They Call Me Mista Yu
“They Call Me Mista Yu” is a Christian podcast whose topics include: family, faith, relationships, gardening, and even sports and pop culture! We're the All Purpose Pod for an All Purpose Life discussing topics that affect the whole person. And we want the whole person to be fully engaged with the creative, collaborative, life-changing presence of the Creator! At the core of all we do is Jesus Christ!
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They Call Me Mista Yu
TCMMY His & Hers Podcast: Unraveling the 'Better Half' and Unity in Marriage
Have a question for Mista Yu? Text the show and he’ll answer it personally.
Ever wondered if calling your spouse your "better half" truly honors them or subtly diminishes you? Join us as we unravel this expression, often rooted in church traditions, and explore how the language we use shapes our perceptions of equality and partnership in marriage. Your thoughts and questions are welcome through the fan mail link in our show notes!
Let's clear the fog around marriage myths and emphasize that a united, purpose-driven relationship can transform you both individually and as a couple. Reflecting on our whirlwind three-month courtship and the skepticism we faced, we share how aligning our goals and dreams fortified our marriage against the odds. Our story is a testament to the power of mutual support and unwavering faith, turning opposition into a resilient, God-centered partnership.
The journey of marriage is profound and often challenging. We'll discuss how the COVID-19 quarantine was a catalyst for introspection and resolving past conflicts, strengthening our partnership even further. Dive into the biblical roles of husbands and wives, focusing on true submission and self-sacrifice, and discover the empowering roles each partner plays. We conclude with personal reflections on how spouses can uplift each other, drawing on scripture to highlight the nurturing and transformative power of a strong marital bond. Listen in and be inspired to apply these principles in your own marriage!
(1 Corinthians 13:4-8, which states, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”)
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Welcome back to the His and Hers Podcast. I'm Mr U and the Queen is in the house.
Speaker 2:Hello, how's it going?
Speaker 1:It's going great, awesome, awesome, awesome. Glad to have you back with us. First off, we want to say thank you. As always, we always try to lead our shows off with that. Thank you for all the support on all of our social media platforms, all the ways that you're chiming in on what we're doing with this podcast. It's a labor of love for us the content and the discussion and what we're talking about. Thank you so much for listening on all of our audio only platforms like Apple podcast, spotify, iheartradio, pandora, amazon music. Thank you for supporting our show and for following us and downloading our shows on Apple Podcasts Specifically, the only place where you can actually Subscribe to our show. Definitely appreciate that If you're watching us, which is a rarity on YouTube. If you are youtubecom At theycallmemisteryou, you can see us live and in person there, or any of our other video only content or video and audio content on our YouTube channel at they Call Me, mr you. But thanks again for continuing to listen. We're excited to be back with you.
Speaker 1:The last time we were here, we were talking about singleness and it seems as though there is definitely some reaction to what we were talking about. I think it's all good Anytime we get to enlighten and encourage one another. It's a good thing. We talked a lot about singleness and how it's not a death sentence. We talked about singleness in the eyes of scripture and what it looks like, not what we see on TV and in the media and even in the people around us who have gone through hard things and they kind of pass that stuff down to you. So we're looking at trying to enlighten, encourage and uplift through this podcast and I think the synchronous episode was pretty awesome. Did you enjoy it? Yes, I did. I was pretty excited about it too, and during that time we talked about actually going into the marital discussion. It's something that was definitely important to us to do that. So this episode, which, if you're looking for it and searching for it, it should be entitled the Better Half we're going to talk about that a little bit and my feelings about that term. But we're going to get into a little bit of the marriage stuff and we're going to share some scriptures. So if you're taking notes, by all means, please have pen and paper ready so you can do your own research and kind of look into it for yourself and kind of see what you discover. Now, if you are interested in sending us any kind of questions or comments, topic ideas, things like that. We have something called fan mail In our show notes. Right at the top of the show note page is a little link or a little hyperlink. You press on that. It's going to give you a chance to send us a text message directly to the Queen and I with any questions or comments you have about the show or the content of the episode that you're commenting on. We will be able to respond back to that, probably within the next time that we come together and have another episode. We'll see those comments and we'll respond to those live on the air. It's called Fan Mail, a little link at the top of our show notes. Just click on that and we can get your question and comment and respond promptly. It's going to be back on the air again together so we can talk about marriage this time Now the better half.
Speaker 1:That's an area where I definitely want to try to jump into that, because I never really got where that was coming from.
Speaker 1:I think Queen has some insights she wanted to share about that, but for me it always felt like it was diminishing one person to uplift another. Now that's not bad all the time. The scripture teaches us about how we should in the competitive realm, and only in this way, in the competitive realm when it comes to the kingdom of God, that we should outdo each other in the level of honor we come to the kingdom of God and we should outdo each other in the the level of honor we give to another. So we should be competing in that area to honor and uplift, lift others in a greater, outside of the norm kind of way. So I get that part. But the better half it always felt like it was like downgrading somebody else to upgrade somebody else and they both were in the same partnership and relationship and that's kind of how it felt to me. So we're never really thrilled about the whole half thing, but you had some thoughts about the better half that I think you wanted to share. So please go ahead and do that.
Speaker 2:Yes, the first time that I heard better half is in the church. What? Yes, we had this pastor and he said, you know, he wanted to share something. But before he shared something, he called his wife up and he called her his better half. He said I want to have my better half come share with you. But I didn't think anything bad about it, you know, I thought that was supposed to be a compliment to her because of all that she did, you know, in their life together, you know, with being with the kids, if he had to go out of town or any of that stuff. So that's where I heard it.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I mean in today's vernacular it feels like it seems it feels different than that. There's something else kind of behind that, I don't know. I hear that from even people that we know. They'll say where's your better half? I don't think about it. When they say that I'm like so does that mean that I'm not good? I'm always going to be under my wife? I mean, I'm trying to just understand when they're going with that. I kind of feel like they don't even know where they're going with it. It's just something that we say It'd be wise to be careful about what we say.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the word they mean something that we didn't intend. So I try to be really careful with that. But the better half thing, it just doesn't sit right with me personally. I think I understand why, but as we move to the episode you'll see kind of how God sees this whole idea and what his word says. We live on that standard that we judge all things by. Maybe you don't. If you're listening, it's totally fine. No condemnation against you. It's just how we approach this and hopefully you may get a tool or resource or nugget out of this that might help you out with your specific situation.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, but when I think about the word half, this is kind of where I get lost. At the better part, I mean because, honestly, the queen makes me better. I'm good with that. There's certain areas that and we'll talk about it a little bit where there's some things that I drop the ball on that she catches I think she may say the same thing about me perhaps, but that's what makes the partnership work, that's what makes the unified team that we got going on here work. But with the half part, if you look up the word half, you see several definitions, but one is going to speak to the idea of being almost equal, not quite there, almost kind of living underneath the equality line or being divided or not really being a partnership. So I think about better half and like that it seemed to have a negative connotation to me because we shouldn't be half and we have discussed this on our episode on singleness we talked about that, about how a person that's single shouldn't be seeing themselves as half of a person, waiting for the other half to come along or be sent to them to complete them.
Speaker 1:It's really a bad ideology and I feel like it's anti-scripture. I believe it's just totally off the mark. I know that when February comes around, you're going to see what I'm talking about. I'm not making this up. February coming around, you're going to see what I'm talking about. I'm not making this up. You're going to see the mad dash for validation to take place in February, whether it be candy and flowers or jewelry or what have you.
Speaker 1:And it's like people who are single are looking for what they may consider their soulmate or what have you, but they kind of feel like they're incomplete. I'm like you don't ever get the impression that God's work was half done or that he didn't fully complete what he started. And I feel funny about the idea of seeing myself as a half of a person and then the queen comes along and now I'm whole. That's just troubling to me. That's just troublesome to me. That's just troubling to me. To me. That's just troublesome to me because what I hope I did was that I developed myself at least enough in my early formative years to be able to bring something to a value to this relationship, to this marriage, so that she's not having to do extra heavy lifting because I didn't do my part to develop me. Did that make?
Speaker 2:sense. Yes, it makes a lot of sense. I mean because we have a responsibility for our life, so that when we come together because if you think about it something you said a while back about how if we live knowing that we have to connect with other people, then how would we live? So I mean I look at it like that I don't want to be the lesser and I don't want you to be the lesser. I want us to come together, like the Bible tells us to be one.
Speaker 1:So I mean, that's how I saw that. I mean, there's even passages of Scripture that are pretty clear about that kind of stuff, for example, mark 10, verse 8, it talks about God making them male and female and how he began creation on the human level anyways, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. There's no mention of halves or quarters in this. It just says the two unique, individual persons that the Lord created become one flesh.
Speaker 1:I feel like we have to see ourselves as either. See ourselves as whole, which I think is good for us to begin to declare and proclaim some things in our life that's what all of us have who've had challenging backgrounds, who have struggled with self-esteem and validation and acceptance and that kind of stuff but also see yourself as someone on the road to wholeness. Make that your goal. You know what I want to be made whole. I want to be a whole person.
Speaker 1:I want to be a person that is so incomplete and so fractured that I live my life like that, because what you're really doing is living beneath the kind of life that God wants you to have, and we do that a lot. If you see wholeness as your goal as something that you move towards, that you're seeking. I just feel like it's a better whole life experience. I'm just kind of just speaking in general terms. I think it's a better whole life experience when you're shooting for wholeness as opposed to saying you know what, I'm broken, I'm going to just stay broke. I'm fractured, I'm going to just stay fractured. I just kind of feel like that's just a bad way to just live period, much less into a marriage where that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yes, it makes a lot of sense. You know, a couple of years, the things that we've gone through, you know, feeling that I wasn't at my best because I wasn't. You know it made me want to fight, to be whole again, you know, so that we can build life even better after that. Because the things that I've gone through, you know I was able to take that, being able to fend for myself, feed myself and all those things, you know it made me want to be even better so that you didn't have to carry the weight and I'm the lesser, and you know we were able to work together, you know, and be on one accord.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that. I love that. That's good. That's really good though. But I'm thinking about this because part of 18 and 22 kind of comes to mind for me right here, because I feel as though and I've seen this in other places, I don't really catch judgment about it, but it's kind of hard to not notice it when you spend time with people and you're around people. You see the little things like oh, that reminds me of a challenge I had back in the day, or oh, that's something, maybe a cautionary tale, something I would never want to do with my spouse. Excuse me, it's just those kind of things. That kind of crank that up for you, but Proverbs 18 and 20. So I love this.
