SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Brewing Better Marriages from T South Dakota with Philip and Debbie Sanders. If these podcasts have been a help to you, pass it on to others and let us know in an email or also include any questions that you might have on the subjects we cover. A word that you will hear often is honorable, which means Honorable means honored, esteemed, precious, costly. All right. What are we doing? We're combating the spirit of our age, a non-committal attitude. Make a commitment. It's not that tough, but make a commitment to your marriage. The last podcast we dealt with having a relationship God's way. God's way is the right way, and we've talked about how that is a necessity in the hour we live in is to understand that God has designed this and He's designed it for us to do it His way. We talked about the word communicate. We've got to communicate with each other. What does Proverbs 18 say, Deb?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

A man that hath friends must show himself friendly.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

All right. See there. You've got to have friendship in marriage. She's got to be your friend. And uh to be his friend. Okay, I got confused there. Would you say that again? She's got to be his best friend.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And he's got to be her best friend.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Oh, now I'm straight. Well, you know, that's called communication, folks. We're just communicating right here with each other. Communication is such a vital port part. Communication. Communication is such a vital part of having a godly mach mar. Communication is such a vital part of having a godly marriage God's way. It's important that we leave all the baggage of our previous uh home life outside of our relationship. We're trying to build what, Deb?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

We're building our own foundation and we leave what may have been mom and dad's way of doing it, and we're trying to form our own in according to God's Word, and basing it on the principles of His Word, and we take the best of what we each can bring from our past, and then we work at deciding what we want it to be through the Word of God.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Now, you know, I see it a different way than what you see it, right? Can you give an example of that? I mean, we're usually seeing things a straight the same way, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Well, you're a man.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Oh. Eggrich coined the phrase, it's not wrong. It's just different. Let's say that together. It's not wrong, it's just different. One of the things, God made us men to compartmentalize things, and he made the women to be expressive responsive. We we kind of pointed toward a book that is out there called Men Are Like Waffles. Women are like spaghetti. We've got to understand action and uh which is action and which is motive. Are we being am I am I am I is my motive to to make you angry? Is my motive to cause dissension in the home? No. Why? Because we are what? Good will people. We want to live peaceably with each other, but these conflicts come up and cause us to um uh uh create this lack of communication. So what we have to do is to what? Break down what?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Break the barriers down.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yes. Then we talked a little bit about cultivation and how that that word cultivate uh simply means to break up or to um let's see to to just break up to where it can be pliable with things. Um how do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Well, it may be by emails throughout the day or text messages or uh a note in a lunch uh bag to work. Um it's just cultivating is working at it.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

And marriage is 100-100, so we can't expect it to be one-sided and one of us doing all the cultivating.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

We we we touched on this word me time, and I know I'm looking at her across the table right now, and I see her eyes almost get a little bit frustrated and aggravated because I've heard her say many times when men's women. I've heard her say many times when women say, I just need some me time. Um how much me time did you have raising eight children?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Well, not much. Um you know, that's our God-given responsibility. And as a as the wife and the mother, there's responsibilities that go along with it. And you know, God gives us refreshing times. And I'm uh I find my refreshing time for me was when I could go to the house of God and get in the presence of the Lord. And and it may not always be in church. It may have been running the vacuum cleaner. Then I could get quiet time, it was drowning everything else out around.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Is that the reason why I'm running the vacuum cleaner now?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah. You just work on the vacuum so hard.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Well, you know, sometimes we feel like that we're the most important, but you know who's the most important?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

