0:02

Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.

0:18

Hi there, and welcome. Thanks for joining me on the show today. When you and I took our vows, we said that we were going to be faithful to our spouse, in sickness and in health. And for a lot of us out there, according to my guest, Kimberly Ray, one in two couples experience chronic illness. And today, that’s what we’re talking about how to be the person, either that’s dealing with the illness, and receiving care maybe from your spouse, and or how to be the one that’s giving the care and giving the support. And a lot of illnesses aren’t very obvious, as Kimberly talks about, it could be a mental illness, or mental health illness, depression, bipolar, I mean, there’s just a myriad of things that require extra care and sensitivity. And so I think today, it’s really a good idea to understand not only for the potential that your own marriage could encounter this, or that you are dealing with it right now, or that you know, someone that needs some guidance and some help. The other part of this is that no matter where you land on whether or not you need guidance with chronic illness, I was talking to a friend’s husband, we visited them just last weekend. And the husband was telling me that a lot of times when you hear the stories of someone else, what they’ve gone through what they’ve come out of it gives you this encouragement, I mean, you have so much more to be grateful for, don’t you. So it turns out that this man grew up in Rwanda. And he experienced the genocide that went on there in his lifetime, right. This affected his extended family members, his friends who saw a lot of people killed. And when I talked to this guy, I mean, the kind of kindness and generosity of spirit and the way he is with his wife, it’s incredible. So I guess I say that because when we hear the stories of what we’re going to hear from Kimberly, now, Kimberly has got an amazing heart. She’s been a missionary to many countries. And it was only because of her pain, her actual illnesses that she and her husband had to come home. And so you can just tell the breadth of experience and understanding she’s bringing to this conversation. But I think we can really learn from her because of what she goes through every single day, and how she honors marriage. In the midst of that, I think each of us can take something very helpful back with us.

3:20

Okay, so I want to ask, what does your marriage look like? Now we talked about in the last episode, if you haven’t listened to part one of Kimberly Ray’s interview, it’s really wonderful. It really talks about love languages, how to be proactive in those. But today, we are talking more about your marriage journey and what your marriage looks like now, after having gone through kind of figuring out how to get your needs met, how to be direct, and also kind of relax and let God have your desires in the midst of that.

3:54

I remember hearing one, I think it was in the live woman belief book, her saying that there will always be unfulfilled longing in your life. God made you that way. Because you want to be the only thing that can ultimately fulfill you. And I realized I was trying to get that from my husband. And that was too much of a burden to place on him. He cannot succeed in being everything I need. He can’t. And me wanting him to and expecting him to leave me miserable and leave him feeling like a failure and leave our marriage less than God intended to be. Um, I love our marriage now. And I he’s always been my best friend. But I’m being a better friend. His point. He was always good at being a friend. I was not always good at being a friend. I wanted to be good at being a wife, you know, and now I’m learning to be a better wife by being a better friend. And so when he comes home tired, instead of thinking, Well, we haven’t gone on a date and as long as you haven’t done this and so longer, other people say should have a date night, every week. It’s a we should have a date night, every weekend, there’s something wrong with that we don’t have a date night every week. It’s why don’t you sit down and rub his head because he absolutely loves that. And then when he gets over being exhausted, because he’s been serving his family, he will probably want to do something loving back. But it’s not always doing something so that you get something back. But being the first person to do the positive thing, it actually ends up beating you too. When I’m rubbing his head, I think you know what, this is a great guy. And I’m so glad he goes to work every day. And maybe I’ll say so. And, you know, I appreciate him. Or maybe I’ll pray for him while I’m doing this. And it’s a good thing, turning your marriage into a spiritual adventure, rather than a selfish adventure, you think that means I’m going to get taken advantage of if I don’t fight for what I need. If I don’t find what I want. I’m going to just be this blob of unfulfilled loneliness. I thought I was so afraid of. Yeah, I was wrong, not just the plane. In thing was I was wrong. Giving your marriage to God is the best thing you can do and letting go control is the best thing you can do. And I’m so grateful that God did not give up on me and kept pursuing me the way I wanted my husband to pursue me, but his pursuit was for a godly purpose instead of a selfish purpose. And, you know, the Bible talks about submission and that’s such a scary word for us. Women were like, oh, no, no, no, that means doormat. That means doormat. I know. I know. But the scripture says as unto the Lord, if not, I, you know, people say I shouldn’t respect my hubby’s earned respect. He doesn’t deserve respect. Or I’ll respect him when he starts loving you the way Christ loves her. Thank you very. It’s like skip that whole thing and go into the essence of the Lord. Does God deserve your respect? Yes. Does he need to earn it? No, he already did. And can we do this for over? And then actually, when you start doing it for the war, you often find out there are a lot of reasons to respect my husband too. And he does he has earned my respect. And yeah, it’s not. The problem wasn’t as much with him as it was with my own heart. We have a little piece of paper, it sounds so silly to me. But we would have the same conversations. I don’t know about you. But you may notice that the discussions you have, you know, the arguments, the discussions, you have all seem to center around the same theme. I finally realized this after a while, it’s like, wait a minute, we’re talking about the same thing over and over and over and over again. Can we stop this whole little merry go round? Yeah. And so I tried to figure out what is the base of it. Somebody I said once asked the five why’s you know, I’m frustrated? Well, why? Because he didn’t do this. Well, why does that frustrate? You will because I want to feel love. Right? Because I feel lonely? Why? You know, and you go keep going back until you’re like, Whoa, what is it that you really need and so I finally down that just about every time we have a discussion is that I am wanting to be reassured about something. And he doesn’t feel like reassuring me because every time when we have a discussion, he wants me to recognize there was no mal intent. He wasn’t intentionally doing something unkind. And I stuck that little piece of paper in the little mirror on our backboard between us in bed. And is that thing, all the difference in the world? If we start something, I can look at that and be like, You know what, we are here all over again. And if I could just say, could you please reassure me about this, then he can do that, and he can succeed. Whereas when I’m saying it, I’m trying to say if you understood me, and blah, blah, blah, and he just feels and all he wants me to do is say, I recognize you didn’t intentionally whatever, but this hurt. And then we can move forward. Wow, feel the attack, keep going to keep defending himself. And if you keep to myself, I don’t himself, I don’t feel reassured. And so I keep attacking, you know, and it just keeps you going. big washing machine circle that. Yeah, it’s just gross.

