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- The Scholarship Expert at thescholarshipexpert.com
- ROSE (Rising Above Societal Expectations) Empowerment Group at roseempowermentgroup.com
- Redefining Normal at re-definingnormal.com (The book will be available on Amazon on November 9th!)
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. Hey there and welcome, I am so grateful you’re joining. So today, oh my goodness, we have a super inspirational conversation with Alexis and her husband, Justin. And they’ve got just an incredible story of starting out from from foster care and various abuses, and including sexual abuse and just some of the toughest stuff you can experience in life. And then God has just incredibly transformed them to an incredible other side. And we talk about how a husband can help his wife heal from things like abuse and how a husband can feel healed from his wife in different ways as well. So that’s this awesome conversation, I’m excited to share it with you before we dive in. If you’re a wife listening, I’ve done a lot of materials for men recently. But if you’re a wife listening, I have something really exciting coming up. So my encouragement to you is, first of all get the freebie, which is the seduction tips. And it’s really helping you have kind of my favorite advices around seduction. And the truth of the matter is I think women really benefit from having other women kind of running alongside them in this journey to love our husbands well with excitement and passion. So when you do get that download, go to delight your marriage.com/tip s and then you’ll be on my email list and I’ll be able to share with you some exciting, free trainings that will be coming here in the coming weeks. And yeah, I think it’s going to be amazing for you. Alright, let’s go ahead and dive into Alexis and Justin
2:14
I have got some special guests on actually husband, wife newly married Alexis and Justin blacker on and I’m so grateful to have you all you’ve got an absolutely incredible story and, and also a huge amount of not just inspiration, but healing and possibility that others can get to the other side of their their pain and woundedness. So anyway, welcome. I’d love to invite you both to kind of introduce yourself.
2:46
Yeah, of course. First and foremost, we’re thankful and happy to be on here. And it’s you know, five years. Super excited about that. My name is Justin black. I’m from Detroit. And I grew up in Detroit from pretty much up until the age of 17, or 18. And I hear because with my wife, we co authored a book called redefining normal, partly about our experiences in the foster care system before meeting each other, how to individuals are able to kind of like figure out their trauma together, but also separately how we support each other. So I took the foster care system at the age of nine years old, my mom did with substance abuse, my dad was often selling drugs, and we grew up in an environment just filled with poverty, and neighborhood full of drug abuse. And it got to a point where we were on the run from Child Protective Services. And we live in an abandoned home for a couple months and live throughout the winter, where things are really bad. Me and my siblings got sick, and my mom released into the foster care system. So going from there, and entering the foster care system with one of my brothers. I’m the youngest of five, and me and him who was the fourth youngest. We have traveled through the foster care system together and deal with a lot of emotional abusive things, and just trying to grow and process of life without parents and they didn’t live too far away from me during my time and care and trying to understand how do I adjust the life without parents who seemingly didn’t love me or didn’t want me but I’m trying to develop identity of my own and another traumatic experience at 13 just losing my teeth in an assault. walk home from school, losing about four my teeth we hit with a brick ranch. And yes, so that happened when I was 13 years old on a random Friday catching the bus home from school. And that just send me into depression and a so many mental health issues of just loneliness and emptiness and dealing with that burden throughout like high school or middle school and high school. and not being able to make friends because you know, kids can be cruel, and making jokes about it and not being able to be myself. And trying to keep this a secret for as long as I could once I did actually get partials or fake teeth, and dealing with that, luckily, as an adult, you know, we talked about in the book, I was able to get surgery done to fix my teeth, and organization was willing to donate 1000s of dollars, more than like, 20,000 to fix my teeth. And this actually happened this past December. But, um, there’s ups and downs of mental health and so many things throughout the foster care system, and trying to be as vulnerable as possible my partner, and I put my trauma on her. Hmm,
5:45