Speaker 1:It's going to be out of the Passion Bible that I'm reading this, but I want you to check this out. Check out what's going on. He says when a man finds a wife, he has found a treasure, for she is the gift of God to bring him joy and pleasure. Hey, somebody trying to rhyme up in here. When a man finds a wife, he has found a treasure, for she is the gift of God. To Come on, rapper, I like that. I like that, but I like what's happening there because what it tells you is that I don't see anything there that says you know what this person is devoid without this other person. But I feel like there's a need that gets filled because when you look at the Garden Eden experience and with Adam and Eve, the Lord said himself it's not good for man to be alone. So he created a help me and we'll talk about that a little later on in the episode what help me actually means and what it actually is, as opposed to what people say it is. We're going to try to debunk some myths on this show today and kind of break through some of that.
Speaker 1:The bottom line here is that you know it's a good. It's a good thing that marriage is a good thing. It's not some kind of a situation where there's some kind of inequality or somebody being over somebody else. There's an order of things, but there's a point to it. It's not something that man set up to keep somebody down, or women set up to keep men in their places or keep them. You know those things it's all flesh in there and that's all people with agendas that create that kind of stuff. It's not at all what the Word of God is talking about and it's really grossly misinterpreted, but I want to try to get into it. Do you have a point to want to share, real quick? Okay, so I think one thing before I ask you this next question. I think one thing before I ask you this next question.
Speaker 1:I think we should ask ourselves Are you united? Because I know we see a lot of situations when we have been Unofficial marriage counselors to people and kind of talked through some things that they were dealing with and I feel as though we should ask ourselves Are you united? Are you able to see that I'm not talking about? Do you have things that you disagree about? That's not really the point, because that's going to happen in any kind of relationship. You're not getting around that part. But are you actually united? Are you actually united?
Speaker 1:Then ask yourself what are you united against? If you're united, what are you united against? Because if we don't have a purpose and a goal behind why we're doing what we're doing, if we just hear that you've been at those couples who have been married 40, 50, 60 years, that we've seen, that we've experienced, that we even know in our families and they have relatively nothing in common, they're just there. They're kind of just going through the motions and you tack on the years and celebrate anniversaries, but there's no growth between you. There's no growth individually, but there's no growth between you. There's no growth individually and there's no growth collectively, which you as a couple, you're kind of just there, living but not really. I would say you're existing but not really living. And that's the kind of thing where it's like you know, we got to be having a unified goal.
Speaker 1:And I think one story I wanted to kind of share a little later, but I think it might be appropriate for right now I think one of the biggest turning points that you and I experienced together before I asked this next question that we experienced together, we had a challenging start to our marriage. I mean, we had a three month courtship. That wasn't any time. I don't think we rushed anything. I think it was God ordained. In fact, I believe that's so. It was God-ordained because it didn't make any sense to me at all. That's how I know it was God, because I had no background for marriage to speak of. I didn't have a whole lot of marriages around me that I saw working or that were healthy and thriving. So my examples weren't a lot, and no offense to anybody, that's just where I came up from. So I courtship in three months. That's where I came up from.
Speaker 1:So A courtship in three months. It was a God thing. He arranged the whole thing. It was a shotgun marriage Without the shotgun. It was arranged by God. It wasn't me at all. I doubt the queen would say it was her either.
Speaker 1:No, but One of the things and we had, we had a harrowing time Starting off together and that's how I know it was of God, because we Exper, experienced so much backlash. I mean, people didn't even want to marry us. If you want to get real about it, they're listening. Yeah, we're talking about you. You didn't want to marry us. Be honest about it. You know what I'm saying. But they didn't approve of the whole situation. We had relatives in the family that didn't really approve of me, much less my wife. To be there was not approval on both sides, I would say.
Speaker 1:And we experienced a lot of spiritual challenges, a lot of assaults and warfare, if you will. Just a lot of battles coming from a lot of places, a lot of voices speaking against us, speaking to us, trying to divide us. It was extensive and I don't even know how many years this went on, but I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty positive. I can honestly say that we're probably talking about five years or more that this was going on in our life. Am I pretty close, to be accurate on that? Yeah, it was constant. I'm like what is going on? I don't think I ever doubted I should be married, but I wanted to take her and run away to a place where nobody knew where I was. I had thoughts about that kind of stuff, but I never doubted that our union was of God. But we had so many challenges.
