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Hi there! Belah here. Today, I have with me Shae Bynes, the woman (along with her husband) behind aholythreesome.com. She talks about unconditional love and how a marriage is made of three: you, your husband, and the lover of your souls—God. Shae believes that God should be the center of your marriage and should be part of all aspects of your marriage, especially the bedroom. Shae shares about the difficulties they had in their marriage and how they managed to work through their issues as a team—a team of three. Listen to Shae’s story and be inspired by her refreshing insight and how you, too, could enjoy the holiness of sexual intimacy in marriage.

Join me on my next webinar “Make Him Wild For You: The 5 Secrets To Receive Love & Passion In God’s Plan” delightyourmarriage.com/webinar

Scripture/Quote:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30, MSG

You’ll Discover:

• How communication played a big (and most USEFUL) role in working out issues during the first few years of her marriage
• How she and her husband came up with the idea of writing a book, and a book about a “holy threesome” at that!
• Why we should invite God into our marriages, especially in the bedroom, and how great of an impact it contributes to intimacy
• Why teamwork is vital in every marriage, and how you too can create a team of your own
• Tips and great advice for the wife on how to improve your marriage

Books & Resources Mentioned:

• Ménage à Trois: You, Your Spouse, and the Lover of Your Souls by Phil and Shae Bynes
• The Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur website and podcast
• KDE podcast episode 37: Are You Working by Grace or by Grind?

Tweetables:

• Grace trumps grind, every time.
• When the wife gets bitter, it starts to impact everything.
• We’ve dealt with way more complicated life situations, but the way we manage them as a team—a team of three—that makes the difference.
• The greater your intimacy with the Lord, individually, is the greatest intimacy you’ll have with the Lord, collectively, as a couple.

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

Love,

Belah

—

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Transcript

0:00
to light your marriage episode 37

0:04
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast, the 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.

0:21
Hey there, and welcome. This is belah rose at delight your marriage. And I’m so grateful that you’re joining me today, you may have been a little bit hesitant about the title. But listen in, I’ve got Shea byens on here today. And she is just a fiery woman, you can tell she loves Jesus, and she really serves him in her work. And she’s got some very cool, different businesses that she really pours her heart and soul into. So I want you to know her resources. But also her heart on intimacy and marriage is so cool. And if you’ve been a listener for a while, this probably isn’t going to shock you too much. But if you if this is your first time, I’m going to just let you in that we’re talking about intimacy and marriage being incredibly holy, incredibly good. And even an area that God wants to be speaking to us through and in. So I mean, this is cool stuff, she really has got some great resources that I want to give her the opportunity to explain and expound upon. But the other thing is, the second half of our interview is actually going to come out on Thursday. I don’t want you to miss that because we dive deep into some more of the steamy but so holy, and so important topics. I think she’s got so much to teach us. So let’s dive in. I’ll talk to you on the other side.

1:47
All right. Well, welcome back to let your marriage listener, I’m thrilled that you are with me today. And I have Shea Bynes on the line with me. How are you doing Shay

1:57
doing? Wonderful. Thank you.

2:00
Awesome. Well, I’m just so grateful that you’re here with me. And we’ve had some back and forth for a while now. So I’m so glad that we finally have you on the line? And would you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, your life and a little bit about your family and day to day life?

2:19
Sure. So my name is Shea vines. Personally speaking, I’m a child of a very loving God, I’m a wife to my high school sweetheart, we’ve been together for over 20 years. Since we were 16 years old. I we have two daughters of a seven year old and a 14 year old daughter and a dog. Then, professionally speaking, I do two things primarily first thing, I equip and inspire entrepreneurs to really partner with God and business to impact lives and advance his kingdom on the earth. And I do that through my company, Kingdom driven entrepreneur. And then secondly, along with my Hutz husband, this is actually pretty new started, I guess, last fall that we’ve been ministering to couples are really just experiencing God’s best and their marriage, you know, through greater intimacy with the Lord and with each other. So that’s awesome. been it’s been wonderful. Yes.

3:14
So you have got so many good things to share. I’m really excited. And, and your book also, could you mention that as well? We’re going to talk about it, I’m sure more later, but

3:23
sure. So I’ve got 11 of them. But since we’re talking about your marriage, I only have oh, I’ve got one on marriage. This isn’t what my husband and I wrote last last fall and it’s actually called brace yourself when you felt and the lover of your souls.

3:40
Awesome. Awesome. Okay, well, we are definitely gonna dive into that. Really good stuff. I’m excited. So okay, so your day to day life looks like I mean, a lot of your podcasting, which is a lot of work. Yeah. And do you have other things? I mean,

3:56
yeah, so look like for years. So with Kingdom driven entrepreneur, there’s actually a lot of facets to what we do. So yes, we have a podcast, but we actually we teach the podcast we write we have events, we have an online community, right. So we do a lot of community building aspects and teaching and training as well. And then, as far as, but also, you know, and I coach people, right in business. And so there’s that piece. And so I usually usually use like two days, sometimes two and a half days out of the week, weekdays focused on that. And then, you know, I allocate a day of just personal just stuff that you just got to deal with, right? Oh, that’s good. Yeah, I’ve kind of had to really organize myself in this way. And then and then the other days, you know, a lot with the other two days, I’m either coaching or helping my husband with his massage practice or whatever. So I kind of segmented my days a bit. And that helps keeps me sane. And, and it’s been really good.

4:55
Yes, that’s so interesting that you say that I do something kind of similar. Do I’ll have a theme for each day and I only have those morning hours because my husband goes to work and then I’ve got the kids in the afternoon. So that’s interesting that that’s how you’ve made it work with two daughters. How old are your daughters? Again, another seven

5:12
and 14. So one of them is right. And the other one is in the eighth grade, but she actually goes to school at home. She’s not home school, but she does virtue. Okay. From home.

5:22
So she Oh, to cool. Yeah. Oh, that’s cool. Well, you both are working on the computer, then. That’s interesting. Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, I love that you’re that you gave us a picture of what your Yeah, daily kind of thing. So if anyone’s listening and you’re like, how do I balance a business and life and kids and it just seems absolutely impossible. Well, look, Shay’s doing it in the flesh and check out our podcast because you’re going to get lots of inspiration. And, and God inspiration as well. So that’s very cool. Awesome. Okay. Well, I’d love to ask you a little bit about your husband’s and yours personality, kind of those kind of, yeah. Okay, so we are both

6:03
pretty easy going. I. So we’re both pretty easygoing, people, we rarely. So as long as we’ve been together, we rarely it’s not like we don’t have hot heated long arguments and fights, because we’re both pretty laid back. And so usually what happens with us is, you know, there will be a heated discussion for like, 10 minutes, and then it’s over, you know, Oh, okay. You know, we bounce back, we bounce back pretty quick. And I’m a bit more, my husband, I’d say is a bit more laid back than I am okay. Right. So you know, cuz my background is in engineering, project management program director. So you know, I’ve gotten that personality that’s like, kind of driven, you know, just kind of go, go go. And it really has been the Lord who has helped me to pull back a little bit a little bit more with him instead of being so go, go, go, go, go and hustle, hustle, hustle. So that’s been a work of the Lord over the last four years. And it’s been really great. That’s awesome. Yeah.

7:04
That’s funny. I was just talking to my husband yesterday about he’s the one that makes me relax. He’s the one that helps me to relax. That’s really good to hear that. That’s your dynamic. Cool. Well, could you share it since this is all about marriage all about inspiring wives. What a scripture or quote, that’s really meant a lot to you over the years.

7:21
Wow. So for me, you know, sometimes like you’ll hear a skill, read a scripture in one translation, then you read it in another one, and then it just hits your heart, right? Oh, yeah. Yep. For me of kind of like the scripture of my last few years, really, that I focused on, has been Matthew 1128, and 30. And it’s in the message. So I actually got to read a little bit long. So this in the message, its please Are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me and you’ll recover your life, I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace, I won’t lay anything heavy, or ill fitting on you keep company with me, and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly and that’s Jesus speaking. And so that I mean, I, I this whole idea of the unforced rhythms of grace, walk with me, work with me, watch how I do it. That has been the last few years of my life, and it has completely changed my life and my marriage every aspect of my life. Really?

8:22
Oh, my gosh, I’m, I just got so good. I could. I’ve literally been meditating on that verse for the last three days. Like, Lord, I need help with this. So Shay.

8:36
I’ve been getting like a master’s degree in this over the last three.

8:43
How do you I mean, that just seems so impossible at the same time. Like, I haven’t heard it and not in the Message translation. Thank you for sharing it that way. But I mean, what what does that mean to you in a, in a practical sense, what are some things that God’s been teaching you?

8:57
And so part of it is starting my day, the right way, right? My day with him, starting my day with putting all my, you know, plans and all the things that I’ve got just before him right at his feet, right? I asked him everyday, just like, lead me and guide me through this day helped me to see things the way you see them. And in fact, every time I’ve come into a situation, a difficult situation, I’m like, Lord, help me to see this the way you see it helped me to, you know, help me have your point of view. Right. So it’s one of those things that it’s like, it’s not just how I start the day, but even throughout the day, if I’m starting to feel angst about something, I’m like, Nope, I’m this is not grace. I’m this are not the unforced rhythms of grace. I’m forcing it, I’m forcing it. And I’ll just take a step back. You know, I’ll take a step back, be quiet for a couple minutes, you know, just chill. Driven personality like that. You really have to pull back because you can just get into the hustle, hustle, hustle and I’m telling you grace Trumps ride every time. So it’s just that’s how I that’s how I live. You know? It makes a big difference.

10:09
Oh man, that is just so good. The Grace Trump’s grind thing. I listened to a podcast not even too long ago though. Similar to get like a name like that like Grace over grind. I’m trying to remember Does that ring a bell to your training? Remember we talked about this on

10:24
the kingdom driven entrepreneur podcast. Let me turn that one. But I also know this. The person that we had that conversation with has had that conversation with someone else on another podcast. I can’t remember which one so you could have heard one of two or three different podcasts on the topic.

10:40
Okay, who was what was the name of the person that you had the conversation? Yeah, say the name

10:46
again? Name is Johnson Jr. Yes. Yeah. A friend of mine. Oh, no way. Okay, cool. The host of the kingdom driven entrepreneur podcast till recently.

10:55
Oh, is that right? Oh, wow. Oh, that’s so cool. Thanks for that. Okay, so I’m going to link that up your grace Trump’s grind, that interview show will be in the in the show notes of delight your marriage. So we’ll include that that’s so good. Okay. Well, I want to dive into a story. And this might be very similar to, but a story of a difficult season in your marriage. And the reason we would like to really focus in on some, some struggles and some challenges is, you know, honestly, God does teach us through those experiences. And you know, the gold only the dross only comes to the topping and goes away in the fire. Right? As awful as it is. But in the moment later, we’re like, wow, look, we got Tom. That’s right.

11:37
That’s right. So you want to talk about a struggle in that there’s a struggle that I faced in marriage. So yeah. Okay. I will tell you that the hardest times were early on, and marriage for us. Thankfully, you know, the Lord talks about us going from glory to glory, that’s the way it is. And we’re in a crisis or marriage. That’s how it is. So it should always get better and better. So our our hardest times were in the beginning. And so I remember pretty early on when we finished up college, and got married, right away, and we moved up to Connecticut, and I went up to Connecticut, because that’s where I accept the job. And so he came with me, and he was getting his license as a massage therapist at the time. And so we had to go through a process, you know, he finished school, there’s this process for licensing. And so there’s this period of time that he was unemployed, okay. And that’s not so much the problem. It wasn’t so much the problems that he was unemployed. But what started to happen was, me that driven personality that I’ve got, and how I would handle a situation if I was unemployed, was not the same way that my husband was handled his situation, unemployed. So you can imagine me going off to work, you know, and coming back home after work, and seeing my husband playing video games. I listen, I had no idea he could have been looking at jobs all day. I mean, I had no idea. I had no idea what he was doing all day he could have been doing, you know, anything. But because when I came home, he was like, videos, man. Yeah, like, and there would be just like, there was kind of this trend of, like, when I came home, there wouldn’t be like really evidence of, you know, something productive happening towards employment. Now see, because I didn’t want to sound like a nagging wife. I didn’t want to sound like a nagging wife. So the problem was, is that I didn’t know how to communicate without being agitated about, well, what have you been doing all day? You know, what? Sure what you’ve been up to? I couldn’t even pull that out. You know, right. And that was a problem, because that was a communication breakdown. One on one, right? And so by me not asking, because I was so concerned about being a nag about it. That ended up becoming bitterness, because I didn’t know what was going on. And you know, when the wife gets bitter, and has an attitude that it starts to impact everything. It started to impact your, your desire, a lack of desire in every area. And yeah,

14:20
that’s right. That’s so true. Yeah.

14:22
And so when it got to that point, and I finally it’s like, by the time it came out why I was upset, you know, it wasn’t cute by that time, right? Because usually, you would have had a much better conversation a long time ago. And I take full responsibility for that, because I was not communicating. Right. And so it ended up turning into this big, you know, big thing that it didn’t need to be and he was really hurt, right? Because, you know, it’s like what just talk to me. And so we learned so much. It’s like we went through all of this for what it all right, what and so from that I mean, we that was such a big communication lesson for us, because the truth of the matter was, is that there was things that I actually could have been helping him with. If I had talked to him about actually what was going on during the day, I could have given him helpful ideas. You know, I could have also known what he was doing, as opposed to assuming what he was doing. Yeah, and all the things that we actually could have been a team and what we were at the time for that. And so that I think it’s funny, cuz that was very early on in our marriage. But yet still, here we are, how many years we’ve been married 99 2015. So we’ll be married 16 years this year, 16 years. That was the hardest season of our marriage. So far. Firstly, it will be the hardest one that we have to deal with. But we deal with situations. It’s not like it’s the hardest situation in life we’ve had to deal with. But we have this time for us as a couple and how we dealt with a situation.

15:58
Yeah, yep. And I wanted to just pull out some of the nuggets that you you shared one is, we could have avoided all of this pain and agony on both ends you misunderstanding what he was doing him, then, you know, being pained by your you know, final kind of, I’m guessing it was explosion. That’s what happened to me. Is that what happened? I don’t want to put words in your mouth. But generally,

16:22
the bedroom adding food the whole big. Yeah.

16:25
Yes. And like you said, if that had been addressed earlier now, do you have some guides on like, what I mean, that’s a hard situation when you are making, you know, money throughout the day, you know, your husband lost his job. I mean, that’s really hard. How can if you could have gone back to that moment, what would you have wanted to do differently? Specifically?

16:48
Yeah. So in everything, we’re supposed to be a team, and everything. And so if you’re a team, then you’re going to work through the situation together, which means to me, for us and the way our dynamics work? For us, that would mean, okay, let’s talk about I say, Honey, you know, let’s talk about what it is that, you know, you really desire to do. You know, let’s pray about it. Okay, great. Let’s take a look at what actions we can take, you know, because we can see recognize as my strength and, and organization and planning and all of that. And that’s not his strong suit. And so he would have looked at he would have looked to me for that strong suit, I would have looked to him for it, because he’s there’s so many wonderful, wonderful qualities, right. And we could have taken both the qualities that we’re both strong in and work the situation in prayer and faith together, and then do things now. And so even with, we’ve dealt with way more complicated life situations since then, but the way we manage them as a team, we a team of three, about a team of Yeah, that makes it different.

17:58
Yes, that’s so good. I love that you pulled out specifically, you know, this is not a, you know, a catch all formula in the way of like, you know, well,

18:10
the wife should do this,

18:11
the husband should do this, etc. Or no, it’s not what is God gifted you to do? What is God gives your husband to do right. And as a team together, how can we use both of those strengths and move our team forward? That’s awesome. Exactly. I love that. Well, and I want to dive into I mean, this is probably, you know, we’ll probably be talking a lot about your book. But I mean, what was what was the impetus behind writing this book? And, yeah, let’s start with that. So something kind of weird happened. Okay. Lay it on it. Okay, I’m writing really strange

18:45
happened. And there was a time while we’re in the bed, right? In the middle of sex. It’s God spoke. And it was funny, because it was like, we started getting lessons in the middle of sex, we would get a lesson of some sort, either Phil would hear it, or I would hear it. And it would be hilarious, because then we talk to each other about and it always happened, either during sex or right after sex. It was like he invaded our bedroom. It was the strangest thing. Yeah. And so after that, it happened a couple of times. I don’t know, maybe two or three times later, we got an assignment to do a book when I was just sitting there. And the Lord gave me a title for books that this is a book. It gave me the title. And when he gave me a title Manassa Swat, I’m like, You got to be kidding. First of all, I never used the term, every connotation for the term I’ve ever heard was very negative. And so when I heard that, I’m like, okay, yeah, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Lord, I’m not even sure that was you. I’m not even sure that was you, Lord. So I actually got out of the bed. I went downstairs to go look up what the word meant. And the word actually in French means a household of three. And I smiled when I saw that, and it’s like, a household of three and it’s like, that’s it. He’s like you, your spouse and the lover of your soul. And that’s like, you know what, Lord, that’s actually really, really good. And so, so from there, we knew that we had this assignment to write this book. And so over a series of several months, we just got these lessons. And so we start, we started, like he kept, I kept my Kindle by my nightstand, and he kept his notepad by his nightstand, because we just never knew what was gonna happen. And so we just had all these little nuggets written down, and then eventually what we had ourselves was a book. We were like, we were like, getting on the job training.

20:35
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes.

20:37
Yeah. It’s kind of a weird,

20:38
that’s true. No, no, it’s, uh, well, honestly, I feel like it’s just the worst lie the enemy has sold us as like, you either are sexy, or you’re not or something along those lines, like, you either get it or you don’t. And it’s just so wrong. It’s a process of, I think, you know, God unveiling your husband God unveiling your, you know, sexuality. It’s just, it’s a constant thing. And I feel like I learn every single experience that I have with my, I mean, every single one is just new and different and enjoyable in a different way. And I feel like God’s beauty is revealed in a different way. And, oh, it’s so good. Okay, so when you I mean, when you describe your book, and I haven’t read it on purpose. I told you this today, like, I didn’t want to skip over things that that the audience would actually have questions about, because I’ve already I’m already too familiar. So I want to ask you, like, what if you could tell me what the crux is, you know, the you yourself? The love of your souls? I mean, that seems? Actually if anyone, um, to let your marriage I’ll have the link linked up, but if you look it up on Amazon, the picture is, is a little bit, uh, provoking. Really, it is. Three feet in the bed is what it

21:49
is. Three feet in the bed with a with the suit with a pair of feet in the middle with holes in them. Yeah. And by the way, I didn’t I didn’t come up with that either. Oh, is that right? Yeah, I didn’t. I said, Lord, what are we doing for the cover? He gave me the name of somebody to do the cover. And when I told him, I was so embarrassed to tell them about the title of the book. I was so so embarrassed. And so I told them the cover of the book, and she says, I got it. She told me that when I told her the name of the book, she immediately had a picture in her mind immediately. And then she’s like, Yeah, I know why you sent you. To me. I have an immediate picture in my mind. And then she and she did it. And I looked at it. I’m like, and I just laugh. It’s like, you’ve got to be kidding, Are we seriously writing this book with this title? Cover? But I’ll tell you what, it has been seriously blessing couples. And so I thank God for that. And you know, we’re just getting started, right? It was just last fall. So yeah, it’s good. But the whole premise of the book is about the fact that we should be inviting the Lord into our intimacy in every lyric, and every aspect of intimacy, physical and otherwise, inside of the bedroom and outside of the bedroom. That’s the whole premise beside behind it. And so there’s basically like, eight lessons around how we do that, right? And various aspects of what happens when when we do invite the Lord into our room, cuz that’s cuz I’m like, Listen, he’s like, we talked about this expression making love, but God is love. So how can you make love when God’s not in it? You know what I mean? So it’s like, you know, so that’s what it’s about. And in, in the hole, and kind of the thesis I’d say, it’s that the greater your intimacy with the Lord individually is the greatest intimacy you have with the Lord collectively, you know, as a couple. And so we go, we go in, you know, we go in on some tough stuff, you know, music that we listen to. Big and, you know, we talk about, you know, there’s things that people because people want to share, they don’t want to talk about, they don’t want to talk about sex. And they think, you know, some people think certain things are dirty, and maybe they are dirty for you, but they’re not dirty for someone else. So we, you know, we deal with so many issues that many don’t talk about, and really, and really just encourage conversation, you know, between husband Oh,

24:03
that’s good. Yeah. That’s good. And I feel like I just wrote an article called 10 ways sex teaches us about God. And and it’s funny because I started it kind of in faith, like, God, you’re gonna just show me while I’m writing this, because I don’t really know. Yeah. Well, that that wasn’t something to stretch you and challenge you quite a bit. I mean, again, Shay is just full of this kind of insight and wisdom. So check out her resources, check out her book. I’ll have that linked up. Not second episode is going to be coming out on Thursday. So listen for that.

24:44
Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion.