ReStoried

118. Stacking the Stones: Staying Faithful in the Hard Seasons with Ryan North

• Hope Bridge/Adkins Media Co.

Share episode

In this episode of Restoried, we sit down with Ryan North of One Big Happy Home for a real and encouraging conversation about foster care, adoption, connected parenting, and staying faithful in hard seasons. With more than 30 foster placements and years of lived experience, Ryan shares what he and his wife, Kayla, have learned about building strong relationships with kids impacted by trauma. 

Ryan talks about why connection matters more than predictions or diagnoses, how creativity and flexibility can make a huge difference, and what it looks like to keep showing up even when things feel overwhelming. He also shares honestly about marriage, self-care, and how caregivers can support one another so they don’t burn out along the way. 

This episode is full of practical wisdom, hope, and reminders to celebrate progress — even the small wins. If you’re in the thick of foster care, adoption, or kinship parenting, this conversation will encourage you to keep going and remember that the work you’re doing truly matters. 

Don’t miss hearing Ryan speak in person at Mobilize Ohio 2026! Register using the link below. 

 

Episode Highlights:  

  • Connection over outcomes 
  • Creativity and flexibility 
  • Staying faithful long-term 
  • Marriage under pressure 
  • Celebrating small wins 

 

Find more on Guest: 

 

Find More on Hope Bridge: 

Register for Mobilize Ohio 2026!

SPEAKER_00:

Hope Bridge is on a gospel-led mission to transform the foster care landscape in Ohio. We're here to raise awareness and empower churches and communities to step into action by supporting vulnerable children and families in their local communities. In this podcast, we'll be shining the light on stories of hope, redemption, and transformation, and sharing practical ways that you can step in and get involved. Welcome to Restoried, a podcast by Hope Rich. Welcome back to Restoried. This is Nicole, and I will be your host for today. Today I have with me Ryan North from One Big Happy Home. It's an organization that provides resources, support, and practical strategies and emotional guidance to help caregivers address trauma, behavior challenges, and attachment issues. Ryan and his wife, Kaylin, are the hosts of the Empowered Parents podcast. But more importantly, outside of the professional role, he's a father and a husband and is passionate about the space of foster care, adoption, and all the things that go with that. So welcome, Ryan. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01:

