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Forgiveness is Key to Better Relationships: Interview With Brian & Heather Mayer

Forgiveness can feel like the most unfair, unnatural thing in the world. When someone has wounded you—especially someone who was supposed to love you—choosing to forgive may feel like letting them off the hook.

But Brian and Heather Mayer’s story reminds us: forgiveness isn’t about the other person’s worthiness—it’s about God’s mercy.

And it’s the path to freedom, not just for them… but for you.

Why Christian Marriages Struggle With Forgiveness

Heather didn’t realize how deeply unforgiveness had taken root. Even after their marriage began to turn a corner, her heart stayed guarded. She found herself stuck emotionally. The walls she had put up to protect herself were still up. And though they gave the illusion of strength, what they actually offered was isolation.

She said, “I didn’t feel like forgiving. I didn’t want to say the words. But I knew the Bible said I had to. So I chose to obey—even without the feelings.”

This is what many Christian spouses experience. You know the right thing to do, but your emotions don’t follow. And it’s tempting to wait until you “feel ready.”

But true biblical forgiveness isn’t based on emotion—it’s a decision of the will rooted in trust that God can heal what you cannot.

How Unforgiveness Destroys Connection in Marriage

Brian admitted he had been prideful and blind to Heather’s needs. But what changed him wasn’t just guilt—it was God’s grace. He realized that he needed to ask for forgiveness, not just from Heather, but from their children, too.

“I had to go back and apologize, not just for being short or irritable—but for the way my behavior affected my family.”

He humbled himself, opened his heart, and began walking out a different kind of love—one marked by patience, listening, and repentance.

That humility created space for healing. Unforgiveness doesn’t just affect the person who hurt you—it poisons your heart, your communication, your marriage bed, and even your parenting.

Because where pride builds walls of resentment to isolate, humility builds bridges and invites healing.

What the Bible Says About Forgiveness in Marriage

God never promised forgiveness would be easy—but He did say it’s essential.

Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Jesus modeled radical forgiveness on the cross. And He calls His followers to extend that same grace in our closest relationships—even in marriage.

Brian and Heather didn’t wait until things “felt better.” They took action. They forgave before the emotions lined up. And that obedience opened the door for healing.

Choosing to Forgive Even When You’ve Been Deeply Hurt

Forgiveness does not mean:

• Forgetting what happened

• Pretending it didn’t hurt

• Ignoring necessary boundaries

But it does mean surrendering the right to punish. It means releasing bitterness so you can receive peace. It means trusting God with your pain instead of letting it define your future.

Healing Starts With Forgiveness

Bitterness promises protection—but delivers bondage.

Forgiveness opens the floodgates of grace—not just for your spouse, but for you. For your kids. For your home. For your legacy.

You don’t have to live angry. You don’t have to stay stuck.

There is freedom on the other side of obedience. There is peace that replaces pain. There is joy waiting where there used to be fear.

And best of all? You don’t walk this alone. The God who forgave you will empower you to forgive—again and again.

Final Encouragement: Forgiveness Is the Gateway to Freedom

Brian and Heather’s story is living proof that no marriage is too far gone. That even the most painful seasons can become a testimony of God’s redemption.

Maybe your spouse has wounded you deeply. Or maybe you’re the one who’s caused the pain.

Either way, Jesus stands ready to walk you both into something new.

Today, start with one brave act of obedience: “I choose to forgive.”

Even if your hands tremble. Even if your heart still aches.

God will meet you there. And the freedom you long for is closer than you think.

 

Love,

 

The Delight Your Marriage Team

 

PS – Check out Brian & Heather’s amazing Forgiveness Course at www.lovehowdeep.com/forgiveness

[Use code DYM59 to receive the Course at the special price of $59, regularly priced at $297!]

 

PPS – If you’re ready to bring even more healing and freedom into your marriage, schedule a free Clarity Call and see if our Men or Women’s Program is right for you. Prices are going up after July 18th, so make the call soon!

 

PPPS – Here is a quote from a recent graduate:
“I struggled with unforgiveness and bitterness, lack of joy in motherhood, emotional lability, and frequent mental trips to the past…  [Now,] I am able to self-regulate my emotions better. I have gained the ability to understand my emotions and thoughts from a more objective standpoint instead of being a victim to my thoughts and emotions… I’ve grown in my understanding of forgiveness and how that flushes out to my everyday life… When I joined the program, I was hoping that my work would change my husband and my marriage. I didn’t realize just how much work I had for my own heart!”

Transcript:

Belah Rose (00:20)
Hi there, welcome to Delight Your Marriage. My name’s Bella Rose, author, speaker, coach. I am thrilled that you’re here. And today’s episode is with Brian and Heather Mayer, and they are so precious, ⁓ gone through some really tough things and have gotten to the other side because of the precious blood and forgiveness of Jesus. And maybe you’ve gone through some really hard things and people have made big mistakes and harmed you and hurt you.

and you’re carrying that even now. I want you to open your heart to the possibility that maybe God wants you to lay it down. Maybe it’s time. I think the conversation we share that we walk through together can be very, very powerful because a heart that is weighed down by unforgiveness and pain, even something completely separate to your marriage, absolutely mucks up the

relationships that you have that have nothing to do with that other thing. It can make your heart hard and in a lot of pain. So I invite you to have just a curious spirit of what God might want to teach you in this. Also, I’m just letting you know that over the several next weeks, we are going to actually be playing ⁓ some re-releases and some really cool testimonials, but I won’t be releasing them.

week by week as I like to be, because I like to be kind of current and talking to you live, if you will, most of the time. But we won’t be doing that because we are so excitedly working on the church training. That’s right. Finally, after years of people asking us to get into the churches, we’re getting into the churches. So this fall, we’re doing a pilot for several churches that have been ⁓

with past clients that have been wanting us to be in their church for quite a while. But in January 2026, we are launching 12-week courses for men and 12-week courses for women. So this is ⁓ our, it’s based on our flagship course that has been incredibly successful for men and women. And if you’re interested, go to delightyourmarriage.com slash church and all the details are there for you.

even the promo videos and things that’ll just help you understand where we’re heading. Exciting, really exciting things. And you can email us directly any questions that you might have. But that’s the point. There will be material for you releasing these next few weeks. However, we are head down getting things done for this incredible opportunity to, Lord willing, change families all around the world.

All right, God bless. Let’s get into today’s material.

Belah Rose (03:26)
All right, welcome back, Delight Your Marriage listener. I am thrilled to have Brian and Heather Mayer on. Welcome, guys.

Brian & Heather Mayer (03:35)
Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, we’re so happy to be here and we love talking with you and you you just do a lot of the things that we do. So I think it’s going to be a really good conversation that we’re going to have today. Yeah, so I can’t, I can’t wait.

Belah Rose (03:51)
Awesome, awesome. ⁓ So Brian and Heather have this really beautifully named, first of all, ministry called Love How Deep. And I just so enjoy that, just the way it sounds. Anyway, we talked about, ⁓ maybe was it a month ago? A few weeks ago. And you guys have been in marriage ministry for a long time. And I would love to just pass the mic to you and let you all introduce yourself to our audience.

Brian & Heather Mayer (04:18)
Sure. You want me to go? Go ahead. So yeah, so again, we’re Brian and Heather Mayer and we’ve been, I guess, working with couples really intently since 2011. And ⁓ it really, you know, we’ll try not to make this too long winded, but it really all started even before we were married, I would say, because of the, were both married previously and both went through some pretty difficult times in our first marriage and just really saw like,

You know what marriage should not look like and what it should not be. That’s a way to put it. Yeah. We figured out what not to do. Yeah. And both went through divorces, very painful and difficult and had some different reasons on both ends. And, but it really came down to when the two of us met and dated and got married pretty quickly. We realized that, wow, this is something pretty special. And.

