Speaker: Da da da da da da da da La da da da da da da da da da We'ready, we're ready, we're ready.
Speaker: Who's ready?
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Okay, let's go.
Speaker: This is gonna be a good one.
Speaker: This is gonna be, I think this is gonna really encourage some people.
Speaker: Because people need to know things they don't know about you and me.
Speaker: The questions that we get asked everywhere we go.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: All the time, all the time.
Speaker: We should answer some of those for the people.
Speaker: I think we need to answer for whoever's gonna listen to this podcast.
Speaker: Whoever cares.
Speaker: So we do have a very extensive history of knowing each other.
Speaker: Of knowing one another very well.
Speaker: Very personally.
Speaker: A long time.
Speaker: Very personally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know you, you know me.
Speaker: We know each other.
Speaker: Very well.
Speaker: And um we have lived a lot, we've done a lot.
Speaker: And for people that don't know about us, we don't want to just assume they do.
Speaker: I am Mary Alessie.
Speaker: And I am Martha Munizi.
Speaker: And we've been singing all our lives.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In the churches that we've traveled to.
Speaker: We grew up singing with our mom and dad.
Speaker: Is it interesting that our names rhyme?
Speaker: Our names rhyme?
Speaker: Mary Alessie, Martha Munizi.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: I mean, that's just that's just pretty cool.
Speaker: We married Italians.
Speaker: We both married Italians.
Speaker: What are the chances of that?
Speaker: Don't you can't make this stuff.
Speaker: You really can't.
Speaker: I married in Alessie.
Speaker: It's almost like God had a plan from the beginning of the world.
Speaker: It's almost like God had a plan.
Speaker: Knows the plan before the almost like there's a scripture verse that says What would it I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To marry Italian men.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: We are the least, we were the like least possible girls to marry Italians.
Speaker: For real.
Speaker: How did we do that?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Why did we do that?
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: It's worked out in our favor.
Speaker: It has.
Speaker: And you dated Danny longer than before I even met.
Speaker: Three years.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Well, I we were married.
Speaker: I was not copying you.
Speaker: No, we were dating for three years and planning our wedding the last year.
Speaker: You guys came in and were going to get ahead of us.
Speaker: And mom said, No, you're not.
Speaker: You're not.
Speaker: You have to wait.
Speaker: So you had to wait another six months.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So Danny and I could get married first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I remember calling you saying, you need to pick your date.
Speaker: Get all that.
Speaker: Because we want to get married.
Speaker: We want to get married.
Speaker: Like, what's the rug?
Speaker: And we've both been married.
Speaker: We married in the same year, 37 years.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: 37.
Speaker: 38.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Look at us.
Speaker: And we both have children.
Speaker: You have four.
Speaker: I have three.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's right.
Speaker: You know, one of the things I think people would really probably be encouraged by, and we get asked about is our kids.
Speaker: And we get, you know, we get asked a lot about our kids, yes.
Speaker: We do.
Speaker: Like, how do you do things as you're as identical twins?
Speaker: What is different about you?
Speaker: You know, do you a lot of comparison?
Speaker: Well, because our kids were both of our kids, all of our kids, all seven of them, yeah, work with us in ministries.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which is very rare.
Speaker: It's it's very rare.
Speaker: Very rare.
Speaker: And you know, my my Italian has said, my Italian Stallion has said many times throughout the years that having twins as moms has really helped kind of uh strengthen their sibling relationships.
Speaker: Because when you have when you have a set of twins as your moms, and that's all you've ever known, there is a closeness there and there's an affinity towards one another, and there's instant forgiveness, instant, I mean like we don't even get to the point of needing restoration.
Speaker: We stay in a place of peace.
Speaker: Have we ever apologized to each other for anything ever in our lives?
Speaker: That is a brilliant question.
Speaker: We have never, ever, have we ever had a fight?
Speaker: We've had we've had conflict, but we've don't apologize.
Speaker: You don't apologize.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: I don't think we ever have.
Speaker: I've never had to pick up the phone and say Martha's mad at me.
Speaker: I okay, so my family has never heard me say my sister's mad at me.
Speaker: Never never isn't that crazy.
Speaker: Never no, because we just we worked it out.
Speaker: We always just worked it out.
Speaker: And we had seasons where we could have, it could have been a struggle.
Speaker: Well, at the end of the day, when you can call somebody a stupid idiot, it's a good thing.
Speaker: It's a good thing.
Speaker: Ugh.
Speaker: And it's funny, and it's like she is.
Speaker: So am I.
Speaker: We all are, and it's not, I mean, I heard my daughters do that the other day, like you stupid idiot.
Speaker: And we died laughing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like there's no eggshells.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: There's none of that.
Speaker: And I'm grateful for that because I don't know.
Speaker: Sarcasm is our is our love language.
Speaker: Let me ask you a question.
Speaker: Why does everybody have an issue with sarcasm?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Why do they think it's such a horrible thing?
Speaker: They're wrong.
Speaker: There, I think it's my love language.
Speaker: I it is.
Speaker: Now, I don't use it, you know, to her as a weapon.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But it's funny because it's it's funny to me when it's not true, when it's like an exaggerated thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, and our dad and our mom.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, yes.
Speaker: They love to be teased.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Our mom will laugh.
Speaker: You cannot offend her.
Speaker: I don't even know how you could.
Speaker: No, I think mom's joy comes when one of her grandkids goes on and puts on her wig and comes out and makes fun of her.
Speaker: To her, that is the funniest thing.
Speaker: She totally you know why sarcasm um is a good thing?
Speaker: Because you can laugh at yourself.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And what makes good friendships and lasting relationships is being able to laugh at yourself and your friends can laugh at you.
Speaker: Banter.
Speaker: Banter, making it funny.
Speaker: I don't take myself so seriously anyway.
Speaker: So you can tease me and make fun of me too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And but you just never cross the line of being hurtful.
Speaker: Well, I I've I think you can get as, you know, almost not crass, but you can get as sarcastic or, you know, roasting as you want.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: As long as that person knows that you really love them.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: As long as there is another side to it where there is respect and and honor, and I'll share a like with you, I would say, and oh my God, you look unbelievable.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You look the best you've ever looked.
Speaker: At the same time that I would rib you or roast you.
Speaker: That's what you're wearing?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's what you're wearing.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But I would never hold back praise.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And that's the difference.
Speaker: When no one has if they're if they've never had a good thing to say and they're always roasting you, that's somebody that's trying to get to hurt your feelings.
Speaker: But that's not what we're talking about.
Speaker: We're talking about just like sisterly roasting.
Speaker: Well, and I will say the the some we save some of the roasting of each other behind closed doors.
Speaker: Like people might not understand.
Speaker: Yeah, because we we we can people would think that we're mad at each other or that we're not saved.
Speaker: But sometimes I question.
Speaker: I I will say though, no, there's nothing funner than having a sparring partner to outwit one another and to see how how far we can take it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And somebody's gonna comment and go, This is not godly at all.
Speaker: It's that's where we do it privately.
Speaker: Okay, but anyway, we we have a different opinion.
Speaker: And we and I I brought that up because we raised our children to have a healthy laugh at yourself.
Speaker: This is what makes fun, healthy relationships.
Speaker: We don't take ourselves so seriously.
Speaker: And it creates, we have found for our family that it just creates a fun atmosphere all the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and a real strong family center.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that it goes beyond just being Italians or or being Americans, whatever our culture is.
Speaker: It really is a culture of we can laugh at each other because we can laugh, laugh at ourselves, but ultimately we don't take ourselves so seriously.
Speaker: And we we're we're that close that we can do that.
Speaker: And and I think there are people that might go, I wish I could do that with my parents.
Speaker: I wish I could do that with my family.
Speaker: I wish I had had that kind of camaraderie with my family or my sisters or brothers.
Speaker: Well, if you don't, find people that you can be that way.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Just leave them alone, honor them.
Speaker: That's not how they are.
Speaker: Find people that you can.
Speaker: Well, I just saw research recently.
Speaker: I think you saw it too, because it was on Instagram.
Speaker: So I saw it.
Speaker: You saw it.
Speaker: I probably saw it and sent it to you.
Speaker: You probably did.
