FamilyLife Today® Podcast

Choosing Together

with | May 3, 2021
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Whether you really like your spouse or you aren't feeling anything, Aaron and Jamie Ivey, authors of "Complement," assert that "choosing together" in marriage is surprisingly beautiful. Listen as they share with hosts Dave and Ann Wilson about complementing one another with purpose.

  • Show Notes

  • About the Host

  • About the Guest

  • Dave and Ann Wilson

    Dave and Ann Wilson are hosts of FamilyLife Today®, FamilyLife’s nationally-syndicated radio program. Dave and Ann have been married for more than 38 years and have spent the last 33 teaching and mentoring couples and parents across the country. They have been featured speakers at FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway since 1993 and have also hosted their own marriage conferences across the country. Cofounders of Kensington Church—a national, multicampus church that hosts more than 14,000 visitors every weekend—the Wilsons are the creative force behind DVD teaching series Rock Your Marriage and The Survival Guide To Parenting, as well as authors of the recently released book Vertical Marriage (Zondervan, 2019). Dave is a graduate of the International School of Theology, where he received a Master of Divinity degree. A Ball State University Hall of Fame quarterback, Dave served the Detroit Lions as chaplain for 33 years. Ann attended the University of Kentucky. She has been active alongside Dave in ministry as a speaker, writer, small-group leader, and mentor to countless wives of professional athletes. The Wilsons live in the Detroit area. They have three grown sons, CJ, Austin, and Cody, three daughters-in-law, and a growing number of grandchildren.

Whether you really like your spouse or you aren’t feeling anything, Aaron and Jamie Ivey assert that “choosing together” in marriage is surprisingly beautiful. Listen as they share about complementing one another with purpose.

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Choosing Together

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May 03, 2021
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Bob: I think all of us would agree that the foundation for a successful marriage is love, but Aaron Ivey says all of us need to be recalibrating how we think about what love is.

Aaron: It’s not enough for me just to like you; it’s not enough for us just to be attracted to each other; it’s not enough for us to just think: “You’re my soulmate, so this is all going to work out.” But you have to really press into: “What does love look like? What does love look like when you go through conflict? What does it look like to love your spouse when you don’t like them?”

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, May 3rd. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson; I'm Bob Lepine. You can find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. Do you have what it takes to make a marriage work? And do you understand how husbands and wives become one? We’re going to talk more about that today. Stay with us.

Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Do I have this right?—you guys, for a while in your marriage—you were pretty big on the mixed doubles tennis circuit; is that right? [Laughter]

Dave: Yes, we’re known, Bob. We’re on the cover of Tennis magazine. [Laughter]

Ann: Yes; I like that he said “circuit.” [Laughter]

Bob: You played mixed doubles.

Ann: We did.

Bob: You [Ann] played tennis growing up.

Ann: Yes.

Bob: And you [Dave] played football growing up.

Dave: Yes.

Bob: But you wanted to marry Ann, so you learned how to play tennis. [Laughter]

Dave: I actually asked her out on our first date at a tennis court.

Bob: To play mixed doubles, you almost have to have this sense of: “I know what you’re going to do.”

Ann: Exactly.

Bob: “You’re going to charge the net, so I’m going to drop back,” or “I’m going to cover this, while you cover that.”

Dave: Oh, we had hand signals behind the back. [Laughter]

Ann: No we didn’t. But you’re right; we do have a sense and we did have a sense of: “I’m going to do this, and you’re going to do this.”

Bob: And it’s a little bit of a picture of what marriage is like—

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Yes.

Bob: —where we have to have a sense of: “What am I supposed to be doing here? What are you supposed to be doing here?”

Dave: You have to complement one another. [Laughter]

Bob: You guys had the chance recently to sit down with some dear friends, Jamie and Aaron Ivey. And if our listeners don’t know the Iveys, they ought to find a way to get to know this couple; right?

Dave: Oh, yes.

