PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 29 – Stick Together Marriages Through Thick and Thin

Episode 29: Stick Together Marriages Through Thick and Thin

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Rocky: Welcome to the podcast FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy: Hello ladies, we have the most special podcast today. I'm so excited because I have my daughter, Pearl, with me. I can't believe I have actually got her on my podcast. I mean, she is so busy with Trim Healthy Mama. I'm sure most of you already know Serene and Pearl who are Trim Healthy Mama. I'm sure you must have their cookbooks, and if you don't, well, you can make sure to get them because they will transform your life.

You can go to their website, www.trimhealthymama.com and listen to their podcasts. I guess loads of you already listen to Pearl and Serene's podcasts. They have about 200,000 (actually 300,000) people listening to their podcasts. If you aren't already doing it, you can join the thousands and you'll be so blessed. Well, Pearly, it's so great to have you here today.

Pearl: It's fun to be here, Mom. I'm so excited that you're doing this podcast so that you don't have to travel as much. We like you home here on the hilltop.

Nancy: Oh, thank you. Yes, this is where we all live, and Pearl lives just a couple hundred yards down the road. To catch you up with Pearlie's family, they have Meadow, who is married; that's her oldest daughter. Such a beautiful daughter and married to the most gorgeous guy, Kendall. They have this gorgeous little boy, Warren, who's about 8 months now. Pearl has transitioned to a whole another realm of grandmothering.

Pearl: I know, but the word itself still freaks me out. I call myself “Prissy.”

Nancy: Prissy, because her middle name is Priscilla.

Pearl: The whole grandmother thing I still feel way to young, cool, and hip for. But in actual fact, I am a grandmother, and I love it!

Nancy: Pearl is the most doting grandmother. She and her husband, Charlie, I love watching them with Warren. They are just about like the parents. I think you would take him over if you could.

Pearl: Oh, we would! I didn't know, Mom, I know that you love being a grandmother, but I think it's all a big secret. Like this secret code of the grandparent people, and they don't tell anyone, and you don't realize how great it is until you become a grandmother or grandfather. It's like this hidden secret that is the best time of your life.

Nancy: Yes, it is. I am blessed now to have 47 grandchildren. Every single one of them are so amazing. I have to admit, it's like your first child, that first grandbaby. It's not that you love any of your continuing ones any less; you love them just as much with all your heart. But the wonder, it's the wonder of it, like the wonder of your first born. It's the wonder of your first grandbaby.

Pearl: I remember having my babies, and it was incredible, but you're in the trenches. You're doing it, you're keeping them alive, you're feeding them. I remember the wonder of it and the love. But now, with Warren, our first grandchild, everything he does—there is no other baby in the world that can do it like him. Don't even tell me that there could be. Even for him to just blink his eyes, “What? Look at the way he blinks his eyes, oh my goodness! It's better than any other baby.”

Nancy: Yes, so maybe some of you have not got to this stage yet, but just think of what's ahead. This is the wonderful way God has planned our lives. It's so wonderful. He's planned seasons. They become more wonderful with time.

Pearl: They really do. I didn't know, when I was a younger woman (I don't think of myself as really old, but I'm approaching 50).

Nancy: Oh, and you don't look it. She looks about 25!

Pearl: No, I don't, but I used to think, “I'm going to get older and be a grandmother.” There was no joy about being a grandmother or that stage, but honestly, I can say that this stage in my life, it does get better, Mom. When you plant and pour the water on your family and nurture it, the pay-off is so rewarding. I cannot believe this season of my life.

Nancy: I think we could encourage you young moms that are listening. Don't despise the day of small things. These times where you are hidden away in your homes, and it's just diapers and dishes and sometimes feels like drudgery. This is the sowing of glorious seeds into so much that's ahead. As your children grow and they get into all the things that they are interested in, your life as a mother never becomes smaller. It becomes wider and wider and wider.

Pearl: It does. It becomes bigger, and I like the way you said, “the glory.” I feel like, as your children grow and they have children of their own, it feels like glory. Giving God all the glory, but I feel like I'm receiving some of it. Like you said, when you're there, and you have little ones, and you have sleepless nights, and you're in the trenches, it's hard, but there's so much joy in it. You sow, and you reap. And then the Bible says your children will grow and call you blessed. Isn't that amazing when that happens?

(Serene calls)

Nancy: She’s just wanting to borrow the car to go grocery shopping.

Pearl: That's funny because before I came over here, we were recording our podcast.

Nancy: Radio program.

Pearl: Yeah, we do a little of both sometimes.

Nancy: Anyway, it's quite amazing. It was actually Sam and Serene who bought this car for us, and the amazing thing is though, they haven't even got a car big enough for themselves, so they have to borrow this car. Really, they might as well just have it because they use it every day.

Anyway, Pearly, not only have you got Warren, but you're having another grandbaby.

Pearl: Yes, one on the way. My son, Bowen and his wife, Kahoru, due in February, so that's exciting.* But I'm one of those obnoxious grandmothers though that can't stop talking about it. If you have other subjects, you may as well bring them in because I could just go on about how this baby is going to be the best too.

Nancy: Well, you must have got it from Granddad. That's my father. My father, all his life, with his children, and then, when his grandchildren came along, they were added to his boasting list. When people used to come (we had the most hospitable home growing up). always visitors, but those poor visitors. Every visitor that came, he would start talking about his children, and all the things they could do. Then, when we began having children, they were his grandchildren, then he added them to the boasting list. He would be telling everybody about these amazing grandchildren. These people were just having to sit there and sit there and listen to this long boast, and the more grandchildren he had, the longer the boasting list went on!

Pearl: I know, I think it is genetic, Mom, because I remember Grandad sitting there and staring at me in awe when I would play a little guitar, maybe I was writing a little song.

Nancy: He thought you were the greatest guitarist in the world,

Pearl: And I wasn't, but he would stare at me like, “How could this human be more fantastic?” Now, I find myself doing that with my grandchild.

Nancy: When you and Serene would sing, he'd be opening his mouth with the words.

Pearl: It's a genetic thing.

Nancy: Yes, so she does have three other children who are not yet married and that's Rocky, Noble and Autumn. Autumn is the youngest, and she just had her fourteenth birthday. She is growing up the most beautiful girl. They are so blessed with their lovely family.

We are so blessed here on the hilltop, with all the cousins. Everyone lives their own life, but we are pretty close, so they can all get together at a moment’s notice. I notice when Autumn came back, she'd been away for a weekend, and when she came back, it was her birthday, but she just didn't arrive home. She came back, and there were all the girls and the cousins. They had a surprise birthday waiting for her. They made it so wonderful for her. Anyway, Pearly, I think you'll be married, soon 25 years, won't you?

Pearl: Yes, 25 years in March.

Nancy: I can't even believe that.

Pearl: I can't believe I'm saying that, but we are talking here, Mom, and oh, it's so great, and we are going on and on, and everyone's thinking, “Oh, they live a perfect life. They've never had a day of trouble.”

When I look at the 25 years of marriage and we're talking about families and children growing up and having grandchildren and the glory of it all, life is not all perfect. We don't just sit up here in a bubble on the hilltop. We count our joys though. We celebrate them. I look back at my 25 years of marriage, and I think, “That wasn't all easy.” I think, you invest, and it pays off, but there were some days that were brutally hard, so I could talk about those days. But 25 years of marriage is the most precious thing in my life.

Nancy: I can say, now, looking at you, and I think anybody looking would say, “Oh, you have such a beautiful marriage.” But as you say, it just didn't happen. Tell us some of the things you felt make it what it is today.

Pearl: Yes, you treasure marriage, and I thank God that my marriage is so beautiful. I'm amazed, but it certainly did not happen that way on its own.

Nancy: No, nothing happens on its own. It's like this affirmation that I constantly say. “Things don't just happen, you have to make them happen.”

Pearl: Yes, and I think my marriage could have fallen apart, like anybody’s. I think anyone can get married, and they're in love and everyone feels the love, or you wouldn't get married. But every marriage could fall apart because life is going to hit. That's when you dig deep.

Nancy: I remember a dear friend of mine saying to me years and years ago, and I've never forgotten it. She said, “Often,” and it happens in every marriage, “there are times when the tide goes out. And when the tide goes out, you see all the ugly things on the beach. It's not a pretty sight when the tide goes out. There's tin cans and there's this and that and there's all the ugly stuff.” But she said, “There is a law of God, the tide always comes in again.”

She was using that analogy about marriage. I think it is a wonderful analogy. Yes, there can be times when the tide goes out and things look ugly, and perhaps we can talk a little bit about how to get through those times. But dear precious ladies, perhaps you are going through a difficult time in your own marriage. Maybe you feel the tide is out and all you can see is ugliness. But there's a law, an eternal law, that the tide always comes in again. If we will apply God's principles, God can do wonderful things. He brings that tide in again and covers all the ugliness, covers it all.

Pearl: I feel like if you're looking at it, and it looks undone, and it looks like everything you've worked for is a mess, your investing in that can be better than you can ever conceive. Because God is the God of miracles. I look at my marriage, and I think that right there is a pure miracle. Someone leaping out of a wheelchair miracle. I got married and the love and the hormones and everything, and we did life and we had babies, five babies in ten years, so it was just getting through.

We went through rough times of no money and no car and all of that. Then there were the times when it was like, “I don't even know who you are anymore. Are you that person that I married?  And just looking at that person, what do we have? What am I holding onto here?” Then I realize that I'm holding on to the marriage itself. And that is what I held onto.

Nancy: You had to choose what you were going to do.

Pearl: Absolutely, it's a choice every day. He probably had to look at me and say the same thing. I had to realize that it's a choice what am I seeing in that person. Back when sometimes were hard, I could list everything about my husband that I thought was wrong, all the things he was doing wrong. Why isn't he calling me Honey? Why isn't he saying all the nice things to me anymore? Why is he reserved? Why is he in a cave? Why does he look angry? Why is he mad?

Or I could say, my husband goes out to work every day, and he comes home and look at him with the children, and he still loves me. Yes, he's going through a hard time, but he fills my car with gas and look at who he is, and he stayed at that job that he hates for 12 years just for me.

I could see all the bad or I could see all the good. When you hold onto that good, even more good comes down the rack. It gets better and better, and that doesn't mean there won't be rough times because I think in every marriage (I don't care how perfect you start off, I don't care if you're two little homeschooled children, and you're both virgins, and it's all perfect. I don't care), you’re gonna see rough times too, and that's when you dig in. That's when you look at life and say, “Is this worth holding onto? Yes.

Nancy: Absolutely. I'm thinking of some dear friends of mine just as you're talking. One of them was my bridesmaid. They got married, and they had a tough time of it. I think because they were believers, they were strong believers in the Word, and they didn't believe in divorce. If they could have, they would have divorced. They weren't compatible. It was a mess. But they stuck together. They stuck it out. Now they've been married as long as we've been married, and they have the most beautiful marriage today. They are just a sweet lovely couple who I don't think could do without one another for one day. They grew eventually because they stuck there. They grew together. When we get back to see them, because they live in a different country than us because we moved to the states, it's a delight to be with them. They're precious, lovely, and enjoying one another.

Pearl: I'm sure there were times when you would have looked at them, “How on earth did they make this work?”

Nancy: I know, but they did.

Pearl: It's not impossible.

Nancy: There's something about sticking together, sticking to your covenant. Ladies, it seems as though today, I'm seeing that theme of what we are saying is to stick at it. When you're in motherhood, you're with your little ones, and it's not easy, and they are all around you, and you think, when will I be finished with this? No, don't think like that. Look for the joy that is set before you because there is a joy that is set before you. These children grow, and they come into the fruit of all that you've been sowing. It is true, you reap what you sow, and you will be blessed in motherhood.

It's the same as a wife, and as Pearly has been saying, you can go through these rough patches. It's not easy, as you don't think you even like this person you're married to. But you stick with them, and you sow seeds of love and you sow seeds of encouragement and you sow seeds of stickability, and you sow seeds of sweetness. You keep sowing all the good seeds, and you begin to reap.

My husband and I have now been married 55 and a half years. That's a pretty long time. Oh, I have to say, we've always had a lovely marriage, but I can't even compare what it is today to what it was. It was lovely, but I don't have a lovely marriage now, I have an amazing marriage. It gets better. Everything gets better as you walk with God.

Pearl: Sometimes it takes the tough times to get better because if it was just lovely and easy every day, there wouldn't be that beauty that comes from trial through fire. Sometimes it refines you and makes everything more precious when you go through really rough times. I think that one thing that has helped me, to this day, I think I realized this about ten years into my marriage, I was no longer talking to my husband like I was dating him or courting, if you want to use the correct words. We knew each other so well, we were just trying to get through. It was like, “Ok, did you pick that up at the store? You didn't? I asked you to. C'mon honey, why didn't you do that? You knew I needed that.” I mean, just the tone, right?

Then one day I got this paradigm in my head, “I no longer talk to him like when I was dating or look at him the way I did when I was courting or use the same tone. I have a “I know you” tone and I can speak however I want now.” I trained myself to go back. Sometimes I slip up now but mostly how I talk to my husband now is the same way I did when we were dating. I tell you it has been such a precious thing in my marriage to keep that beautifulness going, to keep the freshness, to keep the specialness, that we are in love and this is special.

Nancy: Yes, and it is what you said, training yourself to do that.

Pearl: Oh, it's absolutely training. It's so much easier to throw a little fit or do a little silent treatment or just speak whatever you want than to say, “Hold on, I'm not going to do that. What's going to be the best reaction here? Hey, couldn't I smile at my husband here, or why couldn't I touch him now?” It’s easier to do all that flesh stuff, and you feel it and just want to let it out rather than train. But that's not building my marriage. It’s actually tearing it down. It's just tearing it down.

Nancy: Yes, that reminds me of Titus 2 where it says the older women are to teach the younger women and some translations say, “to train them.” That's interesting, but often, it's training yourself.

Pearl: Right.

Nancy: We do have to train, but it's lovely in that passage in Titus 2 where it tells the older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands. It's an interesting word that is used there. It's the word philandros. Of course, that's one of the phileo words which means “friendship love.” It's not talking about agape love, the love of God, which is important. We need that in our marriage because in these times when perhaps the tides go out, that's when you have to push into the agape love of God. You've got none left of your own; it's gone out the door, but you still have love. You have God's love, shed abroad in you by the Holy Ghost which is given unto you (Romans 5:5). You have to press into that love. Love with God's love, even if you haven't got any of your own love. You need that agape love in your marriage.

You need the eros love in your marriage which is sexual love.

The love that it's talking about there is a friendship love, a touchy love, a love where we are showing physically that we love our husband, like touching him, kissing him, rubbing him, being affectionate. That's the love we are told to encourage in the young marrieds. This affectionate love, being affectionate. I have found the more affectionate you are to your husband and doing it because you know that's what you should do, that makes you more affectionate. You become more loving. It just grows and grows and grows.

Pearl: But if you're touching your phone more than you're touching your husband, you know. I mean, sometimes I ask myself that.

Nancy: Yes, that's a good one, touching your phone instead of touching your husband. Oh wow.

Pearl: Obviously, you may not be around your husband as much as you're around your phone, but if you're around your husband and your phone, husband comes first.

Nancy: Absolutely. That reminds me of a friend who was telling me she was running a big homeschool email group. She said, “Nancy, it's rather alarming. At 10 o'clock at night, that's when this homeschool group gets going.” She said, “Obviously, mothers have got their children in bed, it's the end of the day, now it’s my time.” They get onto email or social media or whatever, but it's 10 o'clock at night. Their husbands are going to bed. They are up on their social media; he's in bed on his own. What is he doing? Waiting for her. I think this is something that in social media, all these things, they actually can take over a marriage.

Pearl: Yeah, they can, if we let them. Another thing quickly on that is, one of my things, I read it somewhere else, but if I'm walking through the house, and I pass my husband, I touch him. Whether it's on the arm, or a hug, I stop him.  That is powerful in my marriage.

Nancy: Oh, it is, and I seek to do that. I must admit, I forget sometimes, but it's in my brain to do it.

