• Recommended resource:
  • thenewsisgood.com

Ryan: Friendship, in my view, isn’t truly tested until you’ve had something to work through, and that’s where your loyalty is put to the test. Are you willing to stay in the ring with this person because you’re committed to them, you’re not committed to the similar ideas that you hold, and they happen to be?

Selena: I think, without having any pride, I’ve learned to value hard work, I think, from a young age.

Ryan: I’ll vouch for that; you are a hard worker.

Selena: I learned not to complain, I learned that you do the job, and you do it well, and you do it unto the glory of God. That has been one thing I’ve wanted to just instill in my girls as well, that just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s bad, just because you don’t want to do it doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

Ryan: I often feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. But I’ll just say a fun one that comes to mind. Climbing Mount Rainier after having heart surgery, it was a number of years later, when I had heart surgery, I couldn’t even go up three stairs. One of the second-highest peaks in the contiguous United States. Felt like a pretty good accomplishment.

Selena: They may step on a belief, or they may hold weight in a belief, and we have that same level, but I would press in more, and I would value a little bit more, or a little bit more definitively.

[00:01:04]

Ryan: Last week we tackled a very, I don’t know, new thing for us, meaning that we didn’t have this all planned out. Instead, we’re going through a series of questions that, according to the scientists, the guys in the lab coats with clipboards and glasses, they’re doing studies on this sort of thing. And they came up with these questions. The thesis is, or the theory is, that if you ask and answer these questions, they will make you fall in love with somebody.

Selena: It’s like a 90% probability.

Ryan: Right. You know, I can’t speak to that. I’ve not read the study. I’m going off of something somebody told me online, so.

Selena: It’s a great start.

Ryan: But you know, the internet doesn’t lie, so we can just keep going from there. No. The first 14 of these questions I thought were very fun, insightful. They tell us something about the nature of communication. They tell us something about the nature of asking insightful questions. I think more than anything, they tell us something about the grace of God and the ability to use ideas and words to communicate who you are to somebody.

Selena: Well, and what you value.

Ryan: And what you value. So we’re going to continue what we started last week. We started with 14 questions. We’ll do the last 14 questions here. And our hope is that it will be fun, that you can grab a couple of questions to take home and ask your husband or ask your wife, and that this would ultimately rekindle something in your marriage that maybe you feel like might have been lost.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: So we’re going to do that on the other side.

[00:02:34]

Ryan: All right, friends. Greetings and hello. Again, my name is Ryan. This is my lovely wife, Selena. We are the Fredericks. It’s our honor, our joy to be here with you doing the Fierce Marriage podcast. We trust that as the Lord leads… You know, there’s nothing new under the sun. We’ve talked about marriage for 420-plus episodes now, and we’re not unearthing anything new.

But what we are doing is reminding couples who will show up week in, week out, that God is Lord even over marriage, even over the struggles, even over the successes, over the victories, and marriage, the whole point of it is to glorify Christ. So we pray that this marriage podcast would help you to that end.

As we said in the intro, what are we doing?

Selena: We are going through a series of questions that we were told on the super honest, never make mistakes, never embellish anything internet, told us that if we ask these magical marital questions that we’re going to be married. No. That if you were a single person, ask a perfect stranger these series of questions, there’s like a 90% probability that you guys would end up getting married or being in a relationship.

Ryan: I will say, after the first 14, when we started it, I was married to you, but after the first 14, I’m married to you even harder.

Selena: Here we go, friends. Buckle up. Buckle up.

Ryan: So if you missed that episode, go back, listen to that.

Selena: It was a fun one.

Ryan: Listen to this one.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: All right, same thing. I’ll ask a question, we both respond, and then you ask the question. All right, so we’re starting off with number 15 and we’re going up to 28.

Number 15, what is the greatest accomplishment of your life beside marrying me?

Selena: Having our four children.

Ryan: Touche.

Selena: Yeah. It’s pretty telling. If you were a single person, I mean, that’s a very telling question.

Ryan: So let’s take the marriage and kids out of it, because I would say my greatest accomplishment was getting you, like truly.

