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Hi there! Belah here. Today, I have with me Julie Sibert of intimacyinmarriage.com. Julie is a wife and mother to 2 boys and is passionate about creating a long-lasting marriage with sexual intimacy as a big part of it. She believes that marriage is to be enjoyed by two “grown ups” who are in love and have the desire for each other. Listen as Julie shares her experiences with her past relationship and how she has come to realize that sexual intimacy, alongside friendship and faith, is a major part of married life and should be nurtured and taken care of. Join in as Julie tells us how she keeps track of “healthy” relationship habits that will surely affect your marriage positively.

Scripture/Quote:

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” -Robert Brault

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

“The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the LORD Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful. Malachi 2:16

You’ll Discover:

• How Julie overcame the pain brought about by her past relationship
• How friendship plays a huge role in any marriage and why it is important to keep that friendship alive
• How it is majorly helpful that you and your husband make it intentional to spend time together
• How it is important that your spouse has no doubts on how you truly feel
• That God is a redemptive god
• How to get over your past and move on to create a more effective and beautiful life without the guilt and insecurities
• How to incorporate healthy habits into your marriage
• How faith is a big part of her married life and how it has been foundational for both her and her husband
• How Julie manages co-parenting and coping with the reminders of her past
• How she treats intimacy as a major ingredient in a successful and happy marriage

Books & Resources Mentioned:

• 
  • Pursuit of Passion: Discovering True Intimacy in Your Marriage by Jeffrey Murphy, Glynis Murphy, Julie Sibert, and Randall Sibert
• J from Hot, Holy, and Humorous episode: delightyourmarriage.com/2 

Tweetables:

• Put more energy into planning the marriage than planning the wedding; the wedding is just one day.
• The extraordinary happens in the ordinary
• Healthy habits are intentional. No one drifts into healthy habits.
• Marriage is a grown-up game. It is not for the drama queens and passive-aggressive.
• We make sure that difficulties don’t isolate us.
• The hard things in life draw us closer together, not push us apart.
• Hormonal birth control can be an assassin to sex drive.
• Marriage is a covenant relationship.
• Your past divorce or your past promiscuity don’t define you. You are defined by who you are in Christ
• I would have never asked for the pain of my divorce, but I wouldn’t trade one lesson I have learned through that.

Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!

Love,

Belah

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Transcript

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to light your marriage episode 27

0:03
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.