Ann: They’re wise; they’re fun; they’re great to listen to, and they have a really cool walk with Jesus.

Bob: Yes; Jamie has a weekly podcast that’s called The Happy Hour. Aaron is a worship pastor at Austin Stone Church in Austin. They’ve been married for 20 years; they’ve got four kids. And they have just written—I was going to say a book, but it’s actually a his book and a her book,—

Dave: Right.

Bob: —side by side, both with the same title, which is Complement. And that’s with an “e” and not with an “i.” It’s about how we fit together, not how we flatter one another.

They’re talking about this dance in marriage. You started your conversation with them by asking them to share with everybody how they met and how they fell in love.

[Previous Interview]

Dave: Tell us how you fell in love. Let’s hear the Ivey’s love story.

Jamie: You want my—

Aaron: It’s probably two different versions of the same story.

Ann: Yes, I want to hear both.

Aaron: Okay; Jamie you start.

Dave: Do they complement one another?

Jamie: I’ll start; yes.

Aaron: They’re probably very different. [Laughter]

Jamie: So when I was younger, I did not know Aaron, obviously; we met in college. I grew up in a Christian home; but when I turned 16, completely just walked away from the Lord. It’s a whole other story for another day, but I was living a pretty crazy lifestyle. Moved back home my sophomore year in college. While I had been gone at college, my parents had started attending the church where Aaron was working. He was also in college, but he was student pastor. My brother was in his student ministry, and he knew my parents. I moved back home, and we meet—a Sunday—you can tell them when we met.

Aaron: Well, I remember it going down one way; I’m not sure if this actually happened. [Laughter] Her family had always told me about this older daughter that they had; right? I was like “Okay, sure”; whatever. I was the single guy, too, on staff; so people were trying—

Dave: Oh yes.

Ann: —everybody’s fixing you up.

Aaron: Yes, that’s right.

Jamie: —everybody wants their daughter to meet Aaron Ivey.

Dave: “God told me my daughter…”

Aaron: Yes! I just kind of wrote it off. I’m like, “Okay; I’m sure.”

And then, I was also in charge of being in the foyer of the church, making sure people feel welcome. This really beautiful college-aged girl walked in. I knew that she wasn’t a part of our church, because I knew everybody at our church. [Laughter] She didn’t look like she normally went to church; she wasn’t dressed like a First Baptist Church-kind of college student girl; you know what I’m saying?

I’m like, “I need to make sure that she gets connected to our church. I need to make sure she feels welcome/she feels a part of everything.” I bee-lined to her to introduce myself, and was very professional: “I’m a pastor here.

Ann: Sure.

Aaron: “Just want to make sure you’re connected. Can I help? Here’s my number,”—that kind of thing.

Dave: Jamie, do you remember this moment?

Jamie: I do not remember this moment at all. [Laughter]

Aaron: I remember it incredibly clearly.

Ann: It’s kind of depressing, Aaron, that she doesn’t remember it; but it’s okay.

Aaron: I know.

Jamie: So we really/I mean, we met at church; but I was coming home and healing from some broken stuff in my own life and my own heart.

Aaron: I was in love immediately from day one. [Laughter] I was like, “This is the one.”

Jamie: But I just went on with my life; and we became friends/friends, where we would just see each other at church.

Aaron: And one day we saw each other at church—and I was in love with her, keep in mind—after a couple of weeks, she flashed her hand in front of my face and had a big diamond ring on it. She’s like, “Look! I got engaged.”

Ann: Oh!

Dave: No!

Ann: Wait, wait. She didn’t have it on the first time you met her?

Aaron: No, no.

Jamie: No; in the year-and-a-half—that we just skipped a lot of time from—I was dating somebody and got engaged.

Aaron: She didn’t mention that when we first met.

Jamie: I forgot to mention that. I was walking—[Laughter]

Aaron: She’s engaged, and she’s like showing it off!

Dave: She wants to make sure you know this.