Pearl: But it's training. It becomes part of your life because then, when you walk past and you didn't, you think, “Oh my goodness, I've got to go back.”

Nancy: Do you know where that came from? Well, you might have got it from somewhere else, but I wonder if we had told you the story, way back when we first married, Dad told about this man. He was in his eighties, and he walked with a walking stick, and he told my husband, “I have never passed my wife in the home without stopping to give her a hug.”

Pearl: Love it. I probably did hear it from you, Mom.

Nancy: Yes, and he was in his eighties.

Pearl: I do love looking at a man passing things down to the generations. I look at you and dad's marriage. I know it hasn't been all perfectly perfect, but oh my goodness, if there was ever a marriage where I see a love that is still romantic to this day . . .  you and dad are head over heels about one another.

Nancy: We are.

Pearl: It's literally sometimes like, oh my goodness, but it's so good. You're literally in love with each other, but that's taken tending to, right? I mean. You actually feel it. After all these years, you actually feel those feelings for that gray-headed man in the next room.

Nancy: Absolutely, yes. I am quite happy to just look at him and just think how adorable he is. I just love looking at him.

Pearl: I know, but I do want to get back to one thing, since you've got me here. A big thing that's been in my marriage too, you talked about eros love, I think that's a little bit on a platform that I want to stand on. If you're doing all these things, you got the Bible study on Wednesday night, and you're going to this group, and you're in the homeschooling, you're on the board of this and that, but your husband is alone there in bed at 10 at night!

Nancy: I know, that's wrong.

Pearl: You're talking to the Facebook group about the whatever . . .

Nancy: That is not building your marriage; it's tearing it down.

Pearl: Yes, and that physical love is so healthy for you. It builds your immune system. It builds your husband's immune system. It prevents against all sorts of diseases when it's sanctified in marriage. It is incredibly health-boosting. It actually even makes you look younger. You know, Serene and I have done podcasts, and we even have a chapter in our original Trim Healthy Mama book on that. At least initiate twice a week, if it's not happening, and that is when all those health-boosting things come in.

I do want to say though, I think especially in the Christian world, there has been this big stereotype that women never think about it, and the man's thinking about it all day. It's the stereotype of “Ugh, I have to give him sex tonight, I guess I better go be a good wife.” When there's actually a lot of women hurting because they don't feel that from their husbands. You know many husbands are getting type 2 diabetes because of the diet everyone is on and high blood sugar, and men don't feel good.

Type 2 diabetes lowers testosterone, and I think many women are hurting, and they feel alone. I feel like a really open relationship about this is something in our marriage on both sides that we need to talk about it; we need to get it right. What sets the marriage relationship apart from everything else is that physical union. It's the big difference.

If you're in your home, and you're just becoming comfortable and roommates, it's so much more than that. Sometimes you've got to rip that rug open, and there's hard things, like Mom said, the tide goes out, even with this sexual part of it. You've got to rip it open, and there's hard things there. There are things you've got to talk about, and you don't want to talk about, but you've got to go there. It's hard, but it's so worth it.

Nancy: That is true, and it's one of those things where you can get into a rut as you get older. I remember having a wake-up call. I think I was maybe in my sixties perhaps and just realized, hey, wow, it suddenly hit me. We are not coming together intimately as much as we used to.

What is wrong? What is happening? It was like a wake-up call!

Pearl: (laughs) Look at Arden over there. Arden does all of mom's recording, and he has to hear about his grandmother's intimate life.

Nancy: (laughs). But anyway, I was so glad, it was a like a wake-up. “Ok, I'm not allowing this. I have to change, so I changed.

Pearl: Yes, and it has to be the both of you. There's a stigma of when you get older, like I'm a grandmother now, that it should get less because we are all getting older, and obviously, hormones go down, and obviously, physically, sometimes it's actually harder. Sometimes there's ailments; sometimes people go through things, challenges, health issues.

Despite all that, I think it can get better, and it can stay frequent, and it should. It's like that preciousness. When somethings being tried by fire, and you come out the other end and despite all the challenges you're still there, and you're still realizing that this is so important, and this is special. That's when that preciousness is there. That's why it gets better. Not because you're physically great specimens anymore like you were when you were young because you have high hormones, and you feel it. You know those hormones you felt when you were young, and you really desire physically the sex. I think it changes, and it becomes that union where this is precious. This is so precious.