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Hey, there, this is belah rose. And thank you for joining me this is to the delight your marriage podcast where I interview wives and intimacy experts on what it takes to have a great marriage and great intimacy in it. So thank you so much for being here today. And I’m really excited actually to share with you that my next webinars coming up may 12, at 8pm, Eastern Standard Time. And remember, it’s totally free. All you have to do is sign up at delight your marriage.com/webinar but I just wanted to read for you just a couple of the comments that I would received just after the webinar. So here’s one Hi, Bella, I wanted you to know, it actually was different for my marriage last night. The biggest impact the webinar and your podcast have had on my marriage at this point is making me understand how important sex is to him and realize that I need to change and can change with God’s help. I think God use the webinars to point out exactly what it was about my past and Overwatch all it has been extremely helpful. So far, thanks so much for sharing. And there were lots of exclamation points in there. And another one, it was kind enough to share. Thank you for supporting intimacy and marriage Bella, we can all learn something even though I’m having my 45th 44th anniversary next month. Well, congratulations to both of you. I’m so grateful that the webinar has had such a positive impact on your lives. And I’ve had some other great comments, I’m not going to share them all. But I really believe this is something that you are not going to want to miss. The title of the webinar is called How to love him most. And we really dive into the Bible because there are so many spicy topics that you would be shocked that are in there. So I would love to have you that’s delight your marriage.com/webinar A quick note, it’s totally anonymous. I won’t be reading anyone’s name aloud. Don’t worry. Also, it’s not recorded. So a couple of people after each webinar have asked me for the recording. And unfortunately, I don’t record them, because I want it to be a very intimate private conversation just between you and I and some other anonymous people that are there. But definitely sign up again. It is May 12 8pm Eastern Standard Time. Okay, great. Well, today’s episode is just wonderful. Julie Seibert is just a powerhouse of really insightful thoughts. And you can tell she’s very intentional about everything she does, as far as I can tell, and especially about her marriage. I love her insights. And I think you are going to too, so definitely listen in and we’ll get started Welcome back, delight your marriage listeners. This is belah rose. And I’m really looking forward to today’s call with Julie Seibert, from intimacy in marriage calm, and she has got a great marriage journey that she’s going to share with us today. Hi, Julie, welcome. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you so much. I’m glad to be here. Absolutely. I think it’s going to be a great conversation. And would you be willing to introduce yourself a little bit to the listeners, a little bit about your family and your day to day life? Okay, great. Well, my name is Julie Seibert. And I do really have a passion about marriage, and in particular sexual intimacy and marriage. But a little bit about myself, I am married, and my husband and I have two sons, one who is 16, and one who is 10. And my older son is actually from my first marriage. And so that’s a little bit about my journey. And my story is I do have a past marriage and have been through divorce. So yeah, and, you know, my day to day life, you know, is a friend of mine said once. You know, I’m just crazy normal. You know, I’m just your average housewife and a person who has her own passions and dreams, and I do kids and they, I strive to be a good wife. And I’m running carpool, and I’m doing all that stuff. So my I don’t have any days that look the same. They’re all different, but my personality is such that I kind of crave that and like that, that every day is different. So yeah, that’s a little bit about me. That’s awesome. Well, I’m very much like you that I like the diversity of things, activities and stuff. So absolutely. thrive on that too. Great. Well, would you tell me a little bit more about your you and your husband and your personalities? Oh, absolutely. We would be kind of a good example of the whole opposites attract, in some regards.

5:05
He’s much more introverted, much more structured. And he does bring a lot of stability to me in that regard. I am much more extroverted, you know, I crave people contact and, you know, never met a coffee shop, I didn’t want to sit in with a friend and that sort of thing. My husband, I think we complement each other very well, as far as the things we really have in common is we both are, you know, really, faith is a really big part of our life. So that’s, that’s a foundational thing for us. We have very similar views on on parenting and on values and core values, that sort of thing. So yeah, we have similar views on finances, and how we do life. And I think that we really enjoy each other’s company. I mean, that’s the thing, I’m always and I’m sure we’ll get into this more. I’m always trying to stress to marriages, and when people reach out to me is, you know, there’s something so powerful about having a good friendship in your marriage. And I just think that has to be nurtured. And so we do, we do, we’re good at that. We take good care of our friendship. And I’m not saying Our marriage is perfect, you know, we all have areas to work on. But for the most part, we definitely have a sense that we have each other’s back, and we have each other’s best interests at heart. Hmm, I love that. And I’m interested, we’re going to move into the rest of my question in a bit. But I wanted to ask you just the similar views and values. Was that something that you both came into marriage with? Or was that something that kind of developed through different different conversation? No, I would say we we came into that we kind of have one of those kind of amazing stories, I had gone through a painful divorce, and my older son was only about two at the time. And it was devastating, you know, my ex husband left me and there was kind of a third party involved, and I had to sell our house and get rid of our dog. And I mean, it was just painful all the way around. Well, in the process of all that I had to find a place to live. And I ended up living in the basement of a house, this retired Christian couple had this basement apartment, and a friend of mine knew this, this family and so I moved in me and my little toddler son, and you know, it was a good place for us to heal. And I remember vividly, you know, saying to God, well, that I just I don’t know, if there would ever be another man for me, you know, because my standards were that it would be someone who obviously shared a Christian faith, someone who would not only love me, but obviously love my child, someone who had similar views as far as being fine, have financially good steward and not living beyond your means that sort of thing. And then also someone because it was a tightly held value of mine that I not have sex before I was married, I would, you know, hold on to that. And so I thought, you know, what are the odds that I’m going to find this man, especially at this point, you know, I was in my early 30s. And, lo and behold, right next door in the house, right next door, was this man who he had never been married, and he was strong Christian, and he had prayed to the Lord, he always wanted to be married. And he had said to the Lord, if you don’t bring me a wife, by the time, I’m 35, I’m going to take that as a sign that I’m supposed to retire early and buy a fishing cabin. Yeah, so that was like his prayer to the Lord. He laid the ultimatum down to the Lord, which, you know, you always you always have to be careful about that. So he turned 35. That March, this was in 2001. And we started dating in June of 2000. So I literally so we always say there must have been a grace period and his little ultimatum he laid down to the Lord, but