Speaker 1:But I think the turning point and I'll ask this question and get the queen a chance to answer here, but what I thought was the greatest turning point in all of this was when we both decided that, no matter what and who it was I don't care if it was in-laws, I don't care if it was relatives, I don't care if it was our own children, I don't care if it was our best friends, I don't care who it was Our mentors, I don't care who it was Nobody was getting between me and the queen. That was the bottom line. That's what I figured out and that's something that we learned and that was probably the greatest lesson that we learned in all of this. And when that happened, when we decided and we came in agreement, we said you know what, no matter what happens, we ain't letting nobody in titheless like his name. Nobody's going to break us up, nobody's going to separate us, because we believe the word of God. It said that what God has brought together, nobody can break apart. And we said you know what? Once we decided that I feel like we got in our whole armor. I feel like we had our sword and shield and we said come on with it. We're going to knock it right down when you try to bring it up, because we're not letting nobody come between us.
Speaker 1:And that was a turning point in our marriage. Everything changed. We still had conflict and issues, but that changed because we were unified and we started dreaming together. We started making plans together. We started setting goals together. We started establishing boundaries, even in our own household. Who can say what and do what in our household? We began to establish boundaries in our relationships what you can say to us, what you can't say to us. We start walking in higher self-esteem. It was incredible and it was definitely a God thing. It was not something we read out of a book, it wasn't something we got from a TV show or a movie. It was a God thing, because our whole life changed from that moment. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. We had to be in agreement, and the only way we could do that Do you agree with that? Yes, I do. We had to be in agreement, and the only way we could do that is if we was on the same page. We had to let go of some of learned behavior. We had to decide. You know we're going to focus on what the Word of God says and build on that, and that you and I are on the same page. Because in the beginning of our marriage you said who do you want to be right? And we shared that in the last episode who do you want to be right? Do you want God to be right or do you want to be right, or I want to be right, or are we going to let God be right? And we said God, and that's what we agreed on. And so if we didn't know how to do something, we had to go by the word and let that be our measuring stick of how we build together.
Speaker 2:Because one thing that I noticed, like when 9-11 happened, you know, I didn't know how to be there for you and we never talked about how we would act, react or respond if a tragedy or something happened. You know that was something that just wasn't discussed, and when that happened and to see the hurt and the brokenness in your eyes and to and I didn't know how to comfort you because we couldn't get in touch with your family um, we tried to call mom. You know, we didn't know what was going on. That was part of your childhood, that was a part of who you were and how you were raised, and it's gone and you can't be there to touch it. You can't even go there. It's been years that you've even been there and it was a lot. So one thing that we decided was that we would communicate more.
Speaker 1:And in that communication.
Speaker 2:it helped us build that unity that we needed, so I think that that was one of the turning points. Like you said, we talked out things so we could say what we agreed or disagreed and move on from there.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that that was literally what happened. I think that part of our life was trying. I mean, we're talking about not a lot of time into our marriage when this took place. I think we're talking about what? 2001. When that happened, we were about five years in and they always say how that three to five year period is such a challenge because you're learning so much about each other. So we were still in the learning phase when that happened and I think the rough part because I was working at the time and I saw On our screen in our business center, everybody was standing around the screen With their hands over their mouths and people were weeping and the towels were going to the building and I'm like, okay, I took that personal and I know that in that time and I still have some areas where I do that now.
Speaker 1:Just to be transparent and honest, you know I can't defend all the New York City and all that goes on and everything, but you know that's my home. You know, and to a degree I'm going to defend that within reason, and you know people always say, oh, you know yorker this and or northern of this and make comments and they're really callous. They don't know the person, they just know. But they think they know what they read, what they heard on tv or read in a magazine, but they don't really know. So I would be a fierce defender of things new york and people against people who are from the south or from another area not named new york. But for me, when I saw those planes going through the building that was personal to me. I would say, okay, you can come to my hometown and start attacking the people. I took that personal.
Speaker 1:But not being able to reach mom at the time and other families and wondering, is everybody okay? And the uncertainty, the feeling of helplessness, it's like, it's hard to explain it. It's hard to explain it because you have to know that everybody I tried to call or text, nobody responded back. I didn't get no responses from everybody that was family, my aunts. I couldn't reach anybody. I'm like I couldn't reach anybody. I'm like my sister. I'm like I couldn't reach anybody. I'm like my sister. I'm like, come on, nobody answered the phone, nobody picked up. I'm like.
Speaker 1:And so the feelings that you had, the thoughts that come to your mind, they can be overwhelming and it was like what is happening, you know, and I found out. Once I found it and that probably was like the same day, maybe or maybe the next day, I'm not even sure when it was I found out my mom could be in one of the buildings for an appointment and she just decided not to go. I'm like you have to understand how dramatic this will be to impact your life. So people are callous about stuff because it doesn't actually happen to them, but you don't realize that in a blink of an eye your life can change, things can be radically different and your situation can be power-packed, like this one could have been. So that was a lesson for us to kind of learn how to, not only on your part, to learn how to comfort me, but for me to be transparent and vulnerable to you.
