The Families of Character Show
We serve parents who want more for their family. Our show offers research-based parenting solutions to the most common family problems, real-life parenting stories, and authentic support. The host, Jordan Langdon, is a wife, mother, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker who validates what parents go through and offers practical actionable steps parents can implement today to transform their families in joy and unity. Guests are experts in their field of work and provide high-value material for parents and families.
The Families of Character Show
Ep. #154: Provide the Armor - Spiritual Battle for Your Marriage with Katie Hartfiel
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What if your prayers could provide spiritual armor for your spouse's daily battles? Katie Hartfiel's journey began with teenage letters to her future husband – little realizing God was orchestrating an extraordinary divine appointment.
Discover how the very week she committed to pray for her unknown future spouse, the man who would become her husband experienced a profound spiritual conversion hundreds of miles away.
Katie Hartfield shares her book Provide the Armor: Daily Scriptures to Pray Over Your Future or Present Spouse and explains how praying Scripture daily for spouses transforms marriages by changing our own hearts first.
• The book provides daily Scripture verses with reflections to pray over your spouse
• Prayer changes us first, then opens the door for God to work in our spouse's life
• Men face unique battles around identity, purpose, and worth
• Every man desires "a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue"
Get a copy of Provide the Armor by Katie Hartfiel and visit womaninlove.org or sheshallbecalledwoman.com to learn more about Katie's ministry.
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Hey guys, welcome back to our show. Thanks for your feedback regarding our podcast. You know I've had people come up to me at church and out at the grocery store and be like hey, Jordan, thanks for doing that episode with your husband, the one where he talks about being the spiritual leader of your family. That was super helpful for me. It helps to have people share our episode with people in their small groups and and friends and neighbors and all of that. So thank you for doing that. Now you've also told me that you've got caught, uh, binging some of our episodes and going down rabbit holes, and you know what. I just think that's a okay.
Speaker 1:This is a free resource for parents and grandparents and it would not be possible for us to pump out these weekly episodes without the support of our amazing donors. So if you are listening and you have, at any point in your life, donated to this organization over the past 15 years, Thank you so much. You are absolutely helping us to get this message out of being intentional parents who prioritize their faith and their family in life to just thousands of different families across the globe. So thank you so much for your generosity and let's just dive into today's episode. I got a super special guest on our show today and I'm just kind of leaving her hanging over there while I do my intro. So I just want to welcome to the show Katie Hartfield.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Jordan. It's always super fun to chat with you.
Speaker 1:Oh man, we became fast friends last year around this time when I flew down to Houston to be a part of a women's production that you put together, a video series for Catholic women called she Shall Be Called Woman. So thank you for inviting me to give talks on humility and universal mortification and putting on the mind of Christ. Those are big topics but I tried, in Jordan's style, to just bring them to the audience in all practicality and make it something that was digestible for people to be able to really apply to their day-to-day life. So thanks again for having me on that amazing series that is launched and done better than any of us even imagined, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh my goodness, we've been so humbled by the impact and, of course, I want everyone to know, like Jordan is like the sweetheart of the program. I love hearing especially we've talked about this from these ladies that are like much older. They're like I've never heard these things before. I've been into my faith for so long and I've done all the things, but these are things that like these old lady mind blown. So, uh, it's just been so incredible hearing the stories and the impact that you've had, and I was just so grateful that the Holy spirit brought us together.
Speaker 1:Amen to that sister. Well, you guys, katie is one of us. She is married. She and Mark have been married for years and they have four kids and uh, and so she's in the trenches with us. She knows what it's like to be married and raise kids in this day and age, and she is a very gifted speaker, which you'll find out. But she travels all over the country speaking to different groups of Christians, and specifically Catholics, on everything, everything just women's issues, girls, teenagers, love stories and just falling in love with Jesus and developing a prayer life. So she's got a wealth of experience to share with us today.
Speaker 1:But I want to hone in on something specific, and that is this most recent book that she authored, and when I visited Katie, we were talking about this book and I hadn't heard of it before, and so I got a copy of it and I started using it daily in my prayer life, and so if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see me holding this up. It's called Provide the Armor Daily Scriptures to Pray Over your Future or Present Spouse, and so I have been praying with this book every day for about 10 months, and it has radically changed my relationship with my husband because it gave me a little nugget of scripture at the beginning and then a good prayer prompt and a reflection and a personal story that Katie wrote that I could relate to, and so I wanted Katie to be on the show to tell us first of all, kind of like, what prompted her to write this book, and then to just understand the impact she's having on so many women, because if you've been to my talks, you will know that I give this book out right when you put your name in a hat. I do drawings and I hand these books out to women and I tell them how much it has changed my relationship with my spouse and helped me grow closer to my husband in the way that I'm able to do something every single day that really builds him up and helps him move through his day with the armor he needs to fight this fight that men are up against in their day-to-day lives, are up against in their day-to-day lives.
Speaker 1:So many people have been blessed by your book, katie, and the people that have won the books from my drawings are now buying books and giving copies to their friends who are not married, and some of them who have been married for 20 years, and they just keep coming back, jordan, that book, that book, provide the armor, that book. So if you're listening right now and you're just like, okay, jordan, I get that book, provide the armor, that book. So if you're listening right now and you're just like, okay, jordan, I get it, like, yeah, just go to Amazon, put it in your cart and get it tomorrow because you don't want to delay. But with that, I want, katie, I want you to jump in and tell us, like what was going on in your life that really prompted you to put this book together, because it is a daily devotional. There's enough in here for an entire year to pray for your spouse. So what kind of inspired this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So my story actually starts a long time ago, in the late 1900s, when I was a teenager and I was at a conference Well, it was a week-long conference leadership training and really trying to learn how to dive deep into a prayer life. And something that really kept coming up for me that week was that the Lord had a plan for my life and if I was called to be married, then God knew who it was that I was going to marry one day, and if that was the case, then that meant that that young man was out there somewhere and, knowing how difficult it was to be a teen at that time even more difficult these days, right and all the different temptations and things that he was up against I really wanted to go to war. And that was what I told the Lord and what I tried to imagine myself doing climbing into the trenches, battling for my future husband. So I really decided to dedicate myself that week to pray for him and to pray for him often on a regular basis, and I started to write these prayers down in the form of letters to my future husband. So I go home from this retreat and I'm all on fire from the Lord, and a few months later my dad left our family and completely, I was completely wrecked, we were all completely wrecked, and so much of what was so difficult for that, besides all of the obvious things, was really this understanding of like I thought God had a plan and I thought that if I was doing all these things, you know, right, then things were going to go great and really wondering, like, what does this mean for me in my own life, you know, going forward in my own desires for marriage. So my heart was really hardened in a lot of ways over the course of the next several years, hardened like in this fear, this fear of being let down, this fear of being rejected and all these things. Well, my dad would leave and he would come back and leave and come back over the course of two years and eventually my parents, their divorce was finalized.
Speaker 2:I was in college at this point. I transferred to college at Franciscan University in Steubenville and I had met really early on this very attractive, tall, dark, handsome guy from Texas and we became best friends. We're spending all of this time together and, of course, all of these feelings are bubbling up and for him it was super exciting, for me it was terrifying and even though, over this process, I'm like in love with him but he keeps coming and like telling me all these things that I wanted my whole life to hear and I couldn't receive it, I'm like, no, we're not dating, we're not dating. And eventually I was in prayer one night and I just felt like this tug on my heart, like the Lord was saying like it's not really about trusting him and it's not. This is not like a story about a boy, this is a story about me. This is our love story, katie. So are you willing to trust me and take a step in letting your heart be vulnerable both to me and to this young man? So we started dating, worked through a lot of things in all of those areas. So, deep into our dating relationship, it was pretty clear that we were going to get married.
Speaker 2:It was the summer during college and I was at home in Colorado, where I'm originally from, and he was in Texas. We're on the phone one night talking about his experience of conversion with the Lord, and his experience in high school was really different from mine. He was really gifted in basketball, he was super into the party scene and all of the things that came along with that. Until one night, he was in his room and he wasn't in prayer. He wasn't thinking about God, and he describes it as if the Holy Spirit came rushing into the room and all of a sudden, this 19 year old boy fell to his knees, sobbing, crying, because he was so overcome, for the first time, with the reality that God loved him and that God's mercy was there for him. So I asked him that night on the phone what the date was of his conversion. He tells me his date in July.
