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Hi there! Belah here. Today, I have with me Juana Mikels of choosinghim.com. Juana is a wife and mother of 4; her youngest daughter was born blind. She shares about her marriage that almost fell apart. Neither were believers when they married. It’s an incredible story of how they were separated for a long time and what God did to bring them back together. Juana encourages us to honor and cherish the man He has given us.
Scripture/Quote:
“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” Proverbs 14:1
You’ll Discover:
- How Juana and her husband’s marriage almost fell apart and no one encouraged her to go back together with him.
- How they were surprised by their fourth child being born blind.
- How Juana respected her husband as the spiritual leader even when he was not a believer.
- How Juana is thankful for her husband and focusing on what God has given to her.
Tweetables:
- Mourning remains for a night but joy comes in the morning.
- He began to show me that His perfect will was to be willing to be married to my husband.
- To experience that full intimacy is for you to be spiritually intimate too.
- You’re going to have to stand before God for part.
- Lord, you gave me this husband. I’ll take him!
- Eve had the whole garden and she fixated on the one thing she wasn’t given. And we’ve been a mess ever since.
- No person can meet all your needs, because only God can do that.
Books & Resources Mentioned:
- Choosing Him All Over Again: A Story of Romance and Redemption
- www.bsfinternational.org
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
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Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah rose.
0:19
Hello there and Merry Christmas. It is that time of year I’m so excited that Christmas is just around the corner. A couple weeks away, I took my two sons out to see Christmas lights last night. And my two year old, many of you know I’ve got a one year old and a two and a half year old. But my two year old, two and a half year old was jumping around and yelling and pointing and so excited about the lights. It was really fun. So we got to do that. I don’t know if your lights are up yet or if you have certain traditions that your family does to celebrate this time of year. But I hope that you are enjoying the days of Advent and enjoying thinking about Christ our Savior is born. So I’m so glad that you are listening today. We’ve got a great show for you. And before we dive in, I want to read to you a review that I recently received. And I was really thrilled when I got it. It’s a little bit longer, but I’m going to read it to you says grateful to found this podcast as the title. I found this podcast a little less than two months ago coming out of a difficult time in my young marriage. I wanted to hear some godly advice on a marriage on marriage and thought an easily available podcast may be the way to go. Fast forward and I have listened to all 73 dy M podcasts. In that short time. I have been married for a year and a half and I naively believed we’d always just live on love. I learned from Bella and her amazing guests. Yes, they are amazing that I must be intentional about keeping my marriage strong. I can say wholeheartedly that I’ve made serious changes in my marriage since finding this podcast Praise God. Even my husband asked What’s up belah thank you so much for your ministry, possibly going where few Christian women have gone before. I’ve told many of my friends and have them listening, they reported back they tell me that they love it. We eagerly await each week for your new podcast. God bless you. That is so awesome to hear. Thank you so much for the review. And for anyone who has told their friends about dy M, I just want to say thank you so much. That’s really how you get the word out about this podcast. And it’s helping marriages, you just never know what it could do for someone else’s marriage. So thank you so much for sharing it. Now I’m wondering if you have already figured out what you’re getting your husband or wife for Christmas. Now I do have a suggestion for the wives. I hope you don’t mind if I share with you about my book, I wrote this book, because it’s called delight your husband. I wrote it because I wish I had had it when I was first married. Instead of the misery, embarrassment, even humiliation and pain that I went through around the area of intimacy. I just wish I didn’t have to do that. It was quite a process for me. But God has brought me to a place of confidence and actually enjoyment. And so that’s what I want for you delight your husband takes a wife by the hand through her story, exploring the many blocks that may be stopping her from being able to enjoy the experience and giving her all the tools and understanding she needs and many specific techniques to be able to fully engage and become confident, passionate in the area of intimacy, and specifically even in the area of oral sex. And so I think it’s just a real great opportunity for a wife to learn how her husband thinks about sex, and how to really allow him to fully enjoy the experience. So that’s delight your husband. And actually right now, from now until Christmas, I have a 25% off deal. So if you go to delight your marriage.com you click on the delight your husband icon, you’ll be able to get 25% off if you use the code Christmas. So I think it’d be a wonderful, wonderful gift for your husband to really understand how he thinks and how he feels about sex and how his body works and, and how to work his body and actually understand that and it’s a wonderful, godly holy thing inside of marriage and a wife should truly embody that and fully enjoy intimacy in that way. So I would love to share that resource with you. Okay, well, let’s go ahead and dive into today’s interview. I’m really excited to have one of Michaels with us. She has just an amazing story and a wonderful perspective about marriage. And so let’s go ahead and dive in to her interview.