Speaker 1:I can't say that in our first few years I was walking in't. I can't say that in our first few years I was a. I was walking in vulnerability. I can't say that, to be honest, I still had some guards up and we talked about that in our first five years of marriage, easily probably in our first 10, if we're going to be real about it, if you're going to be keeping on the real. But I wasn't, but that wasn't my one one.
Speaker 1:One time I was really, really vulnerable and I was really open like hey, I'm dealing here, I don't know how I'm handling this, I'm away from home, can't really be back Close by there that often and be able to Kind of see the family more frequently, so for this to happen, it's like wow, I can't believe that's where we are and it's like it opened up so many feelings, so many emotions. But your point about being vulnerable and knowing how to come to each other, that's why I feel like we really sort of come together and I want to make this a thing where we look for tragedy and conflict to try to bind us together. But it has that quality. We're not expecting it, we're not speaking it over ourselves, we're not declaring anything over ourselves that's negative or unhealthy or harmful, but it has a quality.
Speaker 1:There was a time down the line probably about maybe less than 10 years after that, where I lost my dad Another opportunity that brought a lot of feelings and emotions in and had me being very vulnerable. We didn't have the money for me to go and fly to where he was. There was a whole bunch of stuff attached to that. That was a chance for us to really bond and grow together as a couple. So I kind of want to ask this question on the heels of that what was the defining moment for you personally that taught you the heels of that? What was the defining moment for you personally that taught you the importance of partnership in a marriage.
Speaker 2:I think that would be when COVID happened. I think that you know all of the plans that we had for retirement and the money and stuff that we were saving and plans that we were making a lot of those went out of the window because of how much we lost, you know, with investments and all that stuff. And so we had to decide, you know so how do we build here? Because that was comfortable, you know, and we couldn't get an age back. We couldn't get all those years back that we had saved and put here and planned. Life looked different. So we had to learn how to learn to walk in this and say, okay, is this a good idea, can we handle this?
Speaker 2:You know, we had to regroup and do some things differently, and that brought us even stronger, stronger together. It made us, um, the we had already started doing the communication part, but now we had to step outside of our box, our comfort zone that we had grown into, and say let's do this differently. Ok, are you willing to take a chance here? Are you really ready to fight and do something different? And I think that brought us together even closer. It made us even trust God even more. Oh, yeah, even trust God even more, oh yeah, and step out on faith in some areas where we had never stepped out before, because we were so used to the plan or the, the things that we had, you know, put in place, the systems and all of those got torn up.
Speaker 1:That's good. Trusting the system is not a good idea. It wasn't. We learned that in the interim, but I think that 2020 was that kind of time. It was that powerful.
Speaker 2:Did I answer your question now?
Speaker 1:I think so. Okay, I think that that time when COVID hit, it was traumatic on the entire nation. Even the world, even, yeah, the entire globe felt the impact of this virus. We can talk about man-made and that kind of stuff at another time, on a different day, but it impacted everybody and I think, for me, one of the things I learned I know that this is something that was not popular. I hardly ever hear it, so that kind of tells me that people weren't thinking the way I am about this.
Speaker 1:But you know, as much as we want to cultivate relationships and grow with people and create friendships and do social things which we always did we had our struggles but we always desired that at the end of the day, when we got into a place where we were quarantined and kind of cordoned off from each other, it for me it wasn't. It was enlightening. For some people it was a frustration. It created anger and contempt and resentment for systems, for, uh uh, people with decision-making authority, for churches, things of that nature. For me it was enlightening because it gave me a chance to spend a little more time with me and deal with me. You know, people were more. They were kind of rabid and ferocious about getting back to their norm and to their life. Ferocious about getting back to their norm and to their life. They wanted to get back to their bars and get back to their movie theaters and get back to their social clubs and groupings. Fortunately for me, I didn't have a lot of those, so I didn't have to try to go and run toward that. It was an opportunity for me to say you know what? This is a good time to reevaluate all the things that I say are important to me. It made me think about my life differently. I don't know that I want to have a tragedy or that kind of circumstance to make me think about this, but it helped me and I hope it's helping you, even by thinking about it right now. What was a priority for you that maybe it shouldn't have been, but it helped me, yeah, and I hope it's helping you even by thinking about it right now. What was a priority for you that maybe it shouldn't have been? What did you invest your time and energy in that maybe you should not have? And I asked myself those same kind of questions and I found some things. If you look for whatever you're looking for in life, you, as a general rule, you can find it. If you're looking for negativity and think everybody's against you, you'll find that. If you're looking for positivity and encouragement, you'll find it. Whatever you're looking for, you can find.