yeah. Fun fact, this, Alexis has life. And when we first started dating, he actually thought I was gonna leave him because he didn’t have his two front teeth. He still were a flipper. And so um, you know, it’s just being in learning to be incredibly vulnerable with each other through our through different traumas, because we’re still healing, you know, healing is a lifetime journey. So, but a little bit about me. Yeah, so I’m, I’m Alexis black, newly elected black, I was less than Slenderman. Up until August, oh, we got married and, and I entered foster care at 13. But before that, my biological mother died from suicide. And I didn’t find out until high school that she did. And then I found out only like, two years ago that my grandma also died from suicide. So it runs my family. And when I was actually in high school, I was very suicidal, I was hospitalized, I was on medications and, and different things. So I also had to go through that. But my dad was a, sexually physically and emotionally abusive towards me until I was about 13. So I started when I was about six, until about 13, and then moved in with family members who were mentally and emotionally abusive, so I couldn’t really heal from that. And then, you know, it’s never a dull moment. So add on to that. I was actually in a an abusive relationship for about eight years from 18 to 20, or no, sorry, 13 to 22. And so those are such formative years of your identity and who you are, and so much of my existence belong to that individual. And so he would break up with me pretty much daily, and torture me in a lot of ways. And part of my being on suicide, watching other things was because of him. And just their relationship was just so awful. But it wasn’t until I was about 22 and 2016. I went to South Africa for about five months. And I really, like had come to Jesus moment where I, I because up until that point, I just hated myself so intensely, like so intensely. And, but I had to learn to like myself, I was all the way across the world from any and everybody that I know, and I love and I learned those doing little things together, like going out to lunch together, being alone in a room together, like all these things that I hated until that point, and then just started trying to make amends and do other things during that time, um, and then came back from South Africa, broke up with that person, one week later met Justin, on the first day of our scholarship program, so it’s kind of crazy how things come together. And now we’re years later married. Yeah, four years later, we’re married. We own three companies writing a book together. So it’s really insane how life kind of turns around. Yes. That’s incredible. And, yeah, and I know, I asked you before and Jesus did all of these things like he has been so powerful in your in your life. That’s just this is huge. So, um, so the, just the intense amount of challenge, you know, something, Alexis, that a lot of people I think don’t realize is how traumatic a mental hospital is and how like, yes, going into and through that. That is that is seriously palpable that definitely added some extra trauma and I said any and everything I could get out of there early rights, right. I’ve i Yes, I know a bit about that. And that’s just awful. So you guys are young. How old? Are you? 26
9:28
I’m 23
9:29
Amazing, like, seemed like what you guys have been through and the way you have completely shifted your lives. Like, tell me the process like how did this happen?
9:42
Well, first is is never just like, Okay, tomorrow my whole life. Yeah, you know, it’s the process. And even though we we’ve we’ve wrote a whole book about our lives and our experiences and how we start the process of overcoming and our turning point of her Her foster parents who are truly godly people who are true examples of what God is, and she was talking a little bit about her Turning Point and her process. But even though we have this whole book, we there’s still the process of growing and it never ends. You know, she talked about how there’s like two generations of suicide, her family. And on my side, on my dad’s side of the family, there’s two generations of domestic violence. And on my mom’s side, there’s two generations of drug abuse. So we’re always in the process of figuring things out, I have, we have to be intentional about every single thought and every single thing we do have, when I’m stressed, I’m not turning to certain things that have to do with my stress, I’m turning to God for my stress, and I’m talking to my wife in a healthy way, with my stress and not doing having a knee jerk reaction of my emotions when we butt heads, or we get into arguments. And being intentional about the things that I say, and the things that I do. And I still made, I still need to get better with the words that I use and how I treat lectures. And even though I feel like I’m doing a good job, I can always get better and always have moments where I reflect on it and say I could have done better. So this process of growing and turning and changing our lives, from different from what we’ve known growing up in our family history and our family culture. It’s an ongoing process, and also ongoing thing that we need to learn and kind of redefine our way of thinking. So even though our lives have changed, and for me, specifically, my life has changed when people have spoken life into me, and spoken good things into me and believed in me to where it’s like, I they believe in me more than I believed in myself. And it was at 17 years old when I’m moving to a group home, right outside the city of Detroit. And I separated from my family, even though it was like a 20 minute drive. But that’s all I really needed just to be separated from my family, my family for a little bit. And I had successful black men who were pastors, businessman, and engineers, and successful who spoke life into me and told me that I can see you going to college, I can see you being a great writer, I see you doing so many great things. And I didn’t believe that about myself at the time. But they believe they believe that and they spoke that into me. So it got to a point where I’m working hard. And I’m getting good grades, not for myself, but for them. Because they have that expectation for me. And they believe in me. So that was the big turning point in my life.
12:32
I love that Justin and I love the the importance of role models, the importance of black men that are showing you this is possible we can do this, you can do this, I believe this for you a good writer of you know, businessman like, and you are those things like you, you have your own into the man they saw in you ahead of time.