Glad you could be here on this local here for us today, but they're they're threatening snowmageddon down here because we might hit 20 on Friday.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Well, I'm not jealous now that you live in a southern state. Um so if you don't mind introducing yourself to our audience who may not have heard of you yet, and just kind of give us a brief overview of who Ryan is.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so um I moved to the United States 32 years ago from South Africa. My my dad was raised in a kinship situation, what we'd call kinship today. He was just raised by his uncle and aunt because of some difficulties with his his his birth parents. And um, my wife, her grandparents were foster parents. And so when we met and got married and started talking about building our family, we were both pleasantly surprised that that both of us had come to it thinking about adoption. And then that morphed into wanting the wanting to adopt through foster care. And and you know, it's a it's an it's an hour-long story, but at the end of the day, we got licensed um to become foster parents in Texas. We we decided that that was a really great need, and we would do that. Um, and then we had a couple of adopt adopted a couple of the foster kiddos, um, had one bio kiddo, took a little bit of a break, and then came back and fostered some more, had another bio kiddo, and and two more adoptions. The last two adoptions were sibling set, and they were placed with us when my wife was three months pregnant. So that was quite a year. We went from three to six in the blink of an eye. Um, over the 10 years that we were foster parents, we had 30 kids in our home. We have an open adoption with our oldest daughter's bio mother, and so you know, open adoption can be be on a continuum. So, what we mean by that is that um she she stays she spends Christmas and Thanksgiving with us, and her her daughter that she is raising, who is 13 now, spends summers with us. Um, spends she was just with us this last weekend because of the long weekend. And and so, I mean, we're the they're they're very much a part of our family in all the way. So we have six kids, but in reality, we're kind of parenting slash mentoring eight of them.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, sure. Totally understand that. That's kind of similar with our situation. Okay, so what are the age differences between the oldest and the youngest?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so I'm gonna do them in age order, but they're not the order in which they arrived in the family, okay? So our oldest is 23, he turned 23 in October. He had a little bit of a false start when he got out of high school, um, and then came back home for a bit and kind of got things resettled and recalibrated and and moved out in the summer of 2025. He has an apartment with with a guy he's been friends with since they were in middle school, and he uh holds down a job and he's and he's doing he's doing honestly, he's doing a lot better than any of the diagnoses from his childhood suggested that he would. Um, and that's important, and uh we'll get to come back to that in a little bit. Um, then our 21-year-old daughter. Oh, he was four when he came home. Our 21-year-old daughter was four months when she came home, came home from the NICU. She was a micro-premie. Then we have uh our son, who Josh, who is eight, who just turned 18 on Saturday, and then our daughter, Brooklyn, who is 17 and a half, she's bio, and then Addie, who is um 14 and a half. Her and Josh are are a sibling set biologically, and she had a traumatic brain injury, so she's 14 and a half, but she's about 20 months developmentally, and then we have Libby who is 13, she's bio. And by the time she arrived, we'd learnt a lot, we'd applied a lot, and we'd figure out figured out a fair amount. And I would argue that she's the most securely attached human being I've ever met in my whole life. Because by the time we got to kid number 30, we'd learnt a few things. Um, let me give an example of that. She'll she'll say, I'll say, Hey, um, I love you, and she goes, I know. She doesn't feel the compulsion to say to regurgitate back to the person who said something nice to her, and I love that about her, and I love that for her. Um, she she does well academically, she plays competitive volleyball, she's a double national champion already. Her first year of U12, they won the national title and then they repeated last year in Kansas. And so, and so she's just a very sweet person, but but boy, she sees red when she steps onto that volleyball court. And I'll say, I say, babe, you're awesome. And she goes, I know. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

That can uh that can be quite a journey to to have a a girl that age in volleyball.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, tournament play starts this this weekend, and so and so for her, um, she plays on two teams, two different seasons, not not concurrently. And um, the team she's on now, she just started. She was playing on a different team, and and the co and the and the person who owned the club owner is from Brazil, and she has the distinction of having two gold medals from two different world championships and one Olympic medal. So, and so she came to my wife and I, and she said, Look, um, can you please bring her for a tryout? And I said, Okay. And she said, The tryout's a formality. She said, I I want to coach her. She's tall. I mean, I'm 6'5, she's already like 5'9 at 13. And she's tall, she's competitive, she has great hand-eye coordination, she's pretty athletically gifted. And so to have this person who has a fairly lengthy Wikipedia entry about her volleyball career come to us and say, I really want to help in the development of your child, was very flattering for us. But what that means is we just got the email that we have to be at the tournament no later than 7 a.m. on Saturday morning.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's your life now.

SPEAKER_01:

That is, uh and and they only play tournaments. So she practices twice a week and every weekend she plays in a tournament.

SPEAKER_00:

So they just could, yeah, yeah. Well, have fun with that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and they and they have a uh, I mean, you know, the the clubs are fairly enough of a big deal around here that they have like, you know, um legitimate sponsors and everything. They're all a didist out and and all kinds of crazy stuff. It's no more like mom, mom and pop printing stuff. It's like it's it's the big time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, how fun is that though? How fun that your family can do that, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it is it is a lot of fun. And and my and our uh 18-year-old son plays soccer, and his so his games are Tuesday and Thursday nights during the week. So so we get we get to see everybody, we get to enjoy everybody. Um, and and luckily I have some kids that are into academics, some kids are into art, some kids are into theater, some are into sports, so we're not generally cross-competing at the same time.

SPEAKER_00:

That's nice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And did you finish? Wait, do you still have a few more kids to say?

SPEAKER_01:

No, that was all six of them.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

The other 24 were were foster placements.