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so I always say, you know, I, I we are one of those stories. I did marry the boy next door. And so back to your original question. No, we already had each of us had those foundational things in place. We both had strong faith. We both were committed to financial stewardship, and we we both agreed that we wouldn’t have sex until we were married. So We got we start dating in June of 2001. We were engaged the following summer in 2002. And then we got married in April of 2003. So we’re coming up on 12 years of marriage here pretty soon. So yeah, so that’s our, so we already had some of that foundational stuff in place. So tell me how you and your husband were able to just not not have sex before you got married? Randy? Well, I think that one of the key things was is the for one, we kind of shared that value. So we kind of had that, going into it knowing that, that we wanted to maintain some sexual integrity in that regard. But the other thing from a very practical sense, I mean, because the desire for sex, even if you have that boundary, you know, that desire when you fall in love with someone, I mean, that’s a very strong God given desire. And so it’s not that we didn’t want to, but I think the thing that really helped us is one of us would have would always be strong. So when there were times when I was feeling weak, he was strong for us. And when there were times he was feeling weak, I was strong for us. So and then we were wise about doing our best to not put ourselves in situations where it would be easy to do anything sexual. So we were good about when we were spent, you know, obviously we didn’t live together before we were married. And we were good about our time together being out, you know, like dates and stuff like that. But really, when it comes down to us, I think it was one of us was always strong. When we needed somebody to be strong. And you went through the timeline? That was three years? Well, yeah, cuz we started dating. Well, it was probably closer two years, because we started dating in June of 2001. And then we got engaged in the summer of 2002. And then we got married in April of 2003. So I guess it was just under two years. But I do understand, you know, sometimes people are like critical of people who have short engagements. But I totally understand that it’s like, I always tell people, it’s like, oh, my gosh, the marriage put more energy into the plan in the marriage than planned in the wedding. Because the weddings just one day. And so I understand those kind of short engagements of under six months, because, boy, you get two people in love and the sexual desire is there. Through Oh, that’s so good. And this probably ties in well with maybe if you could share a scripture or a quote that has meant a lot to you. Okay, yeah, I did. Yeah, I did write down and probably lots of your listeners have heard this quote, but it it is a quote that has meant so much to me, it’s by Robert Brault. And it’s the quote, enjoy the little things for one day, you may look back and realize they were the big things. And I have strive to live my life in many regards by that quote, because I think the extraordinary happens in the ordinary. And when we are busy. And we are in a busy season of life, and you’re in a busy season in life, and a lot of your listeners are probably in a busy season in life if you’re raising kids. But I just really think that those little moments really do make a difference. And yeah, that someday you you’re going to look back and you’re going to see the life you built and it’s not going to be built upon the grand big things. It’s gonna be built on on the extraordinary that was in the ordinary. So. So yeah, that’s a quote that that speaks to me. Definitely. I just love that so much. A couple things I want to pull out of that is the life that you built. Yeah. Which is just a brilliant because I think that’s something that has been a foundational piece of my marriage as well as talking about building what are we building every conversation is something we’re building, whether it’s tearing down or building that kind of how you take that as well. Oh, yeah. And I, you know, I don’t want it to sound like it’s, it’s perfect. You know, we have lots of