5:03
All right, welcome back. delight your marriage listener. I’m thrilled that you’re with me because I have one of Michael’s on the line. And she’s just wonderful lady, and I’m excited to talk to her about her story. And welcome. Wanna Thank you, Bella,
5:15
I’m glad to be here
5:17
I am, too. I’m really glad you’re here. And Juana has a website choosing him.com. And it goes along with her book that she’s going to talk about, too. But one, would you go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit about your family and your day to day life?
5:31
Well, I’ll be happy to kind of hate to tell the ending because we had such a shaky start. But if you want me to tell your listeners the wonderful ending, well, we’ll start at the end of the movie. Okay. Yeah, well, the end of the movie is that we’ve have a beautiful Christian family. We have four children that have grown up on me, two girls, and two boys in the middle. And they are now 2623 21 and 18. And I have ever known is a Christian family. They were born into our Christian family. So it’s such a such a beautiful example of God’s grace, because that’s all they’ve ever known.
6:11
Wow. That’s awesome. So do you have any at home now? Are they all gone?
6:16
We basically have one at home. The youngest who is in high school, the the next 121 He will graduate from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, this may so may be home for a few months, but they’re all my kids are real independent. And so they he I don’t anticipate him being home too long, but always told our children, you can always come home anytime you you need to. So mom was hoping he will come back a few more months. That’d be great.
6:45
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, can you tell us a little bit about your and your husband’s personalities?
6:52
Sure. It’s pretty typical in that I probably say about 200,000 words to his. And then another thing that’s probably pretty typical is I go up and down and up and down in terms of my emotions, and my excitement and my passion. And he’s just so strong and level and steady, Eddie. And I really love the way that he is. Although when we’re in a, we’re in a good old argument. I don’t really like it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nor does he, by the way.
7:31
Yeah. Well, this whole podcast is really about inspiring and empowering wives to live in wholehearted intimacy in their marriages. And so I’d love to hear if you have a favorite quote, or scripture that is meant a lot to you,
7:45
oh, I actually have my Bible open with the scripture that I sign with every book that I sign, which is Proverbs 14, one, the wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one, tears hers down. And I was and really still tend to be that foolish woman. And without the grace of God in my life, I would still be tearing my house down, and still, on occasion do and have to come back and ask for forgiveness. And it’s just my nature to not cling to Christ to not Yeah, I’m not only cling to Christ, but to come close to Terry, my nature is to be extremely independent, and to do what I want to do. And it really leads to a lot of problems. It’s only when I humble myself and tell him that I’m sorry. And humble myself to God, and tell him that I’m sorry. That really, he God guides me to do what it is that I need to do, which is Bill, my husband, by my husband, and my home up and be more more, you know, be closer to my husband or intimate with my husband, and not tearing my house down.
