When You Can’t Fix What Matters Most with Matthew Efird

What do you do when the hardest battle your family faces is one you can't fix?

In this episode, Whitney Sewell sits down with Matthew Efird to discuss the devastating journey of receiving a terminal diagnosis for their unborn son and what it taught him about faith, marriage, fatherhood, and leadership.

Matthew shares how God sustained his family through grief, how suffering exposed what mattered most, and what it looks like to continue leading with hope when life doesn't make sense.

If you're facing loss, uncertainty, or a season that's testing your faith, this conversation offers biblical encouragement and practical hope.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You don't prepare for the storm in the storm. You got to prepare beforehand. In this moment, there was nothing for me to fix. And that was the most sobering, humbling part of the experience. Is I could not fix my son's genetic disorder. It did not matter how much I tried to do. This either drives you together or this drives you apart. There is no middle ground.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome to the Courageous Men Podcast, where we help Christian men follow God faithfully, love their families well, and build a legacy that lasts. And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Most men say they want to lead well, but it's in their faith, their marriage, right, their family. But the real question is, you know, what happens when life hits you with something you cannot fix? Today's guest is Matthew Efrid. Matthew, he's he's a husband, a father of four boys, business owner, and a man who has spent years leading in both ministry and in the marketplace. But what sets his story apart is not what he's built, but it's what he's walked through in a season that would just shake any family. You know, Matthew had to learn what it really means to lead with faith, to love his wife well, and to stay anchored when nothing else made sense. Today we're talking about faith under pressure, marriage in hard seasons, and how a man shows up when it matters most. Matthew, I am honored to have you on the Craigus Men podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Man, Wendy, thank you so much. It's it's it's truly an honor to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

You know, I read your story and I just thought, oh man, like I'm not sure I can hold it together uh even while we talk about it, but I know it's gonna serve so many men. I appreciate your willingness to to share, right? Appreciate your willingness to help other men to to maybe be prepared for something that they don't even know is coming, right? But uh but to help us to learn from your experience from you and your family, how you've led there. So I want to jump right in, you know. Uh, you know, all men, you know, or most anyway, Matthew, they say they want to lead well, right? Whether it's in their faith, their marriage, or their family, you know, but the real question is, you know, what happens, you know, when life just hits you with something you can't fix, right? I want to jump into that, right? Um and so I know, Matthew, there was a season, you know, where your faith, your leadership, you know, they were tested, right? Uh, and and really in a way that most men just never expect. I just want to jump right in. You know, can you walk us maybe into that, right? A little bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