Speaker 2:I go over to my bookshelf and pull out my prayer journals from that same week, and it was the same week that I was at that leadership week that I decided that I wanted to go to work praying for my future spouse, praying for very specific things, like I had a laundry list If it's this, this, this, this and this that he's struggling with, and it was word for word, his list. And we were just so overwhelmed that night with like this gift that this is what God does, like millions of times every day. Right, we pray, god hears us, he answers us, but we don't always necessarily get to see the ways that he's doing that and that he's working Um, and there was just this chance that he gave us to see, like years before, how he had been active and he had been moving in our life. So it was a really beautiful um experience for both of us. Well, then we ended up getting married and probably like six or seven years later I was giving a talk to a mom's group and I'm telling a story and they did Q and a after and this lady raised her hand and she's like how do you pray for your husband now? And I was like, oh no, he married me, so he's probably fine now or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2:All these years that I'm begging God, pouring out my heart and like in the trenches and in my own pain, but this is what's giving me hope and all that. And now I'm like God bless Mark. So I was really convicted as I left and in the weeks that followed, what does this look like for me now? And a friend had taught me this practice of praying God's word over the people that we love, claiming God's promises using his desires. So I started taking this practice and going back to praying for my husband really intensely and praying a scripture passage for him daily and then writing journaling of how I was hoping that the Lord would give him the graces from that, and so that's where the book came from. It's my own prayer, it's my own scripture passages that I pray for him, my own kind of desires within that and put together within provide the armor battling, battling for our spouse.
Speaker 1:Wow, katie, there's so much there to that story. The Lord just works in such awesome ways. I had the chills when I was like, wait, what he had, his like conversion to Jesus, when you were at that conference and promised to pray for your future husband and all the things that he might be struggling with at the time. And that's exactly what Mark was struggling with at the time, and you guys were in totally separate areas.
Speaker 1:That is just how he works. It's so beautiful that you were able to realize that together and have that gift of knowing that God was at work.
Speaker 1:But I kind of rewind because I'm like a parent of a teen, right. I've got a almost 19 year old, a 13 year old and I'm going okay, wait, and I'm thinking back to my own teen years and I'm like I was not praying for my future husband. I think I was so busy chasing him down and looking for him and trying to find him on a basketball court or whatever.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I think I was doing that too. I was just praying also.
Speaker 1:That's a big deal, but I think I watched a video that you did. You've recorded so many talks, you and Mark, about your story. It's so beautiful that you're sharing it across all these networks, and I think it was on EWTN that I heard you talking about this and how you know you weren't alone. You weren't some like odd girl that was, you know, unpopular and over in the corner just on your knees praying all the time as a teenager, but you really had a strong group of Christian girlfriends and were part of like a youth group right In your teen years, and so this was something that you and your girlfriends talked about, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it was a huge thing for us, and so our mutual friend, nikki, who you've had on the show before she and one other friend was the main trio that we would really pray for one another's future spouses also. So we're we're just desiring that so much and I think that was one of the greatest blessings within all of that was just this knowing somebody else that wanted my holiness so deeply, and I think that that's what we need in our friendships and in our community so much. And then in those moments where I was really struggling and I was really in a lot of pain, but also like struggling with answering questions with the Lord and what he was doing and if he was there, like these are the friends that were dragging me to Jesus in the times that I didn't know how to get there on my own. So incredible, incredible gift of how God works through other people as well.
Speaker 1:And I love that you had the support of attending youth group as a teen. And I think you know sometimes in parenting we can get so busy with the sports and the dance teams and, you know, check in the box and run into church on Sunday, but not really helping our kids engage in a community of like minded teens that are going to build them up in their faith and help them to resist the temptations of of dating life and all the things that the internet and social media and all those things. And so I love that back in the late 1900s you were in this group. I love that. But also you had a little um yes no, right you.
Speaker 1:You talked with your girlfriends about your. What was it? Htb.
Speaker 2:Oh, our HTB, yes, our husbands to be husband, to be shortened to HTB. So as we would write these letters, we always wrote them to our HTB, dear HTB, yes.
Speaker 1:That is the cutest thing and sometimes, you know, as parents, I feel like we're called to speak the language of our kids a bit right.
Speaker 1:Right Is to pray for their W to TB, their wife, to be their husband, to be right, because that orients them towards something bigger for their future. That this isn't just about the here and now and and meeting our needs in in this moment, but that we really need to be mindful about asking God to guide us to who he wants us to spend our life with if we're called to marriage. And so I just find that such a sweet little spot in your story that, like as teen girls, you were writing letters to your HTBs and that you were talking about this amongst yourselves and that it wasn't weird or nobody like put you down forward or said like oh, that's so ridiculous, you know, but that you just kept this little fire going with some faith and courage that, like, this was going to do something later on.
Speaker 2:Right, right. I think sometimes I hear too from people, especially as young women especially, get older and are single and maybe in their 20s and 30s and things like that, and the questioning maybe, if this practice is maybe not a good one in the sense of like, is it making us obsess too much or think too much about you know one ideal or whatever? And I really feel like I mean that can be the case, like if you take anything too far, right to any kind of extreme, but I don't think that the right answer is ever less prayer, that really surrendering to the Lord, and what my experience was of it was the more that I that I prayed for wanting like a really, really amazing man and really expressing my desires in that way, and the more that I had that at the forefront of where my standards were and all those kinds of things. I had to ask myself am I the kind of girl that a guy like that would be looking for and that he would be hoping for, and things like that. And so that's a beautiful thing about prayer, whether it's in this category or if it is praying for your spouse or praying for somebody who's like the most annoying person that you know, or really frustrating to you is that the I feel like I've just come to realize this in the last few years that the Lord's been like, okay, it's not that you're getting what you want, like if you're saying that you know, if it's quote unquote working, then I'm praying for another person.
Speaker 2:The fruit of us knowing if we're doing it right and doing it well is not if somebody else is changing, it's if we are, and so prayer will always transform us and it will always help us to be the people that we want to be. It'll orient our thoughts and our plans and our desires and the things that we're looking for in our future. Our entire day will be reoriented to the heart of the Lord, and so that's really, I think, the core of whether you're praying for your future spouse, whether you're praying for your spouse that you are married to, just wanting it all to be aligned with God's glory, and taking a practice like that really just kind of puts everything in its place.
Speaker 1:Yes and I think you even say that at the beginning of this amazing book is that this is about praying for your spouse, but it's going to bring you closer to the Lord. It's really about you changing your heart, and that's a prayer that I've had to pray for years. Is Lord, soften my heart towards this man, right? And so your message about like, hey, this isn't about this guy or this isn't about your dad, this is about you being willing to receive me in fullness Right and to move forward with this person that I've put in your life with full trust that this is my will for you.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yep, yeah, absolutely, absolutely yes.
Speaker 1:Well, I have my own story of kind of abandonment and trauma, because when I was married in my twenties, my spouse decided he was going to leave after three months of marriage. And so when you talk about, you know, having a little bit of like oh, I'm not sure he seems great and like, lord, I know you meant for me to be married, but like, ooh, it's hard to like, fully open myself to this person and to share myself with them. That is something that we have to run to God for.
Speaker 1:And we have to condition our kids to remember that no person is going to change your ability to trust. It's only this divine relationship with Jesus that can really soften you to open yourself up again to the fullness of love, which also means the risk of pain and hurt too.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's so true. Nobody knows that kind of suffering and hurt and rejection and all of those things better than the Lord, either right, like when we unite all of those things better than the Lord, either right, like we unite all of those things to him. And he has been through all of that heartbreak and it's a comforting thing to know that Jesus cries with us in our fear and in our wounds also, and that he doesn't want to leave us there either.
Speaker 1:Yes, amen to that. Well, I know you do retreats, also for mothers and daughters, so tell us a little bit about like what you share with moms in these retreats, about just kind of forming your, your daughter, in the faith and and developing, helping your daughter to develop a prayer life at a young age, and doing that in a way that's like cool and receptive for them versus like oh no, she's making me do another one of those things she thinks is good for me. What kinds of?
Speaker 2:things do you?
Speaker 1:talk about in these retreats, Right.
Speaker 2:So the one that I do is very like I'll go sometimes to speak at mother-daughter events, but the one that I run specifically is a mother-daughter retreat that's about purity and chastity. So actually it's funny you said that because one time I was doing a retreat in Florida and I always start by trying to tell the girls like this is not going to be as painful as you think it's going to be, Trust me, Trust me, it's not going to hurt that bad. So I'm telling, I'm trying to soften it right from the get-go. And there's this mom and daughter sitting in the front row and I'm like I know, and it's okay. I don't think any of you were like, oh, my goodness, Friday night, what I really want to do is go on a retreat with my mom and talk about sexuality. And this girl looks at her mom and she's like what? Like I ran out of place? And her mom, like didn't even flinch, she just stood in there smiling, like yeah, this poor girl had no idea why they were there. I was like, oh well, now you know, welcome, it's going to be great. Yeah, it was fabulous.
Speaker 2:So, really, talking about the purity, chastity message, always anything about, you know, sexuality and like what the Lord desires for us, about, you know, sexuality and like what the Lord desires for us. Really, the majority of the retreat is about not a what but a who, and it really is all about the Lord and all of these things that are really hard, and whether it's teachings on sexuality that are really hard, or when you're in a relationship and temptations are really hard or whatever. You have to know why, and your why has to be a who, and so we talk about that a lot. I mean kind of everything that we've been talking about already up to this point, just about the Lord desiring so deeply for their hearts and having a plan that is for their good, and that he wired them in a very unique and beautiful way and he knows that better than they do, and all those kinds of things. And then, with that as the framework, we go into the message of sexuality and how God made it, and he actually loves sexuality because he created it. He could have done cabbage patch, he could have done stork, he could have done you know all these things. But this is what God designed and it's because it's holy, which means that we are supposed to become holier because of sexuality within the confines of how the Lord has gifted it to us within marriage.
Speaker 2:So we go through all of those kinds of things and I'll say all the weird words, the awkward things, and then the mothers and daughters get to sit there together and then and I, you know like have a systematic way that I've been doing this for 20 years of giving TASA detox and the moms don't have to come up with like all the framework or whatever, but then they get to have discussion afterwards. So my favorite part is just watching the walls come down and as the retreat goes on and you see the walls of tension and they start sitting closer together and tears will flow and there's this safe place to ask the questions that they've had on their hearts but didn't know how to bring up and all of that sort of thing. And then at the end we'll do with the girls an opportunity to make a commitment to give their hearts to Jesus. We have these little boxes that go with kind of the theme of our heart throughout the whole thing and then they can give that box, set it at the feet of an image of Jesus and the symbolism of giving him their heart. Then the next morning the dads come and join as a surprise and we have all those boxes gathered and they put a ring. And we have all those boxes gathered and they put a ring inside of that box. We used to do like purity chastity rings, but now we've kind of changed just something that is something that they love, that they would wear, that's their style. It doesn't have to go on their ring finger, but just this symbol of them walking to whatever God has for them together.
Speaker 2:So the dads have the box and the moms and dads write a letter uh, their hopes for that their, their daughter will choose. And then they actually ask the question like will you let me walk on this journey with you? Um, I promise I will always keep your heart in mind, but is this something that we can do together? So dads are crying, girls are crying, moms are crying, I'm crying, everybody's crying. It's just this really beautiful moment, though Spouse selection historically, across cultures, almost universally, has been a family affair. Always, when you look at the history of dating and finding who you're going to marry, that always, until the 1940s, 50s, was it really like kind of going out on your own without any involvement from your family whatsoever. So it's, it's just a beautiful thing to to be able to be open and to talk about these things and, um, to give our kids the desires of our heart and let them, you know, therefore, have the information to make the decisions that that they're they're going to make you know as they go forward.
Speaker 1:Bringing it back to the family. I love that. Instead of it being a taboo topic and instead of being like hey rely on the school to teach you about that. Your body and you know the choices that you make and where that comes from. You're saying like no, let's, I'll be your guide. Maybe you didn't have that yourself as a parent. I know you know. Growing up I don't remember having these talks with my parents and I did.
Speaker 1:I guess I don't recall it, you know, and I think our parents relied a lot on the school to have their you know their maturity talks with us in sixth grade and that somehow we're going to get the message that it is important to save ourselves for marriage and that God desires this, because there's something so much greater in store for us.
Speaker 1:That, yes, yes and that saving ourselves is like worth it. And so, katie, I'm sure you've heard so many parents just um, talk about the grief of their own choices. Oh yes, as you know, teen girls and boys and wishing that they could kind of like, uh, that you know, have a do over.