SPEAKER_00:

And how fun though that you know in this world and in this type of parenting, you're doing so many you have so many other types of appointments and activities that may not be so like exciting, but yet being able to like enjoy your children doing things that are just as useful, you know, and you've come to that place, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, I I I I I often think about think about this. Um and and I don't mean to dive too deep, but in into into these things, but um the night before Martin Luther King Jr. was was killed, he delivered what has become known as the Promised Land speech in Memphis, Tennessee. And near the end of it, he talks about how how how the how his movement was gonna get there, but he was now convinced that he wasn't gonna get there with everybody else. Um, you know, it would it would take more than his life. And he said that that that I've been to the mountaintop and the Lord's let me see the promised land. Um, and it ends with him, you know, very characteristically yelling out, For mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. But I think about that the God, God has taken me to the mountaintop and he's shown me the promised land. And you know, Kayla and I have been doing this for more than 15 years now, and I think the thing that sustains us is that God has allowed us to go to the mountaintop and see the promised land. Yeah. Because with our 23-year-old son, who all of the diagnoses, all of the predictions was so dark. And and we we went through a season with him for about two years where we had very little contact with him by his choice, um, and and a lot of difficulty, but but he did call us because Caleb and I talked early on and said, well, what what's the goal of parenting? And you know, there's a lot of answers people give, right? But we decided that we wanted to build a relationship so so strong that our kids would want to come home for Christmas. Now that sounds dangerous, right? Because you might say, Well, if you're just a permissive parent, you'll do that. Well, that's that's factually untrue that permissive parenting will get there. But what we did is we said no when we had to, yes when we could, our interactions with our children based on the things we had learned, we had experienced, and we mentored into us over the last you know almost two decades. We applied them, we applied them faithfully when they didn't appear like they were working. We applied them, that's why we started the podcast. That's why we started writing, so that it was a way for us to keep ourselves honest so we could say, hey, we're trying, we're not always succeeding, but we're still trying. And because of that, what we've now seen is is a young man who should whose outcome should be far worse than he's currently experiencing. And the only thing that I can say is that we stayed faithful to the task and did everything we we knew how to build a relationship with that young man. Was it all as easy? No. Are there boundaries? Absolutely. Um, but but that but that's sort of my promised land experience and what sustains us because I think that in a lot of ways God has taken us to the top of the mountaintop and let allowed us to see what's possible if we'll do the work.

SPEAKER_00:

So you've had you have years of experience, but you you didn't start off with all this experience, and and you talked about some of your writing and your podcast. What what pro compelled you and Kayla to not only like live this experience, but then to decide to step into it and work in this space? I mean, I know I I mean most of us who are in this space typically have personal experience and you see the need, but what was it that caused you to just dedicate your life to this type of work?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, so so so two things that happened kind of back to back. We we had just we had just uh Tori was in our home, she was still in foster care, that's my 21-year-old, and Tyler was placed with us and adopted five months later. Um, the government waived the six-month requirement so we could uh participate in National Adoption Day that year. And and right around that time, um, you know, TBRI, uh um the the Connected Child had come out. TBRI was sort of a rumor you heard whistling in the wind. And and and so, and so you know, I don't know if you've heard of something called Empower to Connect, uh-huh. Um, which which at its root, I know it's it's different now, it's evolved, it's it's different, but back then it was basically how do we how do we translate TBRI in into into words and activities that'll help parents in the home. And so when that was developed, we were asked by the people who created it if we'd pilot the pilot the course and give them feedback. Um people always get jealous on this data point, but back then um uh a short little diminutive gray-haired woman from TCU showed up on week eight. And so we go to meet Karen and she did a nurture group with our kids. Our kids still affectionately refer to her almost 20 years later as the bubblegum lady. Because I just remember sitting on her lap and her sweet little voice and running her fingers through her hair. And if you ask me, I'll say yes, and and all of that sing-song y stuff she used to do. Um, and then we sat with her, and and she said, Okay, now time left. I'm I want each of the eight families, and I want each of you to tell me something you're struggling with and see if we can figure it out. And the way that the the crescent moon arrangement of chairs, my wife and I were the eighth family she got to, and before she got to us, I was just so overwhelmed, so overwhelmed by how clear she was about about why God had put her on earth. She she was she I'd never met anything, anybody before her, or likely since, that had such clarity of purpose about her life and the way she spoke and how she confidently spoke about it. And and I and I started sitting in my chair thinking, I want that for me. And I I I want to know why God put me on the earth and I want to do that thing. And so, you know, I've always been fascinated by people's behavior, and so being in the realm of developmental psychology, which all of this is, was uh you know was something that we gravitated to naturally. Um, and then right around that time, TCU did their neurotransmitter study and had our daughter participate in it. We had a sign contracts that said we would only parent her exclusively for 12 months as TBRI principles, and so we did, and then we literally looked at the blood the blood work uh on the front end and the back end, and to see that it made a change on a at a chemical level in the small child's life was what really hooked me. Wow, and and so I said, I'm in. And so during during that 12 months, my wife said, Let's journal to keep ourselves honest. And I said, That's what old people do. There's these new things called weblogs, they weren't even called blogs, they were still called weblogs back then. And so we started a blog. She wanted to call I I set it up, I said, You want to name it? She said, I want to call it One Big Happy Home. She said clarity about that. Um, she wanted just a lot of kids in the house, and so we did that, and then and then people started reading it, and the folks who started Empower to Connect started reading it and asked us to write for ETC and then asking us to speak for ETC, we felt woefully underqualified. Um, but I am but I am confident in my abilities to wing it. So I was in, Kayla was a little bit more reluctant. But the guy who started Empower to Connect, a man by the name of Michael Monroe, he said to us, look, this is how I view the world. Once you're at a place where you're 55% doing well and 45% of you needs help, you can help somebody behind you who's doing worse.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And so that was sort of the thing. I'm like, okay, I can do this. So I quit my job that I was working at to go run um tapestry, which at the time was sort of the OG of adoption foster care ministries, started like 20 something years ago at Irving Bible Church. With that responsibility, came running in power to connect. And next thing we were traveling and speaking and at conferences and on TV and and and and training crisis intervention specialists around the country, and it just kind of it just kind of you know went from there. And and I think and I think the Lord's blessed it because I think that Kayla and I have stayed faithful to the task.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think a lot of times um it's so interesting, you know, when we have people come and share and speak and and we're in the work ourselves, we're also living it. You know, and so you're out there sharing with people how the hope that can happen through this these types of tools that you're offering, but you also know that you need them too. And I think that's why things you know, people are so drawn to those who are in this space because you're living it from experience.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we just spoke at an event in Houston last weekend, and the feedback from that event was overwhelmingly. We like hearing from people who didn't just read books, but they lived it.

SPEAKER_00:

It makes a huge difference. Yeah, because we have to feel seeing, you know, you want to feel seeing and know because we had to figure out how to apply what we learned. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I mean, ideas are great, but I mean, if I'm honest, ideas are essentially useless. Because if you can't figure out how to apply your ideas, it's just an idea.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