I appreciate the opportunity to share, right? Uh I had the my married my high school sweetheart. She's outside my relationship with Jesus Christ, the best decision I ever made. And we uh got married right out of college. Uh, I was had just graduated. She was still in her senior year, so young and dumb and full of love. And we're a little bit older. We're still, you know, we can make poor decisions. We're still in love. And I'm so thankful for that. But we we got married um a few years into marriage, felt really called to start trying to grow a family. And um, it took us about two years to get pregnant with our first son, Walker. And um soon thereafter, we kind of felt like our family was not done. Um, and so a year, a year and a half later, started trying to grow our family again and got pregnant again pretty quickly this time, which we're really excited for. Um, going into our secret ultrasound appointment. So about the 10, 12 week mark, we took our oldest at the time. Walgre was 18 months old, took him. It was so exciting. You know, you get to meet your sibling, you they're gonna be on this ultrasound screen or have all the fun questions. And the ultrasound technician was doing the measurements, and she had asked us this question, kind of in passing, if we were gonna do any kind of genetic testing. And, you know, we were like, Yeah, we're going to, it's not gonna change anything we do, right? We believe our personal conviction is that life happens at conception. And so it wasn't changed our decision as a family, it just helped prepare us if there was something we needed to be prepared for. But we never thought there'd be anything to prepare for, right? So we go through the ultrasound appointment, we go into the doctor's office, we're kind of in the waiting area, and our oldest son is playing with the toys, jumping around, being a rambunctious little boy, and our doctor walks in, and my son launches himself off of the stool and busts his lip open. There's blood everywhere, it's kind of chaotic in the room. And so we get that, you know, calmed down. We get that moment calmed down, and then we notice I get it. Okay, so so but but in that moment we notice the somber face of our doctor. We had not met this doctor yet. It was she was part of the practice. This was the first time that we were meeting her, and and she said this this word that still kind of rings in my soul. And she said, There's some abnormalities on your ultrasound. And I didn't hear a ton after that. Um, she started talking about the the something on the back of our uh child, and we now know a son, um, that there was a thickness on the back of the neck, and that typically means there's a genetic disorder. Those genetic disorders are most commonly gen uh trisomy 13 or trisomy 18, both of which are a cellular genetic code level extra chromosome of the 13th or 18th chromosome. It's akin to Down syndrome, right? But it rarely supports life outside of the womb. So we're like, I don't know what to do. And Hannah had to get some more blood work done because they were needing to do some additional testing. Um, I took our oldest son, Walker, I just carried him outside, right? As an 18-month-old, it's so fun to have him walk around and and run and all the things, but immediately I went into like, oh, I've got to, I've got to protect. Like, there's so much I can't protect. I've I've got to step in and protect. So I pick him up, carry him, put him in the back of my truck, and I sit, and for the first time, like this just wellspring of emotion just broke free in me. And I wept. And I've cried, I've I've lost family members, I've had, you know, personal failures, I've had business failures, but in this moment, it was something deep, deep inside of me of I am breaking. I don't know what to do. And so what proceeded over the next couple of weeks was waiting for genetic testing to come back, learning that our son did have trisomy 13. There's a nuance there. It can be a partial, so it can only affect some of their chromosomes, which those you can typically do surgery to maybe replace a kidney or the part of their heart can can heal those things. But our son had a complete, a complete palatrum syndrome, and it affected every cell in his body. And so, you know, it really took us into a season of what we would consider anticipatory grief. So we started grieving his diagnosis while he was still here. And man, just along the way, right, just so many things that we learned. Um I I really learned in that moment. I was so thankful for, and I look back now. You know, he my son was born March 7th of 2020. He passed March 9th of 2020. And I look back now, six, almost six and a half years later, and I see all the things that God was preparing me for leading up to that moment. Right. I'm in no way a Navy SEAL by any standpoint of the word. But I love the way that they look at their training. One of the ways they look at their training is in the midst of a battle, in the midst of a storm, in the midst of a fight, you don't rise to the occasion. You default to your highest level of training, right? I had no clue that my parents had been training me. My Sunday school teachers had been training me, my youth pastor had been training me, my my mentors had been training me, my campus ministers had been training me, my my lead pastor, my mentor, my business owner, all of these people had been training me and building so um building into me so much of when we were met in that storm, I had a foundation to stand on, really to fall to because I didn't stand, right? I fail and fell to that foundation. And, you know, we we always say what we try to encourage families now is you don't prepare for the storm in the storm. You gotta prepare beforehand.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah. As men, uh, we want to fix everything, right? Uh we our wives talk to us and we just we want to provide a fix, all right, uh, a solution. Uh, and that's often not not what's what's needed in that moment, right? Uh, but in this moment, right, this is obviously something that I have no doubt, like you wanted to fix this, right? Yeah. Um, my goodness, you would have done anything to fix this situation, but you couldn't fix it.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, and I I told uh, you know, we we've had the opportunity as as a what would be considered a bereaved parent, right? We're in that club now, not a club we wanted to be.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

But it's a parent that's on this side of eternity that is absent from a child. And we're in that club, right? The the the design was not for parents to bury children. That was not what we were designed to do. We're in that community now, and was meeting with a a brother that was entering into that community and he was asking for advice. And I said, I would give anything, anything to have another hour with my son Noah on this side of eternity. Anything. And it was just a perspective shift for this man to say, like, no, these moments matter.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