Speaker 2:But I always tell parents you know in parenting we have a second chance.
Speaker 1:We have a chance to kind of do our own life over differently by parenting our kids in different and beautiful ways that maybe weren't afforded to us, and so I love that you're giving parents this opportunity and you're taking the silliness out of it and you're taking the fear out of it and you're saying, like purity and chastity is a cool thing. This is like something that is so beautiful to strive for, and that it doesn't have to be weird.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, no, absolutely. And yeah, we can look at the beauty of our Christian faith. Right Is that the Lord will always bring a greater good out of every evil if we let him. So the biggest, best example of that is the cross that God died, and because of that we all get to live the worst thing that ever happened in history. So, you know, a lot of times when I'm talking with parents and things, it is like this deep shame and this regret and these things that make it so hard for them to bring these things up. But the Lord again, he doesn't want us to live out of our wounds and he can bring something so powerful and so beautiful even out of our biggest mistakes, out of our biggest regrets in our life. And and also I mean, just as you said, something that we talk about a lot when I'm with parents, especially in this setting um, I'll do like one talk that's just for parents, Like this is the pep talk, just the moms, like the girls are off doing something else, Like we can do this, you can do this, the Lord picked you for this child, and all of those things.
Speaker 2:But the hardest part, I think, is that, yeah, we don't. I don't know anybody. That's like I. My mom did it perfectly. It was so great it was, so I just want to do it exactly like my parents did. I have this total blueprint that's laid out for me, Right. And so for us, we want to do better, and then our hope is that we'll do a really great job and then our kids will also do better, Like we want our kids to be better and we want them to do better than us, and so that they'll have that. But they will have a blueprint of where to start.
Speaker 2:But yes, it should be. I always say like it's, it should not be the talk, it should be the talks. These are things that we talk about and it's. It's going to be uncomfortable and your kids never going to be like, oh, pour me a spot of tea and let's talk some more and and really enjoy these kinds of conversations. But it's, it's so important and it's so important, as you said, not for it to be taboo, for it to be something that we can genuinely. We talk about these things. This is what we do in our house. We see it and we talk about it, we discuss it. So it's really, it's really rich.
Speaker 1:And you go back to the source right. You don't say this is just what we think, as Mark and Katie, but this is actually God's plan for this topic right For sexuality, for marriage and family life and we're going back to the Bible Like what? What is actually said in scripture about about this. So it's not coming from us. We're just following God's plan for our lives, and so that's something that we hand on to them is here's your Bible, here's you've got a routine of going to church and being part of your church community and your faith life.
Speaker 1:And so if we talk about it at home and we bring faith and morals into our day-to-day life in the home which is what we're called to do as parents is be the primary educators of faith and morals for our children, which is what develops their character.
Speaker 1:You know, this is just something that they pass on to their kids and they go oh, yeah, Okay, we're at that age where we need to talk about your body and you know and, and what that's used for, and and how to honor yourself and honor God through how you use your body and and all of the relationships and it just becomes like a common, like well, of course you would talk about this because this is a part of your life.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yep. It's a huge thing and when you really understand it, you dive in deep into what the teaching is. It's so easy to see that it's not. We tend to think of it as like no, no, no, no, no, here's all the things that you can't do. But it's yes, it is yes, it's saying a yes to this incredible, beautiful gift that God has created, and all of the things that people get mad about, um Christians disagreeing in in the realm of of sexuality. When you really understand what it is, then it all. Then it suddenly makes sense Like, okay, the church is just mean and judgmental and all these things. It's really because it's so good, it's so beautiful and we just want to protect that and to let people have the opportunity to receive that giftedness from the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, so good. Well, speaking of daughters and dads, and the whole nine, like I want to circle back to this, this praying for our spouses, and talk about the battle that men are up against. I mean, when you're talking to women about praying for their spouses, and you know what it is that their, their husbands, are dealing with. I mean, what are you hearing out there Like? What is the battle about? And what's what's this battle that we've been warned about from day one, that that men are going to be under?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's.
Speaker 2:There's so much of it that is wrapped up in um, where we find our worth and where we find our identity, and that sounds like it's something that's really, really cliche, but cliches are cliche because they're like a real thing, and I find that there's so much for all of us, right, but for men in a very particular way, of where they find their value.