Ann: And you’re like, “This was my person,—

Aaron: Yes! “She’s the one.”

Ann: —“and she’s engaged.”

Aaron: Yes, and the diamond was huge; it was beautiful. I was like, “Ugh, who’s this guy?”

Ann: Oh, how depressing, especially when you’re in ministry.

Jamie: I was going to leave that out, babe.

Aaron: No, I’m not leaving that out.

Jamie: That happened. [Laughter] Before I even got engaged—I was dating this guy—I went to Passion; you know the Passion Conference?

Ann: Oh, yes.

Dave: Oh, yes.

Jamie: It’s crazy that I even went there, because I wasn’t walking with the Lord. I wasn’t interested in walking with the Lord, but I actually ended up riding in a car with Aaron.

Aaron: I was making sure she was getting connected to all things, so I invited her to go to Passion with me; because that’s where I met Jesus the year before.

Ann: Strategic move.

Aaron: And she needed a ride, and there happened to be an extra seat in my car.

Jamie: So I go to Passion.

Dave: —with the ring on.

Jamie: I wasn’t engaged yet—details—it doesn’t matter;—

Dave: Oh, okay.

Jamie: —but I was soon to be engaged.

I went to Passion and fell in love with Jesus for the first time. My life changed forever; and within the next couple of months, I ended up getting engaged to this guy. But my life was changing; I was a different person than I was six months ago, because that’s what happens when you meet Jesus! He changes your whole life. Throughout that, I realized, “I can’t marry this guy.”

You want me to tell them what—

Aaron: This is my favorite part of the story.

Jamie: This is the favorite part of the story, you guys.

Aaron: This is the big finish; are you ready?

Jamie: So I start to realize I can’t marry this guy. I go to my dad’s office; and I’m just—we have a wedding date; I have a ring; I have a dress—

Ann: Oh!

Jamie: —all the things. I go to my dad’s office—

Aaron: —big ring/big diamond. [Laughter]

Dave: We’ve heard that before.

Jamie: I tell my dad. My dad was so sweet and kind; he’s like, “You don’t have to.” I needed someone to say that; because you’re in that moment, and you think, “I’m going to let down so many people.”

Ann: Right.

Jamie: I look back, 22 years, and think, “Man, that was one of the hardest decisions I ever made.” Because I did love that guy with whatever I had. I had the fiancée, at the time/I’m like, “Meet me in my office; we have to talk.” He sits down and I tell him, “I don’t think I can marry you; my life has changed.” He had noticed, because some things in our relationship had changed. I’m just like telling him, “I just don’t think you’re the guy for me.”

Mind you, Aaron and I had just hung out—like not really hung out—we’d never been alone together. We just were acquaintances at church—I did ride to Passion with him—all the things. He said, “I don’t understand. What are you looking for if it’s not me?” I said—I kid you not—I said, “I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I do know I want someone like that Aaron Ivey guy at church.”

Aaron: There it is!

Dave: What?!

Ann: What’s happening with you?

Aaron: There it is; there it is guys.

Dave: You used his name.

Jamie: I said that; I said his name because—

Aaron: —we were friends. We laughed all the time; we had a great time hanging out.

Jamie: But I didn’t think I could date Aaron, because I had a lot in my past. I was like—

Ann: You didn’t feel worthy.

Jamie: —“He’s not going to want a girl like me.”  I thought he was too good for me; like I had never dated a Christian really—I had never dated a Christian guy—I had never dated anyone that loved the Lord. I never had been in a healthy relationship, but I just knew. I saw him, and I had been around him; and he made me laugh—I told that to that guy.

Ann: Wow! Then did you say, “Can I keep the ring?” [Laughter]

Aaron: I did; I called him. I was like, “Hey bro, can I get that?”

Jamie: That was early spring, and Aaron asked me out that December. We got married a year-and-a-half later.

Ann: That’s a good story.

Aaron: Isn’t that good?—yes.