8:56
Yeah, yeah, that’s so good. I mean, I love that you you said without the grace of God in your life, you’d still be tearing down your house. So I just, it’s just so true. We need to rely on God so much Oh, for the day to day as
9:08
well. I just yesterday, he asked me what I Please clean out the refrigerator door. And I said know what by refrigerator. And he said the refrigerator door it probably won’t take but about 30 minutes because somebody about six months ago dropped all the chocolate sauce on the shelves. And it’s just the entire drip of like, oh about an inch wide real sick and stuck to the door and I noticed it. And I think I thought that maybe in a couple of decades I might clean it. A husband is much much neater than me. And it really works against us having a close relationship that I am not that way and he naturally is. And so he asked me but it it sort of made me mad because I had something else I wanted to do that you’re fascinating on for a couple of weeks and And it’s gonna take me a good few hours to do it. It’s paperwork and computer related. And I kind of like to do those things. Even though I’ve been procrastinating, I don’t really like to get out a knife and get the sticky stuff off the door. And, and he just asked me to do it. And I really didn’t have a good response. And I didn’t react very humbly. And it kind of led into an argument. I ended up doing it yesterday. And I did it before I even started the other project. In fact, I never got to the other project again. But it really wasn’t an interruption to what I wanted to do. It was exactly what I needed to do was to honor what he asked me to do first. And you think you would think that I know this lesson, because I teach classes on time management. And one of the things I tell the women is do what your husband asked you to do first, or any authority in your life. And of course, as Christian women, our husband is an authority in our life. And so I know better than this, but I what the Bible calls so slow to learn. And like I told you, I’m independent, I’m resistant, I want to do what I want to do. And it always it always leads to trouble. When I do that. i After cleaning it, I it really didn’t take me that long. And it looks so nice. I like it better. Just the reason I tell women to do what he asked us to do first, if he asked you to call, you know, the cable company and figure out that bill or Verizon or whatever it is, go ahead and do that first. Because your day is probably going to end and you’re not going to get it in. And this is a way to honor your husband, and it will help you to be draw closer to each other because it shows that you respect him. And here I am telling your listeners this and they’re going wait a minute. Yeah. Just yesterday. She didn’t want to claim that. So I just want to be very humble myself with you all to to show you. It’s not easy for me. And I have to boss myself around to do what I need to do.
12:04
Yeah, no, I think that’s great. I appreciate your being real and vulnerable with that. Because I think if we all pretend that we have, you know, a perfect marriages where that doesn’t help anyone learn and grow, you know, so I just appreciate that so much. And I want to hear that story of that difficult season or struggle in your marriage, how, how it started for you all and, and how you overcame that, if you can,
12:27
yes, I’ll do my best to try and give you the condensed version, because in my book, choosing him all over again, this story of romance and redemption. I tell the complete story along with teaching on marriage and teaching for singles and those that have a troubled marriage or those that have a good marriage. It’s on faith and marriage. But to tell your listeners kind of the quick story is when we were first married, we were married about a year and a half, two years into the marriage, I became extremely disillusioned. In the marriage. We were not believers, although I had grown up in church all my life. And Terry had had a little bit of experience in church himself. Neither one of us had a personal relationship with the Lord. And so two years into the marriage, I had been trying to do it all on my own. I thought that Terry was to meet all my needs. And when I didn’t see that happening, I was just so sad. And told him month after month after month through a lot of tears on Saturday mornings when he would be ready to go off and his convertible and go play golf with all this his friends. I would just be crying at home. And he didn’t know what to do with me, I would always bounce back. And we we both settled in Raleigh, North Carolina, where we both went to college. So we had a lot of friends settled here, we had a lot to do, because we both worked for Fortune 500 companies in sales. And then we had all these friends that all that settled here that were married, so we had plenty to do. But yet when I was idle on Saturday morning, I was just so sad because I knew something was missing in our marriage. And what ended up happening is I ended up moving out, and we were separated for two years. Wow. And in that two year separation. We went months and months and months. And we got no encouragement from family or friends not one person encouraged us to try to work our marriage out. They both said, Hey, there’s a lot a lot of others out there. You’re young and I really believe that to that this was the time to I never thought I would be divorced. I didn’t want to be divorced, but we didn’t have any children. And since we were only I was only 22 When we married and he was 24 I thought hey, if we’re gonna if we’re going to divorce sad as it is, it’s better to do it because thank goodness we don’t have any children. My God had other plans. In the middle of this this turmoil. I met the Lord through some other people, new friends I ended up meeting the Lord And we ended up reconciling two years after I had left. And there’s a lot more to the story. And I tell all that with a whole lot more in the book, but Terry ended up coming to the Lord seven years after me. Wow. About five or six years after we reconciled, Terry also came to the Lord and ended up being a wonderful spiritual leader that he is today. And such a decision maker and a wonderful father. And I shudder to think belah of all I would have missed had not gotten on God’s path. And the biggest thing would be our four beautiful children.
15:42
Hmm, yeah. And when did they come along in the picture, did they, after he became a Christian or
15:48
before we reconciled, and then two years later, our first child came along with the very first Christmas a year after we reconciled, we got a little Golden Retriever puppy, and had her for 17 years, but two years after we reconciled, we had our first child, Blair, a girl, okay. And then, nearly three years later, a son, and two years later, almost to the day, another son, then three years later, our daughter, our daughter, Mary was born, who was born totally blind, by the way, oh, my god, Mary and I, by then had been Christians for, for me almost 1010 years. And we already had a Christian home by that point. And we, we, our faith was going to help us so much not only through our marriage, but in the birth of our fourth child that was born totally blind. She was born without any eyes whatsoever, no optic nerve, she’s totally blonde, but your listeners, listen to her sing. She’s just such a blessing plays the violin sing beautifully, and such a blessing in so many people’s lives. But yes, we did. We did reconcile two years after we were married. And then Terry went on to become a Christian through the ministry of Bible Study Fellowship BSF and became a wonderful leader for our family.
17:16
Wow. Wow. I mean, I think that’s amazing. The just your story so far, but also your daughter having such a challenging situation. I can’t imagine parenting. I think that must have been so challenging.
17:32
It was but we were in the hospital when she was born. You talk about intimacy with your Yeah, we didn’t even you know the other three babies. You know, I know the routine we call our family we call our friends. We’re so excited. When Mary was born it I didn’t know if any of mine were even boys or girls that we didn’t want to. I want them all to be surprises. But yeah, I did that too. I was married to surprise and I cried. I cried out. But you know, Bella, we didn’t stay there. The Scripture says, morning remains for a night but joy comes in the morning. And yeah, we donate we cried hard together for 10 minutes. But then we didn’t cry anymore. We clogged word and we we didn’t call anyone we for hours, we just kept cleaning to each other and reading God’s word. And we wanted to read the story of when that baby was born blind. We knew it was in the Bible. And we finally found it and John chapter nine and other verses, Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you because my husband found himself worrying about Mary’s life and 20 years down the road. And that those scriptures brought such comfort to him and others to me. But interesting when we had separated and I became a Christian it was the same scripture that’s shared with me seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these other problems wanna will fall into place the problem of I thought I didn’t love my husband. I not like I had left him because he should should have been a friend of mine. I didn’t love him. He was more like it was like kissing my brother or my cousin or something. I didn’t see how God could possibly work this out this broken marriage. Now I’m going way back when when I had left him and those those are Morial years when we were separated, but yet as I saw God and sought his kingdom first having become a believer in our separation and, and began reading His word and was going to a Bible believing church and began to learn to pray. He began to change my heart. And he began to show me that His perfect will was to be willing to be willing to be married to Terry the youth. And once I was willing, first I made that decision and then he began to flood me with the feelings this love for Terry who by the way, said Well thank you very much wanna when I presented him a list 1/4 of July, day at right after the fourth of July. He had actually had another date on the Fourth of July meeting and by that point it found someone else and had no ill feelings and no baggage with her because he was laughing again and, and got on with his life and sort of forgotten about me when I suddenly enter back in having become a Christian and present him with this list of 17 areas to forgive me, the first one which was, forgive me for please, leaving you after I promise to love you and be with you until death part of us and then leaving you to find someone else. And I didn’t have anyone else waiting in the wings for me, but I sure was hoping to find someone and to start up. But yet God says, when you become a Christian, you’re a new creation in Christ and everything is new. And Bella, I’m here to rejoice it from the mountaintops. And that was one reason that I wrote our whole story out, was that all things really become new, everything was new. I didn’t even enjoy intimacy. When I first got married. I had never been with anyone I had never had a boyfriend before. And so when we got married, even sex was hard for me. Because, yeah, it, it was nothing. Like when we became reconciled afterward, God tells us all things are new. Yeah, they are. All things are new.