Speaker 2:And then where they find their value in how they are caring for their family, where they find their value within their work, within their success, within their finances, within the way that others view them all of these like quantitative ways but ultimately, where they find their value is that they are in a, they are a beloved son of God, and if we really, if we all really really got that, we wouldn't have, we wouldn't sin, we wouldn't have problems, we wouldn't care about other people, right? Uh, but then I think what we see in our husbands, um, and and so many of the women that I talked to, is that that's what creates so much stress and overwhelm and pressure, and they feel crushed by all of these different things.
Speaker 2:And then, of of course, they want for us to support, to be supportive and to provide all these things, and sometimes we're really tired and we're having a hard time and virtue takes a lot of energy and things like that, and this is really the best way that we can support them right Is praying into what God says about them, who he says that they are, and asking that the Lord will protect them and guard them within that.
Speaker 1:So good, yes, I'm going to read something from my little journal today, because I read page 239 today in your book, called For His Hands, train my Hands for Battle. Okay, and so I want to read this little excerpt that you put in there from john eldridge's wild at heart, and it says there are three desires I find written so deeply into my heart I know now can no longer disregard with them without losing my soul. I searched the pages of literature, I listened carefully to many, many men and I am convinced these desires are universal, a clue into masculinity itself. They may be misplaced, forgotten or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue. And I said Lord, help Josh, battle with an intense reliance on you in every moment. Amen.
Speaker 2:That was just my simple little prayer this morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that hits right that within every man. They desire to have a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue Woo.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I have goosebumps whenever I think that my husband loves that book and loves that phrase. It's like, yes, it resonates so deeply. Yes, with, with men and for all of the things that they desire are kind of surrounding, surrounding that, and I love that prayer Like that's. When I really got it, you read that it really is just so simple and such a great way to unite your heart with what the Lord desires for them, right.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the scripture that you put on that page, yourself, as the author of this book, is this Psalm 144.1. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trained my hands for battle my fingers for war.
Speaker 1:Yeah, katie, thanks for sharing your heart with us in every page. Y'all, if you are watching this on YouTube and you ever get a chance to go to one of her talks or retreats or meet her in person, this is just going to resonate even deeper with you because, katie, you've just been so faithful and obedient to God's nudge to just open yourself, to entrust that what he puts on your heart isn't just for you, but it's for us. It's something that has really blessed us deeply. It is blessing so many men around the world, and so thank you for the work and the dedication it takes to write a book like this. Thank you for just trusting the Lord in the process. That, like, I don't know. You know where this will go, but I'm just answering that little call from that woman who said but what now? Now that you got the guy, what are you doing to pray for him? And let's pray for her that she has?
Speaker 1:the courage to ask her a question that prompted this whole thing. The Lord works in such awesome ways.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes true and my favorite part, um, I mean every time that that you and I talk about it is, and anybody who's who's reading it or whatever is like we get to be in this battle together and knowing that there are other people that are praying with me, that um are praying. You know we're praying for each other, that we're having this desire, that we are this whole you know army of women, and so I'm always just so, so blessed and so grateful for you also spreading the word of about the book and about you know, this practice of praying, and I'm so blessed to get to be in that battle with you, jordan. So, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for helping us to provide the armor, because it's not our role to fight the fight for our husbands. God made them for this fight, he made them for adventure and to have a beauty to rescue, and we think it's important for us also to pray for our sons and our daughters right, and the future spouses that they're going to meet, and to start doing that from day one. You know, I wish I would have known about this years ago, because I would have started praying for my kids then that they would align themselves with who God wants for them to spend the rest of their lives with, to raise children with, in this crazy world that he's such a big part of. And so that's something that we can do now is we can continue to pray for our spouse on a daily basis. We can pray for our kids and their spouses and mostly to just pray that God's will will be done right in our life.
Speaker 1:So, thank you, katie, so much for being part of this, this show and this community. Uh, we just love you and your family and all that you're doing. And uh, guys, be sure to pick up a copy of her book provide the armor by Katie Hartfield and and check her out online too. So Katie can be found at womaninloveorg. She can also be found at if you Google, she shall be called woman. All right, katie, it's. It's just been wonderful to have you with us, and we'll catch you on another episode of our show real soon.
Speaker 2:Great, thank you so much for having me, Jordan.