12:53
Yeah, they spoke that into me before I believe it myself. So it is crazy how just coming full circle.
13:00
Yeah, I think part of that though, is even though like for me, people speaking certain things into me, I had to be able to receive those things. And I think that as as a Christian, we’re always taught to give and be generous, but we’re not really taught how to receive. And in order for you to receive even blessings, you have to be receptive of that. And so that was always difficult to me for growing up in survival and growing up where I had to be super independent and figure everything out for myself, that the only way 100% The only way I will be successful is if I learn to be independent or interdependent with other people. And I learned to have those relationships and rely on other people. And that’s so hard when your entire life you’re let down you’re like stabbed in the back my family, everybody only wants things from you. It’s just, that’s extremely difficult. But also that’s your reliance on faith in God to get you through it and the importance of those relationships. And that’s why I always tell people that you have to stop trying to be so independent and learn to be interdependent on people around you. And you’ll be surprised at how many more people there are in the world that are willing to be in your corner and fight for you than people that are willing to stab you in the back and harm you. So it was really learning those boundaries of who is part of my family and who is in my community. And one of the greatest things for me for being in foster care as well was learning that I get to choose my family that is the power that I have. Just because your blood does mean it means nothing. Like I can I can choose that. And it’s a blood doesn’t mean loyalty to me at all. And so and so like even at our wedding, over half of the people there were from our college we graduated from and it’s like that just shows how much we’ve poured into our community and it because that just that just fits who we are. And so I always just try to encourage people to create your own family and community of people that that love you and surround you with the things that you need to succeed and move forward. Because that’s really what I needed. And I think it was trying to seek out different things that I needed from different people. And that’s how I naturally built my community. But I don’t think I was purposely doing that in the beginning. But then after I started viewing role models and mentors in the way that they do it, then are just kind of naturally picked up on it. I think, I love that. I love that. And I love what you talked about with the bringing others in. It’s it’s this idea of, and it takes courage, it takes courage to trust and believe that you’re not going to be stabbed in the back again, and especially with both of your histories. I mean, of people just walking out of your life and people abusing and you know, how, how have you been able to trust each other when you have had such pain from trusting others that were not trustworthy? You know, you got Oh, I don’t I think it really started from the beginning from us, because, um, so going back, um, I just left an eight year abusive relationship. And I told myself that I’m not going to date anybody for a long time. And I was okay with that. I was like, I can spare who Alexis is who I am, what I stand for my diving back into my faith. And then I also promised my foster parents at the time that, that I’m not going to date for a year. And so I promised them that and I was perfectly okay with that, and then just walks in. Yeah, mess it all up, just man Oh, man. Whatever.
16:34
But, um, just one of the most beautiful things that really happened, a relationship was, um, when we during the first week that we met, uh, I really, I told myself that if he’s going to leave, I want him to leave now. And I had this mentality that I’m, I’m too broken, to be loved. And so much of that came from my past, and what other men have told me that, you know, the typical abusive lines of like, nobody else will love you, you’re too broken to be loved all these things, you know, that that partners may say, and I internalize that, and I took that to this relationship, and I are beginning of this relationship. And I and I basically said to myself, you know, what, if he’s gonna go, he’s gonna go now. And so we just got done playing like game of football with our scholarship program, or volleyball was our scholarship program. And then we went and sat down in the grass together. And he was like, tell me about yourself. And I can promise you what I said, wasn’t what he meant when he said, Tell me about yourself. But I just kind of laid it all out and just said, like, this is me, let’s take it or leave it. And he grabbed my hand and said, You’re beautiful, and I just can’t wait to get to know you more. And to me, that was just like, one of the most validating things that a human could have done for me. And, and I just start crying, I want to cry, I’m crying. I was just like, this baby. And it was just like, holy crap. Like, I can be love, like, I’m not too broken. And I mean, obviously, you know, we both have our brokenness. And, um, and then also for, for Justin have, maybe even I think was like, a month and a half or two months later, when he said, I have something to tell you. And I’m like, Oh, God, he’s got kids, like, I don’t have a whole bunch of stuff, you know, like anything. And, and then he’s like, I don’t have my two front teeth. And I’m like, okay, and he’s like, Well, I This happened when I was a teenager, and I were a flipper, whatever. And he was expecting me to say, Oh, I can’t do this, like, this is me. And, you know, just telling him, like, you’re still like, the most beautiful man ever. Really, it’s okay. And, you know, and then the, the first night that we stayed together, and he said, You know, I can sleep with my flipper, and tonight, but tomorrow, or next time, I’m gonna have to take it out. And I’m like, take out now, like, I want to see you without it. And so he took it out. And, you know, as humans, we look for validation from others and from our partner. And