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: Because that was the linchpin to having a good life was having a good wife. And here I’ve got one. And thank you for that.

Selena: Well, same. Same.

Ryan: So let’s take marriage and kids out of it.

Selena: Okay.

Ryan: What’s your greatest accomplishment? Mothering.

Selena: Being a wife. Mothering. Is that different?

Ryan: Those are out of it. By all means, those are legitimate answers. I think I would wholeheartedly endorse those. But I’m just curious. I’m curious what you would say. Can’t even say we publish books because they’re marriage books. They don’t count.

Selena: I think without having any pride, just saying that I’ve learned to value hard work, I think from a young age. Like working hard.

Ryan: I’ll vouch for that. You are a hard worker.

Selena: I learned not to complain. I learned that you do the job and you do it well. And you do it unto the glory of God. I think, you know, obviously that can go way off the deep end. The Lord has calibrated me in that. But I think that has been one thing I wanted to just instill in my girls as well. That just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s bad. Just because, you know, you don’t want to do it doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. There’s some things that can be gleaned from that. What about you?

Ryan: Greatest accomplishment. I often feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. But I’ll say a fun one that comes to mind. Climbing Mount Rainier after having heart surgery. Like it was a number of years later.

Selena: Yeah, that’s a big accomplishment.

Ryan: When I had heart surgery, I couldn’t even go up three stairs. And so summiting one of the second-highest peak in the contiguous United States felt like a pretty good accomplishment. But yeah, it’s not like the impossible thing. It’s not like Everest or anything like that. But yeah.

So let’s go to the next one.

Selena: Okay.

Ryan: That’s number?

Selena: Number 16, right?

Ryan: Okay.

Selena: Ooh, this is a good one. What do you value most in a friendship?

Ryan: Oh, loyalty. A friendship, in my view, isn’t truly tested until you’ve had something to work through.

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: That’s where your loyalty is put to the test. Are you willing to stay in the ring with this person? Because you’re committed to them. You’re not committed to the similar ideas that you hold, and they happen to be… Now, I think those similar ideas — we’ve talked about this in friendship episode — they will bring you the friends you need, the right friends, because you’re looking at the same horizon. It’s your affections, loyalty toward one another that will keep you traveling side by side on that path.

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: What would you say?

Selena: I mean, I thought loyalty default instantly. But also, I think I value friends that are different than me, right? That don’t always… That’s hard because maybe I value the opinions and thoughts of people. They may step on a belief, or they may hold weight in a belief, and we have that same level, but I would press in more. And I would value a little bit more or a little bit more definitively something. I don’t know. I dare I open this can of worms.

But I have feelings and emotions, okay? Feelings and emotions. There’s this whole narrative of don’t let your feelings reign. But then there’s the whole humanistic point that’s like feelings… how do you feel about stuff? There’s these two different directions.

Ryan: Well, and the Lord’s given us emotions.

Selena: He’s given us emotions and feelings as…

Ryan: They aren’t to be discarded.

Selena: No. I think they’re indicators.

Ryan: They need to be submitted to the Lord.

Selena: They need to be submitted to… yes. But there’s conversations around me with different friends. They have different feelings about feelings and how they should be explained, how you should allow them to govern or not govern. And so I value submitting those feelings to the Lord, the Lordship of Christ.

I would hope that I wouldn’t… What did we talk about? What is that text that I sent you? That my emotions would not cause me to be stiff-necked towards something the Lord has called me to be obedient to, right?

Ryan: It sounds like a podcast episode waiting to happen.

Selena: Well, there you go. So I value the contrast in those friendships if they value different things, because I don’t know, it just feels like… It seems like the truth becomes more clear to me when we have conversations like that. And so in that way, that kind of backwards way, I think that… But there’s a loyalty that is underlining all of that. Like we both believe in Christ, but we may view some of the doctrines or, you know…

Ryan: Yeah. I mean, some of the guys that I cherish most as friends, I would staunchly disagree with on important things. It doesn’t mean we’re no longer friends. But that’s where the loyalty comes in, where you’re a sparring partner. You can get into the ring. You might come out with a bloody nose, but like…

Selena: But you’re still having dinner together at the end of the night and giving a hug. Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah. And I think that’s a sign of maturity. And that’s how you get ideas to their nth degree, to actually get, you know, to still them down. So very good.