And and they will matter for for you for the rest of your life. And so, you know, I early on had to come to grips with I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a visionary, I love to solve problems. And I've learned a lot in my marriage to ask the question of what are you needing for me in this moment? Do you want me to listen? Do you want me to comment? Do you want me to fix? Right. That's a wise thing to do as a husband. But in this moment, there was nothing for me to fix. And that was the most sobering, humbling part of the experience. Is I could not fix my son's genetic disorder. It did not matter how much I tried to do. We could throw money at it, we could throw prayer at it, we could throw time at it, we could throw counsel at it, but nothing was would fix outside of a miracle from our Heavenly Father, would fix this genetic diagnosis. And so one of the things, Whitney, that it that it led in our marriage, it led to something I write about in the book. It led to us having to learn how to communicate in a really a deep season of I would love to ask Hannah, is something bothering you? Right. I I would see that in her. She's thankfully my best friend. And I say that unashamedly. I love my bride. And she says the same thing to me. Like, we understand a lot of each other's personality at this point in our relationship. I would see her hurting. And I learned early on, if I asked her the question or she asked me the question, like, are you okay? Is something bothering you? That was a really futile question, right? Whitney's like, of course not. Like, my our son is dying. Like, I'm I'm not okay. But what happened was we had to learn that in this moment, while the moment of his life, it was short but extremely heavy. That's all we could feel in the moment, but there were still going to be moments after his life had finished on this side of eternity. And so our doctor pulled us aside, our palliative care, a neonatologist pulled us aside. What's palliative care for anybody who doesn't know I was not familiar with is end of life care specifically for a child. Like, like, how do we how do we care for people in their end of life? And for children, it's palliative care. And so we had had this really deep, heavy meeting at the hospital of like, what is it gonna look like? What are the plans that we want to have in place to support our son Noah for the time that we have with him on this side of eternity? Like, how can we best care for him? We left that meeting. The neonatologist, the head of the organization, pulled me aside, the head of that department, excuse me, pulled me aside and he said, Hey, Matthew, you you might have asked you a question. I said, Dr. Caro, sure, be honored for you to. He said, How's your marriage? I said, Well, what do you what do you mean? He said, Well, well, how how like how are y'all together as a relation, like as a couple? I said, Well, I think we're good. Like we were high school sweethearts, like we've grown up together, teenagers, 20s, now going into 30s, like we we're we're together. And he said, Okay, well, I just want to call your attention to something. He said, I've been doing this 35 years now, and this goes one of two ways every time, in my experience. This either drives you together or this drives you apart. There is no middle ground. It was an awakening for me of what are ways that I can honor my my son Noah is I can continue to show up for his brothers and his mom. Right. That I I'm not going to allow the experience that I have with him on this side of eternity to shut me down for the rest of my time on this side of eternity. Right. It's going to impact me, but I want to continue to move forward and live my life in an honoring way for him that that honors his sacrifice and his time and his effort to spend time with us and also glorifies God. And so, in that, what we found was Hannah and I asking each other the question of like, are you okay? was completely futile, right? But what we learned is we're still like, I'm a doofus, right? Just be really honest. Like, I make bone-headed mistakes. I do that more often than I would like to admit. I'm a man, we all make mistakes, right? But in those moments, what I found was I had to have a way that she and I could communicate outside of our grief. And so what we learned was we would ask each other two questions, and we asked each other these all the time. When we saw the other person hurting, I would say, Hey sweetheart, have I done something to upset you? And Whitney, I still use these today. Hannah still uses these today. Have I done something to upset you? If the answer is yes, okay, that's something that I can control, right? The only thing I can control in life is my act, my own actions. Teach that to my boys, I try to teach that to myself. Like that's that's what I have ownership over. If I'd done something to upset you, if I've done something to wrong you, I need to apologize, I need to ask for forgiveness, I need to seek restitution, just a basic, this is the way that we interact as a as a godly couple, right? But if I have not done something to wrong you, if I've not done something to upset you, my second question is, would you like to talk about it? And what it did, Whitney, is is it gave each other the opportunity to kind of gently put my hand on her shoulder or her on my shoulder to say, hey, I see you. Right? Grief in and of itself is so isolating. You you think you're the only one having the feelings, you're thinking you're the only ones that's ever thought this way, you're the only one that's ever felt this way, you're only you don't know what to feel, you don't know how to feel, you don't know how to express how you're feeling. There's a fog of grief that happens that anybody that's been through a grief scenario knows that that long-term planning, those kind of things are really, really challenging. It it's it's just very laborious. Basic household chores can be very laborious. And so what it did was it gave she and I this opportunity to come alongside the other person and to say, like, I see you. And really what it became for me is it became a way for her to tell me or me to tell her you're acting in a way that's not congruent with your personality and and and your testimony. And I just want you to know, I see you, I see you hurting. And the second question is, would you like to talk about it? Like, I'm I'm opening myself up to you. I'm putting aside all the other stuff, the phone from business, the TV's going off. Like, I'm turning my full attention to you. And I want you to know I'm making myself available to talk to you in this moment because I see you hurting and I'm here for you. And sometimes that answer was, yes, I've I want to talk about it. And other times it's no, I don't want to talk about it right now. That that's okay. Then we would give each other the opportunity, like, hey, you know, I'd love to deer hunt. That's just I grew up in the North Georgia Mountains. I love to deer hunt. I love to camp. I love to be outside. And she would say, Hey, do you want to go hunt? Do you want to go fish? Do you want to go to the gym? Do you want to go on a walk? Do you want to go get coffee with somebody? Like, why don't you spend some time out of the house because there's the way that you're acting in this moment, you need some time.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