It was all about God giving us a second chance. it was just very different than what either of us had had before. And we know that’s because of the Lord. And, you know, pretty quickly we said, you know what, I think we need to do something to help other couples. And specifically we were really thinking about couples that were, been through some pain previously, like a divorce or something like that. And, or maybe couples that were struggling and heading toward divorce.

because again, it was something that we didn’t want to see anybody else have to go through what we went through. I know for me, you know, personally, I probably went through a three or four year depression pretty significantly, and it was pretty tough and ⁓ painful. And I know you had some similar experiences, obviously. And again, just didn’t want others to have to go through this. And so.

We, guess at the church that we were at, and we lived in Florida is where we met. ⁓ We talked to the pastors there about doing something with marriage, because I don’t think anything was being done with marriage there at the time, right? I don’t think so. There was a psychologist on staff, and so he would meet with people if they needed that. But as far as like marriage as a whole, like helping people, helping couples and all of that, I don’t believe there was.

So we approached the pastors and said, Hey, we would love to do something with marriage. We’d love to help out. so kind of the way it all started was they said, Hey, we’ve got this thing called the breakthrough weekend. It’s not for couples. It’s really for individuals, but we’d love for you to come. And then on your breaks, you know, we’ll let people know that, Hey, Brian and Heather are up at the front. If you’re struggling in your marriage or you’ve got questions or want to talk it through. And, we had, I guess a couple people talk to us briefly. ⁓

And that was really kind of the start of it. And then we ended up moving to Virginia. And then the church that we went to, and that’s where we are now, Richmond, Virginia. And the church ⁓ that we went to at the time really wasn’t doing anything with marriage either. And it just so happened another couple came along and really felt a heart for marriage and started the marriage ministry there, the marriage mentoring ministry, and asked us if we would join it.

Belah Rose (07:16)
Yeah.

Brian & Heather Mayer (07:34)
And so the rest is kind of history. From there on, it’s been nothing but a lifetime of working with couples and just that’s where our heart really is. So yeah.

Belah Rose (07:43)
Yeah. And

Brian, you’re also a trained therapist as well, right? That’s what you do as well. Yeah.

Brian & Heather Mayer (07:48)
Yes, I am. And

yeah, that’s kind of a funny story too, because I was doing nothing but marriage counseling and my private practice on top of mentoring couples with Heather. And it was a lot. was a lot. And yeah, right. And at some point realized kind of had to balance that a little bit more. So I see individuals now in my practice as well, but right now we have a right. Yeah, he literally did. Yeah.

Belah Rose (07:57)
isn’t that hilarious.

lot of marriage stuff. Yeah.

You need a little break from all the marriage drama. Understandable.

Yeah, understandable, absolutely. ⁓ Well, it was exciting because just when we chatted, met or we got connected through another couple ⁓ who also does marriage ministry. And ultimately we were talking about the church training that Delight Your Marriage is coming out with soon. And it was just a neat kind of conversation about all of it. ⁓

But what you all told me is that your work online, you’ve done a ⁓ program for forgiveness specifically. I’m curious why that was an important course to produce for you.

Brian & Heather Mayer (08:48)
That’s right.

Probably comes out of some personal stories, I suppose. don’t know if we want to dive right into the deep end with our personal stories. Where did it come from? I think that, yeah, I think because of what we’d been through, we learned the unforgiveness that we were harboring and how that was damaging our relationships, how I was projecting onto Brian because of the pain that I was still holding onto.

Belah Rose (09:02)
Yeah, Heather, what do you think? Mm-hmm.

Brian & Heather Mayer (09:24)
and refusing to forgive. And I remember my, this was even before we had gotten married, my best friend told me, you know, you’re going to have to forgive him for the things that happened. And I said, yeah, but not today. It’s like, I like I knew what the Bible said. I knew what I needed to do, but it was not happening today. I wasn’t, I was so, I was still so angry and bitter and upset. And then of course, when Brian came along and even,

Belah Rose (09:41)
I’m just like, I’m really.

Brian & Heather Mayer (09:53)
You know, I did heal a lot of things. God healed a lot of things in me during our dating time and things like that. But even when we said I do, I still carried that some baggage and some unforgiveness that I didn’t realize was what it was. Right. And so ⁓ once I really understood what forgiveness was and what that meant for Jesus to forgive me and how I’m called to forgive others.

knowing that he’s never going to apologize, he’s never going to own up to anything, I’m never even going to have contact with him again because I have a restraining order. Like, I’m never going to get that sort of like final, like, hey, I’m really sorry, like nothing. was just I, but I had to forgive him anyway. And it’s like, even though, yeah. So once I really, I think took hold of that ⁓ and prayed about that more, ⁓

I knew and ⁓ that power and ⁓ how I also understood how scary it was to say, okay, God help me to forgive. Teach me how to say every day, I forgive you. And that was terrifying because it just was. Because if I’m setting that down, then I felt naked. I don’t know how else to put it. You just feel very naked. Like your soul is just bared.

Belah Rose (11:03)
Can I?

Hmm.

Brian & Heather Mayer (11:22)
And even though I couldn’t say it to him or his family, I was still saying that I forgive him and I’m making that choice and understanding that it’s a choice. So even though I knew what the Bible said, I still had to make that choice. It’s not an automatic thing. And I learned it was a process that every day I was going to have to get up as soon as my feet hit the floor and say, I choose to forgive today.

And it’s okay. I choose to forgive. God help me. God heal me. I’m terrified. I don’t just fill this hole because it really is. There’s a hole left there once that unforgiveness is like cut out like a pit in your heart, right? There’s a hole there and it’s like, God fill it with something. I don’t know. don’t know. But I experienced that firsthand and experienced that freedom to the point to where I can pray for him. I don’t harbor any ill feelings or

anything like that. It’s Yeah, it’s gone like it’s it’s gone. I have all the memories of everything that happened. But it doesn’t hurt. And I understand that I get that. And I think, you know, that’s that’s probably why forgiveness is my biggest soapbox, because I know I know how hard it is, but I know what the Lord can do if we if we make that choice to forgive and how he can just take.

Belah Rose (12:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian & Heather Mayer (12:46)
that junk and use it in some beautiful way, which is love how deep, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Belah Rose (12:52)
I love it.

Yeah, so I want to ask you, Brian, what do you think is the reason ⁓ that it’s, ⁓ maybe, you know what, let’s start, maybe I’ll back up just a little bit. How does somebody discern that the issue is actually unforgiveness? What would you say?

Brian & Heather Mayer (13:10)
Hmm.

Hmm. That’s probably a question that I think we do get a lot now that I think about it. And I would say bitterness and resentment. Like if you’re feeling that internally, you’re just feeling that kind of like, you know, you’ve got something’s happened between you and it could be your spouse, it could be somebody else. ⁓ but you’ve got that just sort of pit in your stomach, that not kind of every time you think about them, every time you think about what happened.

Belah Rose (13:25)
Mm-hmm.

Brian & Heather Mayer (13:40)
⁓ and again, it kind of can go into this place of bitterness and resentment where you start to think about, know, I just wish nothing but the worst for you and you can’t pray for them. can’t wish good things for them. know when I, you know, when I was going through my divorce, there was definitely a period of unforgiveness there for, my ex wife. And I’m sure she would probably say the same for me and, and where I couldn’t pray for her. couldn’t think kind things about her.

