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Hi there! Belah here. Today is Part II of my interview with Jen Ferguson of solideogloriasisterhood.com. This time, Jen tells us how her marriage looks like today, after all the struggles, after all the pain and suffering. She talks about moving on to create a happier life, knowing that there is something good at the end. Jen shares that marriage requires teamwork, and that it should always be the two of you. Also, don’t miss her intimacy tips!

Check out Part I at delightyourmarriage.com/67

Check out my video series How To Spice Up The Bedroom!

Scripture or Quote:

• I want to know Christ–yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Philippians 3:10

You’ll Discover:

• That there is something good in the end
• How we should always be willing to fight for our marriage
• Her intimacy tips and secrets!
• What your primary functions as husband and wife are!
• The central things that have helped Jen and her husband throughout their marriage

Books & Resources Mentioned:

• Pure Eyes, Clean Heart: A Couple’s Journey to Freedom from Pornography by Craig and Jen Ferguson

Tweetables:

• One day the storm is going to stop, and it’s going to be a great day at the beach.
• There’s good at the end, and if you give up too soon, you’re gonna miss the gift, the product of your hard work and God’s intervention.
• God is in there for the long haul. He will be there with us, no matter how hard it gets.
• God totally resurrected our marriage and our lives. That would not have happened, had we not been willing to explore the hard.
• Don’t measure your gifts based on the number of people around you.

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

Love,

Belah

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Transcript

0:02
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.

0:18
Hi, there. This is belah rose. Thank you for joining me, we have the second half of my interview with awesome Jen Ferguson. And before we jump into that, I want to share with you that I’m starting something brand new, it’s actually request from a listener asked me if I had a Facebook group for the dy M community, and I didn’t. So I’ve created one now, and I’d love to have you there. It’s full of women, it’s just wives. And we’re talking about things that matter. We’re talking about our marriage or intimacy or something from the podcast that whoops, there’s my son. So anyway, I would love to have you there all you need to go to his delight your marriage.com/family and and click on the link, and we’d love to have you involved. Okay, so the other thing I’d like to talk about is a review that I received not too long ago. And here it is, it’s an iTunes review. I’ve never listened to a podcast before, but one of my favorite bloggers was interviewed on the delight your marriage podcast. So I thought I’d give it a shot. I am so glad I did. I’ve enjoyed all of the podcasts so far. And I found myself more interested in discussing these topics with my husband, which is a huge plus. I love the vulnerability and honesty. And I think it is so helpful for other couples to know that their struggles are rarely unique. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for sharing that wonderful review with me, I want to tell you that reviews are really important to growing this podcast. So if you like delight your marriage, I just want to thank you to those that have already reviewed, but if you haven’t gone to iTunes, and reviewed us, would you go ahead and take a moment and do that, all you need to do is search, delight your marriage, click on it, then click reviews, then click write a review. And there you are, it would mean so much to me, and it would continue to grow the reach of this podcast, thank you so much for your consideration and doing that. But today, we have the second half of this interview about a porn addiction that Jen found out about and had to deal with and how she’s come out on the other side of that how her marriage has grown and strengthened. And she even gives so many tips in growing in your intimacy with your husband or wife. Okay, let’s listen in we’re about to talk about how Craig and Jen’s marriages now and to be able to see that so can we shift to that, and talk about how your marriage looks like now.

3:02
You know, i i The one thing that I’m really grateful for is how once you can talk about things like porn and, and the the, the depth of death that he had to get through from his past and uncover in order to figure out what the root with, I just I had to figure out what the root of my food addiction was, he had to figure out the root of his point addiction. So the level of intimacy of having to go through this hard road. I mean, that is such a gift, because we could really talk about anything. And and that doesn’t mean that the conversations are always great, you know, we have to wrestle through and we are still two very strong headed, you know, individual people. But coming through something like this, like we’re in it, like no matter what we’re in it, and and so there’s so much like there’s so much peace in that knowing and seeing how God provided and God shepherded even though there was such a gut wrenching, painful time to know that he is sovereign and in control. And so with anything now that comes up, we we can wrestle through it and know that we’re gonna keep wrestling and not given. Yeah, and so that has just been that’s why I tell people keep that life check at home. Because yeah, one day the storm will stop. And, and it’s gonna be, you know, a great day at the beach. You don’t want to miss that. Like there’s good at the end. And if you give up too soon, you can miss the gift. You’re going to miss the product of your of your hard work and God’s intervention.

4:43
That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s so good to hear. And so if you could talk about what you think are the three chief things that has been central to your marital success,

4:54
God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You’re the first to say that I like that. Definitely, I would say, our, our collective relationship with Jesus, like how we approach how we do life through scripture, and we don’t sit down and read the Bible every day together. And that sounds like I’m just to the life that we’ve decided to live based on what God has called us and who God is. And then, and then I would say, our individual relationships with with, with God. And then I would just say, intimacy, and not not just intimacy, intimacy everywhere, in our conversation, it like deep conversations intimacy, when we’re just having fun and playing together, intimacy in the bedroom intimacy when we’re parenting, you know, like, we are a team and we want, especially when our children to recognize that, but as part of anything with a team like you, when you go out and have, you’re on the field, and you’re playing hard. And then you have to have time to rest together. And you have to have time for fun together. And it’s just, all of those components are so crucial. And I would say that just last night, Craig and I went to a concert together and got it. My mom babysat the kids, like if we we have to seize those moments to focus on each other. And we ended up at dinner, having a conversation, like it was a hard conversation, we were wrestling something out, and I told him, I was like, Yo, I know we’re supposed to be having fun, but we don’t have an opportunity to talk about hard things a lot in the chaos of everyday life. Yeah, it’s like, you know, it’s just always making sure that are trying to make sure that you cover as much as you can, all the time. Don’t forget about each what I mean by that is don’t forget about each other. Like your husband is not just the father of your kids. Yeah. And he’s not just the one that goes to work. He is an equal partner in this marriage. And you have to remember that your primary function is to bless each other. And I think we forget that.

7:06
I love that primary function is to bless each other. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so easy to forget that, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. I love something. I think I’m noticing as we’re as we’re talking is, it sounds like you don’t mind doing the hard things you don’t steer clear of, oh, something’s something’s hard. Let me avoid it. It sounds like you are like, okay, let’s dig in. Let’s get this figured out. Yes.

7:29
I I mean, I’m very tenacious and I’m very loyal. And so part of me as much as I was hurt by the porn addiction, I was also mad that Satan was trying to take something away from me. And it was kind of like, No, you cannot have this and I will die fighting for my head. That’s good. No. And so I really appreciate that about about how God made me, it definitely can have a downfall. Like a lot of loyal, tenacious people can be taught me how to be tenacious and loyal with an open hand instead of a closed fist.

8:10
Hmm, and how, and, yeah, explain that a little bit more.

8:13
Um, I think before, I felt like I had to hold on to Craig or I would lose him. And now I can reach out my hand and know that he’ll take it in the sense that like, he’s gonna be there he is there, I can trust that he will be there. And that God has blessed our, our marriage, and so I don’t have to try to hold on to him and keep him from all the bad things. Because that got.

8:39
Gotcha. Yeah, that’s good. And I also, I like how you said, you’re fighting, I’ll die fighting for my marriage. And it’s interesting, because a lot of times, it’s easy to think, well, you know, it’s kind of like fighting against your husband, you know, and instead you’re saying fighting for your marriage? How do you think wives gonna have that mixed up?

9:00
Well, I think whenever any two people come together, and they have that you’re gonna have conflict, and you’re gonna have tension because you’re two different people. But I think that we lose sight that we’re on the same team. You know, like our if we take seriously that our marriages are supposed to be a representation between the relationship of Christ to the church, we have to have a commitment to wrestle things out because we don’t want to show the world who doesn’t know Jesus. Well, I think hard Jesus is out of here. That’s not That’s not what he says. And so it’s our responsibility to show the world that Jesus is in this for the long haul and he will wrestle with us and you know, and, and stay with us and walk with us, no matter how hard it gets or how far we stray.

9:54
That is so good. That is just so so good. That’s what I needed to hear. Thank you.

9:59
And I think it’s powerful. It’s applicable to our kids do you know like, sometimes Craig and I will be having this argument about the kids or whatever. And we have to stop and be like, Wait, we’re on the same team. You know, we’re in Yeah. Gather Not, not as opposing enemies, you know. So I think it’s a good helpful reminder that, you know, in Ephesians, six, it talks about our war is not with flesh and blood, but against the evil black principalities of darkness. Right.

10:29
Right. Right. So it says, all those principalities and all that stuff. Yeah,

10:32
yeah. Yeah. So remembering that Satan is your enemy, not each other. Not God. Not your kid. Not right levers, you know, right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

10:43
Yes. Yeah. And the powerful thing for me is when you said specifically, when things get hard, it’s not like Jesus goes away, he’s walking with us. He’s in there with us, in the trenches in the mess in the, in the hard times, and the stuff where you don’t feel good enough and you, you feel sad, and you feel worthless, and you you feel unconfident and insecure and all these things. He’s with us. He’s with us in that. And I just think that’s beautiful. So okay, well, my next thing is to ask you, if you’re comfortable, would you be willing to share a actual tip about intimacy that you wish someone let you in on it earlier?

11:24
I think that it’s important to explore. Hmm, and I mean, explore in the bed, explore each other’s like real thoughts. Explore hard topic, explore. dreams, explore fears, like, yeah, God created us to be so we are so intricate in our body and how we’re made and how our mind works, and how our spiritual spirituality work that we like, it’s hard to even put in words because it’s so intangible. Like, you know, you meet your spouse, midway through life, whatever. I don’t know, you know, even I was 19. So I didn’t have that much. But you know, there’s so much to happen before we meet each other. Yeah, decades that can be explored, you know, in really, like, What did you dream about when you were a kid? And why? Why did you dream about that? And how is that impacting your life now. And maybe like, a lot of times, there are so many things that we think we want to do, and we’re kids and then we get sucked into the like the way we’re supposed to go in quotes, like the the successful way or whatever. And so they’re, they’re these longings from our little kids hearts, right, that longed to be explored. And maybe they don’t manifest themselves. And the way we thought, but those are, those are little dreams that God puts in our, in our hearts. And I think as marriages, we, if married partners, we have the ability to explore that and to help our spouses fulfill some of these longings and desires and gifts that God has given us. And so if you think about how intricate your spouse is made, and, and you have their hard things about them, and they’re, they’re really good things about them, but it’s all of it is worth being explored because God can redeem and use anything. And so let’s not get trapped, so trapped up by day to day life, that we forget to see the fullness of the person that God made them to be. So, so at the flip side of that, is you be willing to be drawn out to Yeah, being authentic and vulnerable. And maybe you think this dream is really stupid, or you don’t understand why you still have this longing. And it doesn’t seem to make sense, but being willing to share and you know, as in marriages, we create babies or, you know, God creates babies, but you know, that, like, yes, we are we take part in that creation of life as human beings, but I think that there’s also when we talk and have that intimacy, we can create so much more. If we are a team even if we’re not in official quote ministry, like we can birth something really awesome together. But we get so you know, burned out by the day to day living that we forget that. So it just makes it exciting.

14:26
Yeah, yeah, I love that.

14:30
Go ahead. I was just gonna say like, I never when I was 19, like, never thought that I would be a writer, much less. Write a book about porn addiction, right? But like it just to me, like this book was like a birth and it was a creation and it was born out of something that was really hard that Satan tried to tell me with death. And I just see how God totally resurrected our marriage and our lives. And that was Have not happen, have we not been willing to explore the heart?

15:05
Yes, have we not been willing to explore the hard, that’s powerful. So, so tell me, due to this specific marriage that you’ve had, and we’ve talked about a bit, but what opportunities have you had to serve and get to know God,

15:22
definitely through blogging, and I and speaking and leading Bible Studies, and of course, the book, but that I think, the most impactful part of the whole of how God created me and even what how Craig and I do relationship is people find out about the book or about our relationship, or our about our willingness to be authentic and vulnerable. And the one on one relationships that have has been birthed out of that has just been incredible. And even if it’s not a sustained relationship, just knowing that, you know, people pass in and out of our lives all the time, right. And, and so I would say the heart of ministry is getting to know people and and loving them for as long as God has them in their life, in your in your life. And that’s just been the biggest blessing, I think. And then to I Lita, we call it t time, when it’s in the t stands between, but we do have raspberry tea at all of our meetings. And it’s basically a discipleship group for my sixth graders, friends, and they all walk to my house. And my friend, and I lead it together. And we just teach them about having quiet time and about reading the Bible and about why it’s important to adore God and praise God and to confess and everything is just like having this. You know, ministry is not about to teaching 400 women or just about leading a church or singing song, or whatever, like ministry is relational. And so know, even if you feel like you only talk to one person about Jesus, that ministry, and that’s valuable, and you’re radically changing that one person’s life. So wherever God has you, whatever God has you doing, it’s valuable. And it’s important and don’t measure your gifts based on the number of people around you.

17:22
Oh, that’s good. Don’t measure your gifts so that we don’t measure your gifts based on the number of people around you. Yeah, isn’t that true? It’s just so true. Because we don’t see what treasures in heaven are happening while we’re being service oriented. While we’re, you know, giving the cup of water and the, the, you know, meal to the homeless or whatever it is that Jesus says, if you do it in my name, you do it for me, which is amazing, that we have, you know, in our lives, the opportunity to serve Jesus, in our, in our ways, the ways that we do it. So that’s a powerful point. I love that. So you talked a little bit about your book, could you talk a little bit more about it? And how people can get it?

18:05
Oh, sure. So the book is called Pure eyes, clean heart, a couple’s Journey to Freedom from pornography. And basically, the way it’s set up is there’s six parts. And so each part has three parts. And I write the first chapter, Craig writes the second chapter. And then the third chapter, we’ve used secular and scriptural research, to kind of help couples grasp and apply whatever we’ve talked about in the previous two chapters. So we start out telling our story, and then and then we talk in chapter three, we talk about why is pornography really dangerous? And why is it and what I love about that chapter is that it’s not just what God says, XYZ. It is. Well, here’s also the sexual secular research behind it. I mean, there are psychologist and psychiatrist and I mean, people that know everything about the brain, saying, Oh, this is crazy. This is having such a negative impact on our world. So even if you’re not a believer, like this can wreck your life and wreck your job and make your home and wreck your marriage and it’s not fruitful like the God says it’s not fruitful and people who understand the brain are saying it’s not fruitful. Um, yeah. And so and basically it just is a book that walks couples through some of the really hard points of point addiction and allows them to explore what each other think about it and what God thinks about it. So at the end of every third chapter, there’s a discussion question for the couples to ask each other and to think about themselves and and what I how I appreciate how God led us to structure it is that it’s really helpful to read every chapter because if you’re the one who’s been betrayed, you have your own set of assumptions and conclusions and hurts and everything and so yeah, you might really resonate with what you’re saying what I’m saying, you know, cuz I was the one betrayed, but then it’s so helpful to read correct perspective and be like Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think that this could be part of why he’s doing that, you know, and, and so it just is always helpful when especially in an emotionally charged situation to be able to see into another person’s perspective. And when you’re looking at somebody else’s husband and like, Okay, well, he’s been through it, and she’s been through it, then maybe this really is real. And we really do have hope because this person these people made it through. Um, yeah, so it’s not the book is not a cure, only Jesus is a cure. Um, yeah, but it is a source of hope that you can do this with his help. And we made a lot of mistakes, and we still got through it. We didn’t do it for free, and you won’t do it perfectly either. But we weren’t designed to do anything perfectly, because we were designed to need Jesus.

20:53
Amen. That’s powerful. That’s awesome. Well, I would just go out on a limb and say that if you have had pornography affect your marriage, this is worth it. This is worth taking the time the effort, maybe it’ll take a couple of weeks to read. But this is something that could totally transform the way you think about things and also transform your marriage and, and give yourselves that intimacy back. So that’s powerful. Well, can you go Jen, as my last question is, if you could go back to year one of marriage and sit yourself down? What’s one piece of advice that you would give to you

21:28
present to Jesus every day, it taken me, I mean, I, I was saved when I was in sixth grade. But um, just in the past couple of years, have I realized how important scripture is, and the, you know, we can pray and access Jesus or God, at any moment at any time. But sitting down with the word has completely radically changed my life. Because God’s word is power. You think about his book, The world, the world into existence with his word. And in Ephesians, six, it talks about God’s word, being the sword of the Spirit, there are many battles that we have to fight. And if we’re not rooted in the truth of who God says is who God God is and who God does. We are, we are going to spend so much more time floundering. Yeah, and so his word like, you can understand it, and you can read it, and it will might take a long time. But it’s not even just about reading the word. It’s about reading them and asking God to speak to you through them. Because you know, even in the Old Testament, it here the Israelites were wandering around for 40 days, or 40 years. And how does that have any impact on my life? It happened so long ago, but you just think about like, oh, my gosh, I have been wilderness. And I have been wandering and I have been searching and I have been here because I have been disobedient, you know, yeah, me, show me a grace of the way out. And we can just learn so much from the history of the Bible, and the living presence of the Holy Spirit, found in the New Covenant. And it is just rich. And I just don’t think if you had asked me 15 years ago, you know, the three things you would take if you were stranded on a desert island or whatever. And as I was a Christian, I would have said the Bible and then it would have probably, like, wrapped it in the sand. But But no, no, he’s like, a life, his life to me. And when I could not imagine not having it. Cuz even if I’ve memorized scripture, like going back and reading those stories, and just, it’s such a source of comfort and such a source of hope, and a reminder of how good God is and how he does keep his promises.

23:51
Yes, that’s awesome. And it just as a follow up question would how would you suggest someone get started

23:58
with relationship the Bible, I would suggest if you have first getting a translation that’s easy to read, The New Living Translation is really great. And IV the message there’s a newer translation called the voice which is really rich too. So you might even get on Bible gateway comm and pull up John chapter one and read it in a couple of different translations and just see where the Holy Spirit might be leading you. In which translation to choose and then get your Bible and sit down in a quiet space and start in John one. Okay, that and then I would say move to the Gospels and then and maybe the Psalms, but and just go in his reading like that it God’s leading because he has something for you. I think it’s easy to say, Oh, well, I’m gonna sit down and read this. It’s probably not gonna have anything to do with me and dismiss it but God’s word is active and alive. He can speak to you. And he can speak to you through the, the words and he can prompt you with your thought. And so just being open, I think is such a good number one step. Do you know what this book that you’re completely clueless about? And just say, Okay, God, I’m going to trust you that you’re going to lead me through this. And there are tons of Bible study resources out there. But there’s some really precious about just saying, okay, Jesus, it’s me and you, you teach me, you know, and then as that grows in you, you’ll desire to, you know, look up words in Greek maybe, or by Yeah, buy recordings or you know, whatever. But like you start with intimate relationship with Jesus, because that is what’s going to continue to keep you tethered to him and listen to His voice and learning about him in in Philippians 310. And the Amplified Version, it starts with my determined purpose is that I may know him. So if you have no other I mean, your determined purpose is to know him and everything else that he has called you to do come through knowing him. And the only way you’ll know him is by reading the word.

26:08
Yes, that’s good. Yeah, amen. That’s awesome. Well, okay, my last question for you is where can our audience find and connect with you?

26:19
You can find me. I’m going to South Bend for you. There Solidaria Baca sisterhood.com SOLIDOGLO r i a sisterhood. If you just Google Jen Ferguson sisterhood outcome up on Google. And then we also have a blog for the book copyrights clean heart calm, and I have not been guided, it’s just not giving me a ton of time to focus on that. But if you the book is also on Amazon, to your eyes, clean heart. And you can always contact me through through Facebook. And, or Twitter, my Twitter is Jennifer V 2000, je n fer g 2000. And I have had many women reach out and connect with me, just to ask me questions. And I am more than happy to respond. Because I don’t want anyone to feel like I did. So alone and so ashamed of what was happening in my marriage. And shame is only going to keep you tethered to the darkness and more you can expose your situation to the light in telling people that are trusted this, you know, the shame will go away when you bring it to Jesus and expose it to light. And so if you need help navigating that I am more than happy to help.

27:49
That’s awesome. I just love that you are so open with your story and willing to share and it’s just a story that’s so common, but so infrequently told. So I’m really grateful for that, Jen, and thank you for everything that you shared all of your wisdom and insight. I really appreciate. Thank

28:05
you for having me. It’s been a pleasure meeting with you and talking with you.

28:13
Thank you so much for all of your insight, Jen. This is really awesome. And thank you, listener for trekking with us on this. I hope that this has been important and helpful to you and your life and your marriage. And I’m praying for you and may God just continue to bless and grow in intimacy your marriage. Okay, God bless you. I love you and we’ll talk soon. Next Tuesday, in fact, okay, bye bye.

28:40
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 and passion