21:28
Wow. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And I, I love the seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be what is the last part will be gathered unto you. So added on to you added unto you yesterday. So so that I mean, that’s really your story that that, that that happened that you sought first God’s kingdom and you brought this list that you needed forgiveness of, to your husband, which again, with the humility theme, I mean, that’s not an easy thing to do.
21:59
Yes. And then he totally rejected me and said, well, thank you very much, and you folded it up and put it in his pocket. And he said, but I don’t want to be married to you. Because you see, so many months had gone by, and he What I didn’t know, then he is he had total unforgiveness and actually anger toward me, because I had walked out on the marriage. And he had so much anger and unforgiveness, it would take quite a bit of time. And really, it was not till he really came to Christ, that it was really, his life really began to slowly just like mine, to change. But Bible says that if, if one of you, if he if you if you become a believer, or you’re a believer and your husband’s not, of course, it’s always his will be for the fact to be yoked with a believer. And so if you’re listening and you’re not married, it’s always his will for two believers to marry. And it’s not because he’s trying to spoil your fun. But he knows for you really to experience that full intimacy is for you to be spiritually intimate to, and that is for you both to be on the same page for you both to have the same values, where you both know Christ personally, so that you share that together. Because it’s so much harder if one of you is a believer, and the other is not. But if you are already married, as was the case with me, and I became a believer first. He tells us in Corinthians two if your partner is willing to stay with you, by all means, let him stay because how do you know that he will not become a believer by your very witness in the home or, and that’s exactly what happened to me is my husband became a believer or when my second child was two years old, through the ministry of Bible study, fellowship. And so we have direct, we have clear direction on that in his word, but if he’s not willing, and he wants to leave, let him leave. Or if there’s a man that happens to be listening today, let Hurley if she’s not willing, it says that you are not bound by such circumstances. In other words, you can still lead an abundant full life, even if you end up divorcing you know, God hates divorce, because he knows of all the broken pieces there will be and those broken pieces will have to be mended. But if they don’t want to live with you, let them leave. Because there is nothing, nothing that can separate you. From the love of God, not death, not divorce, not anything. So you can seek Him with your whole heart. And you can have a Ribet relationship with Christ and a vibrant abundant life, even if you end up divorcing but if you’re in a troubled marriage, there it can be transformed. If he’s willing to stay with you if she’s willing to stay with you because we’re live we’re living example of that in this April. Mela, we’re gonna celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary.
24:58
Wow, praise God. Who would have been amazing
25:01
and, and I don’t deserve this, but Focus on the Family Radio has just invited me to come on. And that program is going to airdate in June of 2016. I think it’s slotted right now for June 10. And we go and record that in March. And so I am so grateful that God gave me the blessing of Terry in my life, and that he allowed me to write our story out. And I’m not even a writer, I was a math the numbers girl doesn’t even have to have you have the skills he needs. You just do what he wants you to do. And he’ll equip you in your marriage as a wife, as a mother. And in our case, in my case, as a writer, because I’m not a writer. But that’s awesome. Wrote it out like I talk.
25:53
No, that’s really great. I want to ask you, you know, when when you all were reconciled? And then you were a Christian, he was not how, how did you figure out him being the spiritual leader without him following Christ.