You know what I mean? So so I think that that's been the value, and and I think that the the Lord wired our brains. We're pretty creative people. Um, you know, we've become more flexible over time because we learned that that that your two best friends are creativity and flexibility. Um, and now we just now we just get to tell people that look, if you if you do this thing, then it might work. I can say because we did this thing, we saw these results. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So okay, so if somebody's coming to your organization and going to your website and they're like, What what do you do? What what do you and Kayla offer families and what kind of resources do you have today?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so so that that becomes an increasingly complicated question daily because so we started out working just doing training and support for adoptive and foster families, kinship families, running support groups. Then we started writing training content. We have we have live, we have live stuff, we have video based training that people can buy. We do parent coaching. We just started doing couples coaching with with married people. Over time, we've started speaking more on marriage and get invited to speak on that. So so my wife and I are launching a marriage podcast in the in the in the first. First quarter of this year. Um, when you talk about, you know, the divorce rate amongst parents raising special needs kids is like 40% higher.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Let me try that again. Um 41% of first marriages in the United States end in divorce. That number is higher when you factor in subsequent marriages. But 41% of first marriages, 80% of marriages where you're parenting special needs end in divorce. So the sex are really high for our audience. But we realize pretty quickly that that you know the best therapy appointment in the world is still only 55 minutes on Wednesday. And so that's why we have to teach parents these strategies because that's not enough. Um, that's not enough touch points for the child in being parented this way. Well, it well, then we have to realize that kids, you know, spend the making hours at school. So we did so we've done some work with schools across the country. We do a lot of work with churches. Um, we believe that if people come in that door, that you better be equipped to make your places safe, welcoming in love. And and then the research from Barner and others suggests that that as a discipleship tool, that's important. Well, the research on the brain says that as a discipleship tool, children's ministry is important. The research on evangelism says that children's ministry is important because it's the inroad into the family. Um, we do work with agencies, we do work with state governments, we're in negotiations with the government to become the training content provider this year. Um, and also because of the things we learned, because they are just relational things. Um, we've done some corporate work, we run a leadership development program. So that's why I say it's becoming increasingly complicated because there's a lot of touch points because what we've learned, the principles we've learned from about connected parenting, are healthy relationship principles that can be uh can be applied in any situation and see positive outcomes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love that. Last year we, you know, at our conference we had uh Kurt Thompson, Dr. Kurt Thompson come and talk about the best, isn't he? Yes, yes. And it was just, you know, going back to that core need that we all have to belong, to connect, that relational, you know, um need that we all have. Okay, so talking about marriage, how long have the two of you been married, did you say?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so what's to so about two weeks ago we celebrated our 24th anniversary. I was recovering from surgery and my wife had the flu. And so we had the very romantic we had the very romantic lay in bed together and fall asleep while watching a movie celebration.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I totally get that. Last year we okay, so last year. Oh, wait, what year is this? Okay, the year. I have a two-year-old who was born on our 25th wedding anniversary. Not by me. I didn't give birth to him, but I was there. Um so we didn't go to Hawaii or say, you know, like the Caribbean. Like I had hoped we ended up in well, we call it Amish country, just in our south. And I had COVID. So it was just like a completely different um 25th wedding anniversary that we had, and so I understand that.

SPEAKER_01:

So um I one of the very clear memories I have of our of our marriage was we got married, obviously, we got married in January, and then so Valentine's Day was like six weeks later. And my wife was just planning newlywed Valentine's romance, and then on the 14th, she got ill and had and had the flu on Valentine's Day. So she was sleeping in bed. I watched TV and ate something on the couch, and and for years she was so upset by that. She'd she was just convinced that that she had to just kill Valentine's Day one as a wife, and somehow this was going to be some sort of bad omen for our marriage.

SPEAKER_00:

So besides, besides.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, she she cried. She was so upset that she was sick on Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_00:

That's yeah, we actually our our anniversary is a week before Valentine's Day. So if we time it right, we can buy a card for both things, like happy anniversary, or you know, there's times they'll buy me flowers on the anniversary, and I used to be cheap and be like, Don't buy me them on Valentine's Day because they're twice the price. And you just got me flowers, and now I'm like, why didn't you buy me two sets of flowers? You know, for this point in our life. Um so the key to a good marriage, okay? You know, you talk about the divorce rates, you talk about raising um kids with special needs and and how that increases the divorce rate. What have you found has been the key for the two of you? Because you both are in this work, you both are parenting these children. It's a lot of stress, it's a lot of things to carry around.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and we're running our own business. I mean, my my there's no escape from it.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And there's always something that's a stressor, right? So um, you know, on our 23rd wedding anniversary, we went out to dinner. And and um we we went to ill in bed, we actually made it to the restaurant on anniversary. And um and so after dinner, when when when the waitress came around and asked us if we wanted to order anything for dessert, she said, Are you celebrating anything special this tonight? I said, Yeah, it's our wedding anniversary. And and she's probably I think 23 or 24 years old. She was in nursing school, and she kind of paused, took a breath, and said, Can I ask you guys a question? Um, and I said, sure. And and I will never forget this young woman because I think it took a lot of courage for her to ask this question. She said, My dad left when I was seven. Um I have I don't have I'd have never I did not live in a home where I had an example of what a good marriage is. I'm engaged when I graduate from nursing school, we're planning on getting in marriage. What uh married, what advice do you have? So we talked for a little bit, and I'll tell you two of the things that we that we told her. One is laugh at each other, not not just with each other, but at each other. Right. You know, I I I come from the British Empire where bantering is wired into you, and so and so and so going back and forth is not difficult for me. But my wife was was pretty thin-skinned when we got married, and so over the years she's had it just kind of and she'll give as good as she gets now, and we laugh at each other, make fun of each other. Life's hard, it's too serious. You have to laugh, and sometimes you've got to laugh at your spouse's expense, not in a mocking way, but just like, are you serious right now? And the other thing we told her is fight if you have to. Um, don't sweep things under the rug, don't pretend like it's not an issue, don't say I'm fine, hash it out, because if you don't, resentment grows. And so some some things are non-issues, but some things are important enough to get to the bottom of. And sometimes that means that you're just gonna have to ha have to have an exchange of ideas, maybe even an argument. But contextually, I will say that those I those things have become easier for us because we use the we use the connected parenting principles, because like I said, they're great relationship principles. And so we use those on each other. And and and part of what we've learned, you know, one of the things we've learned and tell couples is is when your spouse is talking, listen to understand, not to respond. And what and how you get there is that you understand that you need to be quiet for 80% of the conversation and and speak for 20. And so if you both will do that, then all of a sudden everybody has space to share their peace. Because oftentimes we get angry, anger born out of frustration, because we don't feel like we're getting a chance to speak. So if you let the other person speak, but I think the thing that I would say is is when we got married, we thought happy wife, happy life was a good idea, it's not, um, for a myriad of reasons that we don't need to get into. Then we heard happy spouse, happy house. It's just a variation of the same bad idea. But what we've come to understand is that is that when we stood at the church at the front of that day, even though we didn't consciously think of it this way, she married me because of who she believed I could be. And I married her because of I believed in who she could be. So we we both think that you don't marry the person, you marry their the potential you see in them. And if that is true, which we believe it is, then your responsibility to them and to God is to help them get reach their potential. And so, and so over the years, uh, our our our position and posture to each other is I am here to help you walk in your potential. My wife didn't want to do public speaking, she keynoted an event last week because I told her, You have too much to say, and people connect with you. You you this is uh I'm your husband, I love you, and I can simply not with a clean count conscience allow you to hide your light under a bushel.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And so, and so she fought me on that, she was mad at me, she was upset. She I I thought she was gonna kill me one time she spoke before the time, first time she spoke by herself. But at the end of the day, what happened is I've heard her say somebody compliment her on her on her speaking, and she said, Um, it's all my husband because because he nagged me, he pushed me, he mentored me, he coached me, he did what he had to do to get me up here, and she's grateful for it now. And so we'll we'll address issues like this. Both of us will say, Hey, I know you're probably not gonna like what I have to say, but I think you need to hear it. And so when we couch it like that, that almost pours cold water into the bowl. And as a result, I think we've become better people, I think we're better at relationships. And if arguing is the measure of marital excitement, I have the most boring marriage in America now.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, plenty of other things to Yeah, I don't have a boring life, so I'm good.

SPEAKER_00:

You have plenty of volleyball to entertain me right now, and and soccer and theater and and and you are you are very well rounded and and thanks to your children, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, uh it's like you know, if you throw if you throw a rock in a washing machine for long enough, it'll be rounded too.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay, so just real quick, you know, a lot of our families listening are going through very hard things. Just, you know, I can think of somebody who's experiencing something with their 23-year-old at this moment. It's a really challenging season. And it's easy to constantly I know personally I'm caring for ailing parents and in a in a two-year-old and babies. So it's it's overwhelming, it's hard. How how do you encourage your families to care for themselves? You know, we know how to nurture our you talked about nurturing your marriage, but how do you care for yourself well while you're caring for so many?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so so so the advice has to happen on two levels because because it's potentially easier for somebody who's parenting with a spouse than somebody who's parenting alone.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So one of the things we learned is is my responsibility to Kayla, as hers is to me, is to help her walk in the fullness of her potential. Now, she would tell you that I'm a higher capacity person than she is, meaning I can just absorb a lot without her rocking me. And so, but I also recognize that she does that that that's not her. And so, and so one of the things that we've done is we've we've just abandoned silly ideas of when your spouse is trying to take care of you, that you tell them I don't need anybody to take care of them, I'm independent. That's yeah, those are silly ideas. You don't have to you don't have to be codependent, but if you're in a marriage, you certainly are interdependent, independent, for sure. And so, and so I'll walk in the door and and I can tell because she's called me three times during the day when I used to work outside of the home. And um, and so or or it just you know, you knew you walk in the house and you can just sense a disturbance in the force, and so and so I I would say, you know, my wife's absolute favorite thing in the whole wide world is reading a book while getting a pedicure. Like, like she'll have friends say, Hey, let's go for pedicures, and she's like, I mean, I love you guys, but now I have to talk because she just wants to read a book while she gets her pedicure. So I'll say, Hey, here's your book, I'll get your pedicure. Um, we both love cooking, and so and we'll take turns cooking because you know, prepping dinner for all the people in my house can be stressful, and you and you almost have to be like an iron chef because you have to cook so fast because the window is so small. And so we'll we'll just do things for each other around the house. Simple things like if I make myself a cup of tea, I'll always make her one, or if she makes a cup of tea, she'll always make me one. Just little simple things like that to take care of each other. But also, if you're heading for the cliff, when you're regulator telling the other person you have permission to point out my blind spots. And so I remember years ago, so so you know, if books and pedicures are her happy place, mine's playing my guitar. Uh, I have eight of them. Oh including one, well, nine if you count the one in the office here.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, good, you can bring one to mobilize Ohio and we'll have you lead us in, you know, worship.

SPEAKER_01:

Can I borrow one? Maybe I can't take I can take my sweet babies to that weather, they'll die.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, they'll be okay.

SPEAKER_01:

They'll be okay. Um, and so and so she'll say, Hey, I know you were gonna cook dinner tonight, but why don't you just you just go play guitar for a little bit? And it gently, you know, in the same way that that you know, David soothed Saul by playing the harp. I I gently, I genuinely feel soothed in my soul just sitting and playing my guitars. And um, and so yeah, so so so we'll keep an eye on each other. We'll agree that if you think I need a break, I can't argue with you. You know, there's this idea in psychology that the last person you'll ever see clearly is yourself. Um Vander Kohlk says it differently. He says human beings are masters at self-deception. And I believe that with 100% of my being. And so because I believe that and because she believes that, it's easy for us to say, hey, if you tell me I'm out of line, I can't argue because you can see me clearly. And I can't. So, so so at the end of the day, I mean, Nicole, we we can talk about a lot of strategies, but unless you decide ahead of time what you're gonna do, you're never gonna do it. Right. You know, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got, parenting advice, marital advice was this, and it has nothing to do with parenting or marriage. I remember reading an article by uh written by a woman who said for years I'd always wished that I was a morning person. But you know, I'd get up at eight and I'd move slowly, and then it hit me one day. If you want to be a morning person, set your lawn for six o'clock and get out of bed. Because you don't become a morning person by wishing you were a morning person. Become a morning person by forcing yourself to get up until it's a habit.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And so, you know, James Clear wrote the book Atomic Habits. I'm a big believer in that. That you need to make choices and you need to consistently act on your choices, because over time that just becomes what you do.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, um, we could talk about all the different things, and and I'm just gonna let you kind of end here a little bit and just you know, we are excited for you to come to mobilize Ohio in March and share with us, and um as you are coming out of a a challenging season for yourself, and what kind of advice would you give our families who are still just in the thick of things and they're just at the very very end? What kind of advice would you give them um as they're still just trying to like come up for anything? Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

I I think I'll go old testament on you here.