Ann: It’s really good.

Dave: Did she ever tell you that part of the story while you were dating?—like, “I said to this guy, ‘I want to marry somebody like you.’”

Jamie: Oh, I’m sure.

Aaron: Yes, yes. I downplayed it at the time. I was like, “Oh, that’s nice.” Inside, though, I’m thinking, “See, I knew it; I was right. [Laughter] From the day you walked into the foyer, I knew it.”

Dave: Here’s the thing: you get married—I mean, our story is similar in terms of—different details—but you know, we thought, like everybody should think in some sense, “This is the one!” I mean, we have a phrase for it: “…the one!” And then you get married; and there’s disappointment, or discouragement, or whatever—disillusionment. When did that happen, and what did you do with that feeling?

Aaron: The first couple of years, our marriage was super easy. Honestly, like Jamie and I—

Jamie: Yes. We didn’t have a—like you said, the first year was so hard—no; easy.

Aaron: We’re pretty easy-going; we’re pretty laid-back. We just loved to have fun. We didn’t have very much conflict at all; we weren’t fighters.

Ann: Did you have much premarital counseling or anything like that?

Jamie: Yes.

Aaron: We had some/the normal four or five weeks.

Dave: You’re a pastor, dude. You should have had all kinds of counseling. [Laughter]

Jamie: We went through with the guy that married us. We did like a six-week class. I don’t remember anything from it, but I’m sure it was awesome.

Aaron: I don’t remember one single thing.

Jamie: I’m sure it was great!

Aaron: I remember the wood panel walls in his office and that’s it.

Dave: By the way listeners, we aren’t saying premarital counseling is bad; it’s actually really

Aaron: It is super helpful; yes.

Jamie: It’s really good. We do it for couples now; it’s important.

Ann: It is.

Dave: I’m guessing even reading your book would be great for a premarital couple.

Jamie: Oh yes, yes.

Aaron: Yes, absolutely; absolutely.

Dave: I wouldn’t say read our book either, but definitely read their book.

Jamie: Read them both; read them both! [Laughter]

Ann: Okay; so you go through a couple of years, like “This is fun.

Aaron: Totally.

Ann: “This is what we expected.”

Aaron: Yes, and then there are two years that come to mind that were the hardest years for our marriage. It was 2010, and it was 2020; so we can’t wait for 2030: [Laughter] “Who knows what’s up in 2030?” [Laughter]

Jamie: Every ten years, we’re like, “This is the worst year of our life!”

Aaron: But 2010, we had the complexities of adding some kids to our family that we adopted. They’re incredible, but that was just a new thing for us.

Dave: Sure.

Aaron: There was some trauma related to that whole situation, like there is with any adoption. That was really hard for us; that was probably the first time where we started to have conflict—like, “Wow! This isn’t easy. There’s something that has been added into our easygoing friendship that’s making us evaluate the stuff that we’ve maybe stuffed or that we just kind of glossed over,”—that was a really hard year. And then 2020, I know, was a hard year for everybody; but it was uniquely hard for Jamie and I—just being in quarantine, having four teenagers at home 24 hours a day for a year—all kinds of things kind of came up.

When you go through seasons like that, that’s when you realize: “It’s not enough for me just to like you; it’s not enough for us just to be attracted to each other; it’s not enough for us to just think, ‘You’re my soulmate, so this is all going to work out.’ But you have to really press into: ‘What does love look like when you go through conflict? What does it look like to love your spouse when you don’t like them?’” That was all kind of very new for us, and we’ve had to navigate through that.

Dave: You discovered, I think, what a lot of couples don’t ever discover; because it’s so critical. We say at the FamilyLife®Weekend to Remember: “You’re not competing with your spouse; you’re completing in a different sense.” Like it isn’t that they don’t need you; but they finish one another, which is your word for “complement.”