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love lots of times, you know, we have times when we get off track and but I will say this, I think Randy and I are both attuned enough to realize and to recognize and discern when we are off track. And really what brings us back on track is being intentional about our time together, because let’s face it, and I often say this, and I’ve written about this, and I’ve, you know, tried to counsel people about this Healthy Habits are intentional. No one drifts into healthy habits, whether we’re talking about, you know, exercise plans, or healthy eating or healthy friendships or healthy marriages, you know, no one drifts into the type of habits that are going to build a strong and healthy marriage so that you have to be intentional, you know, and then in the same regard, I’m always aware of the unhealthy habits are usually unintentional, meaning no one stands at the altar and thinks, God, I can’t wait for the day, we only have sex once every six months. You know, no one stands there and says, gosh, I can’t wait for the day when we just don’t hardly even know each other and don’t spend any time together. Well, no, no one, we all begin our marriage with hope and optimism and encouragement and love and belief in in good things to come. But those things don’t just happen. They don’t, you know, we have to be intentional. And if we’re not, we will drift into unhealthy patterns. And at some point, you have to choose what you want your normal to be. And I truly believe that if you are intentional about healthy patterns, whether that’s healthy sexual intimacy, healthy eating healthy time you spend with your spouse, whatever. If you’re intentional about that, that that becomes your normal, it really does. And in the same regard, if you’re not intentional, if you just are hoping those things will happen, but you don’t walk in the direction of health, then unhealthy patterns become your normal. And this is what happens when I hear from couples who haven’t had sex and months or, you know, I recognize right away, well, they that didn’t happen overnight. You know, they drifted into that. And they allowed that to happen, either one of them or both of them. And that now has become their normal. And that’s heartbreaking, in my opinion, but we have to walk in the direction. Well, I love that. Yeah, intentionally walk in that direction. That’s beautiful. And that’s hard. I mean, I will say I don’t, don’t sugarcoat it. I don’t want to make it sound like a fairy tale. Because I’ll be truth be told, there’s times, you know, I’m frustrated with my husband, or I’m disappointed or I’m feel disconnected or whatever. So I don’t want to make it sound easy, because it’s not, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it to draw to walk in the direction of health. Hmm. And I love that this is from not only 12 years of marriage, but also a previous marriage. And so I was married also before my current marriage. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So similar story there. But I know that having lived that life, I can see that yeah, just like you said that the extraordinary is in the ordinary, these tiny little decisions of criticizing or not criticizing or encouraging versus, you know, antagonizing these small things build into a very big, positive thing or a very big negative thing. So interesting, but I want to dive into your story more. Now. You might have shared part of that already with us. But would you tell a story of a very difficult season or struggle in your marriage? Or your life even? Oh, yeah, I mean, my, in our 12 years, gosh, we sure have been through it. Through it all. We were when I was pregnant with our son, you know, our son who’s now 10. Two days before he was born, my husband was laid off from his job of 20 years. You know, so that that was a difficult season for us. He found another job. And then about a year and a half later, I was laid off from my job. And around that time, when I was laid off from my job, he found out that he likely was going to be laid off from his. So he went out proactively and found a different job. And then that job he had to work for to midnight for two years. So you can imagine what that did to our life.