⁓ just a lot of anger. That’s probably another emotion that crops up a lot of times for, people that struggle with unforgiveness, especially when I think about the person that that’s wrong them. And, it wasn’t really until I got to this place where I could be able to start to pray for my ex wife and, and, you know, wish good things for her and then sort of be in the same room with her and not have this kind of.

Belah Rose (14:22)
Absolutely.

Brian & Heather Mayer (14:34)
bubbling up negative reaction that at that point, I think I realized that, okay, think forgiveness has taken place here. So, yeah. I think too that if, if I am upset about something and maybe I say, I’m not mad about it, but in the midst of being upset about something else, I might bring it back up. I might throw it into the, the old fight into the new fight that’s happening. Do you know what I’m saying? Like,

Belah Rose (14:42)
It’s beautiful. ⁓

Brian & Heather Mayer (15:00)
Maybe there’s unforgiveness and you haven’t really worked through whatever it was that you’re upset about before because when we get really a really angry or hurt We pile it all on and another thing and another thing and this and you did this and then this happened It’s like I think there’s some maybe some things that you haven’t dealt with there, you know

Belah Rose (15:19)
Yeah, so I think ⁓ that’s a really good ⁓ indication. I love that you’re saying that it’s almost like how do you feel when you think about that person or how do you interact with that person? And so, it’s so funny that you all bring up how forgiving people outside of your marriage is so vital because I actually thought this whole direction would be just about forgiving your spouse. I was like, yeah, you gotta forgive your spouse because that’s ⁓ huge.

Brian & Heather Mayer (15:47)
You

Belah Rose (15:50)
Yes, many of us have been divorced, myself included. And yes, the process of forgiving him was so vital. Not because he didn’t have anything to forgive me about, so I’m so perfect. No, he has plenty of things. Hopefully he’s forgiven me, we’ll see. But ⁓ really at the end of the day, ⁓ it’s, yeah, when I think about him, do I get all crumpled up in anger? you know, it’s interesting, we’re even talking about forgiveness.

Brian & Heather Mayer (16:01)
you

Belah Rose-Browser (16:18)
towards others because it wasn’t too long ago that ⁓ I was unaware that it was forgiveness that I was struggling with. I mean, was certainly frustrated at, I would say justly so frustrated at ⁓ some folks that were close to me and some significant betrayal, but it was… ⁓

It was, I couldn’t discern was how much it was impacting others. My unforgiveness for this, and in my head, different words are being said, like, how could you? How dare you? I would never, how could that ever be the case? Those sorts of things. Until I had opportunity to pray with a precious pastor who just, he was so tender and gentle, but was like,

Brian & Heather Mayer (16:46)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Belah Rose (17:09)
think there’s unforgiveness here. It’s just like, ⁓ my gosh. Because it’s

Brian & Heather Mayer (17:10)
Yeah. That’s so good. Yeah.

Belah Rose (17:13)
so easy to see in other people. Tell me, go ahead, Heather, what were you going to say?

Brian & Heather Mayer (17:17)
⁓ man, so I remember ⁓ being out to dinner with a group of girlfriends and I can be pretty snarky sometimes, maybe a little sarcastic. mean, right? And I really, I think I really was that night and I don’t even know what we were talking about or whatever, but one of my friends looked like she turns to me and she goes, you got some on your shoulder. What is that? it’s a chip. And I was like, as she brushes a chip off my shoulder and I was like,

Belah Rose (17:26)
No. No.

Brian & Heather Mayer (17:45)
I laughed, was like, you’re hilarious. But let me tell you, that was her way of saying you are harboring some hardcore unforgiveness. I got in the car and it was like, whoa, what just happened? And what does that mean? And what do I do? And I remember thinking, I’m going to call my best friend. This was before we were even dating. I’m going to call my best friend and tell her this because she was really mentoring me through my whole spiritual walk at that time. And I remember

feeling like the Holy Spirit telling me, why would you call her and tell her that what this girl said, that what Leah said, affected you in that way? Why don’t you come to me and tell me what you’re thinking since she said that to you? And I was like, yeah. It was such a good little Holy Spirit smack in the face that like, yeah, it’s unforgiveness and you need to come talk to me about it, right? It was, yeah. And it’s just so interesting how…

Belah Rose-Browser (18:24)
Mmm.

Brian & Heather Mayer (18:43)
unforgiveness towards one person, regardless of who it is, it’s gonna affect all of your relationships because you just get so hard. You put that wall around yourself.

Belah Rose-Browser (18:53)
Yes. Brian, did you have something you wanted to add?

Brian & Heather Mayer (18:56)
Well, I was going to say too, it can also play a role, know, like for example, if I’ve, if I’m struggling with a friend that we have in common or maybe say one of Heather’s family members or she has an issue on one of my family members and she’s upset and hurt and maybe there’s some unforgiveness there and I’m, I’m kind of over here or you’re over there wondering, you know, you know, okay, this is bothering me. This is affecting us, you know,

What are you doing? And so you can, you can have some difficulty between the two of, you know, the spouses ⁓ when you’ve got maybe again, a common friend or a common family member. And ⁓ cause I know we’ve, you know, had some situations in our past with ⁓ some people, you know, that we knew and, know, where it would be like, you know, Heather would be upset or maybe I would be upset, but the other person is kind of like, I didn’t, I didn’t have a problem with that.

And then all of sudden we’re arguing and we’re upset. Now we’ve got to try to figure out, and now maybe we’ve done something that needs forgiveness from each other and it can get complicated.

Belah Rose-Browser (20:04)
Yeah, well, I love something you’re exactly right. It affects the people that you really are most responsible to love well. ⁓ And it seeps in there. But I love that you said, Heather, that it’s about our heart at the end of the day. It’s about our heart. it can, what I noticed when, again, ⁓ just thinking about this one situation, the way God

was basically able to get my attention about what was going on, because I knew something wasn’t right, but the way he was able to get my attention was I had to have space, like I had to get away, because I knew something wasn’t right, and you know, it’s dangerous to do this work when your heart’s not right. ⁓ You know, that’s how people get harmed, you know, spiritually, if you, you know, your spiritual leader and you got your heart out of whack, that’s not okay. So I went away for a few days. ⁓

Brian & Heather Mayer (20:57)
Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (21:01)
And, my gosh, let me just tell you the story because it’s absolute nonsense. Are you ready for like a crazy God story? my gosh. So what happened was I was in my hometown that I grew up in and I went and spent some time with my youth leader that morning. But just mostly just, well, I spent a lot of time with Jesus first and spent time in a graveyard and just, I love going to graveyard. Do you guys ever go to graveyards?

Brian & Heather Mayer (21:06)
Yeah. You’re for it. Go for it. Yeah.

No, but somebody else has told me this recently that it’s peaceful and quiet. Is that what it is for you or is it something else?

Belah Rose-Browser (21:38)
For me, it reminds me of how soon it’s gonna be me down there and like how, you know, all the glory of man is, you know, on this little plaque, maybe this big. But also how the dates that are on, this was an old cemetery, but on the dates that were on there is day you were born, day you got married, day you died. Isn’t that crazy? Like, yeah, marriage is pretty darn important. ⁓ So I thought that was pretty incredible. Anyway, so lots of time with Jesus.

Brian & Heather Mayer (21:41)
Wow.