26:09
And by the way, the husband, the Bible says, is the leader of the home. So if you’re listening today, and your husband is not a believer, he is still the leader of that home. And that’s the buck stops with him. Right? And there’s not too many husbands out there that are asking you to sleep with a boss or smoke, you know, pot. So it’s just the simple little things. If he asked you to please clean, the chocolate fudge is on the door, and he’s not a believer, do it? I mean, you can’t stand behind. Well, he’s not I don’t want to listen to him, because he’s not a but No, the Bible makes no distinction. He is the head of the home period. And so when Terry was not a believer, my place was to submit to Him, as a mom says, and it was actually easier than then later when he became a Christian. And I’ll tell you why. When he was not a believer, during those years, when I prayed for him to come to know Christ, I knew he didn’t have the help of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t know the Lord. And it was almost like, I cut him a lot of slack. Because I had the help of God of the universe on my side. And I knew God could do anything. I knew that he had saved me wretch that I was. And I knew that he had done that amazing work in my life, because it took me a long time to come come to Christ had so many, so many issues. And I tell those in the book, I had like five or six reasons why I couldn’t come to Christ, which they were all excuses. But I knew that Terry didn’t know the Lord. And so I knew that my biggest mission field was him. And so I think I was actually more cautious and had my guard up to to be, you know, be a witness at home. But then once, you know, fast forward to today, fast forward to him asking me to clean that refrigerator door. Hmm, I showed an ugly side yesterday. And it was a lot harder for me to do that when he didn’t know the Lord because I was always sort of on my toes and watching. Whereas now I get a little careless. Because it’s almost like you expect more because your husband is a believer. And and it’s really wrong. Because I want him to cut me slack. I want him to cut me slack when I’m when I mess up. Yeah, so. So really, we give me to give both? Both? A lot of grace.
28:37
Yeah. Well, and and so the the wife that’s listening right now that saying, Well, I would submit to Him. But the problem is he’s incredibly overbearing, or he is controlling, or are these kinds of really, you know, terrible qualities. I mean, what would you tell her?
29:02
There’s a wonderful prayer, I want to share a call that I keep in prayer, and I can read it. Right out of the back of the book, I gave the prayers that I prayed for all those years and still pray for him now. And then a couple of extra prayers that I absolutely love that I learned from that wonderful spiritual woman of our day, who has is now with the Lord Elizabeth Elliot, who wrote the foreword to my book because I was blessed to be mentored by her. But she she wrote a book a prayer, and I call it the eye keeping prayer. In let me let me just turn to it now and I’ll read, read that to you all. But it basically tells us, it tells us that your husband and his particular let me just read it. Lord, he’s your man. He’s the one you’ve given to me, his peculiarities and his personality you gave me I’ll take Help Me Lord, show me ways, Lord, to make his life as pleasant and easy as I can. Now, Lord, you work in him the changes you think need to be done, fulfill your purposes. Help me to remember in acceptance liath Peace. And that acceptance life piece. She’s actually Elizabeth was quoting the words of one of her mentors that she never was able to meet in person named Amy Carmichael, who was a missionary in India to Indian Irishmen missionary who spent decades in India. But, you know, show me ways, Lord to make his life as pleasant and easy as I can. So what I would say to that woman is you look for ways to make his life as pleasant and easy as you can. And you do your part, you do the wife’s part, you’re not responsible for what he says and what he does. And I think the temptation is to say, but God, but God, but you know, when you stand before God, you’re not going to go, but God, but he said, but he was, I mean, you’re going to have to stand before God for your part. He’s going to have to buck stops with him. And he’s going to have to stand before God as to what kind of husband he was. And again, the only the only thing that I would throw in here is like, I’m not talking about the husband that’s hitting his wife. You’re asking her to do something, you know, that is totally wrong. Because the other 99% of us, we basically just don’t want to submit. And you know, we just don’t go to the Chinese restaurant. We wanted to go have Italian tonight. And so we it’s all these little things in life that we just didn’t want to be intimate right now. Because we felt like everybody wanted something from us today. And now add our name today. 10 times right now are husband, are you kidding me? He wants to be intimate. I mean, do you see how busy I was today. And he didn’t even offer to help diaper the kids or anything. So we tend to see everything from our perspective. But how bad if we’re praying, Lord, every day, Lord, show me ways to make his life as easy and as pleasant as I can? Maybe he wouldn’t try to be so controlling if we were more loving and more sweet. Because maybe he’s trying to be controlling because every time he asks us to do something, or, or tells he knows, we’re going to do what we want to do anyway. So it’s almost like, Well, why didn’t you ask me? Because you’re going to do what you want to do anyway. So what if what if you were a wife that was so me just what I’m all this is what I’m saying, Mela, is this work on our part? Yeah, let’s work on our part. Because chances are, I mean, let’s say he’s 80% of the man, let’s be real generous, and say he’s 80% of the man. We want. You know, none of us are price packages. You know, we all have areas where let’s work on our part.