All right, next one. What is your most treasured memory? What’s your most treasured memory?

Selena: Aside from children being born on our wedding day?

Ryan: I’m going to say like the doors opening in the back of the church and seeing you for the first time in your dress. Unbelievable. It’s like seared into my brain.

Selena: That’s like the first time I saw you cry.

Ryan: I didn’t cry.

Selena: You cried.

Ryan: My eyes were leaking.

Selena: No, you cried for sure.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Stunning. Just stunning. And the song. What got me about that moment was not just the life that we had lived at that point and we had, you know, courted each other, I’d courted you, gotten your hand in marriage, was taking you as my wife, but everything that that meant for our life into the future. It really did feel like the sky was the limit, you know? And some of that was just like…

Selena: Being young and…

Ryan: Young optimism, right? And young like naivete. That being said, man, God has not failed to deliver. Life has been pretty phenomenal. Only by His grace. So what would you say?

Selena: Treasured memory. I feel like I just always miss the mark on these kinds of questions. I don’t know. I feel like the memories that we make today that you seeing you with the girls is so redemptive and it’s so sweet, and your devotion to them and your desire to kind of meet them where they’re at and to have fun with them. That’s really sweet.

Ryan: You mean redemptive in terms of your childhood? Yeah.

Selena: Next question.

Ryan: I’ll try.

Selena: What’s your most terrible memory?

Ryan: Well, that’s the next one, isn’t it?

Selena: This right here. What’s your most terrible memory?

Ryan: Yeah. I’ll tell you what. Having four daughters has definitely made me more leaky than I was in the past.

Selena: Terrible. Oh my goodness.

Ryan: So going into heart surgery.

Selena: Oh, yeah.

Ryan: I’m sure I could think of some others, but that’s when it comes to mind, not knowing if I would wake up. So having written… this is getting more emotional. Having written last letters to you, to my dad, to my brother, and some of our viewers, listeners might know, but John.

Selena: Oh, yeah, you did.

Ryan: I wrote a letter to John.

Selena: Did you ever give it to him?

Ryan: No, I didn’t die.

Selena: Duh.

Ryan: I think I have them somewhere. Lovell. He’s just always been such a brother to me. And at the time, because we were… This is getting into the details, but so Warrior Poet Society, long-term friends. John and Becca are dear, dear friends. But this gives you some texture into that.

So we were over in Switzerland. I had gotten sick. I had to go and get heart surgery. Our church community rallied around us. John was in proximity to that. We needed money to get back because we had no money and we had no way to get back, and we had no way to earn a living, and all these medical bills mounting, no idea how that’s going to pan out. Well, John sent us 1,000 bucks.

Selena: Goodness.

Ryan: And he didn’t have a lot of money. He was-

Selena: Just out of the military.

Ryan: Just out of the military. He was in college at the time. Because he did the GI Bill. So anyway, that was pretty profound. I’ll say this. That’s a terrible memory that has shaped my entire life. Because when you’re on the precipice like that, you’re staring into the crevasse that this could be it. It makes you calibrate things differently.

Now, you start to see yourself as a lot more finite, a lot more mortal. Life is a lot more fragile. It’s a lot shorter. Psalm 90:12, Lord, teach us a number of days that I might gain a heart of wisdom. At that point I had numbered my days. Like maybe one. And so I’d like to think that that terrible moment has somehow taught me something about wisdom. Now, the downside is I always feel everything’s urgent all the time.

Selena: Oh yes. I live this. We calibrate each other though. I don’t want to talk about these. Can we go just…

Ryan: No, this is a podcast. So it’s more personal. We don’t want to pass. This is not like you and I-

Selena: Yeah. I mean, it’s just my parents. When they got divorced. Because you’re told it’s okay and you’ll be okay. And then you believe you’re okay. And you are. God’s good. He fills in the gaps with people and all that. But yeah, I think that again, it’s something that has shaped me on many levels and I’m grateful. I don’t hate my dad. I love him. We’ve reconciled. Unfortunately, I do think he bears a lot of it, the shame and guilt.