8:56

Oh, it’s so true. I mean, we all fall into that, that is so wise. So to practically speaking, get yourself a piece of paper and think through what are the discussions that happen over and over and over again, in your marriage that kind of have that similar theme? And then ask the five why’s and get really to the bottom of what is it that you really need? And what is it that you want from the interaction? And then walk him through the same process? Is that what you suggest Kimberly?

9:26

Yeah, kind of, again, stop yourself and be like, what is it you wish I would do right now? Just something as simple as that stop moment that Oh, emotional, yada, yada. If you got to go blow your nose, you know, leave the room for a minute down you can do whatever you need to do back and say, Okay, what’s really going on here? Because you know, it’s just like little kids, you can get started. Next thing you know, everybody’s crying. You come in, what’s the problem? They’re like, Oh, you know? What started it. Well, he said, Hey, Lord, help us. We’re just a bunch of overgrown little toddlers.

9:59

Yes. We are, yes, we are being one that has two little toddlers running around. It is a is a wild time, man. That’s awesome. I love that. Well, I think that the amazing thing is underlying everything that we’ve talked about so far can really is this glaring, chronic illness chronic challenge that you have in your life constantly. And so I wonder if we can dig into that a little bit? Because I know what did you say one in every two people are dealing

10:31

with? Yes, about Yep. In America, oh, my gosh, some kind of chronic illness. And like 95% of them, I think are called Invisible illnesses. Which means, whatever their problem is, they don’t look back. They’re not in a wheelchair, they’re not wearing an oxygen mask. And so we assume everybody’s fine. And people all around us are really struggling.

10:48

Wow, wow, that is really, I think that’s really helpful. Because just thinking that through on top of marriage, right, because marriage by itself is very hard. But then thinking through, you’ve got something chronically going on, whether it’s pain, or psychological challenge, or just just just so many, there’s so many categories of it. But ultimately, it’s a it’s a constant thing. It’s funny, because it’s something we’ve been dealing with. I’ve been dealing over the last year and figuring out some, some health challenges that, yeah, are chronic, and I’m trying to figure out how to handle them on a daily basis. And I had no idea that there were so many others that deal with that. I mean, can you give us some insight into what what you’ve learned what it’s been like,

11:42

it one thing that really hit me hard was finding out the divorce rate among chronic illness people, it’s 75%. Wow, that is really shocking. But the longer I get, you know, the more groups I’m part of that have chronic illness, I’m seeing it less and right, it’s, you know, they just can’t handle it anymore. And they just, it’s just too much, or whatever or, you know, like I said, if you make your marriage based on yourself what I need, what makes me feel happy, of course, being married to a sick person is not going to be worth it. And so Christian marriages should be much more solid, we should have a lot more blue than that, because our marriage should be based on price. But it does cause a challenge because your needs get bigger. Your knees are not married me. They’re just playing a lightning. And it’s like, they didn’t sign up for this. You know, it’s hard. I actually wrote a book called you’re sick, they’re not because there are just so many struggles with learning how to live with each other. When one of you is sick, and one of you is healthy, I miss hiking, I love going hiking with my husband and I can’t go hiking anymore. Oh, shoot, I’m gonna cry. Okay, so there’s like, all these things that are limitations. Now we can’t have as many people decide. And we can’t get together as much with people as we like. And we we did not just me. And one thing that was important for me to recognize was that he doesn’t have to be limited. You know, he has a choice to do all these things. Still, he accepts limitations because of me. And that’s something I should recognize as huge sacrificial love. And I should also recognize that sometimes I need to let him go and be a healthy person, you know, he doesn’t have to. He’s not sick. He’s not unlimited, like I am. i You give him permission to be healthy. Because sometimes you just want to say this isn’t fair. And you know, Misery loves company, you should be sitting next to me feeling as bad as I do. You know, and that hope? Yeah, that has really helped. The other thing that the thing that made the biggest difference of all is recognizing and this is this is in my book, recognizing the different ways different personalities respond to stress, because chronic illness is a very stressful thing. And it’s kind of like when there’s a crisis in your family, okay, somebody goes to hospital or somebody gets in the car wreck, How does everybody react? You watch everybody and it’s so funny. One person immediately does the kitchen starts cooking thing. One person feeds and goes shopping. And you’re like, what, you know, one person jumps in and starts making a spreadsheet on all the things that need to be done so we can fix this problem. One person sits down and cries, one person starts praying. One person goes on with, you know, it’s like going on and the one person who’s doing the one thing things all the other people are being insensitive and I’m loving. The other person who’s shopping is saying, I can’t handle all this and the other person is watching TV. You know, it’s just you think the other person is not doing what needs to be done. For example, money, money and chronic illness are bad combination, money in the biggest conflict that marriages have in the first place. Add to that illness that costs money, and you have a recipe for divorce. I take about $1,000 worth of bills a year. That just makes me cringe just thinking about it. So mutations are Got an option in our family? You know, we make sacrifices just for that. And that’s not counting the doctor bills. And it’s not counting all the weird paraphernalia I have. And you know, yeah, yeah. So when there’s a crisis, and I think I think I might need to go to the emergency room. My thought is, I’m in a crisis, I need to be loved right now. So you need to hold me, and you need to pray with me. And you tell me that you love me and that I worked all this and you know, all these things that I would think of as love. Yeah, my husband starts talking about the money. Like, that’s like the most unloving thing on the planet. That’s what I that’s what I thought, yeah. And then I started reading about different personality types. And I found out that my husband’s personality type is some personality types, they have to leave the problem to cope with it. They’re the ones that go shopping, they’re the ones who eat chocolate, they’re the ones that you know, are going to leave the scene. That’s their way of coping, they can come back later and deal with it. But right now, to deal with it, they’re running away, they need to do that. Other people, like my husband, they need to go through all the details, figure out the information, which usually means recounting all the problems that makes them feel better, which, when you’re the one in crisis is the last thing you need is to have a heap of problems fall on you. And I’m like, now I’m totally depressed along with feeling sick, you know. But learning that was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This isn’t unloving. This is his way of coping. And so every once in a while, when he needs to do that I have learned to listen, but kind of tune out, listen, as a friend, not listen as his wife.