I love the boldness of that doctor as well, right? And in him to speak that. I don't know if he knows the Lord or not, but I I still appreciate him being willing to just mention that to you, right? I've seen it as well in in couples who have who have lost a child. It's, I mean, it's um, and uh, yeah, the level of grief, right? I I I'm thankful, right, that the Lord has done this work in you all, right? And you talk about, you know, communicating, uh, you learn to communicate better, you said, then you learn to, you know, communicate really outside of grief. Um, but it sounds like you know, you learned how to uh approach each other, right, in a way that's uh really just saying, hey, I'm with you. Right. I I use that term often uh when I'm speaking to men's groups and their wives are there. Uh and I often, you know, tell the wives, you know, like they need to hear you say, I'm with you, right? I'm with you. Yeah. And um uh because I know that's been just oh, it's just been critical in my life at different times where my wife, and during you know, some super a difficult season, you know, one of the first things she said was, you know, I'm with you. And and uh and I'll never forget it. And so it sounds like you know, you all have created a way to really just like take a stand with your spouse, right, in that moment, uh uh, you know, when they're feeling the grief. And and maybe, you know, there's time, it's it's it's waves, right? There's knaves that hit you harder than others. So I'm grateful for the doctor that said that, but I'm also grateful for how you said that uh you were being prepared for this. And and I wonder if you would speak into that a little bit. How were you being prepared? What did that look like? What what were your, you know, your parents, your Sunday school teacher, all these people that you mentioned, what did that look like? How was the Lord ultimately preparing you, you know, for a season like that, you know, years in advance?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yeah, it's a great question, Whitney. The the the thing that I see is is I I was taught to have a deep love for the Lord. And I was taught to have a deep love for his word. And and I saw that modeled in my family. I saw that modeled in my mentors. I saw that modeled in men and women in my life that just genuinely love the Lord. And they walked through tragedy and they just love the Lord. And they became this heartbeat of that there's something inside of us that was designed to be in communion with our Heavenly Father. And there's a peace that surpasses all understanding when we find that. We talk about the our our son Noah and playing off of the Noah's Ark. And and Noah's Ark and the biblical story, right? It didn't remove the storm from Noah's family's life. It carried his family through the storm. And and we really latched on to that truth, right? We we wrestled a lot with God throughout throughout our journey. And you know, there's there's several things I write about the book, different verses that that we prayed over our family and and slogans that we kind of truths that we believed, that one of the things that that we spoke over ourselves is that our circumstances have changed, but God's character has not. Right? He's the same today as he was yesterday, as he will be tomorrow. And and there are times when he like sometimes you just have to tell yourself that over and over and over again. Right. There's just some times that I subconsciously have to continue to preach the gospel, right? I'm going to be transformed by the renewal of my mind. I'm going to do that daily. And and so one thing that I look to is the men in my life, both of my granddads, love the Lord. They came from difficult family upbringings. They said they committed to follow Jesus Christ. They led their family in that. And I'm just on the tail end of the ripple of the world. Effect of that, right? That my dad followed in pursuit of that as well. I've fallen in pursuit of that as well. And my prayers and my boys will follow that pursuit as well. That scene that modeled through sickness and in health, through, through tragedy, through triumph, that the consistency of walking daily with the Lord. I cannot tell you the number of times that I, when I was living at my parents' house, that I would come downstairs and I would see my dad have his Bible open with a cup of coffee, reading God's word. I truly cannot tell you the number of times I saw that. I don't know. It was such a consistent thing. My friends knew that, right? Friends that would come over and stay with us. They just knew that about my dad. They knew that about my grandparents, but they knew that about my mom. I just came from a family that was diving into God's word. And it was not a, we're going to learn so we can beat other people over the head with it. It is, no, no, we're we're called into this personal relationship with the creator of the universe. And he knows me by name. And he's written this incredible love letter to me, for me to know more about myself and to know more about him. And so my dad, when I went to college, my dad gave me a one-year Bible. And he said, Hey, you know, I've been reading through this for several years now. And he had just gotten a new thing on his phone and it was working better for him. And he was wanting to try that. And he said, Here, you can have this. And it and it felt like a genuine thing. It felt in some ways kind of flippant. And I told him the other day, like, you have no clue how much of a gift that is. Like I've been, I'm 16 times through the Bible because of that.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