But again, God used it to be glorified in it. Now we have this marriage, right? And… your turn. I think I’ve cried on like two episodes ever. This is the second one.

Ryan: That was like four years ago.

Selena: I wasn’t even ready for this. Okay. I should have read these questions.

Ryan: That was part of it. God’s grace is so evident. I often reflect on His redemption, and that’s a really clear aspect of His renewing gospel, bringing life where the soil was not optimal for bringing life. He doesn’t always operate in terms that make sense until we see how He does it or after the fact.

Selena: And I always knew. I mean, by His grace, my mom took us to a church. I felt like I always knew that God was good, even in the middle of it. I never got angry with God. We were taught He loves you and He’ll take care of you. And that was just so like, all those Sunday school teachers that did the felt boards and everything, it’s like that spoke to little me, you know?

Ryan: Praise God. I’ll give you a break. I love you. As I’m seeing you again, this is-

Selena: I don’t like sharing my feelings with people.

Ryan: Well, that’s what these questions are about.

Selena: I know.

Ryan: That’s what I’m trying to… it’s really awkward because we’re trying to be instructive here on the podcast, but also like… I’m telling you the part of the instructiveness here is as a questions and I’m saying, Oh yeah, that’s part of my wife’s history. I need to be sensitive to that. I need to be like, I need to be extra careful given that in certain areas of our lives. It’s not like I forgot, but it’s just like…

Selena: I know.

Ryan: You forget just how sensitive some of this stuff can be. Now the Lord’s brought healing. So we’re not here wallowing in it, but it’s a sense that like, okay, this is genuinely a terrible thing, but why are we crying? Well, it’s not because God didn’t somehow redeem it. It’s because He’s been so glorious in His redemption of it. And to Christ be the glory forever and ever.

All right. Next one I’ll ask. If you knew that in one year you would die so great-

Selena: Suddenly. Would you change anything about the way you are now living and why? I don’t think so.

Ryan: Spoiler alert. I think I’m going to die suddenly all the time.

Selena: Yeah. I live to the fullest every second.

Ryan: You know, I would probably… So if I had to put everything down, I could probably forget my schedule pretty quick. I would start to create some serious memories and then I would start writing like my life dependent on it. I’ve got some stories I really want to leave behind for the girls. You know what I’m talking about?

Selena: I know what you’re talking about.

Ryan: We were just talking about this morning and working on them. But I’ve also got some… you know, I’d write letters for our daughters, you know, for when you start dating a guy, or scratch that, when that guy starts courting you, because dating will be part of that letter. You don’t date, you court. When you start heading toward marriage on that wedding day, like also maybe other milestones, like when you have your first child, I would start writing letters to our girls. I’d probably get that done in like half a day. I’m kidding. It’d take me a few weeks. But I’d start writing a whole lot and I’d start planning for some fun memories and trips. A lot of fun.

Selena: I mean, I would outsource everything so that I could just be with my kids. But at the same time, it’s like cooking and making meals with them is such a gift, right? And cleaning the house teaches them responsibility. There’s things that I wouldn’t change because I just would want things to be… I want to see and remember the glory in the normal, you know, and not try to change it too much with big, big things. I don’t know.

Ryan: You are such a good woman.

Selena: I’m just grateful though, like…

Ryan: I mean, you’re a good wife, a good mother, a good woman. I’m very thankful for you.

Selena: I would read more. I got stacks of books I keep buying and I need to read them. I would read more and somehow I would have my children right here with me and they would not fight me to sit with me because we would read.

Ryan: I have some books that I’ve bought and read as part of my studies, but they’re meant to be read knowing they’re wrong.

Selena: Oh, yeah.

Ryan: So I’d purge my library.

Selena: Yes.