Nancy: Yes and knowing that this is what God intends. At the very beginning, God said: “A man shall leave his father and mother, and they shall become one flesh.” That's God's description of marriage, one flesh. If that's His description, and you are not one flesh, you're not really doing what you need to be doing.

Pearl: Yes, so rip up the rug, and if there's things there, problems that you haven't addressed, you've got to address them. It's worth it. That's not the only thing that will keep your marriage together. There are so many issues. We can't say that's the thing, but it's so important.

Nancy: Yes, and sadly, I think our time is going, but I would like to, because we didn't know what we were going to talk about, but because we got onto marriage, and I'm sure you have been blessed, I want to end with reading a little quote, and it's written by someone back in 1838. Goodness me, that's so long ago. As I read this, you will think, Goodness me, this seems a bit archaic.” Yes, but this is how marriage is meant to be, and I think it's good for us to get back to what God intended it to be because we are living in a day where everything is coming against marriage. The independence of women is becoming stronger and stronger and stronger. They don't feel like they can be told anything what to do by a man. There are many women that don't believe their husbands can tell them anything because, “I am a woman!” It's destroying marriages. Can I read this to you?

“Woman's mission is to be the suitable help-mate of that man to whom she has given herself as the companion of his pilgrimage upon earth.

She is, in wedded life, to be his constant companion, in whose companionship he is to find one, who meets him hand to hand,
eye to eye,
lip to lip,
and heart to heart.

To whom he can unburden the secrets of a heart pressed down with care, or wrung with anguish;
whose presence shall be to him above all other friendship;
whose voice shall be his sweetest music;
whose smile his brightest sunshine;
from whom he shall go forth with regret;
and to whose company he shall return with willing feet, when the toils of the day are over;
who shall walk near his loving heart, and feel the throbbing of affection as her arm leans on his, and presses on his side.

In his hours of private companionship, he shall tell her all the secrets of his heart; find in her all the capabilities, and all the promptings, of the most tender and endeared fellowship; and in her gentle smiles, and unrestrained speech, enjoy all to be expected in one who was given by God to be his companion and friend.

That companionship which woman was designed to afford to man, must of course be included the sympathetic offices of the comforter.

It is hers, in their hours of retirement, to console and cheer him;
when he is injured or insulted, to heal the wounds of his troubled spirit;
when burdened by care, to lighten his load by sharing it;
when groaning with anguish, to calm by her peace-speaking words the tumult of his heart;
and act, in all his sorrows, the part of a ministering angel.”

Pearl: I love that, Mom.

Nancy: So beautiful, and this is the heart of marriage. It's time we got back to God's ways and stop being influenced by this independent spirit of the day. Can you say Amen?

Pearl: Absolutely. In this day and age, it's like, don't be co-dependent on your husband. We need to be co-dependent on him, and he needs to be co-dependent on us. What junk in this modern age about separate bank accounts and my time and this and that. No. That was so beautiful what you read mom, and it's true.

Nancy: “Yes. Lord, we thank You that You showed the way for marriage. It was Your design. You planned it, and You want it to be so beautiful and one because You have made us one. I pray for every marriage, every wife today, Lord God, give her hope for her marriage. Lord God, give her that anointing of Your Spirit to rise up and love, even when there is no love and to give encouragement when she feels that she gets nothing herself. Because, Lord, your Word says that when we give, we will receive, that when we sow, we will reap. That's just the law of the universe; it's an eternal law. Father, I pray for every marriage, that You will strengthen it and bring healing and make it whole. Lord God, we ask for strong marriages. Strong marriages to fill this land because a nation is only as strong as its marriages and its families. Amen.”

Thank you Pearly for being with us today.

Pearl: You're so welcome.

*P. S. Pearl’s new grandbaby was born four weeks early by emergency c-section on Sunday, 20 January (he was trying to come footling breech). Bowen and Kahoru are so proud of their first-born son, Finn Alexander Bowen, and praise the Lord, he is doing so well.