so when he took out the teeth, and he looked at me, and he, you know, don’t didn’t have a seat, and I’m not gonna lie, I was shocked, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody without their front teeth. But at the same time, I looked at him, I said, you’re still beautiful to me, like, you’re still amazing. And, like, I still love you. And just that moment, I’m sure build his confidence as much as it like, you know, built mine and each other. And then you want to tell Tom about the time that you know, you go first all that? Okay, wait, we do Oh, we do. I do want to mention, I love. I love Justin’s response to your vulnerability. Right? Because that is that for men that are listening, a lot of men listen, when your wife is so vulnerable, to share her heart to share her feelings to share her emotions. The validation of that to grab your hand and say you’re beautiful like that. You’re not too much like I feel like that’s a big thing for women is like, my feelings are too much. It’s gonna scare him away and he’s not gonna be able to take all the emotions of the woman and because of the pain of the past, right, yeah, you have a lot of pain. A lot of women have a lot of pain, I have a lot of pain in our past. And for a man to be able to hold her and say, You’re too much, you’re beautiful, I accept you as you are like, that is the healing balm for a woman’s heart. So I think I speak for the, the wrong man, and maybe too much before for a mature man, you know, he was 19. But he was mature enough to say those things into, you know, like, own up and say, like, it may be a lot, but I’m here for you in this process, and so support you. And I think it just takes maturity and compassion from that individual to be able to be with somebody like that. Um, but
20:43
I think you guys first you guys give me a lot of credit, oh, my God. So we talked about this in our book, and it goes into like the first part of how we met. And, you know, we we met during a Senior Scholars Program. And this for this is a program for foster youth to higher education, transition into college and transition into adulthood. And she was a junior, she just entered the program, but I was incoming freshmen. And to be honest with you my mindset as a freshman coming in with like, I first I wanted to hide the fact that I had fake teeth. And that was something that, you know, kept me from making true friendships, and in high school and in middle school, because eventually everyone will be like, hey, put a T file, let me see, you know, the kid with no teeth. And even me playing on the football team. You know, those are when you make your closest friends and everything but out, I had to take my teeth out when I play football. So that’s what I was known for. And I never really made any true friends. So my mindset coming into college was, you know what, nobody will know about my teeth. I’m not playing football in college. So I’m going to do everything I can to fit in and do everything I can to make these friendships. And even though I had a sense of God, who God was, and I was trying to be a man of God, more importantly, I wanted to fit in with the crowd. So my motivation coming into college or sleeping with as many women as possible, you know, go to college stuff, drink and all this other stuff. But because that wasn’t who I was, it went away so fast. And during it went away. And during set week when we met each other, which is a week where the Senior Scholars meet with your cohort and you walk around campus, see where your classes are, and meet your campus coach and everything. During that week. You know, I tried to talk to a bunch of girls and get a bunch of girls numbers and everything. But we had an activity where we kind of had to write on a note card, and it was anonymous, of something that you over overcome, that people wouldn’t know by looking at you. And I’ve heard so many stories of sexual assault, and sexual abuse. And it was anonymous, so we wouldn’t know who it was. But I feel it’s like three fourths of the room experienced sexual assault or sexual abuse. And of course, a lot of those could have been men. And I’m sure a lot of those were women. And that kind of switch by idea, especially as a senior scholar of I need to enter a situation and with my cohorts and everybody with more compassion, and a more loving spirit. And and I kind of felt a shame that I went into the situation thinking I want to see women, especially you seen that, knowing that a lot of these women are broken, and have been through so much. So many traumatizing experiences. Right after that activity. We had our moment where we were like sitting in the grass and everything. And I asked, you know, tell me about yourself. And that really brought me back to God, just knowing the truth of the situation, and how I need to be more compassionate, and be more vulnerable. Because during that experience during that activity, writing on a note card, I didn’t say anything about myself, I didn’t say anything my past I didn’t I wasn’t ready to deal with my trauma. So I barely said anything. I said that. I was the first to go to college and my family. I didn’t say anything about the drug abuse or my family or domestic violence or my teeth or anything I just said, go to college, my family knows it and hear her story. And meeting her. She’s such a strong and passionate person, like the smartest person that I know now and sparse, smart person, and more so mature and everything and to see what she has overcome. It just made me know that so many men have taken advantage of her in her life and tried to read. So so many men have taken advantage of her her life that I know I didn’t want to be added to that list and I wanted to be vulnerable as well and take that first step and being vulnerable so she can open up. I wanted to be open as well even though it took me a while to get to talk about my teeth and everything. I wanted to be open and vulnerable to her so she can feel safe and maybe something that she’d never felt before being safe with the with the man seeing So many men have taken advantage of her. I wanted to be someone who she could be open and honest and vulnerable with his love.