And what an unbelievable gift. And so when Noah got sick, right, there there was a there was an undercurrent in my life of what what do I know? So Job's life, right? Our family slogan because became even though we will. And when we really tried to model that after Job's life, right? Even though you slay me, yet will I praise you. And what we learned was okay, God, you are God and I am not. And when you told the mountains where to go and the seas were to stop and the land where to be, like I was not there. But you were. Even though my circumstances have changed, you have not. Your character has not. And so you were good yesterday, you're still good today, you're still be good tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

And and you know, we we're I can't imagine if it was any other way. You know, I can't either, man.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

And and you know, we we we talked a lot about like if I were God, would I make different choices? Well, yeah, of course I would. But thank God I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

That's right. Right? That's right.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Because because I would make choices that would be in what I perceive as my best interests. And and scripture teaches and I believe that his ways are higher than my ways, and his thoughts are higher than my thoughts. And when I come down to it, there is a trust factor in our faith with our Heavenly Father that we have to get to. That we have to get to say that you are God and I am not. And I don't understand the things that you allow to happen. I don't understand it. But I'm going to trust you anyways. Even when it hurts, you're good. I'm still going to trust you because again, your character is the same. You're the same today as you were yesterday, as you will be tomorrow. We really, we really leaned into that.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

You know, I know uh I or I think from what I've read about you during that time, you know, you were uh leading a business. I think you were serving in ministry, you know, you're trying to show up for your family, right? All this at the same time. And now, you know, this news and having to walk through this as we've been talking about, uh, you know, maybe, you know, speak to a little bit about what maybe anchored you day to day, right? Even in a season like that. But also are there, say, rhythms or habits, um, you know, even if they felt small, that just helped you to stay grounded, you know, in the Lord during that time.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Sure. Yeah. No, I appreciate that a lot, Whitney. Uh, I was uh served for a about a decade, just at a decade as a bi vocational pastor outside of the University of Georgia. I went to the University of Georgia, go Dogs, and served in a church when I was in college and served thereafter for several years. Our businesses were growing, our family was continuing to grow. I felt really called to focus on our businesses and our boys. The church that I was serving at needed a full-time vocational pastor, and I was not it. That was not what God had called me to. So I needed to step aside so the next man could step up. And um, I'm so thankful he did. Church is thriving and growing, which is amazing. And our businesses continue to grow and and and we continue to bring on incredible people, which is amazing. But during that season, I I did not realize how much, again, I talked about our faith, but but specifically in the business, how much I had been prepared early on for changes of my availability to the business that allowed me to take some time away from the business and the business to still six or five. And we had some amazing people, we had some really good systems in place. We had really focused on several of those things. Those helped us a lot. Um the the consistency for me, it became um my my time with the Lord. That that that was that was a consistent thing for me. And um spending that was very, very helpful. You know, that that sounds flippant, right? I grew up in the church, so that's like Jesus is always answer, right? And then the second one is read your Bible daily. And and so you hear that, you joke about it, but but Whitney, that's that's the thing that carried me through day to day is is time alone with the Lord and prayer and reading his scripture and then listening to worship music. We found in our life that as the intensity of the grief rose, the level of the volume of the worship had to rise to match it in our life. And those two things counteracted something inside of my soul of you know, it's really difficult for me to be in a depressive state when I'm singing out, crying out to the Lord in worship.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Speak to bringing yourself to worship though in such a in such a low time, right? Because I feel like you know, so many of us, right, we're in a uh in a time like that. It uh you know, are uh unfortunately we'll distance ourselves right from God. And and because it is, we're questioning maybe like, why Lord, would you allow this to happen? And it's it's hard to worship maybe in that moment. How did you you know bring yourself to worship? But uh, not only that, maybe even leading Hannah right to to move towards worship as well.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Yeah, so two great questions for me. Number one, um, I love to sing, I'm not very good at it. I say in in heaven, I'm gonna have an angelic voice, and I'm so excited for it. I don't have it right now, but I do love to sing. But one of the things I learned is is lament is worship too. And so lament being the the crying out of our soul, the crying out of our heart. Um, you know, Shane and Shane's a group that your audience may be familiar with. They got some great songs of lament, and one of them is Though You Slay Me. And that is a fantastic song that that played on repeat in my in my life, in my heart. And and it was just speaking that truth over me. That was something that that I did that, you know, it was not the all things are rosy and and and you know, and and fuzzy and happy and joyful, which is a part of worship. And and that's completely good and has a place, but that's not the worship that I was spending time in. It it was more of the my heart is crying out. So if you read through the Psalms, right, you see this oscillation in David's life because he writes a lot of the Psalms, right? That that he is is worshiping in one and weeping in the next. And I just found that in my heart of like some days I was worshiping, and some days I was weeping. And moments in the day I would worship and weep. And and I I became to where I was okay, that I learned of myself that emotions in and of themselves are not right or wrong. It's what we do with them that make them right or wrong, right? Jesus said, be angry and do not sin. Didn't say don't be angry. So it's what we do with those emotions. And so for me, I had to spend time. I I wrote a lot. It's part of the reason why the book is here, right? I I wrote a lot about my journey. I journaled, and I spent time with men just like you, right? I just spent time with fellow brothers that loved me, that gave me space to say the dangerous thing. That gave me space to have the dangerous thought of like, this is weird. This is how I'm feeling. And it was not a, oh, we got to run to the pastor and tell like you we we gotta put whatever. It gave me space to have these feelings and emotions and thoughts of I don't feel great. And that's okay. And we we learned to say it's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay there.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