Speaker 1:And I was trying to find some answers about how I was using my time when I was prioritizing, that opened the door for me, because I couldn't go anywhere, I couldn't do much. I was limited in the people I can be around. We were social distancing. Certain organizations were not even functioning, meetings and the way that we work in workplaces had totally changed. We were closed off from each other from a public social standpoint. So it gave me a chance to kind of deal with me. So what's up with Mr you? What do I like here? What am I putting my time into? What am I doing You're not doing. I mean everything from having games on my phone to who I talk to the most, who I call the most, who I hang out the most, hang out with the most. It was like what's the? What was the point of this? They made me do some evaluation, which is always good for us to self-evaluate and check on where we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to say something right here.
Speaker 2:When you talk about, you know, being able to look at yourself and being Quarantined, we had to live With one another and be quarantined just the two of us and I'm so glad that we had dealt with a lot of the things that we dealt with the way that we did in our past, because it was easy to live with you.
Speaker 2:You know, amen, and I hope it was easy to live with me and we didn't have to go outside and we couldn't go outside, so our every day was together, you know, um, and so if there was any unforgiveness, any little things that I had in my heart against you, or any little things that got under my skin that was a habit, you know or things that I've done that might've made you upset about, we dealt with all of that and we had a prayer life, you know. So that really helped us in, you know, dealing with that time of our life. So we was able to deal with that better because of all the things that we did, and we didn't just brush it off and hold anger and unforgiveness and hatred in our heart about the things that we've been through. We were able to deal with them. So we lived better when we went through that hard time.
Speaker 1:Awesome, as you guys are listening, ask yourself that same question what was the defining moment for you that talked to you about the importance of partnership in a marriage? We hear a lot about leave and cleave, which is essentially two individual people becoming one unit. As you can see, we're talking about two whole people, not two halves, not two quarters two whole people becoming one in the sight of God. You can still have friends and have meaningful relationships. You don't have to lose your identity and we're going to talk about that with the husband and wife dynamic shortly but you can be in partnership with another person and still they don't have to rise To a priority level that's higher than God, or just having everything In its place, so to speak. For us and this is, of course, this is just us speaking, this is just Mr you and the Queen Talking to you. You have your own thoughts and ideas About this, but for us, the highest priority In our life is our relationship with the Lord, him being Lord of our life, him being our Father, him being the answer to all the things that we get challenged with. His word is our barometer, our measuring stick and how we live our life. That's us. That's top priority for us. We're reading, studying, listening. We do all this because we recognize the authority that he has in our life and we give him that and we honor him in that and that's our top priority. After that, our priority is each other. That's number two. Number one and two are immovable. There are forces in your life that will try to move those two and put them in different places At lower levels, but for us that's something that we fight for. We war against that. So number one stays the Lord. Number two stays my spouse, bottom line. Everything after that is interchangeable. We work around that kind of stuff and we figure out what and who fits where With business, family, ministry, all those things. You have to decide those things and prioritize them. But the first two, they don't change and we have to work hard to keep each other the priority.
Speaker 1:Like I said, when we were talking about early on in our marriage, we had our really first big conflict. It was like it was an onside like none other Verbal assaults, you name it. People were lying against us. It was all. People tried to break into our house. It was all type of stuff that was going on in our life during them. First few years, the first five years or so.
Speaker 1:But our thing was that the turning point for us, in my opinion, was that we agreed that we wouldn't let anybody come in and just wreck shop in our life. We were going to fight for our marriage. The Bible says no that what God has brought together, let no man put asunder. We weren't going to let no man even come close to trying to do that in our life. We prioritized that and that included everybody. I don't care if it was our children, relatives, in-laws, you name it. You're going to be in the crosshairs if you try to get between the queen and I. And we just physically fought for that. I think we still do it today. We have a lot more about what's about us and a lot more wisdom involved in it, but we still fight for that because it's the second most important thing in our life and we fight for it. That's what marriage means to us.
Speaker 1:Now, of course, there are people around us, people that we know, that we connect with that don't see marriage on that same level. They don't see marriage on that same priority. To some people, the second highest priority is their business or their work. It's higher than their marriage. We know folks who their children are more important than their marriage. They prioritize their kids and make sure their kids are okay and get what they want over their own marriages to their spouses. We've seen that kind of stuff. And you talk about finances a whole different layer. Some people prioritize finances. Some people don't even have God as number one in their life at all. The family and finances and their enjoyments in life, whatever that may be, prioritize and nature up all of those things. There's a challenge there. We have to learn how to prioritize what matters to us and how we give respect and honor to that.
Speaker 1:You had a thought there. From the husband and wife dynamic, you're going to hear that every time that we get into scripture. I know people hear little buzzwords that don't line up with what they believe or what they think is true and right and cool or whatever. But when you're dealing with and if you guys are listening, I always encourage you guys to get a passage of scripture for yourself, read it for yourself, do your own research, get back to us through fan mail, let us know what you think. We'd love to hear your thoughts and we'll tackle every topic that we can tackle. But you're going to hear the word submit a lot. When you're dealing with the husband and wife and the husband and wife dynamic and the marital dynamic, you're going to hear the word submit. I urge you to look at the word submit, not only in Vivian Webster or dictionarycom, but look at it in the language in which it was written. I implore you to do that, because when you do that, you see something a little bit different than what you been taught or led to believe.