16:33

As his friend, he needs to do this, and then he’ll feel better. And then we can move on. As his wife, it’s like, Oh, don’t get me, you know, but then I found out me, my personality dies. When there’s a crisis, it’s to work harder, attack the problem, annihilate the problem? I do as soon as there’s a problem, I am on it. Let’s figure out what we can do. Let’s do all of them in the next five minutes, you know, I had totally overwhelmed him. So when he’s in crisis, and I’m like, I can fix it. Let’s, you know, make this big old chart and you know, whoa, whoa, he’s kind of like, Oh, my goodness, I’m so overwhelmed. When I’m in a crisis. He’s like, let’s talk through all the details and the problems. And that’s all we need to do. Like, what what are we gonna, you know, right, we’re done. And I’m like, but just learning that all of a sudden, it just made it. He’s not doing anything wrong. I’m not doing anything wrong. Neither one of us is wrong. We’re just trying to cope the way God made us to. And when I figured out God made us this way, nobody’s fault. Nobody needs to change. It’s okay. Now he’s like, Oh, that’s so wonderful. It just freed up all this mess. So with people with chronic illness, the best thing I can tell him is find out how you deal with stress, find out how he deals with stress, so that when the stress comes, you’re not trying to figure out how to function when you feel unloved or whatever, so that you can say ahead of time. If I’m feeling bad, this is what would be meaningful to me. What if I’m feeling bad? What do you need from me? What kind of reassurance do you need from me? Because a lot of times they feel totally unappreciated. Because it’s like, I need I need I need I’m the sick one. I’m the sick one. And the sick one gets all the attention and all the prayers and all the appreciation and I took it with me for my husband, because it’s hard to be the one who’s not sick. You know, you like when your kids suffering, you’re suffering too. And you take it if you could, but can’t fix it, if you could, but you can’t. And so you’re just they’re suffering and sometimes they need a break. So that’s another thing is that when I’m sick, okay, I don’t get a break. Sorry. But I am one. And that may not seem fair, but it’s right. Not fair, we can still do the right thing.

18:43

That’s awesome. Yeah. Well, Kimberly, I want to ask you. And what do you think the I mean, some of the guiding principles that you have held that have kind of kept you sane, since you found out about your illnesses. One of the things that