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The so I would say some of those financial and job change challenges have been hard seasons for us. Another hard season for us. We’re still in is we my husband’s an only child and we’ve his mother is elderly and lives on our own, but cannot drive and has various health problems. And so we pretty much take care of her so we have we are that sandwich generation. We are doing kids and we are taking care of an elder Really parent. And that has not always been an easy season for us. So I would say those two things, you know, we’ve had to very be very discerning and diligent about making sure those difficulties don’t isolate us. And I’ve often said to Randy, that I need the hard things of our life to draw us together, not to push us apart. And so we actually are getting pretty good about like, calling it out. You know, like, when we feel distant, or when we feel frustrated. You know, we’ve been doing the elder care thing for upwards of now, six, seven years. So, yeah, that’s, that’s a lot. But I think we’ve just become good at encouraging each other and holding each other up. And you know, that makes a difference. Yeah. Well, I’d like that. You mentioned that. You told Randy, you need the hard things to gather. Yeah, there’s a part. I mean, that, that I think is unique, not only unique phrase and intention, but also, for you to be just very clear on this is what needs to happen. Would you suggest that’s what marriages do that very clear? Well, I need this to help. Not Yeah, I mean, here’s what I often say is that, you know, marriage is a grownup game. It really is. It’s it’s not for the drama, Queens and the passive aggressiveness and the, the selfishness and that, you know, so if I could tell you, I have a couple nieces who are getting married pretty soon. And, of course, it’s hard to tell a young 20 something, it’s hard to tell them. You know, this is what you need to know about marriage is that this is this is serious. And this is a grown up thing you’re doing. But yeah, I just always try to encourage people, you know, I get because I blog about sexual intimacy, I get a lot of emails from people who are like, how do I, you know, how do I get my wife interested in sex, you know, I get emails like that. And I’m often like, you have to be real, you have to be honest about what the lack of intimacy is doing to you, you know, if you are hinting around it, or you’re being passive aggressive, or you’re pouting, or you’re just trying to drop suggestions, or, you know, that’s just, I don’t know, that just doesn’t it at the end of the day, those kind of methods of trying to make our needs known, really are not the most responsible way to do it. And it’s not that when we ask for what we need, that we’re always going to get it, I recognize that, but I’m big on the thing of the our spouse not have any doubt about how we really feel about something. So is it a guarantee things are gonna change? Not necessarily, but at the end of the day? Do you feel comfortable knowing that you made your needs known in a loving yet sometimes firm way? You know, that you weren’t? You didn’t have her around it? Yeah. And I just think that’s really important. And that takes courage. And you know what else it takes? It takes practice. It does. It’s a it’s, it’s a hard thing if people aren’t used to asking for what they need to take early in their marriage, and particularly if they’ve gone years with being passive aggressive or silent treatment, or just hoping that the person will intuitively know what you need. Now, if you’ve gotten yours, well, guess what? That’s become your normal. And you need to figure out a new normal, because that’s not working. And that, that takes courage. i It takes transparency it takes putting yourself out there. And that’s hard. Yes, yes. But it does take practice. I love that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Now, you mentioned that you blog about sexual intimacy. And that’s a huge part of the delight. Your marriage podcast is really talking about intimacy in marriage. And I’m interested what what turned you on to this topic, and why did you want to get started with