33:04
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, in the Facebook group that I have with, for the delight your marriage listeners, someone suggested writing down a list of all the reasons you have to respect your husband, and to read that list every day. And I thought that was just a good reminder of us, submitting ourselves to remembering that he’s a provider, he’s, he makes us laugh, or he takes care of the kids sometimes, or whatever they are.
33:33
Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s so biblical, because we want to be more like Mary, the mother of Jesus who said, be it unto me according to your word, you know, basically, Lord, have your way in my life. You gave me this husband, I’ll take him. I wouldn’t be the wife for why for this unique man. Don’t look at your friends. And, and there has been, you have this man, this particular peculiar man, his fingerprint, that’s the man for me. It’s Terry Michaels. I’ll take him, I’ll take him. And we don’t want to be like what I call grandmother, he who had everything she could have wanted in that garden, she had, everything was most beautiful place, and she fixated on the one thing she wasn’t given. And we’ve been in a mess ever since. Just like you do on that Facebook page. Let’s look at all you know, if it’s not 80% Let’s look at that and say, Thank You, Lord, that he’s a good provider. Thank you, Lord, that he’s the coach of my son’s you know, 1000s Thank you, Lord, that he’s faithful. They Yeah, he works hard. You know, because if you look at what you don’t have, like grandmother Eve, it’s gonna be a mess. You know, that’s gonna lead to complaining and whining and not being thankful. And as you read the Bible, Christians are supposed to be the most thankful people on the planet. Grateful thankful people Yeah, that’s right thankful for what God’s given. Yeah, I love that.
35:05
And, and again with seeking first the kingdom of God, and that all these things will be added to you. And I love that you said when you’re willing, first of all, you had to be willing. And then the feelings flooded in. Yes. Yes. Can you give a little bit more flesh that out a little bit for us what that means? Well,
35:24
I think for me if I go back all those years ago, it I mean, it goes all the way back to being willing to live with this man being willing to live with him who was one, not a believer. Number two, I left him in the first place. One of the things was that he wasn’t meeting my knee, it’s just was showing me that that was so unrealistic that no person can meet all my needs. No, I would just be trading my problems, from one set of problems to another set of problems with a new man, you may not be the same ones, but nobody’s perfect. And no one could meet all my needs. Because only God can do that. God can do that. But so back then it might have been there was you know, being willing to be the wife of tear Michaels and trusting God with all the rest, that God was going to work it out. If that was his will, he was going to work everything out for my best interest. And he did. He even gave me the feelings back from my husband, which follow, which follow you know, we don’t wait to feel warm and fuzzy about something if we wait, wait till we feel good about something. If I went to I felt good to get out of bed. I’d never get out of bed. Because I like the morning. I don’t really like leaving my soft pillow. And like, I really don’t like all that some people are morning people. They jump up like my husband, but I hit snooze twice. And yeah, let me let me fast forward to when Mary was born, our fourth child was born blind. If I had felt, if I waited, too, I felt good about her being born blind. I never to this day, and she’s 18 I would I would be a mess. But as I lay in that hospital, hospital bed, and I know I said earlier in the beginning program that we cried, we cried hard, but we stopped crying. Because as we read His word, it was so clear that God was saying, Will you trust me wanna I didn’t hear him in the room. And in my heart, you know, in my Yeah, off quiet voice was saying. Will you trust me? Will you trust me that I know what I’m doing? Yes. It’s different from your other three babies. Yes, this is different hospital experience. Yes. You don’t feel like trusting Nora right now. But will you trust me right now? Yeah. And I can say as I lay in that hospital bed when she was born, that it was by an act of my will, it was a decision. And you know, obedience to God always lies in the will. It’s not in the emotions, it’s in the will you decide. I am going to put my trust in Christ in the beginning to begin a relationship with him and become a Christian. And then a continual? Yes, your Lord. Yes. Will you? Yes, Lord. This man, will you say yes, Lord in that hospital experience having that baby born blind? Will you say yes, Lord, when your husband asks you to clean the refrigerator. You don’t want to do that right now. Will you say when your