He is.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Christ is. And if we put him where he needs to be, then we will have now it is her times. You know, guys, be favorable. You see she's having a rough time. It may be a difficult time of the month, it may even be the pressure of the children or the pressure of the home. Give her a little space there. Uh let her get out. Uh say, here, honey, um, we don't have any money, but why don't you just go to the store and look around? Um, you know, now at our age, uh, since we've traveled and we've raised our children and we've pastored and now trying to attempt to do that again as far as pastoring, pioneering, maybe I should say. Um, Deb loves thrift stores. She loves to go into Goodwills. Uh, Goodwill's got a little pricey anymore, but she just loves to go into the stores, you know, those those uh high quality uh TJ Maxx and uh what's some of those others? Uh Ross Ross and some of these things. Anyway, but I I I I started considering, you know. My goodness, she's raised and and homeschooled. Of course, we did that together. I was principal.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yes. You had the title.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, I kept them all in line. Anyway. Um, but she homeschooled the children. She was a pastor's wife, she took care of anybody I drug into our home. I was never embarrassed. That's a future issue we'll deal with, but I was never embarrassed to bring any anyone into our home at any time. Of course, I did call and pre-warn her that we were coming by and I was bringing a deputy or a state police or somebody by to eat supper or something of that nature. And I won't tell you all of the phone conversations that we had and even the conversations afterward that we had. But we did a lot of communication during that time, and there was cultivation of that. But I'm I'm going back now to I don't mind sitting in the car for 30, 45 minutes. She was in one store one time, just once, and I was a little concerned about her. And so I after about two hours, I went in to find her and make sure she hadn't been captured. But give her a break. Let her do some of these things, guys. Um, you know, and and vice versa. Hey, sometimes all he's done is live in a dog eat dog world. A competition is out there for us to succeed. Give him some space.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

You may you may want to make it special when he comes home sometimes. I I mean, I'm not saying that every time he comes through the door, it's gonna be a paradise. Tell me, baby, more, tell me more. Work on work on making it his refreshment and his refuge, and uh so that he wants to come home. And yes, you've been through it, you've had a rough day, but you know, life isn't all about us. And and sometimes we have to look, and and to make it a happy home, you have to look beyond yourself and look at your spouse and see what their needs are. And when you work to meet their needs, you'll find your needs work.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Some of the most enjoyable memories that I have is when I worked away, as well as we were working, building a church, etc., there in Kentucky. But I would leave before daylight and many times come home after dark. But when I could come home and I would see my children uh out on the front porch, and when I pulled in the drive, to see them jumping up and down saying, Daddy's home, daddy's home. Now, do you know why they were doing that? It was because Debbie was inside jumping up and down.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Uh anyway, she had inbred that in them. She see, this is all part of cultivation is making the ground pliable, making each other's relationship pliable. Um, as she said, texts, emails, etc. And one thing which wanted to drop in here, and I know this is this is age relevant, but never sleep apart. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. If you do have a problem and you have a difficulty, deal with it before you go to bed, because that should be your space, safe space. It's not a place to talk about necessarily the day's uh events or the next day's events. Sometimes uh, you know, Deb would worry about things and she would say things like, okay, this bill is due and we've got to do this and that. And I'd say, you know, I just don't want to go to sleep listening to that. I don't want that on my mind. So what I started doing and she started doing is the last words out of our mouth before we go to sleep is I love you.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

I love you.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah. Looking over this, say that again, will you?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

I love you.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah, I love you too. Can we just shut this off for a few minutes? But we have seasons in life that dictates to us some of these issues. And so don't be afraid to change. Uh go with the go with the season that you're in. Um, you know, uh when you're young, um work on cultivating these things in your marriage. And then when you get middle age or even later in life, they will already have been worked out where that's concerned. And then the last C on this is companionship. I'd rather be with my spouse than anybody else on the face of this earth.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

I feel the same way. There's times that we'll go off to a meeting or or even if we go into town, how uh we share, you know, we'll see somebody and comment on what they have on, or did you see how she looked or how he looked, you know, and or uh we'll come home from church and then we'll discuss debrief. Yeah, I guess debrief would be a better word. But you know, those are times that you share with someone that's your best friend.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

I know of couples that um she doesn't know what he's doing and he doesn't know what she's doing. Uh they don't talk about the services, they don't talk about things. And and let me correct something here. Um, you know, sometimes we as ministry can be falsely accused as being critical, but critique is important for us to perfect ourselves. And and this discussing with your friend, your best friend, is not being critical. It's just opening our hearts up, our thoughts up, our lives up to each other. I like to get her response to me. Uh all this newfangled stuff is a little difficult for me. Uh doing Facebook posts and even these podcasts and things of that nature. I try to always run every time before I post something, I didn't today. But I try to always run it by her because she corrects my English, she corrects my punctuation, and then she tells me, Oh, that's good. Or no, you don't want to say that. And so I want my best friend to be the one that critiques me.

unknown 13:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

So you know, we've run out of time again, and I just want to tell you, thank you for listening, and uh please send us an email at Sanders Ministries at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Sanders Ministries at gmail dot com.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Hey, check out our website. It is sandersh ministries.org. And uh thanks again for tuning in. We appreciate it greatly.