Ryan: There’s a few books I need to purge out of the library. Just heretics. This is getting intense. I can see how couples… I can see how…

Selena: We should have stopped earlier.

Ryan: You couldn’t get to the end of this without being like, I kind of love you.

Selena: Oh, that’s so sweet that he would think of this, or he would like, yeah, totally.

Ryan: I mean, you’re talking about these really intense things. All right. Number 20. We’ve got a few more to get through here.

Selena: Goodness.

Ryan: Just a few minutes. What does friendship mean to you? We did answer this a little bit.

Selena: Oh, context.

Ryan: What do you value most in friendship?

Selena: Laughter and loyalty. That would be our two.

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: Next one.

Ryan: And common vision for reality or common vision for life. That doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with people who aren’t Christians because you can certainly be friends with non-Christians and I think…

Selena: It lacks a depth that…

Ryan: I could love the kindness, laughter, loyalty. You have a love for each other. And kindness is just love with its sleeves rolled up. So good friend. We don’t like to name friends on the podcast because they don’t always know if they want to be named. But you know who I’m talking about like. I could just call him and say, “Hey, I need your help building the fence,” and he’d be here in like… if he’s available, he’d be here within 5, 10 minutes. That’s pretty, pretty awesome. And I like to think that I’m that friend as well.

Okay, number 21. What roles do love and affection play in your life? You may not be able to get through all these. So I mean, I don’t know in what ways they don’t, right?

Selena: Yeah. You like a lot of like… you like affection.

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: But who doesn’t?

Ryan: I mean. I’m talking about like what healthy person wouldn’t say, oh, I just love is very important to me. And I want to be loved. I want to show love. I want love to be the governing principle of my life. Why? Because God is love.

Now, here’s the tricky thing is sometimes love can be conflated with keep everyone happy all the time. That’s not what love is. Love is wanting God’s very best for somebody, which means that sometimes you say hard things that are unpleasant.

Selena: They don’t want to hear.

Ryan: Because you love somebody. Now, if someone chooses in that instance to walk away from your relationship, they do so not because of you, but because of God’s truth. That’s where love can get tricky.

Selena: Right. Right. Agreed. I don’t know. I don’t have a great answer for that. I think you answered it well. So next one.

Ryan: I’ll say this. Your affection is very… what’s the word?

Selena: Enlivening. Love and affection is necessary, I think, in our marriage. Which is obvious, but yeah.

Ryan: It encourages me, but it strengthens me to have your affection.

Selena: Yeah. And I feel connected when we’re…

Ryan: Yeah. When you’re my warrior bride, I’m going to go kill the king or kill the…

Selena: Slay the dragon?

Ryan: Slay the dragon. There you go. That’s the word.

Selena: All right. Number 22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five. How about two? Since we’re running out of time.

Ryan: For you, I would say your maturity. I know it sounds kind of odd. Of course, beautiful. I love you. You’re fun. All that kind of stuff. But one thing I really admire in you is your maturity and how you’ve always been teachable. And that teachableness… And that’s a function of your humility, I think. And that you’ve always been willing to listen, learn, grow. And that’s created a very wonderful, mature.

Selena: Oh, thank you. I think sometimes I’ve done those out of fear of not wanting to embarrass myself and not be such a naive person.

Ryan: But here you are.

Selena: Here you are. Here I am.

Ryan: God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines.

Selena: Yes, He’s so good. I would say your ability to think clearly. This is not new because I always ask you questions that I always feel just gray and foggy or muddled on. I’m just like, what do you think about the situation? I try to portray it as clearly as possible. But you just think so clearly about stuff and I’m just so grateful. That’s a wonderful characteristic that you’ve grown in. You’ve always been a clear thinker and a good articulator.

Your awareness of others. I don’t think I’m always aware of how I come across or the words I’m saying. But you’re very aware of, well, if I say this, it can come across this way. And it’s made me more aware of how I can come across for better, for worse, right? So, yeah.

Ryan: All right. Hopefully, married couples, if you’re listening to this, you can maybe find something in here that’s helpful for your marriage. We’re going to keep going.