25:08
Incredible, absolutely incredible. That’s awesome. I love, I love the perspective of becoming aware of the amount of pain women have experienced and responding to that with grace, and with wanting to help heal. And I think for the men that are listening, how powerful that can be for your wife with you know, I think what happens a lot of times is men have, you know, they really feel like they’ve been cheated because they’re, maybe their wife has experienced sexual trauma. And so she brings that into the marriage. And so she’s not free sexually. And he feels like it’s not fair, he should have a healed up woman that can be free sexually can, you know, enjoy frequent intimacy, can love all those things? But I mean, how is that something for you, Alexis, because you have experienced sexual trauma? Like how have you learned to be free in intimacy? And that’s, again, if you’re willing to go there. Yeah. But how has that been something you feel you’ve gotten to a place where, where you can be, you know, have a healthy sex life with your husband? Yeah, and it wasn’t it, I guess my sexual trauma didn’t just come from my dad, it also came from, like sexual sex, several sexual partners that I’ve had. And specifically with that, that boyfriend that I had for eight years, because, like, for example, I was on birth control, and I had a negative reaction to it. And so that made me not want to be intimate at all. And the amount of abuse that I received for not wanting to be intimate and just the extreme tearing down of my character of, of my looks of I mean, everything about my identity, and as a woman torn down, and she tried to strip away, I don’t really know, the purpose was other than to Him always have power over me. And I got so bad one time outside of his grandma’s house that actually threw up because I, I just, it was so bad, how bad it was. And then, like another time, he asked me specifically about something that my dad made me do to him. And, um, I was like, You know what, I’m not gonna lie, because it happened, I can’t take it back. And he asked me to do this happen. And I said, Yes. And, um, he didn’t come to Thanksgiving the next day. But when he did show up, it was outside of my family’s house. And he was screaming at me in front of my entire family calling you dirty and nasty, and literally anything mean thing that you could say to another human, and telling me that I need to take a shower and bleach like all these things, just how horrible like I am as a person, going from that to a man that is led by God and believes in healing, and I’m just his extreme faith. And that, to me, has restored so much of my faith. But I think also because I’m very aware of what triggers me. And it’s my job as a survivor to say to my partner, that these certain things trigger me and I need you to be aware of that. It’s not his job to know all of my triggers, but it’s his job, to be compassionate, and to listen. And so I’m being the one to being able to, like I had to communicate that with him, of certain things that were that were hard for me, and just him respecting that. And then also 100% of the time, when we’re intimate, it’s consensual, and he asked me, and I think that is one of the biggest things too, is that he respects me enough to ask me. And I know that for a lot of men, that can be really hard, because you want the spontaneity you don’t want to ask every time like, this is your wife here, you’re kind of entitled to her and her body, which I would never do that. Because no matter if I’m married, you’re not entitled to me, I’m sorry. But, um, but at the same time, it’s like, it is not my job, but like, I’m his wife, and I want to make sure that I that please Him and his partner. Um, but sometimes that can be difficult if I’m struggling with something but him just not making me feel bad for it and him saying, you know, it’s okay. Let’s watch a movie. Let’s just talk, let’s hang out, like, you know, our relationship isn’t based on that and that’s okay. And so it’s having a partner that just is willing to listen and love you through, you know, all the processing. Yes, I love it. I love it. And Justin, can you share a little bit of your heart around helping her heal sexually and like from sexual abuse? Because a lot of men are trying to grapple with that and know what to do how to how to help. Do you have any thoughts you want to share?