⁓ that is interesting, yeah.

All right.

Belah Rose-Browser (22:07)
Spent time with my youth leader that I grew up with, and one of the, probably the reason I actually came, one of the reasons that I came back to Jesus as an adult because of her witness was just so consistent. Her character was always consistent. Even when all these people who were so passionate for Jesus ⁓ fell in terms of their character, like Jesus, she was one that, nope, people can be good for the long haul. They can love Jesus for the long haul and actually have a character that backs it up. But anyway, so I spent time with her, it was wonderful.

And I ran into this kid who was doing skateboarding tricks and spent time on ⁓ chatting with him who, I do a one wheel and so we were chatting. He thinks one wheels are stupid and I was surprised and so we talked for a while. Okay.

Brian & Heather Mayer (22:52)
a unicycle,

one wheel?

Belah Rose-Browser (22:55)
Sounds like it. It’s more like an electric skateboard with a single wheel. So it looks like a skateboard and it… The thing the kids use… I broke my collarbone recently because I try to be a teenager. Uh-huh. Yeah. So… Might have to slow down. Anyway, so the kid might be right that it’s stupid, but still love it. So I go… So 9.45 Sunday morning…

Brian & Heather Mayer (23:08)
⁓ no. You were on that? Yeah.

Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (23:24)
because I’m visiting my hometown, I was not planning on going to church, but I look at my watch and I’m like, you know what, maybe I’ll go to that church that’s not too far away. I haven’t been there since I was a kid. I’ve only been there maybe three times in my life, but I decided to go. They happen to be open at 10. Go in there. Who walks through the door? But the kid with the skateboard.

Brian & Heather Mayer (23:46)
wow.

Belah Rose-Browser (23:48)
So God clearly wanted me to be there, and the last time I was there, I was there to watch a worship leader named Rob Stearns, and randomly the pastor preaches about Rob Stearns. Like, I haven’t heard the guy’s name since. And so that was a spiritual thing. So I was like, well, God, maybe you… And then he dropped another name that I was very familiar with. said, you know what, maybe God, you want me to get prayed for by this pastor. Maybe that’s going to get me out of this spiritual funk.

Brian & Heather Mayer (24:08)
Mm-hmm.

Belah Rose-Browser (24:15)
And I go up there and I kind of, you know, share all the stuff and he and his wife pray for me and that’s when the tender, encouragement of a man of character and a man who pursues Jesus was able to just curiously ask if there was unforgiveness there. And I talk about unforgiveness all the time for others. and okay, last moment, the crazy part of it. There’s probably a couple more crazy parts I won’t share, but ⁓ in terms of just clearly God wanted this moment to happen.

Brian & Heather Mayer (24:28)
Hmm.

Right.

Belah Rose-Browser (24:45)
⁓ The gentleman’s name, I didn’t mention this, I brought one of my sons to hang out with grandma while I was in this whole thing. The gentleman’s name is the same name as my son, which is not a normal name. Like was just so wild. So yeah.

Brian & Heather Mayer (24:56)
wow.

Right. ⁓ wow. That’s crazy.

Yeah. It’s interesting how I think like both you and Heather had these stories about how other people were discerning, maybe some unforgiveness. And I think it kind of speaks to sometimes we do have blind spots and we think, you know, we kind of get righteous and think, you know, again, like you said, Bella earlier, it was like, well, I have a right to be angry and upset. And yeah, we all do to a point, but if you’re going to hold on to that.

That can become a problem. And then it is interesting when somebody else points that out to us like, Hey, I know you’re angry, but do think this has gone into bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness? Is it time to let it go? You know, like Jesus got angry in the Bible, you know, and with the money changers and flipping the tables in the temple, like he did, but he had a righteous anger, you know, he didn’t sin in that anger. And then he still forgives, you know,

And ⁓ so he created, as we have emotions, we get angry, but don’t let it turn into that bitterness and unforgiveness that we hold onto.

Belah Rose-Browser (25:54)
Mm.

Yeah, so that’s interesting that you mentioned the money changers, because I bet ⁓ I certainly probably would be like, yeah, mean, the thing I’m angry about has to do with God too. And it’s righteous and there’s, I need to get a chord of whips and drive them out of the temple. And that seems appropriate. So it’s interesting. There’s this book called Unoffendable. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Brant Hansen, but I am such a fan. ⁓ He’s such a great author, Brant Hansen. ⁓

Anyway, unaffendable. ⁓ one thing he says, and I’m curious what you guys think, he says, God is the one who’s justified in his anger. And I thought that was interesting, as in we are not, like we don’t have a right to that. Like we don’t get to grab hold of that. Like God is the one who can actually have righteous anger. We’re the ones that are like, ⁓ when we’re angry, we will get angry, but we can’t sin.

Brian & Heather Mayer (26:49)
Mm.

Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (27:02)
So we can’t trust ourselves with that anger to like wield it properly. I’m curious what you guys think.

Brian & Heather Mayer (27:06)
Yeah.

Yeah. I was going to say exactly what you just said there is I guess the reason that I think it is that God, um, it’s that way for God is that, yeah, he, doesn’t ever sin when it goes to anger. Like anger is a perfectly normal human emotion, but we tend to sin. You know, it’s like, I’ve, I’ve, know, it’s been kind of rare, but there are times where I get angry and I kind of hold it in, hold it in, hold it in.

you know, try to let it go, let it go. And then somebody says a little something to me. And then all of a sudden I blow like a little volcano and he goes postal. I don’t know if we use that word anymore, but that’s a term from like the eighties. Yeah. I don’t know that you’re probably giving everybody a little bit of a different picture of that, but anyway, I’ll let you have that.

Belah Rose-Browser (27:45)
no.

I think,

isn’t the original story of postal is somebody who comes in with a gun and shoots up the post office or something?

Brian & Heather Mayer (28:04)
Yes, yes. And

it’s never, I’m not even that close. It’s like, they’re fine, they’re fine, they’re fine. So even keel and then it’s like, Yeah. It’s volcano. Yeah. But yeah, I guess the point is like, yeah, God doesn’t sin and therefore his anger is appropriate. It’s just, it’s righteous. I think, I don’t know if that’s kind of where you are with it, but yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (28:08)
Okay, well that’s.

and it’s

Yeah.

It’s interesting, you know, so it’s interesting ⁓ thinking about when we are discerning our hearts and discerning, ⁓ things will make us angry and sometimes that does motivate us to action. And, you know, something, something unjust happened at the park yesterday and, you know, it was just like, somebody’s gotta do something, these.

you know, folks are, it’s unfair, this person is being traumatized by this person. And so there definitely has to be action in response to anger sometimes. But I’m just curious, how do we discern in the moment? ⁓ because anger can be so, I guess, dangerous, or we can act in ways that, yeah, I’m just curious if you have thoughts on that, like, discerning what value that anger has or what to do with it.

Brian & Heather Mayer (29:26)
Yeah, I’m you made to go. So I’ve got a pretty, yeah, I can take you back to when I was younger. I’ve had a situation. So when I was growing up, my parents, um, they were divorced when I was about two years old and, very contentious and just kind of always arguing with each other. And, know, I heard some raised voices and some screaming on the telephone and.