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ice choice of words, Bella, that’s beautiful. What turned her on to this topic? Well, I didn’t even notice. Thank you. I mean, let me talk about what turned me on to this topic. Well, in my in all seriousness in my first marriage, you know, sex was just a big struggle for us. And I don’t want to diverge too much, but partly why it was a big struggle. I think now in hindsight, the whole what I know now wish I’d known then, is I was on oral contraceptives, which are, I don’t know hormonal birth control can just be An assassin of sex drive. I mean, it really can take a toll on sex drive. Now, I’m not here to debate. I know in the Christian realm, a lot of people want to debate about if oral, or hormonal, basically hormone or any kind of hormonal contraceptive, if that’s right, or biblical or whatever. But I will say this, in general, and I’m not a doctor, but I know this to be true. In general, what hormonal birth control does is it, it evens out your cycle, it essentially tells your body in a way that you’re pregnant so that you don’t ovulate. Well. ovulation is very tied to sex drive. So I now know that that was a big struggle in my first marriage is that my sex drive really was non existent, even so I think had he and I really addressed that we would have been able to overcome it. And had I researched more. And had he been more proactive about talking to me about how frustrated he was that sort of thing. That wasn’t our only issue in the in my first marriage, but that was a huge one. And so when I came out of my first marriage, and the pain of that divorce, and the devastation, you know, I just vowed to myself that if I did ever get married, again, I just was not going to take this area of sexual intimacy for granted. And I was going to be intentional. And so my husband, I always say that we’re very grateful that I was so determined in that, and he feels the same way. So as I started talking to other women, particularly in the Christian realm, although I hear from women who aren’t Christian, but I started to realize that this whole issue of sexual intimacy and marriage is a huge thing, and a huge struggle for many couples. And so I just, and I’m a writer, by training, you know, I have a journalism degree. And so I just thought, well, maybe I’ll start a blog, you know, just thinking, it wouldn’t really be that big a deal. But I’ll, I’ll reach out, I’ll try to do that. And it didn’t take long before I started hearing from people all over the world, about the struggles with with sex and marriage. And so that really kind of opened the door, and I’ve spoken on it before, and would love to speak on it more and go to conferences, do all that. But that’s my heart. Passion is that area. And I’m not saying that sex is the only thing and marriage are the most important thing. It’s just that’s where my heart is to speak into. And so I’ve enjoyed that. I’ve enjoyed blogging, and then I co wrote a book with another author. And so yeah, that’s that’s my wheelhouse sex, and marriage is my wheelhouse. And the name of that book is pursuit of passion. Yeah, pursuit of passion, Discovering True intimacy in your marriage. And I’ve co wrote that with a couple out of Florida who had followed my blog for a while, and the man had written a marriage mentoring book. And so he and his wife reached out to me, and they said, Hey, we want to write a book about sex, and we want to write it with you. So that’s what we did. And it’s a cool story. It’s a great story. I’ve never even like met this couple face to face even now, you know, all these years later, but great Christian couple who have a heart for married. And so we we wrote this book, and and yeah, I hope it’s blessing people. I think it is, I mean, I I hear from people, and I believe it is. And the good news is, is that there are so many great Christian resources out there, you know, people wouldn’t have to look too far for, for good resources. And I’d love to hear more of those resources in a moment. But Jay from hot, holy and humorous actually recommended your book on her podcast. So yeah, yeah, she loves it. But I wanted to ask you just a little bit more about what you mentioned. So here’s something that I have thought about sometimes now in the marriage ministry, I see a lot of problems in my past marriage and the reasons for the divorce. But is it a little bit challenging for you to kind of think through that, and,

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you know, kind of identify the issues you had and like, how do you kind of move forward from that when you’re like, Well, if we had done X, Y, and Z, it would have turned out differently. But in all seriousness, I’m so glad I didn’t because yeah, I am now you know. Yeah, I do. I mean, I think I’m definitely in the camp of you know, and at one point I did, you know, even after Randy and I were married, I did call up my ex husband and I, the thing is, is we see him a lot because he’s in the same town and we’re co parenting. You know, we have this child together. So we we have quite a bit of contact with him. So this isn’t an ex husband who lives far away and who I never see. I mean, this is somebody who I’m still very close to his parents and his sister and I, you know, we sit together at ball games, all of us, you know, me and my current husband, and you know, my ex husband has remarried and has another child. And so our situation, I think, I resolved very early on that I wouldn’t let the pain of my divorce inhibit my ability to parent with this person. And I’m not saying that’s always been easy. But as far as the difficulties in my past marriage, and how I reconciled that is, I just, I just really kind of surrendered it to God, to be honest, I knew that I could take lessons from that in areas where I was careless with sexual intimacy, just by not nurturing it, and not realizing how important it was to the marriage, I knew that I could make different choices in my current marriage. And, you know, I just was very intentional about that. And truth be told, I like sex a lot. I think I didn’t realize that so much in my first marriage, because I was young, and because, obviously, the challenges with the hormonal contraception and stuff, but I really find a lot of reassurance and connection from that intimacy. And so I just, I just feel like the whole infamous. It’s all been worked for the good, so to speak. That Yeah, it’s fine. It’s okay. Yeah. What would you say to women that have gone through a divorce? I feel like a lot of times in Christian circles, because of the Yeah, infamous Bible verse that says, Yeah, God hates divorce. So how can you encourage women in that area that have gone through that?