Right? It it's that's right, it's okay to not be okay. Yeah, and for the first time in my life, I was not okay. And so I just had men that just come alongside me and say, hey, you know, brother, we're we're going to lunch and we're gonna take you to lunch. And we can talk about Georgia football, we can talk about the Atlanta Braves, because I love the Atlanta Braves too, or we can talk about deep things and we're just here for you.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Where did those men come from? Like, how did you I assume you already had those relationships, probably church family, or uh, you know, a lot of men listening, you know, like that's a gift, right? Those relationships are uh, I mean, I just and I even the men that I coach, I I you know, one of the big things is like I want you in like daily communion with another man that's local to you, right? That you trust, that they trust you, that you can confide in, hey, that you can call out even, right? And you can have those hard conversations with. No, because you you need that relationship being built before the crisis comes, right? And and uh but speak to that for you, you know, in that moment sounds like you had men who were caring for you and your family, and and you know, where did where did they come from? How was that those relationships built?

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah, great, great question. So one I I want to make sure we get back to the leading Hannah. Um on the yes, the the men in my life side, um, what I always try to encourage people is who do you call when tragedy happens? Like who's that first phone call? When something good or bad happens, who's that first phone call? And then when they don't answer, who's your next call? And rarely do we have a next call person, right? If we're honest, like rarely do we have a this is kind of the next person on my list. And so, Whitney, one of the things that that I I hope your your audience hears this with the grace that's meant to be. But if you want those relationships, it starts with you. It just starts with you. Like in this moment, man up and go have the conversation. Go to men. I I started this in college. Again, I saw this modeled in my life, and I started this in college, and I went to men around me in college, and I said, Hey guys, I got some stuff going on. I would like to know you better, and I would like for you to know me better. One of the best ways I've heard of accountability, a friend tells me, it's it's I don't want to catch you doing the wrong thing. I want to hold you close. Like that's what accountability is. I I want to hold you close so I can call you to something higher. So for me, it was just I had put those relationships in. I had I had men in my life that I had told them, I want you to hold me close. And I had no clue the tragedy that awaited our family, the the war zone that we were entering into. But I am so thankful that I stepped up as a man in boldness and created those relationships. And some of them I had had for years and never needed anything, nothing. I just wanted to hang out with them. But when I needed them, they were there, they showed up. So the the challenge, I would say to your audience is if you're looking around you and you don't have that second person to call, take ownership over it and go find them. Go find them. You can find them because I promise you, what's happening is they're praying for somebody just like you to show up in their life. They're praying for it. They're praying to have that second person to call, and you can be it for each other, which is amazing. A lot of those came through our church group. Some of those came through, you know, business relationships that I had, um, a mastermind community I was part of. Like those some of those relationships were kind of formed there. Um, on the leading Hannah side, one thing of my leadership style is to try to lead by example. And so, you know, you you can say that flippantly, but but for me, that's the way that I try to lead my family, is I'm going to lead in my relationship with the Lord. I want you to watch me do it, and I want to invite you into the process along the way. But Whitney, one of the things I've learned, and unfortunately learned the hard way, that I cause some hurt in Hannah's life, is that I was grieving in in one way. I was walking through my grief journey in one way, I was communicating my grief in a way, I was processing it in a way, and I was on a timeline that was congruent with me. And I looked over at her and I said, You're not processing your grief in the same way. And there was a very short moment where I was like, You're not processing your grief. And in a member said boneheaded, say doofus things, like I I kind of called into question, like, are you processing what you're like, can you help me understand how you're processing? And thankfully, she's kind and compassionate and gracious. And and she shared with me how she was, and it was a different way than I was. And it was just the freedom to say, hey, we're both on this journey together, but we're also both unique individuals, and we're going to go through this experience uniquely together, but also individually.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