19:01

has really helped us to recognize that chronic illness affects you emotionally as well as physically, people with chronic illness or most chronic depression. And that’s, that makes perfect sense. And we have to be careful of what we put into our minds just the same as we have to be careful what we put into our bodies, we chronic illness, you know, you have to make sure you take your medicine on time, you have to make sure you take the right medicine, you have to keep track of your symptoms and what’s going on. But in the same way you would be careful of what you are putting into your thoughts. If you started dwelling on all the negatives. It’s just toxic to your mind. Is this your body. In fact, I read some words, it actually kind of causes a black hole in your mind when you’re dwelling on the negative things. And you know, the Bible talks about us renewing our mind. And one of the things that really helped me I wrote a book called Why doesn’t God fix it? Because I kept thinking, you know, sometimes people will start saying, Oh, if you just had enough faith, your problems would all go way. And if you were just strong enough, that wouldn’t matter. And if you were just this, that and the other, and sometimes even well meaning Christians, you know, I’ll pray that you get better. And next week, it’s like we weren’t better. What’s the matter with you? Yeah. And so I wrote that to ask the really hard questions of okay, why am I not getting better? Does that mean I don’t have enough faith? Does that mean God loves me less than he loves other people who are healthy? And I found some amazing things in the Scriptures I have found whenever there’s a really hard question instead of kind of avoiding it, because you think maybe the answer is not in the Bible, or whatever. It’s like big, the scriptures have the answer, and have so much hope in there for us. And one of the things I love most is Hebrews 11. We call it the hall of faith chapter. And, quote, stuff in there. You know, people were having these great victories, and they’re having to dead come back to life, and they’re getting healed, and all these wonderful things, and faith, all the things we think of that come from faith. But the second half of the chapter is these other people were afflicted and stone and tortured and sewn into. And that was April, well, and you can’t have the first part of chapter without the second half. And so sometimes it shows greater faith, to let God leave you with illness and be content and love him. It doesn’t take much faith to say, Okay, God, you can make me feel and then I’m healed. And I’m all better. And yeah, God gave me what I wanted. Well, of course, I made that way. But it actually is a better testimony, in some ways, a stronger testimony when God doesn’t give you what you want. And you say this, in this, I trust him. So flaky yet? Well, I trust him. This is okay, I will choose to have joy within this that really is the kind of space that will draw people to Christ. Because otherwise, they’re just drawn to the fix it. Oh, God, because your problem, okay, I want that too. Well, that’s not what God is all about. And the scriptures don’t teach that. And so a marriage that really represents love within this difficulty, I think, is a greater testimony for Jesus Christ. And so when we’re serving each other, even through a difficult season, it shows the love of God represents in people, which is what he intends.

22:11

That’s beautiful. It shows the love of God represented in people. And that’s what he intends. Yes, that’s so good. What do you think has been the three major things that has been vital to your marriage succeeding?

22:26

Wow, that’s a great question. I think about that, for like a year, the biggest thing would be God, of course, a three fold board is not quickly broken. And a marriage with just two people is not as strong as America’s intertwined with Jesus Christ. And that another thing would be a commitment to commitment. My husband talks about that a lot. He says, you know, it’s not as romantic and it’s not as fluffy. But that’s what’s gonna keep your marriage strong, because the feelings they come and go, and especially when you’re going through hard times, it’s easy to get discouraged, or whatever. And if you are totally committed to the fact that you’re totally committed to each other, there’s no option for thinking, talking, threatening divorce, it’s not even part of the conversation, that helps keep the glue through, when you’d be tempted to maybe think maybe I married the wrong person, you know, Brian, right. As soon as I said, I do, you are the right person, period. It’s not even something to think about. And that’s been good. And then I think the other thing would be to really cultivate your friendship, because that is going to be your strong, that’s going to be there when the passions not there. And maybe the romance isn’t there. And some of the other things that, you know, we think of is love, like the Hallmark movies, say, you know, when you’re pregnant and you feel huge, or your kids is throwing up all night, you know, there’s times when there’s not much room for romance, your friendship is gonna be solid.

23:55

I like that a lot. And, you know, on this podcast, we talk about sex a lot, because sexual intimacy is a huge piece of marriage that often doesn’t get enough air time on on Christian circles, and it needs to we need to have healthy, holy conversations about sex that helps us navigate the hard times because it’s supposed to be a really wonderful part of marriage. And, you know, in just thinking about chronic illness and the difficulties and a lot of times there’s pain involved, or at least like consistent. Like you said, depression is a is a huge part of it often. You know, can you give us some some tips that you’ve learned along the way or something that you just wish someone kind of let you in on sooner?

24:43

I’m trying. I’m really blessed that I grew up in a home where, you know, my mom always taught us that sex was a wonderful thing. It was a gift from God. It was meant to be enjoyed, and it was worth waiting for. And I was one of those very naive people going into marriage. which was a good thing. And so my mom gave me this book called intended for pleasure. And I would recommend that for anybody who’s getting married, who’s who grew up in a Christian home, so they don’t know very much, or, yeah, we’ve been in marriages that they feel like, sex is a guy thing, you know, guys do it. And we’re just supposed to grin and bear it or whatever, which is, so not what God intends. So it’s good. And it’s got a lot of practical stuff that I would feel totally embarrassed talking about on here. But I think the biggest thing for me not on a chronic illness thing, but just in general is to remember, your marriage is your marriage. And your husband is your husband, and he’s not the guy in the book. I read so many books before I got married, and guys are this way. And women are this way, you know, and I made all these assumptions and plans and I started doing all these things based on what business the way a guy is. And I found out my husband doesn’t fit all those, you know, generalities, or stereotypes or whatever. And I needed to find out who he was. And I need to find out who I am. Because sex is a brand new thing and enjoy it, for goodness sakes, you know, enjoy the learning about each other. That’s part of this fun, enjoy, you know, it’s not about getting it perfect or out, okay, to be really honest, one of the best things, when we got married, before we got married, my husband sat down at some point. And he said, something akin to the fact of it doesn’t have to work right away. Like, basically, your honeymoon night doesn’t have to be this perfect, amazing experience where something happens. That was the most wonderful gift, because I was feeling all kinds of pressure about it. Because you know, here, I’m going into it like nothing, and you want it to be this, whatever. And so we were able to just enjoy each other. And it wasn’t about making something work or figuring it out, it was about loving each other with what it should be. And that made all the difference. It was such a different thing, because I didn’t feel like we had all these expectations. And I didn’t have to have all these expectations. And so we were able just to grow and learn and enjoy each other. And with chronic illness, I say the same kind of thing applies, you get this idea, oh, I read the statistics, or this many times a week or whatever, your marriage, your marriage, your husband is your husband. And there can be marriages that are just as happy on once a month as there are on three times a week or whatever. Mm hmm. The Bible says those who compare themselves among themselves are not wise. Right through, we have so much information now that you can think, oh, there’s something wrong with me. For example, I’ve read that like 25% of marriages, the wife’s sex drive is stronger than the husband. And those four women, even though there’s plenty of them, if you read stuff, and you hear stuff, you think I’m such a weirdo, because, you know, as I go on sex all the time, what’s the matter with me that he doesn’t want me like all these other men on the planet, you know? And so it’s about learning about each other. And when chronic illness comes in, that changes the dynamic and need to talk about it. It’s not something talking about facts is just like, oh, you know? Yeah, totally creepy thing. And again, that might be another situation where shoulder to shoulder would be way better than face to face. You’re laying in bed some nights staring up at the ceiling. And you say, can we talk about this? And oh, that’s another thing. No serious discussions after nine o’clock, that was, Oh, that’s pretty much my house growing up. And it saved a lot of arguments because you’re emotionally exhausted. So it was like, Can we plan a time to talk about this so that he’s ready, you’re ready, you’re not springing it on him? You can just say, you know, can we plan this, maybe even write down your questions. And even if you need to give him the written down questions, and let him write his answers, we have time to think about him. Writing my husband, a note with questions has gotten more accomplished than any conversation I have ever started out of the blue. That’s good. That’s about