Speaker 1:Yes, there is an order of things in the household of faith and there's an order of things in the marital dynamic. As you can see, eve wasn't made before Adam. Adam came first. So there's an order. Obviously it doesn't mean that Eve was a slave. It doesn't mean that Eve didn't have an identity. She was considered a help me, but we'll talk about that momentarily when we get to the section on the wife. But there was an order of things and there is a submission there.
Speaker 1:But the husbands. You don't avoid responsibility in a situation. The Bible says that the wives should submit to their husbands. But you can't lord that. If you're doing that, you're going to have to stop today. You can't lord that over somebody and make that your wife, some kind of slave while you don't do anything and you don't contribute anything to the marriage. That was not the intention of the passage of Scripture, so you're misusing it. Please stop doing that With a husband's concern. Your job is to be self-sacrificial. That means that you put your needs before your wife's needs.
Speaker 1:Now see, that's where we're probably going to get silenced and crickets on that part, because you're talking about being self-sacrificing. Who is more self-sacrificing than Jesus Christ himself, if you think about the crucifixion and everything that led up to it the arrest, the scourging and then the crucifixion itself? Who was ever more self-sacrificial in your life you've ever seen before outside of this situation? I don't know anybody. So when I hear self-sacrifice, I immediately think about the cross. I immediately think about the spikes in his hands and his feet. I think about the scourging and the wound. He was practically unrecognizable. I think about that.
Speaker 1:And the husband being asked to sacrifice like that, not sitting up on the cross in there, that's being too literal, I don't mean that. But the husband, according to scripture, is being instructed to be self-sacrificing. You see, in Ephesians 5 and 25, being self-sacrificing, that means sacrificing the things that you want in favor of what your wife needs, and that's a whole different world, because we see it around us a lot of times. People would rather go fishing, go motorcycle riding. They'd rather go out of town with their buddies to go see a concert, maybe a favorite group that they grew up listening to. I mean stuff like that. They'd rather do those things and they sacrifice their uh, their family for the sake of what matters or what doesn't matter. It's like those are the kinds of things that we talk about. The husband's role, yes. The wife, yes, as a submit to her husband.
Speaker 1:We met somebody recently who has a longing to do something that would change her family dynamic. But she told us that the one thing I would never do is circumvent with my husband how he leads our family. She's like I have a need, I have a desire for something, but I'm going to let him lead us and hopefully we'll be on the same page and move in the area that I think we should be going. But she didn't try to circumvent him, she didn't try to manipulate him, she didn't try to get him to do anything. She just trusted that, in the order of things, it's going to work out. That's really mature.
Speaker 1:I don't see that very often as a husband, we've got to be so sacrificial and sacrifice our needs for the sake of our wives. Okay, so as a husband we're supposed to be the household leader for the example of God's love in the house. That means humble at the heart of a servant, being self-sacrificing that we talked about earlier, especially with lovers concerned. The husband is not a Lord or dictator. We look at first Corinthians 13, four to eight.
Speaker 1:I love this passage. I'm going to read this off real quick for you 1 Corinthians 13, 4-8. It says Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Here's the best part it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. I love this.
Speaker 1:We'll share this in the show notes so you guys can copy and paste this and read this for yourself. The husband should put his wife's needs above his own. His wife's needs above his own. I know for a lot of men that's hard to do because they want to be in control and they live life or upbringing in their background, where they weren't in control of things or felt helpless. They try to overcompensate when they get married. But the husband is not God, but models his life and approach to family and morality according to the word of God. Does that sound to you what a husband should be?
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean I've immorality according to the word of God, and it's not to you, what a husband should be. Yes, I mean, I've seen that as an example. You know the way my dad um did in our family. Um, I didn't see a whole lot, but just to see how he would show up for the family, for my mom Um, and it was a lot of us you know, and it was a lot of us and for dad to come home and take care of the house and the family.
Speaker 2:It was 13 children and I saw that as an example. So there would be certain things that I expected from you being my husband that I saw in my dad, but I couldn't tell you what you needed to do. I prayed for the things that I thought needed to be changed according to God's word, because me and you grew up, you know two different backgrounds, and so I wasn't trying to tell you what to do, but I would share you know, or I would ask questions, that I'd like to ask the questions and I would say so. Do you think this is right? Do you think God is pleased with you? Know the way that you would do this, or we even do pros and cons.
Speaker 2:That don't sound heavy at all we do pros and cons, we do what ifs, you know, or we even talk about, well, what is the best way to do this, you know, and that was part of us learning how to communicate more, and so that that really helped us.
Speaker 1:I love that. Okay, that's the husband's side. The wife's side it doesn't have as many points, but I think it's so so much substance in it. Still, the wife is considered a helpmate or a helpmeet, companion, a helper, a support system. When Adam was formed, god said himself that it's not good for Adam to be alone, so he created for her. Well, he created for him a helpmeet, and I want to get into that, because we talk about a helper that's fit for somebody or suitable for somebody.