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Well, most people have probably heard this God, God does hate divorce, he’s not crazy about divorce. Because if we really just look at the core of it, marriage is a covenant relationship. It’s unlike it was designed by God. And it’s unlike any other relationship. It’s unlike the relationship we have within our families. It’s unlike the relationship we have with our co workers and our friends and our children and so forth. So it’s a covenant relationship. And so, obviously, something designed by God, you know, when that is destroyed, or treated carelessly, or whatever, obviously, you know, that that’s why God hates it. But we know this truth about God to that he’s a redemptive God. He is a God of always longing for us to to have the hard things of our life draw us closer to him. So I just would say to anybody who’s been to through a divorce, or and this is a key thing, too, because it’s a thing in the Christian realm, anybody who’s struggling with their past promiscuity, or their past sexual choices that they they think to themselves would have could have should have, I wish I would have made better choices. Well, here’s the thing. You can make better choices going forward. You know, your your past divorce, or your past promiscuity. Those don’t define you, you are defined by who you are in Christ. And once we realize that, and grasp that and believe that we are able to look honestly with God out our past poor choices, and able to see how those equip us how the lessons from that equip us to make healthier choices going forward. And I’ve often said, and this is the dichotomy of it all, you know, I would have never asked for the pain of my divorce, I would have never asked for that. But I wouldn’t trade one lesson. I have learned through that. I will try one lesson now of what I learned about the depth of God’s love for me about the strength of my friendships, who helped me through that time, and about my ability to build that I still had it in me to build a healthy marriage. You know, I just I wouldn’t trade those lessons. I wouldn’t. Yeah. I love that. And I think that last point, you you hit on of, if you have the ability to to create or to build a healthy marriage, I think that’s often a insecurity of someone who’s had a failed marriage, or like you said, you know, had a lot of promiscuity. Do they even have that capability? What do you think God’s taught you in that area? Well, first of all, I think he’s taught me that, you know, he has good insights. The Lord has good insights on how to build a healthy marriage. He really does. If we dig into his word, then we we see a lot of those things that To equip us to build a healthy relationship. So that’s the first thing I would say. And the other thing he’s kind of opened my eyes to, is the a lot of what makes a marriage strong are learn to skills, they are skills you can learn, and God’s equipped authors and speakers and counselors and so many people to help us learn those skills, you know, we wouldn’t have to look very far, you know, I’m a big fan of counseling, I see a counselor even once a month, because I just see value, and seeking the professional insight set of someone who’s trained and someone who’s removed from the situation, you know, someone who can stand back and listen, and offer just wisdom into that. I mean, I just think it’s invaluable. So I guess that’s what I would say God helped me see is that not only is his word and his heart rich with what we need to build a healthy relationship, but he’s, he’s provided through other people too, and other resources he really has. So as a follow up, just a quick two questions I wanted to ask, when did you start counseling, if you don’t mind? Well, for me, personally, I started the counseling about a year ago. And that was mostly out of my own. Not that wasn’t necessarily compelled by anything going on between Randy and I, that was about my own.

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Trying to reconcile my own passions and desires, and how I, you know, my passions and desires to write more books and to do more speaking and stuff like that, but trying to reconcile that in the stage of life I’m in. So a lot of why I thought it counselor is just because I needed a safe sounding board. And my husband knew, I mean, he knows I go to a counselor, I mean, it’s nothing, there’s no secrets, no hidden. And he’s a good encourager, I mean, he knows it helps me to be able to go process out loud, with, with someone who’s trained and who’s understands kind of some of these dynamics, as I would say, can help you make sense of the crazy making going on inside your head. Yeah, so I just think I know, sadly, and even in the Christian realm, we still kind of have a taboo about counseling, but I just, I think they’re invaluable resources, especially if you can find a good, good one who shares your values and who just you have a good fit with. And I have found that in mine, and I, I and I won’t stop going until maybe the Lord tells me I’m I don’t need to go anymore. But I, I just really appreciate her insights. I love that. And I completely am on board with you with the counseling. I mean, that is just so so helpful. And the cool thing is, well, two things if if someone’s listening and doesn’t know where to find a counselor, the first thing to start is your local church. Absolutely. At Yeah, so and that’s how I found good counselors, is that how you found yours? You know, I found it through she is a Christian and I but I found her through other people I knew of other Christian friends who’ve gone to her and been helped by her and, and that’s another good thing I actually knew of another Christian counselor, and I tried to get into her and she was booked, you know, she said, I was very disappointed because it was someone I knew and already felt safe with. And so I was like, I don’t know, do I really want to go try somebody else? But that was a God thing, because I wouldn’t trade who I’m with now for anything. So yeah, I, I would agree your listeners, encourage them to start with, with their church. And then sometimes, and I’m not saying counselors who are not don’t advertise themselves as Christian counselors, there’s still lots of great counselors out there. I think the key is, is to find somebody who you have a good fit with, you know, you feel like this is I can sit here and I can bare my soul and bare my heart and feel safe. And I think intuitively we kind of know if something’s a good fit. And then also somebody who shares your values. You know, I I’m always keen to point that out when I’m encouraging couples to go to like marriage counseling, because, you know, sad. Sadly, there’s some counselors out there who wouldn’t share the value of fidelity and right now they would recommend things that just wouldn’t, wouldn’t be within God’s plan. So anyway, yeah. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I think one beautiful string through everything you’ve said so far is the intentionality that you take with your marriage and in your Oh, absolutely. seeking out a counselor when there wasn’t even some big red flag going on, you know? Yeah, very good. And I think that someone who’s listening that’s like, well, I just feel maybe twinges of discomfort here and there. That’s still worth it. to go through and, and I also the reason I mentioned about the counseling in the time period, you mentioned some of the struggles that you had with your husband of laying off jobs and here and there. So you’re not a stranger to financial struggle? And no, no, we’re here you are prioritizing something that’s expensive. I feel the same way too, about, you know, when couples and I know, people often say, Well, you need more date nights, you need date nights, that sort of thing. Well, sadly, sometimes people think date nights mean, you have to go out and have a $80 dinner and you have to go to a movie. And, you know, I encourage couples to find ways to, to spend time together that isn’t going to really cost anything, you know, pack a picnic lunch and go someplace. Or if you’re healthy enough, you know, go on a hike someplace at a local like National Park, if there’s trails in your area, find a hobby that you can do together. And, you know, people are quick to kind of Shoo, shoo that stuff off or whatever. But it’s like, well, that’s what it takes. You got to get creative if and as far as the financial thing on counseling, if like, your insurance doesn’t cover anything, well, then here’s the thing, seek out either a resource from your church, if there’s someone you could talk to there. Or I always say a mentor is a good thing. You know, if you’re a Christian woman, and I do think you need to stick with like, if you’re on mentors, you need women mentors for women and men mentors for men, I just think that keeps things kind of aboveboard. But if you’re a Christian woman, and you’re like, Man, I just need another mature Christian woman who’s kind of been further along in the journey, to just listen to me and speak into me, pray about that, and have your eyes open to maybe someone who would be hungry to do that for you. But they, they maybe wouldn’t initiate it. So if you step out and say to an older woman at your church, or somebody you know, in your neighborhood or something and say, Hey, I just need someone who to listen to me and who’s safe and who’s going to keep it in confidence. So there are creative ways to find those safe sounding boards, there really, really are.

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And again, I want to highlight just the productivity of this, you know, finding someone going for it, asking them out. So good. Thank you so much, Julie. Awesome insights and insights that seems just so practical that we can implement right away. Definitely take the time to really sit down and think about how you can love your husband more and better. And while you’re doing that, go ahead and sign up for delight your marriage.com/webinar and I will see you may 12. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And God bless you and I pray that today would be a day that you would invest and be intentional about what God wants for you and your marriage. Okay, I love you and we’ll talk soon. Bye.

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