29:56
Yeah, because six can be elective physical act. A lot of times for men, we can let our flesh our body kind of just say I want it. And yeah, if there is another reason why, you know, my wife can’t do it or doesn’t want to, then she’s the problem and everything and you know, it kind of just get upset and think and speak out of your body and your flesh without being intentional, it your mind and your spirit saying that, Oh, she, the problem is she’s been, you know, she’s experienced sexual abuse and all this other stuff. And she’s a problem, or why me? Why do I have to, and being honest that those ideas can start to come to my mind, but I have to be intentional. In my spirit, and in my mental that, okay, there is a there’s a reason, there’s a purpose and us being together. And your purpose and as a relationship as a couple will carry you. And knowing that me respect to her wishes will go a lot further than me getting what I want in that moment. Is is huge. And I’m saying if if I’m saying it’s not that as the person has mastered his ideas, you know, this is a kid, again, everything we talked about is a continuous struggle, you know, not I won’t lie and say that those thoughts of oh, why me glad to deal with this will never come up in my head again. But I have to be intentional about those ideas of okay, me respect to her is the foundation of our relationship and we listening to her is the foundation of our relationship. So even if I need to take a breath, go pray or do whatever I need to do, or just stay there and lay with her, and be there for that’s what I need to do. And again, I’m not saying this as like, I know how it’s easier, you know, you know, it’s hard, it’s definitely, with the hard things that are difficult things will be the things that will sustain your relationship, the things that will carry you and push you forward. And it really takes a lot of spiritual maturity for you to get there. You can’t come into a relationship with lust with lust and a heart full of lust and sexual desires, fueling you and filling your heart because those things will show and getting married won’t fix that, you know, you need to be spiritually and mentally mature enough, especially when you’re dealing with someone with trauma to overcome that.
32:19
Right. Which is amazing. That is amazing. And I I love also that you mentioned, you know three fourths of the room of the women that you were, you know, the the situation you just described have had sexual trauma and just a stylistically speaking, one in four women have experienced sexual trauma. And personally, I identify a lot with what you mentioned, Alexis, and needing a lot of healing from my husband from the patience and the gentleness and the consistently being there. Regardless of what I can do physically. Those are the things that gave me the healing that I have now that now we’re in a very different place. But to recognize that, for those men that may be listening that are like, Yeah, I wish that we weren’t in whatever we’re in because of whatever she’s gone through. It’s like, it really doesn’t. Like every woman, this is the journey like we all need patient men that treat us well that are like Jesus, you know, that’s the process of the beauty of marriage. So awesome. So um, guys, you you were just incredible. Can you share a little bit about the I know, you’ve got a couple of businesses and ministries and all that and about your book, if you don’t mind? Yeah, so one of our businesses is the scholarship expert, where we help students find and apply for scholarships. And because both of us graduated with over $340,000 in scholarships, we we have three degrees between the two of us certification who graduated debt free, and we studied abroad 13 times so I mean, we’ve been able to do so much. God countries. Yeah, man. So over 30 countries so yeah, so God is so good. We definitely talked about that in the book as well. Just how he got is just so good. And me. So we really wanted to pour back into other people all the things that we learn so that’s the scholarship expert. So it’s the scholarship expert calm. And the other one is a rising over societal expectations, or rose empowerment group. And that one is the rose empowerment group calm, and we was mainly Justin, trying to close the information gap for black and brown youth. And then the other one is redefining normal and that’s our book. Yeah, our
34:39
book redefining normal how to foster kids beat the odds and discover getting happiness and love. This has been a thing this has been a project we’ve been working on all year during quarantine. Funny story. I was actually preparing a study abroad in South Africa. Alexis came along to volunteer and we’re going to scholarship expert, and the trip started in February. This February we were emergency evacuated in March on March 26, I believe, we came back and returning to living with her parents. And during quarantine, when we came back into the country, we were in her parents RV right outside of the house. And we needed to stay there for like two weeks. And so we’ve kind of like worked on the book. That’s when the idea and our, you know, ideas for the book started to roll even more. And we started to actually dig into the content of the book and everything. And that two weeks of being in the RV, it was rough. But we were able to express so many good ideas for this book. And we completed it from March to June. And of course, the editing process takes probably forever, probably the longest. So we just finished the editing process, I would say maybe September. But now we have it is ready to go. This is our baby, our first baby. Our first baby is her cat. But yeah, so this is our second baby, the something that is is just changed, gonna change our lives. And God has really had his hand all over this project. And we’re just blessed to be able to share our lives. And also one thing I love the book about the book is that we lay the foundation with our lives, and everything with the book. But on the second half of the book, we kind of switch roles as like a teacher of how we were able to overcome and communication within a relationship, patients within a relationship, and so many different aspects of seeking God for mental health issues. And, you know, going blind to God with your issues where certain issues and not your partner, because you don’t want to put those traumatic experiences and that trauma on your partner want to go to God and figure things out within yourself. So there’s so many key things and amazing things within this book. And we’re just challenging people. Everybody’s really redefining normal and things that they were raised on their family culture.