Speaker: And I'd already seen it because somebody else had already sent it to me.
Speaker: Who's gonna get the credit for sending it?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: We saw it.
Speaker: The Instagram gods.
Speaker: We saw it, but we saw it.
Speaker: I saw it.
Speaker: And it said, you can help me remember what it said.
Speaker: But it said, you all right there?
Speaker: I'm just trying to get the mic.
Speaker: Okay, here we go.
Speaker: Go.
Speaker: Take two.
Speaker: Can I can I go on ahead?
Speaker: I didn't interrupt you.
Speaker: Go right ahead.
Speaker: So um so I now I can't remember what I was gonna say.
Speaker: You saw something on Instagram.
Speaker: I saw something on Instagram that said the smart one that that you're four minutes behind me.
Speaker: So you still have memory.
Speaker: Okay, anyway, that's a twin joke.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: That's very true.
Speaker: No, but that for uh people that can tease one another, friendships that tease one another last longer.
Speaker: Have the best and have the best and longevity.
Speaker: I could tell you that I find that to be absolutely true with the friends I have in my life.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: But so that to be said, research proves it.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: There it is, scientific.
Speaker: And we raised our children around that, which I think lends itself to why they want to work with us.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: Because they feel like they have to, if they feel like they're gonna offend us every other moment and it's eggshells all the time.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: That's not even in filming this podcast, we ask them to be brutal.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you know, they don't have to be asked.
Speaker: You don't have to be asked they're gonna be brutal.
Speaker: Um I have to scratch my nose.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: Okay, just show another clip.
Speaker: That's two.
Speaker: I'm so sorry.
Speaker: It's twice now.
Speaker: And I have to sit up in my chair.
Speaker: Get yourself comfortable there, lady.
Speaker: You good?
Speaker: I'm good.
Speaker: Got that tie on.
Speaker: I got my tie.
Speaker: Your man, your man tie.
Speaker: My man tie.
Speaker: I got this, I got this tie.
Speaker: I was trying to reproduce, or what is it?
Speaker: I would never wear that tie.
Speaker: I just need you to know I would never wear that tie.
Speaker: I was trying to, I saw someone wear a cool outfit like this, and I'm sure that their tie was $2,000 because they were a very famous celebrity.
Speaker: So I just went to North Sam Rack.
Speaker: It was $20.
Speaker: I think you can see that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I can see that you think that.
Speaker: I'm okay with it.
Speaker: There's gonna be people that love my outfit, uh-huh.
Speaker: Some that love yours.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And they're gonna tell us.
Speaker: And they're not gonna think it's gonna hurt our feelings.
Speaker: And it is we'll just delete whatever comment we don't like.
Speaker: We don't care.
Speaker: We don't.
Speaker: We've been doing this for 67 years.
Speaker: I'm not gonna read the comments.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: What were you saying?
Speaker: Banter.
Speaker: What was I saying?
Speaker: That's what you were saying.
Speaker: Oh, so the truth of the matter is the menopause is real.
Speaker: Okay, no.
Speaker: Oh yeah, our kids working with us in ministry.
Speaker: Okay, we get asked that all the time.
Speaker: How do you do that?
Speaker: Well, we don't pay them well, that's for sure.
Speaker: It's all the dollars.
Speaker: It is, I think, I do think it really starts the core of who we are, who our families are, and it's a safe place.
Speaker: It's a it's not just fun, but it really is an environment that we've created as a family.
Speaker: Some organically, some intentionally, kind of 50-50, right?
Speaker: Where it's safe, they can grow in their gifts, and they can really be honest with their parents.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And all of us, I mean, we're both married to Italians, like we said, who are, you know, they're they keep it real too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They don't mess around.
Speaker: They don't play around.
Speaker: Both the men we married, my husband Steve Alesi, if you don't want to be, if you, if you don't want a friend that will tell you like it is, just don't be his friend.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's all I can tell you.
Speaker: That's very true.
Speaker: Because he's gonna tell it like it is.
Speaker: It's gonna be kind, it's gonna be diplomatic, but he's gonna be honest.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And there's safety in that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Your husband's the same way, you're the same way.