Selena: Okay.

Ryan: How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood is happier than most other people’s? We can go over this one quickly. My parents have always been very loving. I mentioned, I think, last week’s episode about childhood. I wish we would have done a few things differently. But then we say like, well, who am I to change the past, right? God’s somehow used, in His sovereignty, all this. But I would say they’re close and warm. On a scale of one to ten, I would say probably a seven.

Selena: Yeah. Okay. Right now, our family, yes, I would say is close and warm. As a child, I think my mom was put in this position of having to work and provide. And so, I would say we were close. Like we weren’t distant. I always felt like our house we were just well taken care of. But yeah. Again, I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. But relationally, I feel like we’re closer now because we have time and we’re both adults and we can identify more with different things.

But my childhood was happy by all means. I had a great childhood with my brother. I remember playing with him. I remember, I have great memories of that.

Ryan: Okay, great. We have five more questions. We’ll do a speed-

Selena: Speed round.

Ryan: Speed round.

Selena: How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Ryan: I love my mom. She’s awesome. I’m taking her to a baseball game next month. She’s just really easy to talk to. As a kid, she was available to me. She wanted to relate to me. I love my mom. She’s the most low-maintenance person in the world. So, like, if I don’t call her, she’ll just be like, we’re good. I have to be really intentional to call and reach out to her, which I’m not always great at. Mom, if you’re listening or watching, I love you. As a matter of fact.

Selena: I love my mom too. I feel like we’ve, again, gotten closer as the years have gone on. She’s the hardest worker I know. She is always thinking of others. And I’m just grateful for her. So, number 25.

Ryan: I too love your mom.

Selena: Yeah, I love your mom too. I loved her before I loved you. I loved your mom. I still do, but like-

Ryan: She is to blame for our relationship. I wish I had someone with whom I could share… What? I wish I had someone with whom I could share…

Selena: My life with you.

Ryan: Kite surfing.

Selena: Kite surfing. Okay. I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I probably would wear a life jacket. Do they wear life jackets?

Ryan: I think you would murder kite surfing. You would be so good at it.

Selena: It’s like a lot of upper-

Ryan: Late into the evening. I have many pictures of my seafaring sun [lately?].

Selena: It’s only because the kids are finally tired and they need to just sit in the boat for a bit. So I get a little last-minute wakeboarding before the sun goes down.

Ryan: And I can see this beautiful angelic sunfish screaming across the water. Clearing the wake. This is your year that you land in the backflip.

Selena: I’m going to try it. I’m going to try. We can move on to the next one.

Ryan: Sure.

Selena: Because I would share it all. I want to share all the things with you. There’s no one else I want to share stuff with.

Ryan: Agreed.

Selena: Just kidding.

Ryan: Including the podcast. If you were going to become a close friend with your spouse, please share what would be important for him or her to know. Caveat. You’re probably already close friends. If you’re not, this could be the thing that brings your friendship back to life.

Selena: I think you know everything that’s important for you to know.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. But you know… okay. So we’ll leave it here. We don’t need to go through this together. But I will say this. If you don’t have a transparent marriage, but you’ve been guarded, some folks just are not good at sharing. They’re not good at listening. They’re not good at talking. This could be the thing that gets you talking. So share what’s important for each other to know.

Selena: Be okay with crying.

Ryan: Here’s maybe the heavy part. If there’s something about your life that you know you need to share, but have yet to share it, that’s what transparency is. 1st John 1. Is it 1st John 1? We walk in the light as He is in the light so that we can have fellowship with one another and be cleansed from unrighteousness. There’s an outcome to this. There’s an outcome to walking in the light. We always say windows and doors fully open.

Selena: Lights on.

Ryan: Lights are fully on. There’s nothing to hide. Nothing to divide, if you will.

Selena: There’s freedom in it.

Ryan: There’s freedom in that. Final question. Tell your spouse what you like about them. Be very honest this time, saying… I think some of it got cut off. We’ve already done that, I’d say.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: I like this.

Selena: I like all of this.

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: You know what I like.