28:52

Yeah, I like that a lot. Mm hm. Yeah, I think that’s really wise. Thinking about your marriage is your own marriage. And we do talk about sex a lot. And obviously, if you’ve listened to any of the podcasts, you know that everyone has a different marriage and a different sex life and they’ve learned different things and different books have helped them and different mentorship has been, has been great. And you mentioned that earlier Kimberly of how important it is to be talking to the older women are teaching the younger women to love their husbands and to and to to guide or maybe love their children as well. I can’t remember it’s Titus two, two, I believe. But anyway, it just is so important to be receiving good guidance about sex. So you’re not Yeah, reading statistics and thinking that you’re so weird and that other people don’t struggle in the same ways that you do, and especially with something around chronic illness. I mean, I was on a significant amount of medications. And it was so important for me to have guidance on other things to do in the bedroom rather than just The normal, you know, intercourse kind of stuff because that was vital because I was so exhausted, I was so completely lacking any kind of libido and any kind of get my husband’s still very healthy and, you know, desirous and how was I supposed to respond to that. And so that was very vital to me that was, you know, delight, my husband is kind of all about some other avenues that you can explore that that really give your husband that, that what he may need. And again, kind of like what you just underlined is that don’t think that if that’s not the way your marriage looks, that something’s wrong with you. But yeah, to seek out those those resources so that sex is still something that can can happen. I mean, is there any other advice you’d like to give to those that are going through chronic illness in the area of sexual intimacy?

30:52

Well, probably like you were saying, you know, sometimes you’re just white. And yeah, it’s kind of like when you first have a baby. Yeah, even when you’re pregnant, I remember somebody saying your husband’s not pregnant, you know, you need to remember that. He’s not, yeah, he’s not nauseated, he’s not, you know, all these things. Yeah. And kind of maybe recognizing, every once in a while, it’s just a gift for him. Kind of like if he give you a background, he’s not getting anything out of it, except the the joy of being able to serve you. And every once in a while, you can just serve him that way. And that’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. Your husband may be the kind that’s like, oh, great, thank you very much, your husband maybe to kind of like, I can’t do that, because it’s supposed to be both of us. And if that’s the case, you know, figure something else out your mind, I tell myself, I am more than my feelings. I am not my feelings right now. Feelings are not to be trusted. The Bible says you trust in his own heart is a fool. Women, especially we’re inclined to that. And we’re so vulnerable to our hormones and things. And there are times, I will actually my husband is really helped me with this because he is my stable one. And I’m not, you know, behind him and say, I’m feeling this way. Is this true or not true, like, Hunger Games Real or not real? You know? Because he can tell him, you know, I’ll get worked up, you know, cuz I said something at a party. And I’m worried that they might think this, that or the other and I can, I can spend two hours on that at night and not sleep and be a wreck. And I have learned to just ask him, this is what happened. This is how I’m feeling Should I take this seriously. And nine times out of 10? He says no, Kim, but nobody would even say that about that. Every while they’ll say you know what they may have that may have come across the wrong way you should, you should talk to them about it. And it’s like, there are times when I cannot trust my own thinking. And I will ask the Lord, please give my husband the right insight. So that when I talk to him, he can tell me what the right way to think about this is. And I can trust when I go to him and what he says I need to believe it. Instead, no dwelling on things. And you know, wallowing in it and worrying about it so much, because anxiety is really bad for our health. And not to mention, it’s not really the way God wants us to live anyway, in the delivery of under life with chronic illness. It’s hard, but it is, and God wants it. And he talks about if you abide in my word If you abide in me. And somebody once said, you know, have you ever seen a treatment sweat, we try so hard to produce fruit. And a tree branch does not produce fruit. Fruit is the fact that they’re stuck to the tree. And they’re getting their resources from the tree. And that’s where the fruit comes from. Sometimes we start flapping plastic fruit on there, because we feel like I can’t do this. And I need to look like I’m spiritual. And that’s not the way it is. There are times when I stay home from church because I know it will feed me more to spend time with God alone, than to go to church and be exhausted talking to people and you know, making it through sitting in the pew with the pain and etc, etc. And I mean, I look spiritual, but it’s not about look, it’s not supposed to be about looks. Now Jesus is looking at our hearts. And another big thing for me is recognizing the fact that sometimes I just can’t handle things. You know, when you’ve got small children and the mom Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, you know, struggling you just want to lose it. And there are times when it’s like, okay, I’m supposed to be this perfect spiritual, wonderful person, you always have the right attitude and always is just totally ready to give to everybody. Sometimes your neck, you don’t feel well, you are not as equipped, as you’d like to be. And the wonderful verse that I’ve taken as my own and I don’t remember the reference, but it says if a person has a willing mind basically God expects them to serve according to what they have not according to us. And I always thought of that in terms of finances. You don’t have a million dollars. I can’t give a million dollars but I can give $2 During the $10 it’s the same thing with our health. If I didn’t give me this myself, he’s not expecting me to act according to that myself. So I had to quit the choir. Yes, we had to leave the mission field. Yes. All these other things. I can’t do anymore. That’s not my fault. You