Belah Rose-Browser (29:31)
saw that face, like, yes, please handle that question. We’ll see what’s…

Brian & Heather Mayer (29:56)
So I kind of grew up kind of being around this, the way you handle conflict and the way you deal with things is you yell and you scream and eventually something will get figured out. And then ⁓ I guess it got so bad at about age 12, my dad, and my mother had custody of me, I would go to my father’s on the weekends. And so at around the age of 12, I guess my dad had gotten so fed up with everything that he,

He said, you know what son, I would really prefer that you live with me. And being the people pleaser that I was at 12 years old, I didn’t really know what to say, even though, you know, I had my friends at my mom’s, I was comfortable with my mom. I didn’t really know what to say. So I just said, okay, sure. Well then at some point a letter comes to my mom basically saying that, you know, my dad is going for custody of me and I’ll never forget my mom walked into the room and.

She was just bawling her eyes out and she showed me this letter and she was like, what’s this all about? And I kind of explained, know, hey, dad was asking me if I wanted to live with him and I didn’t know what to say. I really don’t want to. You know, I’m really sorry. And so it was just a tough moment. This is a little bit of a long story, but I’ll get to the point here in just a bit. But yeah, and so then we had to go to court.

Belah Rose-Browser (31:15)
That’s a sad, that’s really sad.

Brian & Heather Mayer (31:21)
and I had to sit in front of a mediator and kind of explain who I wanted to live with. And I’ll never forget, I walked past my father and my stepmother and one of my brothers who was sitting there. And I just, again, at 12 or 13 years old, I didn’t know how to communicate. I didn’t know what to say. So I just kind of silently walked past them. But anyway, so I said to the court, hey, I want to stay with my mom. And so…

Belah Rose-Browser (31:27)
my gosh.

Brian & Heather Mayer (31:46)
From that point forward, my dad actually said to me, he said, son, I’m really sorry, but I’m not going to be seeing you anymore. And so he made the conscious decision. The story has a good ending with my dad and I’ll get to that in a minute. So, and this was, my dad was not a Christian at this point. And you know, in some regard, I get it. Like I want to have compassion for him because he was just so frustrated with my mother and my mother to him too. But anyway, so, ⁓

Belah Rose-Browser (32:00)
than heaven.

Brian & Heather Mayer (32:14)
Yeah. So he said, I’m sorry, I’m not going to see you. And so that was from maybe age, what did I say? 12 or 13. And I didn’t see him again until I was about 21. ⁓ and I didn’t realize that at the time, but now looking back on it, this many years later, I realized how much anger I had developed toward him. And it was really spilling out to everybody that I was around. and I guess when I was about 17 or 18 years old, ⁓ started to date.

And you know, when you’re 17, you think you know everything. And so when my mom would try to say some things like, Hey, what are you doing? What’s going on here? What, why are you lying to me? Of course, you know, I thought I knew everything and it got so bad. My anger got so bad toward my mother that I was, I was calling her names. was being derogatory about her job and her vocation. And I mean, just the most terrible things you could ever think of. I would say to her and.

I don’t know what it was, but at about, and I had, you know, another issue was that I was in church when I was little, but kind of walked away from that. So I was a Christian, I was saved, but just wasn’t walking with the Lord. And I guess at some point, even though I had this warped sense of who God was and I had thought, you know what, since I’m saved, he really should be watching out for everything that I do and kind of saving me and.

watching my slip ups and coming up, coming behind me and cleaning the messes up. And obviously that’s not the way it works, but for some reason, even though I had really turned my back on God at about, I guess about 19 years, yeah, I think it was 18 or 19 years of age, I was sitting in my bedroom, I was sitting on the bed and I think the Lord was speaking to me and he was, he said, you’ve got a lot of anger. You’ve got a lot of bitterness.

You’ve said some really awful things to your mother. It’s time to apologize to her because she’s not the problem. And I think pretty quickly, I said, you know what? think, I think there’s some merit to that. So I was sitting on my bed and my mom walked by and I said, Hey mom, can you come in here? And she came in I said, can you sit down on the bed? And then I proceeded to like pour out my heart to her and just everything that I had ever said to her.

And mind you at 19 years old, I don’t know how many 19 year old kids do this. Usually you hear stories about, oh, I was 25 or I was 30 or whatever. But so I was 19 and I did all this and she could have said, you know what? No, I don’t forgive you. know, everything that you did, I was horrible. I’m not forgiving you. But no, she immediately forgave me for everything that I did. And it was just like this wonderful, tender hearted embrace that we had. We hugged and it was a lot of tears. And, and I say all this to say,

Unfortunately, six months later, she had the most awful aneurysm ⁓ in her brain caused her to basically not be the same. And for about two years she was in and out of nursing homes and hospitals. And unfortunately her heart gave out. And I say all that to say, I’m so glad that I did what I did. I listened to the Lord. Maybe I wasn’t listening. Maybe he was speaking pretty loudly, but. ⁓ You listened. Yeah. And so.

You know, I can’t even imagine like all the regret that I would have lived through, you know, knowing that I, if I had not done anything or I had not listened to him. Yeah. ⁓ and so again, for, for those that are, you know, watching or listening, mean, I would definitely encourage you like, don’t, don’t wait. Don’t sit on it. Cause we just kind of like you said a little bit ago, Belah, like when you’re in that cemetery or graveyard, you just, you know, it kind of speaks to how short our life is and you just never know what’s going to happen. So.

Anyway, very long story. I don’t know that I specifically answered your question, but. ⁓

Belah Rose-Browser (36:09)
It’s no, it’s absolutely powerful. ⁓ So two years after, so six months after you apologized, she had her brain aneurysm. Two years after she passed away, is that what it was? my, how painful.

Brian & Heather Mayer (36:20)
Right. And she was never able to really

speak and just, she just wasn’t the same. Yeah. But yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (36:27)
And so what happened with your father?

Brian & Heather Mayer (36:30)
yeah. Sorry. I forgot to. yeah. So yeah. That was probably a story of forgiveness and reconciliation as well because he had somehow, forget, it might’ve been my ex-wife actually reached out to him and said, Hey, ⁓ I just want you to know, Brian’s mother has passed away and, or maybe it had been when she was sick. forget, but anyway, he called me and wanted to have dinner. And I think at that point, I think my heart was softened.

Belah Rose-Browser (36:32)
That’s okay! I needed to hear it. You said it had a good ending.

Brian & Heather Mayer (36:59)
And so it was all, you know, I said, yeah, let’s, let’s do that. Let’s, let’s talk. So we went out to a restaurant called Frish’s. I don’t think they’re everywhere across the country, but, ⁓ they are in the Midwest in Ohio and, ⁓ you know, over a cheeseburger and some fries, you know, he poured his heart out to me and basically asked for my forgiveness for everything that he had done. He had, I didn’t know this at the time, but in the midst of like the seven or eight years that we were apart.

He accepted Christ and that really softened his heart. And yeah, and that’s, think, so again, again, speaking to the power of God and his ability to ⁓ forgive us for what we’ve done and therefore we can carry that on to others. So anyway, that was 30 years ago and I mean, you would never know it at this point. Our relationship is pretty amazing. And yeah.

And we don’t bring it up again, not because it’s brushed under the rug, but because it’s been dealt with appropriately.

Belah Rose-Browser (37:56)
Please God.

Right, right, and that’s interesting because I remember ⁓ when I really knew that I had forgiven my ex-husband ⁓ was when it didn’t hurt to share the story, but the only reason I was sharing it was to bless the other person. Like they needed some hope. They needed to hear it.

Brian & Heather Mayer (38:19)
Yes.

Yes. That’s the my best friend also told me when she told me that, know, you’re going to have to forgive. I said, no, not today. She also told me someday God’s going to use this testimony and you’re going to share it and you’re going to help someone else. And I was like, uh-uh. I remember looking at her saying God can use every part of me, but not that because I, I really, um,

Emotionally, I felt like everything is a reflection on me. I’m a bad person. I’m a bad wife. I couldn’t keep him happy. I mean you name it like self-esteem in the tank like it was and and and and if I shared that with anyone it was too embarrassing and too personal and once I really ⁓ grasped hold that forgiveness and what it meant and got to the point to where I could pray for him and not it didn’t hurt anymore. I was like, okay God

What do you want? What do want to do? And ⁓ and we were actually at one of the he had mentioned way early on in this segment, the breakthrough weekends that the church was hosting. We were at that. And that’s when I first heard when you can pray for them, you know, you’ve forgiven him. And I was like, man, like, I really thought that I had forgiven him. But I would still have nightmares. I would still project onto him. I’m telling you, like, it wasn’t as bad, but it wasn’t where it needed to be. Right. But I didn’t realize that.

So once I understood that, I was like, wow, this is huge. And so I went and shared with the lady that spoke, she was at our church, and I went and shared with her how the Lord dealt with me and brought me to that level. And she was like, this is amazing, God is good, and you’re teaching the next class when we do it next month. And that right there was like, this means I’m sharing the stuff that happened to me that’s still.

raw and embarrassing, but it was like, ⁓ okay, I did. I ended up speaking that segment of healing and restoration and forgiveness during those retreats for the next couple of times that they happened. that was all God. just like, even though, like there was, even though I was able to forgive, ⁓ I feel like,

There was no restoration or reconciliation with that person. But I was able to have more restored and appropriate relationships all around me with Brian, with our daughter, with my family, my friends and things like that. Like God was just healing me so much. And then he just he started using me. And it’s like that’s what forgiveness does. You know, it just when it doesn’t hurt anymore and you can use it for the benefit of others, you know.

And it’s like, yeah, I went through that mess. I don’t know why I went through it. But you know what? If I can share my testimony, if I can minister to somebody else, then it’s worth it. It’s worth it. Which is crazy. Like, how do you get to that point to say something so awful is worth it? But you do, because you just see, think there’s something about seeing the other side of it, of what God sees, you know? Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (41:27)
And

then the pain, if we can interpret our pain as there is purpose here, God will make a way. There is a reason for it. So for any of our pain, we know God is doing something. So here’s something I wanna add to all of this. I was reading this this morning. I’m not kidding you. I did not expect this conversation to go this way. I thought the whole thing was about forgiving your spouse. I did not think this was about forgiving other people. Okay, well there we go.

Brian & Heather Mayer (41:32)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

We did too, I think.

Belah Rose-Browser (41:57)
Well, we needed to go in this other direction because this is hilarious. I don’t even think I’m gonna…

Brian & Heather Mayer (42:00)
Yeah, we love when things

take turns. We love it. It means God’s at work, you know?

Belah Rose-Browser (42:05)
Yes. Amen.

So, in terms of…

It’s so interesting because this morning I was reading Luke 17, so it’s so relevant to what we’re saying. If another believer sins, rebuke that person. Then if there’s repentance, forgive. Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive. So in the past, I’ve actually had to apologize for somebody who repented, but I didn’t forgive them. And what I didn’t realize until later,

⁓ Like I thought I had, like I thought it was, I thought I had. I thought it was like, well, I’m hurt, but I’ll forgive them. And I told them I forgave them, and I forgive them. But it wasn’t until the ramifications later, later, later, realizing that I’m kind of leaking unforgiveness, did I realize, my gosh, I actually need to apologize to them for not forgiving them, because they did in fact repent. ⁓

Brian & Heather Mayer (42:55)
Yes.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right.

Yeah. Isn’t that interesting? The focus always seems to be on the person that hurt us or the person that did the thing. And we don’t have any obligation in that equation. just like you just read and said, yeah, we do. Yeah. And yeah. Got it.

Belah Rose-Browser (43:17)
Mm-hmm.

And so, yeah, may I interject one more time here? So the crazy thing about all of this, just to continue the thing, is the parable of the lost son, right? We’ve got one of the sons asks for inheritance, goes off, does terrible things, comes back, repents, and the father rejoices, but it’s the older son.

Brian & Heather Mayer (43:22)
Yeah, sure.

Yes.

Belah Rose-Browser (43:46)
that has this terrible attitude and is clearly the one in the wrong in this story.

Brian & Heather Mayer (43:48)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (43:53)
And it’s just like, for some of us, it’s like, what are we doing, you know, outside of the party? What we needed to be doing is inside rejoicing that God had this person repent. you know, Brian, you had every reason to sit in front of your dad and say, are you kidding me? Absolutely not. Do you know what you missed out on? I mean, you could have given the riot act and instead you’re like, I’m not missing out on the next 25 years of joy with my dad.

Brian & Heather Mayer (44:10)
Hmm.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it’s, you know, what does the Bible say? It says we forgive because God first forgave us. And I wasn’t really thinking about this until you were, you were saying that it’s like, some ways, well, that is obviously true, but then in another way, my mom forgave me first. so maybe just seeing a human also model forgiveness really helped me to be able to forgive him. So who knows? I might’ve gotten a kind of a double dose of sort of realizing it or understanding it.

first by God, which again, really didn’t understand God and wasn’t reading my Bible. ⁓ But you know, I think God still plants things within us and we kind of know. ⁓ But it was good to see, you know, my mom do what she did. But you’re right, I mean, we could sit there and say, you know, and just like for Heather, know, I don’t need to forgive you or you don’t deserve it or. You didn’t ask for it. Yeah. You must not want it. Yeah.

And we talk a lot about, you might talk about this too, Belah but you know, we talk a lot about what forgiveness is and what it’s not. And you know, it’s, it’s a lot more simple than people say or think it is. And it’s simply like, I’m just going to give up the right for revenge. I’m going to work to not think negatively about you. You know, a lot of times people think it’s what it’s like.

I’m okay with what you did or I trust you again or trust. Right. It’s not, those are all processes and you may not even be reconciled because maybe that’s not the next step. Maybe it’s just, you just need to forgive.

Belah Rose-Browser (45:54)
Yeah.

And it almost is like, did you say right to revenge? Is that the wording you said? It’s something, yeah, it’s almost like you, because in working with couples at times, lots at times, I’ve almost seen people hesitant to forgive because it’s, like they’re almost like holding something above their head and they feel like they’re losing their right to that person behaving differently if they let it go.

Brian & Heather Mayer (46:02)
right.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Belah Rose-Browser (46:23)
It’s

almost like I can kind of control him because I can always say, well, you did that thing to me all those years ago. And so if she doesn’t ever give it up, like she feels like she’s losing control. ⁓

Brian & Heather Mayer (46:29)
Yeah, that’s true.

Yeah.

Right. But it’s like, yeah, we sure have. And it’s like, I think what’s happening there is they’re holding on to control, but then they’re giving up connection when they do that. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (46:40)
Have you seen that? ⁓

Mm. Mic drop. That’s it. Holding

onto control, but giving up connection. Amen. Amen. So hopefully the listener can say, am I holding onto control of my husband or my wife by giving up connection? Like the real thing that God wants us to be unified. The last prayer he had before he went to the cross was that they would be one like we are one.

Brian & Heather Mayer (46:57)
Right. Right. Right.