Ryan: May the listener know. May the viewer know. Anyway, yes. Oh yeah. You know what I like. You know what Daddy likes.

Selena: Stop.

Ryan: Okay. We just lost some of them. I’m sorry.

Selena: Awkward. Come back.

Ryan: I’m sorry. Usually I say that in a funny voice. It doesn’t sound quite as creepy.

Selena: That was creepy.

Ryan: We have this… I’ll get into it. We have a joke that that makes more sense. Anyway.

Selena: They’re like, oh no.

Ryan: So we’ve covered a lot of ground today. We got a little bit long. We pray that this episode has helped you, maybe kept things light, but we also had some moments that were pretty intense. These questions have the potential to be a lot more intense than even we experienced them as, or as we showed them here. So find something in there.

So communication is a grace of God. Husbands, I’ve said this in How a Husband Speaks. They’re on the shelf behind Selena. And Selena’s written on How a Wife Speaks. The communication buck stops with you, husbands. Meaning that if the communication culture in your household isn’t what it should be, this could be a call to you to open up the lines, to clear out some of the noise, to build the skill of communication. Why? So that we can have healthier, stronger marriages unto the greater glory of God. That’s why we do it.

Why do we care about the glory of God? Well, because God is God and we are not. What does that mean? We are sinners standing in front of a holy God, and we have shaken our fist at Him. We have rebelled against Him actively, and we have, in our own flesh, been condemned in our sin. Without God’s help, we are without hope.

Now, how did God help? He became flesh. The Bible says the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and He was the light shining. He was the light of man. The light of salvation shining into the world. Christ came so that we would not die in darkness, but instead we could be made alive in his light.

So we want you to place your trust in Christ. We want you to place your trust in His resurrection. We want you to place your trust in the Holy Spirit, knowing that it’s only through Christ, the way, the truth, and the life that you have any hope in the next life, which some of these questions talked about.

So if you don’t have the hope of Christ, consider this your call. We have a webs website set up that gives you some steps, some different ways of articulating what the gospel is and how to find a church. The website is this: thenewsisgood.com. Go find that. Let me encourage you to find a friend who’s a Christian. If you have one, call them up, say, “Hey. Can we read the Bible together? I watched this podcast, I listened to it, they mentioned I should call a friend. Here I am.” Call them up. Talk about Jesus. Get into a good church. And our prayer is that you would become a disciple of Christ, be saved by Him. Alright. Anything else?

Selena: Mm-mm.

Ryan: Let’s pray. Father, as we go through these questions, we’re having fun, but we’re also remembering some of the pain, some of the hurts. But more than anything, Lord, we’re remembering Your grace, Your goodness, even in some of the very real present hurt and frustration as it kinda comes back. Lord, we still know that You’re overriding grace and goodness are still there. Thank You for that. Thank You that You are God and we are not, that we can place our full trust in You, that You are a good God, You’re a loving Father. You have not lorded Your wrath over us, but instead You have given us the path into Your grace, and that is through Your Son. So thank You. We are eternally grateful.

We want Your glory. We want Your glory in our lives. We want Your glory in the lives of the married couples listening and watching this. I pray that You would help them, that these questions would become windows into some new era of their marriage where they can learn to communicate, they can get through whatever trials they’re facing, they can rebuild trust. They can rebuild their bond and their intimacy.

Lord, I pray that somehow You would use this episode to that end. We are at Your mercy, and we love You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Selena: Amen.

Ryan: Amen. Amen. Amen. If you’re still watching and listening, thank you. This podcast is largely possible because of our Fierce Fellowship. And all that is is just our Patreon community. If you’d like to consider becoming a part of that, we’d love to have you. You don’t have to pay to become a part of the community. There’s different tiers. There is a free tier. You get updates when we write those and send those out. But just go to fiercemarriage.com/partner, and we would be honored to have you in there.

With that said… ready?

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: This episode of the Fierce Marriage podcast is—

Selena: In the can.

Ryan: And we’ll see you again, Lord willing, in about seven days. So until next time—

Selena: Stay fierce.