Speaker: And I think it's not just ministry, because people will say, How did you get your kids to be in ministry?
Speaker: You're pastoring in Orlando with your husband.
Speaker: I'm pastor, pastoring in Miami with my husband.
Speaker: That alone, just husband in wife is a huge feat.
Speaker: It's very challenging.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I'll say, starting from kind of the beginning, when you and I were growing up, our parents pastored.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Here in Orlando, they pastored.
Speaker: And my dream, I always thought my here was my big dream as a kid.
Speaker: I was going to meet my husband.
Speaker: You were gonna meet your husband, our sister was gonna meet her husband, and we were all gonna work together with our parents in ministry and build this church.
Speaker: That was all I saw, all I wanted.
Speaker: That was my vision.
Speaker: And that did not happen.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Our parents ended up getting divorced after 30 years.
Speaker: That was devastating.
Speaker: It was devastating.
Speaker: The church, we ended up giving it to somebody else.
Speaker: That was hard.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, that we had grown and built.
Speaker: And then you moved to Miami after you got married.
Speaker: I stayed in Orlando, and then our sister moved to another state.
Speaker: So we were all scattered scattered, and it just did not look at all what my childhood dream had been.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: That the church was gone, the ministry was gone, our parents were divorced.
Speaker: Like, what?
Speaker: But what about my dream?
Speaker: But how incredible is it to know that that was not a Martha-sized dream.
Speaker: It was a God-sized dream.
Speaker: Exactly right.
Speaker: And it went beyond that generation, that era.
Speaker: God put that in my heart, but it was preparation for the way we are our family is set up now because our kids do work with us, but you know, they have other jobs that they do too as well, and they travel and they sing with other artists.
Speaker: But when it comes to church, they're here on Sundays.
Speaker: Your kids are right alongside with you.
Speaker: They're leading worship, they're a part.
Speaker: Now that creates a tremendous challenge because you have to remember that you are family, but at the same time, there has to be different boundaries when you're around people, when you're serving together.
Speaker: That took a long time for us to really create that structure.
Speaker: Okay, we're at church, you're no longer daughter, Danielle, Nicole daughter.
Speaker: Now you are the kids' ministry director, you're a worship pastor.
Speaker: And we have to be so diligent about treating each other not like mom and dad, but now we're pastor.
Speaker: Now we're we with respect and honor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's so important.
Speaker: And it's like people that work in, you know, they maybe they have this, you know, family business and they start hiring their kids, or they they have a totally different set of rules that other people would not have just because they're family.
Speaker: And and I think there's a core reason why some families can do that and be successful and some families cannot.
Speaker: And it's tell me what that is.
Speaker: It's not a judgment to families who haven't been pulled it off.
Speaker: But I do believe that you begin and end with the family's the most important thing.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Not the ministry, not the job.
Speaker: I'm not losing, not my family.
Speaker: Not my dreams, not my none of that comes first.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: The most important thing are the five of us, the six of us, however many we are and however many we grow to.
Speaker: What we value, what we protect is the family.
Speaker: Not to the point of the mafia where we keep everybody else out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But we honor, we protect it, we guard it, and we nurture and foster health.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Not eggshells, not toxic anything.
Speaker: There's no toxic nature.
Speaker: We are honest, we are open, we share, and we create and foster environments for that.
Speaker: I think a family that can do that well and continue, and mom and dad pivot, kids get out of college, and now your kids are still there, they're apart.
Speaker: If you can continue to foster, okay, the family is the most important thing.
Speaker: I'm ever changing and growing and learning how to be a better in a better relationship with my daughters and with my son and my husband as I get older and life changes.
Speaker: I think families that know really how to identify and value that, they can do almost anything together.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: Anything together.
Speaker: If you keep those boundaries in place and that respect and honor for one another, everybody has to know those rules and everybody has to work diligently diligently towards the right.
Speaker: But if you don't have that as your core value, I don't care what you do, it's gonna fall apart.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Because conflict's gonna come.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if you if you don't know what to go back to, okay, here's this wall we are now at.
Speaker: We're at this impasse as a family, we're at this great divide.
Speaker: Maybe it's in your church and and we're frustrated.
Speaker: Whatever that frustration is, right?
Speaker: Let's always go back to what matters the most.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What matters the most is we started in this together and we're gonna try to finish in this together to the best of our ability.
Speaker: It's not, this is not God's plan, is not for us to bust up our family over ministry and be scattered to all the ends of the world unless God calls us to that.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And you you talked about um what happened, you had the dream that we'd all be at that church together.
Speaker: And then the next thing you know, we turned around and in two years we finished high school and we were it was like on blast, it all changed.
Speaker: We got whiplash emotionally.
Speaker: What happened here?
Speaker: But we also saw the hand of God really protect our mom and protect us, but it gave us a chance, you and me and our sister Marbeline, to look at our lives and say, okay, where do we want to be in 25 years of our marriage?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And thankfully, we had a mother who, even though our dad did what he did, yeah, we had a mother that preserved family.
Speaker: She did.
Speaker: She went back and valued and kept us with the main core value of we still have each other.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: We might not live in the same city, but nothing's changed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Dad's gone and he's living his life.
Speaker: But she provided a very strong family sense.
Speaker: It wasn't that dad got screwed up because he did and he left and he remarried, he was gone, he was not in our lives, and mom fell apart too.
Speaker: Mom stayed a structural structure of home.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And and we can't ever neglect the reality of that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because we've said it how many times, and we've written songs about it.
Speaker: If the devil had had his way.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: We was out to kill, steal, and destroy all of us.
Speaker: All of us early on.
Speaker: Yes, early on.
Speaker: And I I see mom during that time after dad was gone and she spent a couple years single and and so broke.
Speaker: I mean, she could barely pay her rent.
Speaker: We had just gotten married.
Speaker: She was living here in Orlando at the same city that we were living in.
Speaker: And just one time I thought I was doing her a favor.
Speaker: I'm like, mom needs a dog.
Speaker: She needs a dog, she can't live by herself.
Speaker: So I went to the pound and got a poodle.
Speaker: I think that's what it was.
Speaker: Brought it to her.
Speaker: She's like, I don't want this dog.
Speaker: I said, Mother, you need a dog.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She was like, All right.
Speaker: So she takes the dog in.
Speaker: That night, the dog fell.
Speaker: No, the I think she had already broken her arm.
Speaker: So she's got her arm in a sling.
Speaker: The dog?
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Mom.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Mom had fallen and had her arm in a sling.
Speaker: I hand her this dog, thinking that's gonna help her.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember.
Speaker: She lets the dog sleep in her in her uh bedroom.
Speaker: It lays down on her robe.
Speaker: The next day she goes to put on the robe.
Speaker: The dog had fleas.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: A couple days later, I walked to her house.
Speaker: She goes, take this dog.
Speaker: She opens up a robe.
Speaker: She had like a big belt of flea bites all around.
Speaker: She's got her arm in a sling, completely covered in flea bites.
Speaker: So I basically ruined her life.
Speaker: She certainly did.
Speaker: I was a much better dog.
Speaker: I had to take the dog back.
Speaker: It was terrible.
Speaker: But she went through a very difficult season.
Speaker: It wasn't all roses, because when you were saying, you know, she kept, you know, family.
Speaker: It was hard.
Speaker: Well, that's the I think that the the the misnomer people have is that somehow because we're twins or be we just have some magic way of getting lucky and having our kids around us.
Speaker: We've been, we we have been face to face with really what should have been the opposite happening.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The opposite should be happening.
Speaker: We should all be scattered, broken, oh yes, and not talking to each other in the loony pit too, but not talking to each other because of where we were when we got started in this life.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: In in the most pivotal time of our of our lives, we graduate Hollywood.
Speaker: I can Jesus help me with my words, Lord God.
Speaker: High school, we graduate high school, and our lives are just torn apart.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I I go back to you can get through anything, no matter how difficult it is, when you have a strong family sense, strong center, sense of family.
Speaker: And most families don't give themselves permission.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, they'll compare themselves to other families.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the reality is you can't.
Speaker: You gotta put all your focus on this is our village.
Speaker: You know, the Bible even says, as for me in my house, yes, we will serve the Lord.
Speaker: That strong sense of home and security, even without dad, right?
Speaker: Mom provided that for us.
Speaker: She did.
Speaker: So that was a really great lesson that we went, took, we took into our marriages and into our home.
Speaker: And then, of course, marrying Italians, we had very strong men and strong-in-laws, but strong men that also really valued la familia.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: And that's just been something that I go back to it.
Speaker: You know, it it what comes first, the chicken or the egg.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, what comes first, the ministry success or the strong family success, it's the family.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And and I I will say that is your ministry.
Speaker: That is your ministry, but it there are days that are, I think, it it's harder than most people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know that it is.
Speaker: I don't know, I'm sure.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: You're not going home with your you know, your boss if you're working in a company that you're not working with family.
Speaker: You're not spending every vacation with your colleagues and your coworkers when you're you are.
Speaker: When you're family, and so there are two different situations, but you know, I will say we were talking about comparison, and there's been seasons where your family has just thrived, you're in that season now, you know.
Speaker: And if I was not careful, I would compare where we are to where you are, right?
Speaker: And I'd feel bad about certain parts of my life.
Speaker: And I've trained my kids.
Speaker: I've over the years, I've said no, life changes so quickly.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: And there's been seasons where I was at the top, and you weren't where I was.
Speaker: I remember back when you first started your church, what's 30 years ago?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You started your church and it was small and you guys were just trying to make it happen.
Speaker: And you would call me on Sunday nights and you would tell me everything that went wrong.
Speaker: You would tell me everything you were just struggling with, how what a challenge it was.
Speaker: And I'm over here traveling, living my best life, having a great time.
Speaker: And I was, it was it was kind of if it was a seesaw, I was up and you were down.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And during that season, I was just the sounding board for you through that season.
Speaker: And I'd say just I don't remember remember saying much about what I was dealing with because everything was good.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I did say, hey, this is happening and that we celebrated, but I would spend more time.
Speaker: I remember hearing what you were going through.
Speaker: And then it would switch.
Speaker: And now if I had taken that time and went, Mary never listens to what I say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She never hears what I no.
Speaker: My ministry is to be a sounding board for my sister.
Speaker: She doesn't have anybody else.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: She needs to work some some frustrations out through me.
Speaker: And I would say, now, Mary, come on.
Speaker: You know, or just the fact that you would tell me you just needed somebody to vent.
Speaker: And I didn't really think about the fact, well, I had three things I wanted to tell you, and I didn't, I didn't worry about it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I knew, and that I'll get time to tell you.
Speaker: I didn't assign motive to it because she doesn't care.
Speaker: You did care.
Speaker: But what was happening at that point, at that moment, where you needed me more than I needed you to hear all the good stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well happened to me.
Speaker: That's exactly right.
Speaker: So that that's the sensitivity that it requires from you, for me.
Speaker: I'm wearing, I'm Joseph wearing my colorful coat and just bragging about it.
Speaker: And I'm you're not even bragging about it.
Speaker: You're not even saying it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I it just is.
Speaker: You were thriving.
Speaker: Your ministry was exploding.
Speaker: It was like almost like overnight you went from being a worship pastor leader at a local church that was doing well, right, to going through pure hell.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Your transition was hell.
Speaker: I was in a good season.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then I went through a transitional season that was hell.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you're thriving.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So the uh instead of what could have separated us and divided us actually brought us together.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And when you were in season, you would hear from me and help me get through my off season.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And then it would turn around and I would help you, and vice versa.
Speaker: And that has just been the case our whole lives.
Speaker: And that's, and again, you don't need a bunch of people like that.
Speaker: But if you find, I I tell our ladies in our church, find a friend like that.
Speaker: Find somebody.
Speaker: If it's one person, maybe it's your mom.
Speaker: Don't go through life without somebody who will celebrate with you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Build that relationship, nurture the relationship, take them to coffee, go to breakfast, go.
Speaker: And it's not that you want to find somebody that'll just hear out everything like a therapist, but somebody that you can be that for them too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, if you don't have a friend, be a friend.
Speaker: And so we've been that for each other.
Speaker: Our older sister's been that for us too.
Speaker: Our mother has been that for us.
Speaker: I'm so grateful.
Speaker: Now our daughters and our kids, we can we watch them kind of go through the seesaw off season, in season.
Speaker: It doesn't end.
Speaker: And it doesn't end.
Speaker: And we can help them through those moments.
Speaker: But I just remember when, you know, you after you begin to pastor, and now your church is exploding and doing so well.
Speaker: Now here we are, almost 10 years into pastoring.
Speaker: Mary, I can't tell you how many times I have been so low, like on a Monday, just so low.
Speaker: And I tried to share something with my husband, and we ended up on two different pages.
Speaker: We ate in a fight, you know, and I'm just confident I'm right.
Speaker: If we need to input this and we need to implement this, and we're not seeing growth because at all these frustrating things.
Speaker: And I'll call you fully expecting you to say, Well, you need to stand your ground and you need to, because you're right.
Speaker: And you would almost every time would say, No, you just need to let go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You just need to surrender.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And and I'm like, oh, I know it's true.
Speaker: I know what?
Speaker: Like, no, why are you trying?
Speaker: Or I will call you with this brilliant idea that I have.
Speaker: It's going to be the thing, it's going to be the silver bullet that's going to get us to where we want to be.
Speaker: And you're, you'd be like, Yeah, don't do that.
Speaker: Don't do that.
Speaker: We tried that.
Speaker: Don't do that.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: That's the most brilliant.
Speaker: God gave me that advice.
Speaker: No, he didn't.
Speaker: He didn't tell you that.
Speaker: We did that five years ago.
Speaker: It didn't work.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And but guess what I do?
Speaker: I listen.
Speaker: You do.
Speaker: I listen.
Speaker: Because I'm thinking, well, she wouldn't tell me that to hold me back.
Speaker: I know she's trying to help me get to where God's called me to be.
Speaker: And I'm grateful for that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker: But we don't our lives don't always sync up at the same time where all these great things happen all at the same time.
Speaker: Like right now, your kids are having kids.
Speaker: I don't have grandkids yet.
Speaker: I'm waiting for that season.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But what I'm doing is I'm looking back over the past seasons of my life where I was in season and you weren't.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I remember thinking, okay, I it's coming around for me.
Speaker: Let me just celebrate what's happening in your season.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let me hold your grandbabies like they're my own.
Speaker: Let me let me celebrate what's happening for you as if I know that's going to happen for me.
Speaker: And it takes some faith and trust.
Speaker: Well, that's not a natural reaction.
Speaker: And I know people will say, oh, you're twins, you can do that.
Speaker: Maybe, maybe that helps us have a head start.
Speaker: No, I still struggle.
Speaker: But we struggle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's that is not an easy thing.
Speaker: Comparison in friendships and relationships, I see it now even with our young adult kids.
Speaker: They've the two that have gotten married, you know, it's the same.
Speaker: Nothing ever changes.
Speaker: You get married, you got to marry the perfect spouse, then you got to have the perfect kids.
Speaker: And now I have two.
Speaker: We got to have the perfect house.
Speaker: Well, if you're trying to do life with people and have relationships, you're going to get in a race and you're going to naturally think it's a competition.
Speaker: You're just lining up, ready to go.
Speaker: It's natural, but that's where you have to put value in the friendship over this being a competition because it's not a competition.
Speaker: And I'm learning from you, and I love it.
Speaker: I get to sit in the seat of a learner.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And now whatever you go second.
Speaker: I get to go second.
Speaker: And so I get to watch you and go, Yeah, don't do this.
Speaker: This doesn't work.
Speaker: Try this.
Speaker: Here's what's going to happen.
Speaker: And it's so like what an advantage.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It's such a I could look at it as, oh, God left me out, or I'm behind.
Speaker: It's my turn.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's a privilege.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: What an honor that I get to go second and watch, or third even to watch both of my sisters sit and talk about, you know, babies and nursing and holding your grandbaby in the hand.
Speaker: And not make the same mistakes we made.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Now I could focus on it's not happening.
Speaker: Oh, what is it going to be my and have these sulking moments?
Speaker: But instead I go, yeah, you know what?
Speaker: We get to pick up and just take off if we want to.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: We don't have to think about in-laws, we don't think about babies.
Speaker: We get what it's perspective.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And through every season of our lives, I've had to.
Speaker: That doesn't mean I didn't have moments where I was depressed and sad and hurt.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You're done.
Speaker: That's helped me develop perspective.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But at this season of my life, I just shake off those thoughts.
Speaker: I shake that off and go, you know what?
Speaker: It's what I focus on is what I'm going to feel.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I focus on the lack and what I don't have.
Speaker: I'm going to feel weary.
Speaker: I'm going to feel bad.
Speaker: I'm going to feel, you know, let down.
Speaker: But if I focus on, wait a minute, you know what?
Speaker: Evidently, God's got another season where I'm going to be, I'm off season right now, but I'm going in season soon.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And I have more time to prepare for the season that's coming.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: To be ready.
Speaker: So it really is perspective.
Speaker: It is perspective, and I know we're over time, but I want to just say this.
Speaker: You never, ever, ever make me feel like I can't share my blessings with you.
Speaker: That you're not a grandmother yet.
Speaker: And I've told you it's the greatest season of your life, right?
Speaker: And it is, it's incredible.
Speaker: And I want that for you.
Speaker: But you have never made me feel like, can you please just rub some of that polish off and stop making it look so good?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Can you please stop bragging about it?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's the happiest season of my life.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And you're here for it.
Speaker: And I'm here for it.
Speaker: And you're not in it yet, but you're here for it.
Speaker: I know, our other sister knows Marveline, you'll be in it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And it'll be amazing.
Speaker: It's not a season that's being withheld from you.
Speaker: It's a season that's coming.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just happened to come for us.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the beauty of that transaction and those that understanding, it really does go beyond just being twins.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: It's having one another's hearts.
Speaker: And I want we tease our kids and they have no idea we we mean this.
Speaker: But if we outlive our husbands, they're they're they're older than us.
Speaker: So the chances of that are pretty good.
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: We're gonna have a condo on the beach together.
Speaker: We are gonna live out.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We are going to torment the seven humans that we birthed.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And all their cohorts.
Speaker: All their husbands, their wives, and their children.
Speaker: We talk about being here for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm already making plans.
Speaker: How we're gonna annoy the heck out of them.
Speaker: I can't we're gonna be 85 together.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Still putting extensions in our hair.
Speaker: Still putting makeup on, still getting hair.
Speaker: But you know, with the the generation we live in now, 80, we're gonna look like we're 60.
Speaker: Oh, it is.
Speaker: Look at J-Lo.
Speaker: We're gonna look like there's no age.
Speaker: Why why not?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not live as long?
Speaker: But but again, it goes back to the perspective.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And and vision.
Speaker: Thinking long term.
Speaker: That's the quickest way to kind of get out of the doldrums or the frustration or where the season that you feel stuck in.
Speaker: And the relationships matter more than all the accomplishments.
Speaker: Well, oh, that's a sound bite right there.
Speaker: The relationships matter more than the accomplishments.
Speaker: So while you wait, yeah, God's giving you a chance to build relationships.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Don't get the accomplishments without the relationship.
Speaker: Or destroy them.
Speaker: Because you're jealous.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you're questioning your offseason.
Speaker: Oh, they're why are they in and I'm off?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That I do something wrong.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Why are they?
Speaker: Why are they getting blessed?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Why aren't you blessing me?
Speaker: So that must mean they're doing something on the side over here because that I know them and they wouldn't really get be blessed like that if they weren't doing something underhand.
Speaker: All that devil thought.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: All the things the devil throws in.
Speaker: Instead of just celebrating that God's doing something in them.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: He's gonna do it for me.
Speaker: That's how you get through your off season.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: I get to sit back and watch you win.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And learn.
Speaker: Come on, somebody.
Speaker: And with that, I love watching you win.
Speaker: I love watching you win.
Speaker: Well, you were in a movie.
Speaker: I wasn't.
Speaker: That's a long time ago.
Speaker: But I'm not salty about it.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: It's all good.
Speaker: You do have three grandbabies.
Speaker: It's all good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love you.
Speaker: I love you too.
Speaker: This was great.
Speaker: This was fun.