34:59

feel guilty. about it. And so God has given me a way to serve within what I have. So what do I have? If it’s those two little widow’s mite, he said that was more than everything everybody else gave anyway, the scale is different with God. So there are some times when I will tell my husband, I need a break. I need two hours, fine. You need me? I need something. Can you help me? Instead of why doesn’t anybody give me a break? You know, it’s not the whiny ask specifically, I need this. You know, why did he think of this? Well, he can’t read your mind. Yeah. And when I say that, it’s one of the things it’s been a huge help to us is David told me this. If I come to him and say, It’s not you, but I’m feeling really frustrated right now. You know, I’ve got PMS, I am mad at everybody, but you didn’t do anything, you know. And then by start early, and he starts feeling attacked, he’s gonna get defensive, because he’s not going to want to be helpful. He’s gonna want to go away with the kids, and you know, all the things that are that I need a break from, where I can go to them and say, It’s not you. But I’m really struggling right now. The medicines freaking me out. And I feel like I’m going and saying, Can I please, ours? Can you help me with this, they want to help. They just don’t know how, and we can help them help us. And then everybody’s good. Because I told people, I will be a better mom in my room with the door shut today. And I was out there, you know, doing what I think is the right thing to

36:26

do. Oh, that’s so good. That is so good. So I’m going to look, there’s a couple of verses that we talked about already. And I want to have those for people because these will be really good verses to go back to and memorize and think through. So I’ll have those on the on the show layouts, I’ll see if I can find the one that you reference, because I really love that because I feel like that’s something I’ve been struggling with too. Because my heart You know, I went on different international trips years ago, and they just really meant a lot to me. I wanted to be a missionary for a lot of my life. And I’ve just had such a heart for the poor and the broken. I was reading Mother Teresa’s just got a book called gift gift for God. I was reading that yesterday. And I feel like a lot of times, it’s um, it’s so easy to Yeah, to just be like, This is what these other people are doing for God. And, you know, does what I’m doing matter and, and how can I when I have these limitations, whether whether it is chronic illness, or whether it is any anything, whether it’s the state of your marriage is just in complete disarray. And you’re like, how am I supposed to serve God when I you know, have all these troubles going on?

37:35

Yeah, hold and things just don’t happen. But you know, I, yeah, I found it. It’s Second Corinthians 812. There the gift is acceptable, according to what one has not according to what one does not have. I love that. But yeah, like you’re saying it’s, there may be a time, okay. Corrie 10, boom, two years in a Nazi concentration camp. She wants said, some days the victory is Justin Dory. And she’s one of most spiritual people I’ve ever met. She’s one of my heroes. And I think you know, there are some days when I think if I can exceed you, if you just got through today, that success, errands all the other days don’t decide, you know, did I do something amazing? Did I fulfill all my whatever it is, like I got through today. Okay, well, you can have this one. Let’s Can you help me tomorrow. And I think another thing is a real attitude of humility. There’s times when we totally screw up. Apologize to your kids, if you need to apologize to your husband, if you need to make it right. And then move forward. Don’t live in it, Don’t wallow in it. You don’t really awful but since you’re open talking about sex, we’ll be we’ll talk about pattern to this room, you flush it. And I I’m a very visual person. And so if I can find something that works for me, you know, when I would do something wrong, I was just leaving it. You know, I’m the failure on such or whatever. This is so bad, and other people are so much better. And you know, you can just start rolling around and around and around in it. And it was kind of like God, would you flush it and move on? It’s like when you go to fashion you don’t care? Like why did that happen? Oh, it’s so good. Leave the bathroom, you know, wash your hands, but move on. Don’t Yeah, it’s the same way with our marriage. You know, it’s like you were saying forgiving your husband too. Forgiving is a way and let’s just not make our lives about what we can’t do or what we did wrong or about all the you know, all the junk. Basically, renewing your mind is forgetting those things that are behind and moving forward and pressing forward somewhere. God can use us in amazing ways. I mean, Johnny, your cantata is another hero. She’s been in a wheelchair for over 40 years. Yes, I love her just her attitude. Now she’s dealing with chronic pain on top of everything else you guys haven’t she had enough? But when he gets to heaven, none of this mess is gonna matter. But think of all the people who bring with her. That’s right, because of all these people who are in pain, and they don’t understand why God won’t fix it. Someday, you can get through the day having loved God, you loves your husband, he loves your kids. You feel like you didn’t do squat. Your house is a wreck, you know, that the baby ran around with a dirty diaper and finger painted all over the wall, whatever. And I’m basically resistant into it. Yeah, he’s okay. God can have that, you know, and God can even use