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Amazing, guys, congratulations. That is huge. And I’ve got to say, I mean, both of those other businesses that you just mentioned are like, so much my heart the scholarship piece, but also rose, like all about empowering black and brown young men is it from young men are both
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in a young men and women, I will kind of create something section off for young men because I’m a young black man. So I want to be intentional about that. But it is for black men and women.
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That is so amazing.
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Oh my god, everybody, anybody in general, who needs services. But my intention with creating the business was to close information gap for black and brown people. But I feel like the information and the resources we have to offer is for people of any gender, any race.
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Yes. But I appreciate that focus on black and brown men and women because that is I mean, there is so much need there. And that is just so powerful that you are meeting that and focusing on that. And yeah, so much of my heart is right there. That’s awesome. Well, guys, let me, let me pray for you. And let’s wrap up sound good. All right. Well, Father, I just want to thank you so much for this couple. Thank you for the way that you have led them and grown them and taught them and protected them in so many ways and healed them in so many ways. Father, thank You for their willingness to be used by you, thank you for the many experiences that have shaped them and allowed them to get to where they are right now to help their generation to help people that identify with them, whether it’s people who have experienced trauma, whether it’s people who have come out of the foster care system, whether it’s people who are experiencing racism in our culture, in our society, Father, I just pray in Jesus name, that you would use their ministries in huge ways, Father God, that you would use this book that you would use their different aspects and avenues, Lord, their platform, God give them the grace to be humble and wise in all of this. Give them the grace to be strong in their marriage. And we just ask for your hand on them. Lord, we are so honored and grateful for what you’ve already done and what you’re going to continue to do through them. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you. And if anybody wants to contact us, you can email us at info at REI dash defining are more calm. And our book does come out on November 6 on Amazon, but it’s available for pre order now.
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readers to find it no more calm. Yeah, but
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we’re always available for any questions or anything. I know that people reading this book will have things that they want to process or things that they want to maybe just tell me like, I’ve had several people who’ve already read it and reach out to me and say, Hey, I realized through reading your book of how much I need to heal, but then also so many things that I didn’t even tell my husband And so that’s, that’s why we wrote it. Um, for people to use this as an opportunity to heal from what they’ve done. That’s the only way that we’re going to heal generational patterns and curses and all the things that are being passed down for kids to kids. I wanted to, I didn’t want to be another adult healing from my childhood for the rest of my life. So that’s why we wrote this. Amazing guys. Amazing. Okay, well, God bless you. And thanks for coming on. Thank you. You’re amazing. Thank
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you, we were so grateful to be on.
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Amazing, thank you so much, Justin, and Alexis, just incredible, to be inspired by their story and the work they’re doing. I think sometimes life makes us feel jaded about what is possible for us to serve and love and do the important work to help others heal from the very same things that we have experienced. And I think they are such a great example of seeing the pain they’ve gone through and seeking to help others through it. So that’s my encouragement to you is, is the very thing that has pains you the most in your life may be the thing that God wants to help others through your story through your compassion because you understand their pain. Let me pray for you. Father, the person that’s listening, Lord, whatever you wanted them to hear is what would stay with them, God, the inspiration, the possibility of healing if they’ve experienced sexual abuse, or if their spouse has, I pray God, that you would heal them. And I pray for the spouse that he would be patient, and that he would be guided by your Spirit. And I asked for wholeness for both of them in their marriage. Lord, we love you and thank you. Amen. Thank you again for tuning in. If you’re a wife, again, I’d love to invite you to get this advice. It’s the seduction tips. And you can go to delight your marriage.com Tip s. And yeah, there’ll be some really exciting free trainings coming up. Alrighty, God bless you and I look forward to speaking with you next week. Thanks so much. Bye