Talk about that: of all the titles and all the concepts to write a marriage book about, why complement? Because it’s such a unique/I’ve never seen a book like it—not just the way you wrote it differently—by the way, I had no idea; didn’t read each other’s stuff; that’s fascinating—but why complement? What’s that mean?

Aaron: My dad is a painter. He’s a phenomenal painter, and he paints photo realism; so you look at it, and it looks just like a photograph. You would swear—

Ann: Oh, I’ve seen those; you can’t’ believe that it’s not a photograph.

Aaron: Right; I remember, even as a kid, watching him paint. It was unbelievable—because you have a palette of very simple colors; and there’s only, maybe, eight/ten colors on his palette—but simply, by using complementary colors, you can actually create something that’s way more beautiful than any one color would be on its own.

As Jamie and I think through marriage, and think through the power of marriage and the purpose of marriage, and even in our own friendship, we were both individual people that God made and wired very uniquely. Jamie is beautiful on her own; she is a whole person that has her identity in Jesus Christ, and she’s a strong woman. But when God brought us together, He intended for us to be complementary in the same nature, where Jamie and Aaron together—hopefully, if we’re doing it right, and we’re bringing out the best in each person—there’s actually a new color that comes forth that’s way better than me on my own or Jamie on her own.

We’ve experienced that. We wanted to help people understand that’s what God intended if marriage is in the cards for you. Marriage isn’t the ultimate thing; marriage isn’t like the thing that you, hopefully, one day get and then you’re finally a whole human being and God can use you. Marriage happened to be in our story; and when God does put that in your story, it’s meant to be complementary like that.

Ann: That’s really beautiful. One of the things you just said, Aaron—that I want to come back to because like you said this; and Jamie, I want you to respond to it, because I’m thinking of a lot of the people, who are newly-married or they’re engaged—and you said, “We’re learning how to love each other when we don’t like each other.” If you would have told me, on my wedding day, that I’m not going to like Dave or I’m not even going to have feelings for him sometime, I would be like, “What?! What are you talking about?”

Aaron: Right.

Ann: What is that—

Dave: —and then six months later—[Laughter]

Ann: Yes; I don’t like him. I don’t like anything about him, actually.

Dave: She, literally, said that out loud to me: “I don’t like anything about you. I don’t know what I was thinking.” [Laughter]

Ann: Oops! Don’t say those things out loud.

But what does that look like? What do you mean by that? How do you love each other when you don’t like each other?

Dave: Chapter 1.

Jamie: Love; there it is. What you don’t know on your wedding day is beautiful; because otherwise, you might not say, “Yes”; because you’re two people getting married, and the only thing you see ahead of you is bliss. There’s no way you could ever imagine what life is going to bring you. We’ve been married almost 20 years and walked through—you know, adding children to our family was difficult; sickness with our family; parents aging—life happens; you know?

Ann: Yes.

Jamie: It gets difficult. Sometimes it’s not even that Aaron changes and I don’t like him; it’s just we’re two human beings, who on our own, would choose ourselves/would choose our own flesh, our own interests, our own likes. In those moments, when we’re doing that, then I’m like, “Oh, this isn’t working; because this isn’t how God made it.”

When we talk about loving each other when we don’t like each other, for me, the ultimate example is Jesus. I think that’s what I say, ultimately, about the book: is like it’s a book on marriage but it’s, also, a book of how to just look like Jesus. If we all tried to look more like Jesus, it would be easier to love someone when you don’t like them.

When I talk about love, I think, “Man, what is the picture of Jesus when He loves us?” And I’m, by no means, saying that Jesus loves us and doesn’t like us; because I think Jesus is really fond of us.

Ann: Me, too.

Jamie: But I think that, as humans, we have to do things that are sometimes out of our nature. When we read 1 Corinthians 13—we read it a lot of times at weddings—but Paul was actually just writing that to the church, saying, “Hey, you should love people like this.” So yes, that translates into our marriage but, also, translates into: “This is a human being made in the image of God”—and I’m speaking about my husband—“I should love him the way Christ tells us to love people.”