Right.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Right. Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (47:18)
I mean, that’s what he wants. He wants his church won. And we,

as Christians, so often we have this wonderful standard of morality, which I was telling you about that, you my youth leader was walked in and I loved her for it. We have this wonderful standard of right and wrong, but when somebody falls, we have a really hard time of…

you know, figuring out how to have our hearts soft towards them. ⁓

Brian & Heather Mayer (47:41)
Right,

right, that is hard. One thing I wanted to say about forgiveness, like we think about forgiving our spouse, we think about, you know, do we need to even maybe forgive our children if they’re acting out? Do we need to think about forgiving somebody else in our life, a coworker, a friend, a family member, whatever? But I think the forgotten person is yourself.

We don’t think about forgiving ourself. We will beat ourselves, the slashes on our back, like beat ourselves up for the things that we’ve done. And we may never speak of it to anyone because you don’t want anyone to know or you don’t want anyone else to dwell on it.

But we don’t forgive ourselves sometimes. And then we can be stuck. Because when you’re harboring that unforgiveness, you’re just stuck. You really are. You’re not able to move forward. Like Brian said, you lose that connection because you’re holding on to that unforgiveness. And ⁓ it just, it drives a wedge in all of your relationships because you’re not forgiving yourself. And I think that, again, if you could get like a clear picture of how Jesus forgave you.

then you can say, okay, I forgive myself. Yes, I did something stupid. Like we can all say, we’ve done something stupid in our own previous marriages, maybe even in our own current marriages, I don’t know. Don’t agree with me, Brian. But you know, do we need to forgive ourselves for something that we’ve done? ⁓ And that’s something that I would love for our listeners to really think about. And whether or not they are.

Belah Rose-Browser (49:03)
You

Brian & Heather Mayer (49:18)
beating themselves up and can they lay it at the feet of Jesus and say, yeah, I did this and I can move forward with that and what can, you what steps can I take so that I don’t screw up like that again, you know? I don’t know, like, but I do think, like we do talk with people a lot when we’re working with couples about also forgiving yourself for whatever it is. I’m glad you brought that up, yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (49:40)
And that’s, it

is, it’s absolutely huge. Heather, do you, I’m sorry, I’m actually gonna ask Brian this. When you work with couples in therapy, do you see that happen? And what are the steps when you discern that they haven’t forgiven themselves?

Brian & Heather Mayer (49:54)
Yeah, I do see that a lot. ⁓ Gosh, it’s a tough one to crack because it’s hard when your spouse is next to you and I’m trying to work with you on your own stuff. Because it’s almost like they want to kind of keep that wall up and like, no, I’m going to, no, it’s not, you know.

Belah Rose-Browser (50:16)
I

see marriage mentor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian & Heather Mayer (50:17)
There’s nothing about me. I’m not the problem. They’re the problem. So, you know,

I’ve had occasions where, we’ve done this too, when our mentoring is that sometimes we’ll kind of split the couple up, so to speak, which I think splitting them up, sounds like a negative. It’s not, because I think you do a lot of that in your work where you have men and women separate and they can be a little bit more vulnerable and open up. we’ve done that where…

In my practice, you know, I might meet with them individually and I, you know, I try to tell them, Hey, I realized that trust is an issue here and this isn’t anything about, we’re not keeping secrets when I’m meeting with you individually, or it’s really just all about you being able to feel like, Hey, I can get some things out. can talk about some things openly and then, you know, my encouragement and our encouragement would be after we talk individually with, you know, how do you feel about us all for kind of talking about this? You know, we try to gently kind of nudge them to that.

So I don’t know, that’s probably one of the strategies we use. Cause it is hard, you know, to, kind of be put on the spot in front of your spouse. if they’re the one that had the affair and we’re kind of confronting you about your unforgiveness, I can see why a wall would go up there. I think one on.

Belah Rose-Browser (51:28)
for sure. And

in your actual therapy practice where you do one-on-one with people, do you notice they’re dealing with a lot of shame and self-hatred and unforgiveness of themselves? And how do you help them process through that?

Brian & Heather Mayer (51:43)
Mm-hmm. yeah, that’s definitely something that I see a lot I think it’s almost part of the human condition so to speak so I think we all I mean unless you’re kind of like a quote-unquote, know diagnosed narcissist which honestly I don’t I don’t seem any narcissist in my practice because they don’t think they need any help

Belah Rose-Browser (52:05)
Do you, I think

it’s a huge minority though. think people just, I think it’s like, people act like it’s everybody. We’re all just selfish. We’re selfish and immature and some people care and they want to make it better and some people don’t, but I don’t think they’re narcissists. That’s my take on it.

Brian & Heather Mayer (52:09)
I agree. I think that term is thrown around. agree. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. No, no, I agree with you because,

you know, I think we all, well, obviously we’re all selfish by nature because that’s just the nature of who we are as humans. But, you know, yeah, I’ll have moments where…

You know, I’ll turn the TV on and I’ll just flip on what I want to watch and then I won’t even realize, you know what? I probably could have asked Heather, what did you want to watch? You know, but I’m not a narcissist. just, it’s just like a selfish knee jerk reaction. Yeah. But anyway, I think we’re, where was I with that? so yeah, I think we were talking about, ⁓ yeah. I mean, if I, I bet you if I asked.

Belah Rose-Browser (52:42)
Are you narcissist, Brian?

There’s a hundred people, Yeah, human condition. Mm-hmm, human condition.

Brian & Heather Mayer (53:00)
I don’t know, it might even be 100 % of people. said, you know, if I asked you, do you blame yourself for something or are you not forgiving of yourself for something that you’ve done in your life? I would think 99.9 % of people would say yes. ⁓ And so, you know, a lot of times what I will do with that, there’s probably different ways to approach it, but.

you know, a lot of times I’ll ask, you okay, when did you do this thing? And you know, they might say I was 12 or I was 18 or I was 25 and okay, so you’re 45 or 50 now, know, knowing what you know now, like if you could go back in time and speak to that.

your sort of younger self, like what would you say to them? And they always say things like, oh my gosh, I would be so compassionate. I would say, you didn’t know at that point, you just did what you could and you were dealt the hand you were dealt with and you didn’t know any better. And of course it wasn’t a good thing that you did, but I don’t blame you. don’t.

And sometimes when I get people to do that, they stop and they’re like, ⁓ am I forgiving myself right now?

Belah Rose-Browser (54:09)
⁓ So it

almost makes me think that it’s not the process that you go through to forgive. It’s more of, you get to the end of the road and forgive? Like, it’s almost like the means can be many, many different ways. Like I can even imagine, you know, somebody who did something horrific last week, you know, or that afternoon. I mean, we’ve got plenty of listeners who are addicted to pornography and like they’re trying to get free of that. And the problem is they keep beating themselves up. One of the problems.

Brian & Heather Mayer (54:32)
Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (54:38)
keep beating themselves up and then that shame makes them feel so awful that they have to get that awful feeling off of themselves and so they go right back to the very thing that they’re feeling awful about so that they feel, you know, it’s kind of a cycle of any kind of addiction, whether it’s alcohol or sorts of things, but it’s almost like if we could say to that, you know, whatever the process is to get to, you know, recognizing and as believers, know, Jesus took the payment. Like, yes, we deserve hell.

Brian & Heather Mayer (54:54)
Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (55:08)
Yes, that sin should take us there, but actually we have the God of the universe who came down, was perfect, and took on that payment. So you don’t have to live in this shame and blame and ⁓ unforgiveness of yourself and beating yourself up every single day and making yourself pay for this thing so that you can actually live in righteousness and you can actually live in this opportunity to love your spouse and love others and not have that chip on your shoulder. Instead…

Brian & Heather Mayer (55:18)
Right.