SPEAKER_00:

That'd be great.

SPEAKER_01:

In the old test in the old in the old testament, God tells the Israelites every time there's a victory uh or anything significant happens to make a pile, an altar with 12 stones representing each one of the 12 tribes. So that way, in future generations, when you your children walk by, you could tell them what the Lord had done for you at that place. And I think in our parenting, in our marriages, in our health, in our all relationships, we we sometimes be because we we want everything to be perfect, that when it's not perfect, we tend to get unsettled. Because I think we have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others. But what I have learned along the way is that is that is that you can't look at where you are, look at the finish line where you want to be, and then bemoan the distance. What you have to do is celebrate the progress along the way. And so if you'll remember the good days, the bad days become earlier. You know, you talk about some of my struggles. A month ago, I was in a hospital bed with multiple IVs stuck into my arm. And um, and Jason Weber, and you know Jason from CAFA, right? So Jason lives here locally, we've been friends for a long time. So he was visiting me at the hospital, and and he's like, dude, how are you feeling? And I said, J Webb, God's been too good to me for me to be afraid. Yes, right, and so and so um, and so that's sort of the sort of the mantra of my life now because because I have got in the habit of stacking the stones. I I have got to the place where I remember some things that I thought were just gonna devastate my family, were just gonna take us out.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

We got to the other side, and so I I I would encourage families to just go and look for the good times, look for that interaction where the child smiled and didn't yell, and remember those things because you'll stay faithful to the task. And one of the easiest ways to stay faithful to the task is to remember that that you're standing on the other side of the Red Sea and you crossed on dry land.

SPEAKER_00:

Amen.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, so so so just if you can just remember that God's been been better to you on your worst day than you possibly could even imagine deserving, a lot of it falls into place for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, gratitude. I think we can be overwhelmed and want to see the big thing going on in our life. But yeah, that's a practice that I've been doing lately, especially what's going on in my life. And I actually bought a gratitude. Um I can't remember the name. It's a book, but it's every day I list things that I can see God's done. It's either a gratitude or a grace of God. Even in those dark, dark days, you know, have a sign in my house that says there's always, always something to be thankful for. God is so good to us, and we have to constantly sometimes remind ourselves to look back at what he's done and to see what he's doing in the now, even when things are really hard. Um, and it's easy to forget that. And we need to be reminded by other believers and brothers and sisters in Christ who can constantly remind us of how good God is, even when it's really, really hard. I appreciate you taking your time uh with us. We're so excited for you to come here in March. And hopefully it's not zero degrees.

SPEAKER_01:

So Yeah, we'll take anything above 30. If you can put the request in, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_00:

I will say a couple years ago when we had mobilize, it was in the 60s. And so we really showed up for our guests who flew in from across the country. But you know, I'm not sure which you're gonna bring with you when you come. So hopefully.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I mean, gosh, if it's in the 60s, you know, my wife will teach in a in a in a skirt and no shoes. Okay, look, it's so warm.

SPEAKER_00:

We're at the place where it's 35 degrees when I pick my kids up from the car line. They're wearing t-shirts and no coat.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm like, uh, I mean like I'll be honest with you. I I grew up in San Diego weather, and so and so I don't know if cold weather is as bad as it is, but it certainly is very psychologically difficult for me.

SPEAKER_00:

It is. We we have uh supplements that we can take and like little lights to kind of keep us from getting the winter blues. So that's oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

My friend in Michig in Michigan was telling me about the winter blues. He's like, dude, it's Sarah. It's a real thing.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a thing. So hopefully none of us have that when you come. But anyways, uh thank you, Ryan, for spending.

SPEAKER_01:

You bet. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00:

And for the rest of you who are listening, check out our website, hoperidgeohio.org, or find us on social media. If you are local and want to uh learn about mobilize Ohio, we have all of our information on the website as well. We would love for you to join us uh to um hear from Ryan and his wife, Kayla, as they will both be speaking and doing breakout sessions as well. Uh, until next time, thanks for tuning in.