So for me—at times, when it’s hard; or there’s conflict, or we’re fighting; or circumstances are difficult—I have to ask myself, “How does Jesus ask us to love people?” And I have to somehow, only by the work of the Holy Spirit, do that in those moments; and it’s difficult.

Ann: —even if he doesn’t deserve it.

Jamie: —especially if he doesn’t deserve it;—

Ann: Yes.

Jamie: —and that’s hard.

Ann: Really hard.

Dave: I noticed how you said that. [Laughter] You’re talking about me when I don’t deserve it.

But here’s a question for both of you—or either one to answer—“How do you do that?—when you don’t feel it; you’re hurt; maybe really, really angry—and you know: “I want to love him/love her as Christ loves me, and I can’t.” Have you ever been there?

Aaron: Yes, absolutely. Before we got married, I didn’t/I truly didn’t know how to love people. If you could kind of meet me back then, I grew up super insecure. I grew up believing that I would never really amount to anything or do anything. I had things that were spoken over me that kind of formed that belief that I had. I always struggled with: “Why don’t I know how to love people? Why don’t I know how to love well?” And really, at the end of the day, it wasn’t about me not knowing how to; it was that I had not believed that God could actually love me.

Ann: —that you were worthy of His love.

Aaron: Totally, totally. I think it’s even stepping back further and further from: “How do you love your spouse when they seem unlovable?”—stepping back further to: “Do you really believe, at the end of the day, that you are deeply loved by God, no matter what?”—because Jesus came to love people that were deemed unlovable.

Ann: Yes.

Aaron: By all standard measurement, I should not be loved by God that is perfect, and holy, and awesome. Compared to God, I should be unlovable; but He chose to love me radically. He keeps doing it over and over again.

I think it starts with a deep-rooted belief that I am loved by God. Until you kind of wrap your mind around that, and believe that, it’s impossible to love somebody else that, in the moment, you think is unlovable. But when you grasp it, then there’s nothing Jamie could do or say—there’s no distance; there’s no big fight or argument that we couldn’t get through—because I believe God loved me, so I can love Jamie; because I have the love of God in me; right?

Dave: Yes.

Aaron: It’s impossible to do it without that; it’s impossible.

Jamie: I think it is, too: sometimes, it’s a choice that you have to make.

Ann: Yes; that’s a great point.

Jamie: I think I’ve had to learn that—because when you get married—like you said earlier—I would have never thought, “I’m going to have to choose, one day, to love Aaron today,”—like I remember Aaron could never do a wrong thing; you know? But you do have to make that choice. I think that’s what people get hung up on; because they sometimes think, “This is hard; this must be bad.”

Ann: Right; or “Maybe, I married the wrong person.”

Jamie: Yes; I just think hard doesn’t equal wrong, and hard doesn’t equal bad. Hard just means it’s hard, and life is hard. I mean, no one listening has an easy life—nobody!—there’s not one person.

I think even having to go—okay, so if you’re in that space in your marriage, where you’re like, “I don’t even know if I like him; he doesn’t deserve my love,”—it is a choice in the morning; it is a choice at noon; it is a choice at five; it is a choice at 10:30; it is like a choice that you have to make. Do we always succeed at that?—I think we fail sometimes—we think, “He doesn’t deserve this. I deserve more.” But it is that consistent going before the Lord, saying, “I want to choose to love him,” and “Help me do it.”

Ann: I don’t know if you guys are like me, but I can’t do it apart from the help of the Holy Spirit.

Aaron: Right.

Jamie: Right.

Ann: Like it’s impossible in my flesh. I want Dave to serve me, and love me, and do these things for me. But the same power that’s in us, and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead—He lives in us—and so He gives us that power.

Aaron: Right.