husband looks at you, and you know, he this is going to lead to intimacy. He wants to be intimate with you, right? We’re just getting ready to go to Target and that is the keys in my hand. And I’ve got my list ready? And I mean, I’m a Dasher. I’m slow to get started hitting snooze. But once I get started, I’m like trying to get 10 pounds in a five pound bag. Yeah. And when he looks at me, and he’s ready, like nobody’s home, hon, come on. I’m thinking but I’m going to target and from there, I’m going to the bank. That is what I want to say. It’s like God is saying will you drop your keys and take off your clothes and say Yes, Lord, right. So I have to say that I quicker now I don’t always have the right facial expression and I’m working on that. Because Terry very and I’m very grateful. I have a husband that’s very communicative with me and he tells me what I don’t want to hear and I don’t usually like it but I’m when the dust settles. I am very, very grateful because I have friends whose husbands will just sweep it under the rug and they won’t tell them not to stand or not do this or not do that but my husband tells me what I don’t want to hear. Like you cannot take on that speaking engagement. You will be way too tired. or it’s our son’s birthday the next day, you can’t do that. Right? He’s always protecting me. So I’m working on having the right face when he surprises me, and wants to take a shower together. And I don’t want to take a second shower today.
40:15
But this is one of my main roles. I mean, this is something no one else can do. He’s not asking someone else to take a shower with him when we got big, right? There is praying for my husband making his life as as as easy and pleasant as I can one of those ways you’re being close to him naked without any clothes on. He doesn’t want flannel, he doesn’t want denim. He wants my skin. And so, you know, in God wants us to have fun. I’m making this sound like it’s a burden to me. It’s not I mean, once we get started, I’m having fun too. It’s just those first three minutes when I had other plans. So I’m working on all this, you know, trying to trying to adjust to the husband that God gave me and saying, yes, yeah. Yes, Lord. But to everybody listening, you know, this is the most spiritual thing you can do. It’s not teaching Bible study. It’s not writing a book, it’s not going on focused on the family. It’s not it’s it’s being intimate with your husband in your marriage bed that God gave you. It’s being with your husband on a walk, because he wants to meet you during lunch and walk with you. That’s something my husband really likes to do. And I would never walk Otherwise, I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t do it, because I’m really lazy in that regard. But anyway, if you asked me to organize a party, or you asked me to organize the whole neighborhood, in something I love, but I, I will put exercise at the very bottom, bottom bottom. But I have friends that are marathon runners, I mean, we’re just all different. Right? But that man that he gave you is your husband, the way he made him, God made him. And let’s just say, I’ll take him and let’s do these things that no other other woman can do for him. And that is pray for him as his unique way. Make his life as pleasant easy as I can, you know, be intimate with your husband, shower with him do those things along with him that he wants you to do, and will help you to just to grow closer together.
42:13
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. You said that. That’s a spiritual thing you can do.
42:17
Oh, for the two to become one is the most spiritual thing you can do. That was all God’s idea. It wasn’t Hollywood. I mean, they just stored it. And don’t watch that stuff. You know, don’t don’t watch it. Just Rob be creative with the two of you. Not watching someone else. But how God God created you all to be intimate together.
42:43
Wow, thank you wanna? That’s awesome. I think one of the, you know, most central themes that Juana really talks about is cherishing your husband as the one that God gave you. This is your man, this is the one that you are to minister to, and those many ways of praying and intimacy and loving in all areas of your life. So I just want to encourage you to just be intentional about these things. I love one a story of love her heart, she’s got a great second half of this that’s coming out next Tuesday. So come back for that. And go ahead to delight your marriage and click on the delight your husband icon and you can check out my book. Maybe this is the right gift for your husband this year. This might be something that would be really amazing for the two of you. So check that out. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening. God bless you. I’m praying for you and your marriage. Have a great rest of your day. God bless.
43:43
Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by the show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion