The Perrys

nice pass even it falls apart well for me I was excited to marry my opposite I felt like I was you know I was in my 20s but I felt like I was in my 30s I've lived a lot of life and been through a lot of things I wanted somebody who was positive and more stable than I was I was kind of Moody and kind of visionary and romantic idealistic and so I wanted somebody with their feet on the ground and positive about life and simple if you will sort of viewed life in a simple way and so I was really excited about those attributes I saw in Cheryl and the ones that I wanted her to be different and I figured I'd just change her yeah I just I just want a home improvement project and my wife would be the project I'd fix her and it would all be good my expectations were that I was married a very godly man I was super excited about living our life together for Jesus and just being happy together I mean I loved him I thought he was great I enjoyed our time together I knew Mark really encouraged me to pursue God more because he enjoyed I mean the improvement side you know I'm like yes I can't have more so I loved what he brought to me as well like wow there's so much more that I wasn't even thinking about and so I was really excited about that when was you guys expectations especially with what Mark was saying like when was that either in when did that come into you affirmation or when was it in conflict and like how long did that take or what that will look like in those formative years of like this we're putting together a marriage and a family a house yeah well for me it was about after the first six months after for six first six months I realized that I couldn't change Cheryl I still tried for years a lot but there was something in me and that actually caused me to think I don't know if I can be in this marriage so I can't get her to be the person I need her to be so I can be happy which of course it sounds very selfish and it was because it was about me is about my happiness but I thought if I can't get her to change in these areas I don't know I don't think I can do this so already in the first year I was I wasn't I don't think I was seriously thinking about divorce but I was thinking huh I don't know if this I was kind of chewing all that mulling all that over and I remember I went to a friend and I said the way I see it I there's three choices I can either stay married and be miserable or I can or somehow things can get better which I don't know how they can or we need to get a divorce and he said mark knowing you there's no election only two choices you can't believe things can't be the way they are because you're not that kind of guy you won't leave things the way they are you either things need to get better or you need to be done and you can't be done so this thing needs to get better so that's that gauntlet was laid down in your one good friend yeah and so that that sort of got me on a whole different way of thinking and I probably spent that's probably when I became a personal house of prayer yes I spent thousands of hours walking praying seeking God just Dave morning noon and night just saying God how do I do how did I do this thing called marriage and be happy with somebody that is amazing but isn't everything I want her to be right now and how do I do i what do I do with that because I had always approached life like I could it could be fixed it could be changed and now all of a sudden I'm like this isn't working because it's hurting the person that I love and but I'm not having all my needs met so what do I do with all this so that was a very that was a very important difficult time I was in I was kind of thrown I was like what I sort of didn't realize it was that big of a deal I'm like okay we're just newly married yeah the first first year of marriage is there some bumps and there were definitely quite a few bumps and so I was just so I was confused and like wait what am what what's happened oh oh you're not happy I just I really genuinely did not understand really the because it was pain for him I didn't really understand that it was that painful because I was like wow I'm in love with you I think you're great what what's wrong and so it was hard for me it was it caused me a lot of pain and like wow what's wrong with me and am I not good enough you know so I had to kind of work through those issues for me I just really focused in on just the reality that I didn't ever have to like work for God's love like that's what got me through it's like Lord I know mark is wanting me to change and I know there are areas that I need to change in some things I think he may be crazy on which is normal but I knew that I had to get my love like from the father and I really did I went to go out in prayer like God you have to help me because I can't change fast enough and I don't even know if I necessarily need to change in some of the areas that marks asking me to so I needed that connection with him or I would have just gone crazy and so I feel like I shifted my expectations from I cannot meet all of marks needs but Lord you can meet my needs right now and so that was that's how I coped with it it was very hard and very painful because it just comes against you as a person you know it's like well what's wrong with me but you know now we've been married almost 28 years and just looking back you know that was a very difficult time when I got pregnant with Audrey God really spoke to my heart and he said she is gonna be a sign of where you've come from it's like looking at your daughter will show you the growth and the change and now you know she's 25 years old and she is serving God with her whole heart a missionary just loves Jesus and it just it is a sign of what if you don't quit look at all the good that can come I realized that mark was going through a lot and trying to process out loud a lot and sometimes his language was not right and very painful but rather than attacking the language that he was using I just tried and we do still do this tried to hear behind what he was saying and so we really committed to doing that and and even in our leading together we do that too I think learning to lead and it depends how you see marriage like a lot of leaders see and this gets into some theology but a lot of leaders see you know the husband's the head of the wife which is what the Bible says but for them that means that they make the decisions so that becomes a problem because then you have a voiceless wife basically and so somehow we have to have to be two powerful people that empower one another without being diminished ourselves so so one of the speed bumps and leading together and being strong people in a marriage together is to make room for each other to be strong and for us that's meant a lot of things I mean not only validating each other's reality but you know not using all-or-nothing language there's so many ways that we can help each other be leaders so all are noting language of course is you know you always you never and it's it's a conversation stopper and it invalidates growth and it basically says all the progress you've made all the things you've done that are that are good and right I've refused to acknowledge those and so it sets a marriage back we're not perfect at it but we're a lot better and that's that's a constant theme in most marriages I think I think too recognizing that there are passages in marriage that's a really helpful thing like when you're you know kids are babies infants and how that is and then you know five years down the road it changes a bit and then they're in school and you know so recognizing those kind of milestone passages was really helpful for us and when there's a big passage in your marriage you have to renegotiate so it's not everything doesn't always it's not all the same for 50 years you know it's a renegotiating okay well what does that mean and what's that look like and I might have more time here I might have less time here and how does that work with us and to be honest that happened because I read a book called passages yeah years ago so I recommend that for every couple it really helps yeah and it really explains things it's just gives language to what you're feeling but you don't know why you're feeling that way when Marc got hired on staff at the church that he was on staff for a year and then they sent us out to plant a church so then we became a senior leader so for a year he was on staff and the person the pastor's wife came to me one of the pastors wives because there were several it was like five of pastors wives so now I was in the pastor's wife club and so this one younger mom same age as me came up to me and she's like welcome to the life with no husband and I was all wow I mean that's what she said and she was really serious and so I was like wow that's sad you know and that sort of set my expectation but I didn't feel right about that and so because we talked a lot about things we kind of talked about that and then I think for several years even I recognized that while the church ministry can become a real mistress to mark because he is finding needs met there he's working a ton you know and so when I recognized that I actually had to forgive I mean this is real life I had to forgive the church for taking part of my husband that I wasn't willing to give but I had I did give and so I think for me personally that was where in the early years of our marriage and ministry just recognizing I can't be angry at people I can't be angry at the church I love the church and so having a healthy view of the church was really good for us because the lifesaver because a lot of women become they resent the church they resent the the people but we have always like embraced and we you know we've had so many people live with us our kids grew up in the church you know it's just well I'd like to speak to them yeah I think one of the keys for me is the balance is running from rest that's Heidi's phrase but running from rest means two things to me one it means that you have to rest and your family has to be before ministry and you have to have a date night and you have to have it I don't think you have to have a date night like per se not a legalistic thing but there has to be time set aside right but I also think that a lot of families take that and then they become sort of louf in ministry and lazy in ministry and I don't think that's the answer because I think that produces more lukewarm Christianity which we don't need but the answer isn't to burnout either so we do need to guard time and have margins on the white paste space on the page but the other thing is that we have to go hard I find that sometimes we're not doing well like we're stressing and we're not we're upset at people we need to love more so it's a little counterintuitive I'm not saying give 24/7 to ministry per se but I'm saying sometimes we're just yeah we're not we're not doing well anywhere our family's not doing well and ministry is not doing well and so the natural knee-jerk reaction is to pull back for ministry and and and that needs to happen in a way but also we need to go love people even better and go lower because I find that over the years and we've done that when we've laid our lives down even more we found freedom and then that helps our marriage it helps our hearts because if you're not happy inside and you're and you think that by pulling back you're going to be happier you keep pulling back actually become a self-absorbed person and so ministry becomes an assay scapegoat for being selfish and you can't because you've got a calling on your life you cannot check out from your calling you can check out from a ministry appointment you can't leave your calling because your calling is 24/7 now it doesn't mean you have to be on call 24/7 but it does mean that you're called 24/7 so there can't be a time where you just say I'm just gonna get drunk and I'm not going to care about people you can't do that because you're always called and so I think running from rests for me has been this it's been our salvation because we sometimes the answer is when let's you know like jesus said to his disciples let's go away and rest a while other times and and what happened right then people showed up right when he was ready to rest and what does it say he felt compassion and he went lower still and he served him even harder when he wanted to rest John the Baptist just got beheaded he needed some emotional space but he didn't get bitter he didn't say tell those guys get here this is my family time he just he just gave himself and probably came up with some other rest time later so I don't think he neglected his rest but I think he just went hard after loving people which is different than going hard after ministry ministry can become this entity which includes you know corporation and website but but if it's people and it's like how can you stop loving people you got to love people and you got to love people better as the years go on so you never stop loving people you love people even more when I find that we've tried to pull back in the name of family you know cuz God never called us to have a focus on the family called us to have a family with a focus and so we are a family with a focus and we're we want to be on fire for him we don't want family to put out our fire we want family to be solid so that the fire can grow and ministry is not even the issue it's just loving God and loving people you know your spouse is always asking you am i first that's the big question each of the people in the marriage want to know am i first especially in ministry yeah and you know for years well I wouldn't say for years I'd say there were periods in over the years where Cheryl was not first I don't want to say that I feel bad saying that I wish that wasn't true I wish I didn't have that you know be true of my life but there were times where she wasn't first but when I got a hold of that question I said okay Cheryl's asking am i first and can I give an honest answer can I say that you're first you know can I look at you and say you're first you know I can look at you now and say you're first and I think you can look at me and say I know that I'm four can you say absolutely yeah but there were times where she couldn't say that and that's when a marriage is in trouble it doesn't matter how much time you have it doesn't matter what the schedule is doesn't matter how busy you are if she doesn't feel first we're not busy or not busy you could be you could be laying at home and have her I could I could be home every night of the week and she's still not first so it's not about amount not saying doesn't relate to time time is important yeah but if my wife knows that she's first she has a lot more grace for me what during those busy times and I don't try to take it I don't milk them I don't try to take advantage of them because I'm not she's first I'm not trying to do anything you know it just happens to be and we both recognize the demand and that's why two people who are both busy can have a fantastic marriage yeah because they've decided your first no matter what that crazy party is out of we've interviewed so many people now and I think the Perry's just had so many ridiculous tools it was like I was really surprised I think what I was really taken by is they mentioned seasons and how like your marriage goes into seasons and although I understand that reality I've never really put that consciously I do that with the kids like with the kids now after you have a few of them you start realizing like oh the time you have your third you realize like what this is a season it's not gonna last forever which you know I never related to marriage though and now I like we've gone through a few seasons we're in this we're just entering the season of like oh what's it like to have kids in school all day that actually changes our marriage yeah because you actually have time to talk right ink frees me up in a new way and so I feel like that is a great time to reevaluate on top of that it's like once you start having time to communicate I think he also mentioned a couple really awesome tools like the the thing about words know like what did he call them they were words that were like not all or nothing kind of words that were just basically you're not able to just say all or nothing it's not a black and white and I think when he even mentioned that about you might because I sort of actually I wasn't gonna say it that way but you're more than welcome to bring it up for yourself I just feel like I I get that like I'm like oh man that makes a lot of sense because it really does it's a way of shutting down a conversation without being able to go out you can't take any farther because it's all this or all that I think they were just I don't think they were brilliant I think God that we really got to interview them because I think some of the tools there were invaluable some of the books they mentioned I think like they were perfect for us to be able to interview right now you love is the best fire

Channel: Jake Hamilton

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Id: rNRS5ujxaMk

Length: 18min 1sec (1081 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 08 2014