40:35

it. Mm hmm. Love that. Yep. Yep. Yep. I’m gonna include a video on the show notes by Johnny i, she’s just I think about her. So so often she, yeah, she’s a paraplegic. Or quadriplegic actually. And she. She says, Sometimes I wake up, and she has to wait for people to come and to wash her and clean her and get her ready for the day. And she wakes up and she’s just like, Lord, please take away my rotten attitude. That’s the first and only thing she can say. Because she’s like you said in pain, she can’t move. She has to wait. And I mean, just a huge testimony to us to come before Jesus with that same attitude that conscious change me to be. And that’s what she says, when people ask you can I pray for you for healing? She’s like, yes, pray that I would be healed my rotten disposition. My horrible attitude,

41:29

amen. And I think of her you know, when I want to get discouraged and say it’s not fair, and I’ve got so many troubles, and I think you know what, I can brush my own teeth. And the reason that one really gets me every time I can brush my own teeth on I’m so blessed. I have so much. This is no bad. I can live today with this.

41:50

Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well, you know, we’ve talked about it quite a bit already. But due to the specific marriage you’ve had, what opportunities have you had to serve and get to know God?

42:03

There is a verse in Psalms that I absolutely love. It talks about mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. And as a romantic at heart, that verse has always struck me but when I got married, it got really deep meaning, mercy and truth. It’s like truth is your, here’s the truth. Here’s how you need to live kind of the rebuke aspect of mercy is the here’s the compassion, I understand you, God forgive righteousness and peace the same way. righteousnesses. Here’s the rules, pieces. Here’s, you know, here’s the hope. And my husband and I are like those two sides. I am the compassionate, the understanding the sympathetic, he is the more prophetic, you know, this is the way it should be. This is what is justice, this is what is right. Each of us represent an aspect of God. Each of us represents not God fully, that was an interesting grammatical thing. But hey, we’re on radio, so I can’t edit it. Anyway, my point was, none of us can represent God fully, because God is fully two sides of like everything. And when we come together in a marriage, we can represent God better together than we can on our own. There are times when I would have compassion, when I should be reviewing, there are times when he would want to focus on the rules when he should be emphasizing. When we serve God together, we represent him better. And it’s, it’s been great for ministry, I’ve been so grateful for his input into my writing and into my speaking. I’ll read him things sometimes and say, you know, am I too far on one side? Or too far on the other, you know, and he will come to me, there’s this relationship situation, and I don’t recognize what’s going on. Can you help me understand? And particularly overseas, we were in countries where they were very segregated, according to gender. Muslim countries, for example, you know, a guy is not allowed to talk to a woman have a relationship with her, give her the gospel, whatever. So I was able to reach people that he couldn’t reach, he was able to reach people that I couldn’t reach. And I find even in our ministry now, you know, we focus in those directions, women are better at reaching women and men are better reaching men, because we’re gonna feed each other better. Yeah, together, we can reach couples, or we can reach families. And I just think that’s beautiful. I think the wonderful thing.

44:21

Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that. Each of us represents an aspect of God, though none of us represent all the aspects of God, which is really great. So I love that you shared a couple of the books that you’ve written, I wrote down a couple One is you’re sick, they’re not. And the other one, why doesn’t God fix it? Both of those I would really like to read so thank you for that. But is there another book or program that you would specifically recommend maybe centering around chronic illness and intimacy or, or marriage or that kind of thing?

44:53

For marriage, love and respect hands down? I read so many books on marriage, and that was the only one that I would say Both of us had big lightbulb moments. And I think one of the reasons it was because you know, I find this book and you like me read this together, can we do this together, and you know, he’s tired. And he’s thinking, as we start reading this kind of started discussion, and we’ll never get the bed, you know, often it would cause more problems. So I thought, I’m like, I’m done with reading, you know, just having problems, that you were going to actually teach a marriage course in our church, I got the audio book. And we were on a big long trip. And we listened to the book on audio. And that made all the difference. Because again, we’re shoulder to shoulder, we could stop it and talk. And it was the first one that he felt like, was it tilted over toward women, because most marriage books are read by women. And I mean, I’ve well admitted. And so they’re focused on the love, love, love, love, love. Whereas this one is saying, a guy’s definition of love is respect. And to disrespect me and you can love him all day long. But if you disrespect him, he will not feel loved. And it just opened all this stuff up that I did not understand. You know, I was talking about different cultures, it just was not clear. And I was saying pack the potatoes as the potatoes, Basil potatoes and saying, You’re being so rude. You’re being so rude, you know. And that one was you that one was great. So I would highly recommend getting the audio and next time going on a trip saying, Hey, can we listen to this together? If it even gives me the option of if after a half an hour, you don’t like it? We’ll turn it off. You know, so he doesn’t know I’ve got this five hour thing we’re gonna have to go through, but it’s fine. Wow, somebody finally understands me, somebody, Brian said. He’s finally saying the things I’ve been trying to say for all these years and didn’t know how to say them. And it was like, Oh, my goodness. So that one yes. Huge, awesome. Wonderful.