That's good. Um, you know, for the man who's listening, uh, Matthew, whose marriage is under that strain, maybe it's a loss, maybe it's stress, just life. You know, yeah, give us a few practical ways. Maybe he could start showing up better this week.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

One of the things that that I've tried to do in my life that that my my bride has very graciously asked me to do. So it's this is not just a revelatory Matthew so smart. But but she showed up and said, Hey, it would be really helpful if you could do some of these things without me having to ask you, which is a novel idea, right? It sounds funny when you say it, but but to see I've got multiple businesses that we run, right? Um, I speak, I consult, I I do these things, I've got the book. Uh I'm I have a lot outside of our home life that that pulls on me. But what I found is when I get home, I fight hard to be present. So I fight hard to be present with my boys and my bride. And so the way that I do that, the way that I found best is I put my phone up. Sounds flippant, sounds easy. Yeah, you got people that need to call you and you've got to have a quick response. I understand. The way I try to say it is if the building's burning, let it burn, we can fix it tomorrow. Because if we're really honest with ourselves, it's not going to burn down. It can be fixed either later tonight when everybody's in bed, or it can be fixed tomorrow morning when I get up early. Rarely, if ever, is it something that is an immediate, like you have to be present now for this part of the business or the part of work when you're home. So that's a big deal for me, is showing up. And so the more that I show up, the better that I show up, the more that I work on myself personally, the more that I work through the emotions, the feelings that I have, the more present I can show up with my family, the more whole and healthy I can show up for them, the better I am as a husband and as a dad. And so practically that looks like I spend time away from my phone every other weekend right now, from Friday until Sunday evening, my phone's off. And it is the greatest gift that I can give myself and my family. It's Whitney is unbelievable. I had no clue how addicted I was to my phone, right? Just being really honest, very transparent. I've really wrestled with that. And and the excuse has always come, yeah, but I'm I'm always working, which some of that was true. But then some of that was just I'm disassociating, I'm disconnecting. This is a way that I can just be physically present, but not emotionally, spiritually present. Like I'm I'm here, but I'm really absent. And so I try to show up better that way. I try to show up and be present. I try to do little things around the house. And then uh we read years ago uh Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. If you've not read that book, I highly recommend that book. And what I've learned over our marriage is, you know, when Hannah and I read that book in premarital counseling, it was one of the books that we read. Her scores of the five love languages have all changed in different seasons of our life.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

So for what that's worth, there have been times where she's been more one than the other. And that's just a working of me and being in tune with what she needs. And so for me to show up for her in a difficult season, I want to lead well. And leading well means you take the first step, you lead. Leading means you move. And so that's one of the ways I did that. Another book that we read that was revolutionary for us in in our early relationship was Love and Respect by uh Dr. Gary Egridge, another incredible book. And so really trying to leverage the opportunity to love my wife well and and love her the way that she receives and feels love. And sometimes that's acts of service, sometimes that's gifts, sometimes that's sorts of affirmation, sometimes it's physical touch, you know. So the there's there's uh opportunities for me to to engage with her as a unique daughter of the king of kings. And and how do I try to do that well?

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, I I love your intentionality behind that, right? And that comes from being an um entrepreneur, business. I mean, all those things are, you know, that that visionary, all that comes out um in uh I mean, you gotta have some structure, right? But it's just part of being intentional and and and I want them in listening to I'm always pushing them to be as intentional at home as they are in their business, right? We think about all these things, uh our core values, our mission statement, uh, you know, the meetings, meeting structure, whatever KPIs, whatever all these, you know, but man, we give almost no no thought to that level of intentionality at home. And I love how you just have uh strived to love her well, right? Uh I would say it's not fair for her to change what she is. Uh uh I mean, I'm just putting it out there. I'm just kidding. Oh, why are they so complicated?