Belah Rose-Browser (55:37)
You’ve got this whole heart that we’ve been talking about. so, Heather, I feel like there’s something you wanted to share ⁓ earlier or now. Is there anything you wanna finally encourage the listener about?

Brian & Heather Mayer (55:47)
know that I had anything in mind earlier? that? Well, I know we’ve, was going to say, I don’t know if you had been thinking about this, but I think we’ve talked about this before that, ⁓ you know, the darkness can’t survive light. And so when you bring things out and you talk about things, cause I know you’ve said this before, it’s like, you know, you used to have more of a difficulty of like keeping things inside and not talking about them. And, when you can bring things out and talk about them, sometimes they can be.

worked with and just like you said, when you were, I mean, I guess you were saying some things to friends and you weren’t realizing what you were saying, but they were able to discern, hey, you got a problem here. Right. So, I don’t know. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (56:31)
love it. you know what, when

I met you, I actually told my husband this. When I told you the compliments about the website, and you know what Heather said, listener, lean in. Heather’s like, it was all him. Isn’t it beautiful? He did such a good job. I was like, yes, that woman admires her husband. I love it.

Brian & Heather Mayer (56:51)
I do,

do. He did all of that. He did, he did. He did a great job and did all the research to even figure out how to podcast and do YouTube and all of like whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (57:03)
Amazing.

So Heather and Brian, I know that when we spoke earlier you’ve actually done the work of putting together a forgiveness program for people, right? ⁓ Who would that program benefit? What do you think?

Brian & Heather Mayer (57:12)
That’s correct.

Yeah, it would benefit really the, mean, those of you that are listening, you know, or watching and you’ve got something stirring in your heart. There’s some, maybe some anger, some bitterness, some resentment towards someone that you can just tell and it’s causing a rift or there’s a division in your relationship. It could potentially be unforgiveness. Right. Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (57:42)
That’s amazing. And so what did the actual modules walk you through?

Brian & Heather Mayer (57:47)
Yeah. So the, it’s really comprehensive and it talks a lot about, you know, what forgiveness is and what forgiveness is not, because I think we talked about this earlier, but people get that confused about, ⁓ they think it’s maybe a little bit more complicated than it really is. It’s not, it’s not easy, but it’s not difficult to either. ⁓ we talk a lot about, you know, biblical examples of forgiveness to kind of help. it’ll model for you.

what it looks like to forgive, know, with a prodigal son and, um, you know, Peter asking Jesus, you know, how many times should I forgive? Yeah. Seven? No, seven times 70. Um, it actually walks you through some practical steps to forgiveness, some things to keep in mind, um, when you’re the one that needs to forgive and when you’re the one that, um, is on the other end that is working to accept that forgiveness. Uh, and so.

Belah Rose-Browser (58:45)
Beautiful.

Brian & Heather Mayer (58:46)
Yeah, and there’s worksheets that go along with it. You can do it by yourself because you can use it beyond just if it’s a spouse that’s the issue. It could be a friend or family member or coworker. ⁓ But it is more powerful if you can do it together because then you can kind of witness the forgiveness kind of happening right there in front of you. that transformation and…

Maybe you can even build each other up and encourage each other along and pray with each other and for each other. yeah, yeah. And we’ve seen couples. mean, we’ve worked with a lot of couples that have really, truly, genuinely forgiven each other. And it’s just amazing to see that the relationship is even stronger than it was before.

Belah Rose-Browser (59:18)
It’s

That’s right, and then it just makes me think about just the most significant betrayals that happen in marriages. This is most significant. This is a huge deal. So if there’s a whole course out there on how to forgive, mean, Heather, you didn’t give the details of your story, but it sounds potentially horrific. ⁓ And so for…

Brian & Heather Mayer (59:53)
It was.

Yeah, if you can imagine it, it happened, like literally. So, yeah, it was a lot to forgive, but…

Belah Rose-Browser (1:00:00)
Oh, sorry. I free…

For you to get to a place where you don’t have anger towards them, you don’t have bitterness, you can say it all with a smile and say it was worth it. I mean, just for somebody listening, go ahead, I’m sorry.

Brian & Heather Mayer (1:00:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, no, you’re right. Like it’s it’s the place that it that God brought me to to where, you know, I feel that restoration and that healing and it doesn’t hurt anymore. And then, you know, the next step for me was was to trust him because if he knew what I went through, then he knew how to hurt me. He knew my weak spots in the armor. Right. So I had to trust him. And like there was.

This was not an overnight thing and forgiveness is just not overnight. Maybe somebody forgives instantaneously in a true, true, true way, right? But for most people, I really don’t think that’s the case because we want to hold on to that hurt and we want to hold that grudge and we want to, you know, just make them pay in our minds, make them pay whatever it is. And ⁓ yeah, it’s so it’s just it’s not a natural thing to do.

But it’s so worth it when you take the steps. so like, you know, with this course, there’s some steps laid out for you and that starts with that. And it goes from your head knowledge to your heart knowledge to where God is doing that work. Yeah.

Belah Rose-Browser (1:01:29)
Beautiful.

Brian & Heather Mayer (1:01:30)
go to lovehowdeep.com forward slash forgiveness and you put in the code D is in delight. Y is in your M is in marriage 59. You’ll get it for $59 instead of the regular $297. So

I don’t know if you’ll be able to put a link. We can send a link to you, Bella, for that wherever anybody’s hearing or watching this.

Belah Rose-Browser (1:01:51)
Yeah, please do.

Wonderful. Well,

Would you mind, Heather prayin for the person listening, ⁓ who maybe at a spot where you were at, like someone did something really horrible and they need to forgive.

Brian & Heather Mayer (1:02:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. Dear God, we just thank you so much for your love and your grace and your mercy, God. And we thank you for the forgiveness that you extend to us that your son died on the cross for all of our sins and that unforgiveness, it is a sin because your word commands that we do forgive. But our our natural selves say, no, that person doesn’t deserve it. But God, you.

Belah Rose-Browser (1:02:28)
Hmm.

Brian & Heather Mayer (1:02:36)
You want us to do that. You want us to follow that command and you want us to take that first step and it is up to us. And I pray God that our our listeners would be willing to take that step. It’s really a step of faith that they’re that they choose to forgive on a daily basis until it really just comes from their heart. God that they choose to let go of whatever was done to them.

that they choose to let you fill them with that peace that passes all understanding and fill them with joy and with love for that person. God bring them to the place that they can pray for that other person and that it and and then God you can use that testimony that is developed in them. God I pray that you would give them the courage to take that step. God no matter how hard it is and we give you praise and glory for it and

Belah Rose-Browser (1:03:12)
Mm.

Brian & Heather Mayer (1:03:31)
are always just so excited to hear how other people are changed and growing from this. And even if we never hear from them, God, you see it. And this is all for you for your glory. In your name I pray, amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Bella. You’re welcome. Thank you.

Belah Rose-Browser (1:03:46)
Amen. Amen. Thank you both so much. It’s wonderful.

Belah Rose-Browser (1:04:03)
Thank you so much, Heather and Brian. You guys are so precious. And I’m thrilled, dear listener, that you joined us. I hope that this has been an important conversation for you as well. All right, if you want more information about our church training, go to delightyourmarriage.com slash church. Also, if you are looking for transformation in your own marriage and you’re ready for coaching, it’s delightyourmarriage.com slash cc.

All right, my friend, God bless you and we’ll talk soon.