Ann: As you mentioned 1 Corinthians 13—I mean, I have to read this—and I think of Bob Lepine’s book, Love Like You Mean It, and the small group material that we have available at FamilyLifeToday.com—but it says/I mean, just think about this as you’re listening: “Is this what it looks like for you and your household to love?”—because we’ve all heard this in so many weddings: "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends.”

Oh! That’s convicting,—

Aaron: Yes, absolutely.

Ann: —even as I read it.

Jamie: It’s beautiful.

Ann: Yes, it is beautiful.

[Studio]

Bob: Well, we’ve been listening to a recent conversation that Dave and Ann Wilson had with Aaron and Jamie Ivey, the authors of a pair of books, both called Complement. There’s a version for him and a version for her, talking about marriage and talking about how we love one another when we don’t like one another. There are seasons in a marriage, where you go, “I really don’t like you right now, but I still am supposed to love you.” It’s a choice we make, not an emotion we feel.

Dave: And I tell you—we’ve said this many times—but if you’d told me, before marriage, that I wouldn’t like Ann, I would have said, “You’re crazy!”

Bob: Right.

Dave: I’m the guy—

Ann: What’s not to like? Come on, man!—[Laughter]—a lot; I know.

Bob: We all have our moments; that’s the thing. There are days I’m very unlikeable.

Dave: I mean, do our kids not like us sometimes; or do we not like our kids? It really has very little to do with love. Love is bigger than like, and that’s what we learned today.

Bob: And the decision to love/the choice we make to love—as you said, Ann, has got to be a Spirit-enabled decision—because if we try to do it on our own strength, it’s going to look bad/go bad for everybody; right?

Ann: And we cannot do it apart from God’s Spirit and power in us. Learning to rely on Him every day, and to surrender to Him every day, and to give Him our marriage every day is something that I feel like we can’t do it apart from Him.

Bob: Yes.

We are so excited about the Ivey’s new books; and we’re also excited about the fact that, during the month of May, we’ve had some friends of the ministry, who have come to us and said, “We want to help you guys head into summer strong.” They have agreed that, this month, they are going to match every donation we receive from our listeners, dollar for dollar. A listener, who says, “I want to help support FamilyLife®; I’m going to send them $25,”—that will free up $25 from a matching-gift fund—and it makes the value of your gift worth $50.

I’ve got to tell you—it couldn’t have come at a better time—this is really important for us, as a ministry.

Dave: Like you said, it’s a critical time. You think it’s the middle of the year—but it is a/it’s really our yearend in some ways—so your contribution is going to help moms and dads’ legacies, literally, be changed, just like yours; isn’t it?

Bob: Yes; and when you make a donation, in addition to your donation being doubled, we’ll send you, as a thank-you gift, a copy of the book we’ve talked about today, Aaron and Jamie Ivey’s books, Complement. Again, one for him/one for her. That’s our thank-you gift for your donation.

And in addition, we’re going to include a flash drive that has five episodes of a conversation the three of us had recently, where we were just talking about the core lessons that I’ve learned from guests, like the Ivey’s, in more than 28 years of hosting FamilyLife Today. These are lessons on marriage and on parenting, a whole variety of subjects.

The flash drive and the books are our way of saying, “Thank you,” when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com to make a donation or when you call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. Again, that donation will be doubled; and we’ll send you these thank-you gifts. And let me just say, “Thank you, in advance, for your gift.” It is so meaningful to us, and we are so grateful.

Now, tomorrow, we’re going to talk more with Aaron and Jamie about complementing one another in marriage, and we’re going to hear a new original song that Dave Wilson wrote [Laughter]—kind of an ode to Aaron and Jamie Ivey, your new best friends.

Dave: It may just sweep the country. You never know, Bob.

Bob: It may be swept up. [Laughter] We’ll hear that song tomorrow. I hope our listeners can be with us for that.

I want to thank our engineer today, Bruce Goff—

Dave: Yes!

Bob: —and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Bob Lepine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas; a Cru® Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.

 

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