SPEAKER_02 43:05

You know, then to that. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Don't tell her I said that, but of course not.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

I'm just kidding. Wendy, one of the things that we found, you talk about like KPIs and business. We created this culture card early on in our business. And it's like, here's what we're gonna be known for. Like this is this is why we do what we do. We we provide outdoor services, but but for homes, but we we really consider ourselves hope dealers. Like we're creating environments for families to experience hope because they're we're creating outdoor environments for them to enjoy time together.

unknown 43:37

Right?

SPEAKER_02 43:37

It gives us a mission, and it doesn't make the hard days go away, it just makes them a little easier. And what I found was we did that in our family. We define what it meant to be an Eford, right? We we define that out, the the core values that we would have as a family, traits that we would want to pass on to our sons. Like we want them to be proud to be an Eford. Want them to be like I am. I'm proud to be an Eford. I want them to be proud to continue the legacy of the Eford name. That gave us clarity as a couple in the mission that we're doing. And clarity is a gift. As a leader, what a gift you can give to the people that you're leading is clarity in the direction that you. feel called to go. And so for Hannah and I, it was clarity around well, where are we going as a couple? Where are we going as a family? And we started early in our relationship it that we now meet more regularly. It used to be annually. Now we try to do it quarterly. And we look at the last now quarter and we say what went well, what can we improve on? And then what does the next quarter look like? And so we take it from the business structure. It's not as sexy as a business meeting, but but it's time for us to say like, okay, look, where where are we? And Witty, what it does is it it allows us to be on mission together. It allows us to be focused together. It allows us to catch the little foxes as Song of Solomon talks about, right? That that we we catch the things that could create drifts in our relationship earlier because we intentionally spend time discussing how are we doing? Where are we going? What are we doing together? Those things provide such incredible value for us as we move forward because the thing that has been on my heart for years is stewardship. Just had a friend challenge me on my definition of stewardship. And he said he said stewardship is it's all God's it's just what do we do with it while we're the ones managing it. And I was like yeah that's a lot better way to say it than I was saying it right.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

That's good.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

And so it it's what what are we doing to be good stewards of the time that we've been given on this side of eternity.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Wow. Matthew that's incredible. I mean you have challenged me and the listeners in so many ways. Unfortunately we're out of time it's gone fast uh and I but I'm just I'm so grateful by your the the way ultimately what the Lord's done in your life right uh even through such a difficult season uh and now how you know you and Hannah are are are choosing to use this to to help and equip others right in such a big way and vulnerable way right uh a lot of people um you know go through something like this and and it it's just so difficult to share right and so they just shut down about it and and I just love how the Lord has given you strength right to to share and and to be able to help so many through um it's such a a a season that that no one can imagine right uh being in or and don't want to imagine. So thank you for that. Um you know and how can the listeners learn more about you? I know you have a podcast and a book and and all these things happening as well. You know how can they learn more about you and follow you?

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Yeah man thank you very much podcast is Pillars of Purpose. We talk about the intersection of fake family and business uh I love those three I'm I'm in all three of those um that that's what the podcast is about it's very similar to this just bringing on men and women that that are trying to lead well in one of those or all three of those areas and I I love having those conversations the book that I wrote is about our journey with Noah's story his life is broken into three sections it's his his his life how he impacted our life section two is how we wrestled with God like what are the verses that we wrestle with what are the prayers that we prayed what are the things that that we struggled to relearn and understand about God and his character and then the last part is what we consider the community manual. And really it's the things that we wish the friends around us would have known. And so the book the heartbeat is to honor our son, right? He fought 57 and a half hours to spend time with us on this side of eternity. And we prayed thousands of times for him to be healed. And in a moment he was it was not the way we wanted but he was fully healed in the presence of his savior and I'm so thankful for that that as David said he will not return to me but I will return to him. And you know every day we get closer to that return. And I'm I'm I'm thankful for that. But also we wanted to see people in their grief. We wanted to help them hopefully give some language to some of the things that they were feeling right that specifically for a man to man like these were things that I processed these things may be things you need to process. So for the man or the wife that wants to know more about how her husband's feeling and then lastly is the community around them that that if you've got somebody that's navigating a season of grief child loss parent loss loss in general um all loss is difficult. And if you want to help give some words and articulation to what they're feeling this is the book for you and and our ultimate goal is to glorify God in the process. So you can find that book EvenThough we will it's on Amazon you can go to eventhowweil.com you can find my podcast on Mattheweford.com but honored to connect I'm on LinkedIn I'm on Facebook honored to connect with with your audience anyway if I can help I'd be honored to