Speaker 1:This is not a position of weakness. I want to make that clear. If you heard that in your vernacular, in your religious circles, it's a myth. It's not at all what scripture is saying here. This is not a position of weakness or some kind of subservient state where you have and I want to name the movie, but you guys probably know what I'm thinking about with the ladies, the maidens. You know what I'm going with that. That's not what this is.
Speaker 1:The wives don't have to lose their identity. The wife still has a voice. They have decision-making ability. They have the ability to impact generations in their own household. If you don't know that, check out Proverbs 31. Excellent review or depiction of what a wife is and what a woman is. It's incredible and very, very accurate. It's a high bar, it's a high standard. But check out Proverbs 31. The wife is not a doormat or a slave. They have leadership and authority, like the church submits to Jesus's leadership. The wife ideally wants to do it God's way and I love the description of help me in the Hebrew language that was written in.
Speaker 1:I won't go and try to pronounce the Hebrew cause. I don't want to botch it, but the Hebrew word for help me means something that's different but complimentary. So it doesn't have to mean that you're doing the same thing the same way. It's not required, but you still complement each other. I can tell you right now from my standpoint my wife has helped me be better. We can maybe get into that, if not before we close on a different episode. But the two words that make the word help meet in the Hebrew language. One means to help, obviously, and the other one means to rescue others, and it's like raise your hand. If you thought that the word help me meant to rescue somebody, I don't think there'd be a hand raised across the whole nation, unless you already knew what the word meant in Hebrew. And I feel as though I mean, just be honest about it and I might get emotional about I'm going to try not to.
Speaker 1:But in a lot of ways you rescued me because I remember what I came from, where I came from and what I came from and what I was in from a relationship standpoint, how I view relationships, how I reviewed people of the opposite sex, how I treated people. And it's like you did rescue me because I could map my kingdom to the South. I didn't have any desire to adopt the culture or the custom. As a matter of fact, I still don't. I don't want to adopt anything that has to do with this, because I feel like I got to still be who I'm called to be and not try to blend in, because that never worked for me anyway. So I'm just giving that up now. I am what I am and it is what it is. But you did rescue me.
Speaker 1:I mean, no, there's a scripture that verifies that. You know that. I think Proverbs 18 and 22 is a good place to start. When a man finds a wife, he finds a treasure, and I love that, because if you listen to the lie, you think that the wife has no authority and not a person of strength, but they most definitely are, and you can't rescue or save somebody if you don't have power. So that means right there already, that the help me already has power embedded in her to be able to save and rescue. So that's high praise. That's high praise that the help me to has the power already. They're not waiting for it to be given to them by somebody else. They already have it in them to save and rescue. And it's like I love that, because what it says is that you're a nurturer, but you also have the ability to impact generations and impact your household in an awesome way.
Speaker 1:So I'm just loving that I ain't got a whole lot more to say that we can end on that but, I, mean you can go ahead and tell me what you think about the, the wife, and help me part, but no, if you ever, if you ever thought about it. I have one more question.
Speaker 2:If you haven't thought about it. I have one more question, if you're not good.
Speaker 1:I just want to say thank you for even saying that. That's high praise. It's fact stuff. You've done that for me.
Speaker 2:I thank you for saying that, and you've done that for me too. You've helped me become a better person In the way that you take the time out to, before you can say I believe this. You take the time out to before you can say I believe this. You take the time out to read it, to study, to make sure that that's something that you can get behind, that you can stand with. You don't just jump and make a decision. You know, and you have been that example for me and I truly appreciated that and it makes me want to be a better person.
Speaker 2:You know, even with even eating habits and things that I had, you know, learned behavior. You know things that I adopted, wife, that you need. You know we we talked about the scripture in Matthew 22, 39, about um, love your neighbor like yourself. You know, and I think about that as my husband. You know, you're my you're not my neighbor, but you're my husband, and if I don't love me and take care of me, even if it's the things that I eat, the things that I watch, the things that I put inside me, how can I be that person that I need to be?
Speaker 2:So I just want to say thank you and I thank you for the husband that you are, you know, and I love you for it. So I love you too.
Speaker 1:This is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just love you.
Speaker 1:And I just want to encourage you guys that are listening thank you for indulging us as we talk about this awesome subject. But just notice, if you're single or you're married, just recognize that you were made for another person. That should change how you function. That should change how you operate, how you live your life, the lifestyle, the decision that you made, the behaviors that you accept or you decline to accept. You've been made for somebody else. Ready yourself for that, position yourself for that and let all the great things that are supposed to happen in your personal development happen. We thank you so much for listening to the His or Hers Podcast. Again, we're excited about what's going on. Check out Fan Mail, send us a message, let us know what you think. Thanks for listening. Like, share and subscribe. This is you, and the Queen are out. Bye-bye, bye.