46:37

Yeah, love and respect is such a huge one. So lastly, if you could go back to your first year of marriage, and sit yourself down, what is one piece of advice that you would give to you? Mm

46:51

hmm. So much of it is the learning and growing aspects, you know, we say if I knew then what I know now, but you can’t, you know, when you need to, you don’t know. And that’s part of the growing process. But I would say if I could tell myself something it would be take his words at face value. Guys, don’t talk around in circles. They are indirect, they don’t hint unless your guy’s more emotionally based. But I needed to learn to believe what he actually said instead of interpreting it as you know, translating it according to my brain. And deciding he really meant this, you know, when he said this, you know, if he said it, this is what he says this is what he meant. Sorry, that would have helped a lot of things. Like, in our first year of marriage, we had quite a few talks, because he thought he liked me better without makeup. And good old southern girl, don’t go to the grocery store without your makeup kind of girl. And I was like that cannot be possible because I knew what I was like without makeup. And I’m all lucky. And I’m just at the other end, whatever. And you know, I’m so pretty. And he was like, I like you better though makeup. And it took a long time for me to actually believe him. And now I hardly ever want to make. And it’s been wonderful to be accepted that way. way that I didn’t even accept myself. I mean, isn’t that beautiful about marriage that they can represent the love of Christ for us? in ways we never expected. They see is that our worst? And they’re the ones who love us more than anyone in the world. What a beautiful gift. That’s really cool. But it took me a while to believe that and learning to believe him has helped me believe God’s word a little better to because I’m seeing it and hearing it in him and learning to believe that you know, or if I say you meant this, and you know it was hurtful. And if he said I did not mean to be hurtful, I need to believe him. I need to just get over myself and believe it. So that’s what I told myself. And I believe myself, so it wouldn’t work.

48:45

Yeah, exactly. That’s right. Very cool. Okay, well, would you go ahead and share how our audience can find and connect with you online? Yeah,

48:54

I have a website, www dot Kimberley re, that’s r ey.com. And I write books. So I’ve got my books on there. And there’s a connect button if you want to drop me a note. And I do have a lot of people with chronic illness, you know, kind of get in touch with me. And just their questions are just as they need somebody in the world to understand them. Yeah, so I would love to hear from you. And I think that’s about it. There is some info on there. And there’s plenty of like on my blog, if you get on the blog and do a search for like chronic illness, a lot of things will show up. And maybe that was you know, maybe find something that’s helpful on there. And I also my big thing is fighting human trafficking. So there’s plenty of stuff on there if you’re interested in that.

49:38

Yes, that is so cool. Yeah, well, I would definitely encourage anyone to go to her website because there’s a lot of really great resources and I really would love to spend some time another time really talking about your mission and the work that you do around human trafficking because I think a lot of us have passions on our hearts and things that really bother us and and really affect us when we hear about them and see about them. But then a lot of us don’t know what to do or, you know, with limitations how to do that. So I’d love you know, if you’re interested, I’d love to have you on again to really talk that through,

50:16

that’d be great. And you know what I’m with the whole chronic illness thing, a lot of time since it was a chronic illness don’t have big budgets. So if you want to drop me a note on the contact button, if you’re listening, and you can let me know, if you’d like either the Why doesn’t God fix it? Or the you’re sick? They’re not. And I’ll send you that in a PDF over the email for free. So drop me a little note and tell me which one you’d like and get that your way. And hopefully, it’ll be a blessing.

50:40

Oh, that is so kind. Very cool. Okay, well, I’ll have that also linked up on the show notes. So either way that you can get to her link and the Contact page, please do that is so cool. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Kimberly, this has been wonderful, all of your insight and wisdom. I appreciate it.

50:57

It’s been great to talk to you. Thanks for having me on here.

51:04

Well, I hope that you were encouraged and inspired the way that I was by Kimberly story and her life and her day to day. And I really encourage you if you’ve not checked out show notes for delight your marriage, this might be a great opportunity to check it out. Because there was a lot that Kimberly referenced in here, there are so many resources, so many verses that would be really helpful to memorize, especially if you’re dealing with chronic illness, and you need some hope, because she just went through a lot of them and they’re all linked up. So go to delight your marriage.com/ 94 just the number 94. And you can find all of that as well as a lot of the people she talked about Corrie 10, boom, Johnny Erickson Tata. There’s a video linked up for her. And there’s just so many amazing giants of the faith that have dealt with chronic challenges. And, you know, God uses them, and he works through them. And I hope that you have got some practical insights about marriage, about chronic illness, about your dedication to Jesus in the midst of the hard, hard, hard times that maybe no one in the world can understand. But the good news is, God does. He sees you he knows. And yeah, that’s my prayer that you would be encouraged. And I pray that You would also consider sharing this episode with someone that might need it, whether they’re going through a hard time, and they need to know that there’s hope, because I think Kimberly shares a lot of hope in this episode. Well, God bless you. I’m praying for you. And I will talk to you next Tuesday. Thanks so much for tuning in. Oh, by the way, I’ve got a really cool announcement that I’ll be making next time, so hopefully you will have the time to tune back in. Alright, God bless you. Bye.

53:00

Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by the show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom impassion