psalm 19,
verse 14, but yes, correct. You know, it's so
good to say, okay, is my heart a breeding ground
for Holy Spirit to be operating or it's an open
door for the enemy to come attack us, right?
Am I giving him rope? If the answer is no, I'm
not giving him rope, then yeah, we can be united
as one force and have him back off, right? I'm
remembering now when these counselors were ministering
to us, at one point the wife told me, she said,
you have to stand. and fight for your marriage.
At this point, I was already repented. I had
repented and I had done a lot of work and my
husband too, but we still couldn't connect. So
she said, I think now the enemy wants to keep
you guys down, right? Like you're doing the hard
work and he's kind of like saying, no, no, no,
I'm not going to let you go. And I literally
remember again, this is going to sound crazy,
but I stood in the middle of my living room.
My husband was at work. I put some worship music
out loud. so the neighbors couldn't hear me.
And I started speaking out loud with a strong
voice, angry, and saying, you and me are going
to back off in Jesus' name, and you're going
to take your paws off our marriage. And I was
angry. And I literally felt this hatred against
the enemy. And I was like, you're going to back
off. You're going to take your pulse off. You're
not going to take us and you're not going to
take our descendants in Jesus name. And it was
like a not an outward battle. It was out loud.
I was using my hands, my facial gestures. You
know what I mean? I was engaged with body, soul,
mind because he cannot read my mind. And I have
to really understand how the enemy of my soul
really hates us. And so I'm not going to caress
him and say, hey, would you please leave us alone?
When it's battle, it's battle. And you tell him
back off. But I knew at that time, as you mentioned,
Shelly, that we had a different kind of authority.
to fight him off because we had repented and
we had done the work in our hearts that Holy
Spirit wanted to do with us. So that was a whole
completely new level of authority against our
enemy. That reminds me of Confronting the Thief.
It's a book by Jane Hammond, and she did an episode
with Gennily on Java with Jen's podcast. Take
back what the enemy stole and declare divine
recovery over your heart, family, and life. and
she goes over how to declare and take authority
over the thief. You can experience full restoration,
and you just declare. It's at least like going
to court. If you've had stuff taken from you,
you can take it to court, and then in Jesus'
world, you can request back what was taken, but
then you get seven -fold restoration. you can
make those declarations and take back what's
rightfully yours. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you
so much for being with us. I love this conversation,
May. And I'm glad that you are our first guest
from the podcast community. Thank you so much
for inviting me, guys. Thank you. It was a pleasure
to have you. And thank you for being open and
humble and vulnerable. Thank you so much for
sharing your story, which I hope can encourage
others. You know, we mentioned earlier about
how we fall in like a dark place and it's hard
to get out. And, you know, a lot of people don't
know Christians go there. But God uses that,
right? So that when we see others in that hole,
we can say, hey, I know the way out because I've
been here before. Mm hmm. Amen. Amen. Thanks
for tuning in to today's episode. Listen, let's
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God is always working, miracles are real, and
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Keep believing, keep expecting, and don't forget
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We'll talk to you next week. You can make donations
through any of the links in the About section,
or of course by praying for us, as well as sharing,
rating, and reviewing on social media and iTunes.
Your heartfelt feedback always reminds us why
we do this. Until next time, remember God is
always working, miracles are real, and your breakthrough
could be just around the corner. Keep believing,
keep expecting, and don't forget to share this
with someone who needs help today. We'll talk
to you next week. you