Have you followed Aaron and I for awhile? Would you like to get to know us more? In this episode of Marriage After God we ask each other 10 random questions and our answers will let you get to know us more! These podcast episodes are not exactly easy to record, and preparation is key for me! So the fact that we didn’t plan for this and didn’t know what each other would ask stressed me out just a little bit, but the candidness makes it fun!
We hope you enjoy this episode and are encouraged by it!
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– Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.
– Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
– And today we’re gonna have fun and answer 10 random questions, so that you can get to know us better. Hey, thanks for joining us this week, we wanna invite you to subscribe to our channel, so that every single time we upload a new episode, you get notified.
– Also, this is gonna be a really fun episode, where we’re asking each other questions, but if you have questions for us, make sure that you leave them in the comments, and we’ll get back to you.
– Okay, so this is a fun, don’t look, weird episode.
– I’m not gonna lie, I’m super nervous.
– So what we did is we wrote down five questions, and the other person does not know what the questions are.
– But here’s the thing guys.
– You have not seen these.
– I haven’t seen your questions.
– I have not seen yours
– You haven’t seen mine.
– And here’s the thing, I like to be prepared for our podcast, I don’t like to be–
– Not this one.
– Saying things off the cuff or like put on the spot, and so my cheeks are probably already red, I don’t know, so go ahead
– So, we’re gonna answer these as we hear them.
– Okay.
– I’m gonna start. I’m gonna read you a question off my card, and you have to answer it.
– Oh my gosh, okay.
– This is pretty much just truth or truth, there’s no like, there’s no dares involved.
– Okay.
– We should do a truth or dare episode.
– Okay, so are you ready–
– I don’t know.
– For question–
– No, I’m not ready.
– Number one?
– I told him, I said just don’t, hold on, I gotta tell them, I said, oh you asked, are we gonna do a theme or anything with these? are there boundaries, nope. We’re just gonna ask whatever we ask, so these might be super random.
– Okay, question number one, what is 4,628 divided–
– That’s not funny.
– What? I’m just kidding. Math.
– I’m not doing math on the spot, oh my goodness.
– Okay, alright.
– For reals.
– Okay, if you have six watermelons, and three of them have no seeds, if the other three have, I’m just kidding.
– That’s another math question.
– These are not the questions, these are not the questions. That was a word question, it’s like a word problem.
– I hated those.
– Maybe I should go first.
– This is the real question, okay. What is your favorite fast food and why?
– Okay, my favorite fast food, that’s a good question.
– I know.
– So here’s the problem, is we’ve been eating less and less fast food over the years.
– Oh, but I think you have some secret dirty–
– Do I? Okay, so you guys the truth is there’s this place called Del Taco.
– It’s a magical place.
– I don’t recommend it, but there is the 69 cent red burrito with sour cream that is really good.
– That’s pretty specific.
– Yeah, I know.
– So, and why is the second part of that question.
– I don’t know why, I grew up on Del Taco. I remember being a child, and my mom would walk us down the street on Friday night to get Del Taco, and.
– So it’s nostalgic.
– Yeah, but it’s good, but it’s not good.
– It’s a good nostalgia, it’s so good, it’s so bad.
– It’s so good, it’s so bad. Okay, thanks for that question.
– Third random piece to that question is how many do you get of these 69 cent.
– Two to three, you have to.
– You can’t just have one.
– Why would you ask that? Okay, thanks for putting me on the spot.
– Okay.
– So mine actually happens to be food as well, to start out, I know.
– Oh, are a lot of these gonna be food?
– No, just this one. What is your favorite type of dessert?
– Ooh okay. Oh, easy. I like pudding-textured desserts.
– Okay.
– Creme brulee,creme de pot, or pot de creme.
– Pot de creme. It’s one of those.
– It’s like a chocolate pudding, but it’s super thick, ganache stuff.
– Ganache.
– Frosting.
– Brownies.
– You’ll straight-up eat up frosting.
– Chocolate shakes.
– Or chocolate malted shakes.
– Chocolate malted shakes, chocolate chip cookies that are gooey.
– Just so everyone knows, I actually hate that he always gets malts because I always want to try some of his shake, but I don’t like malt.
– I can’t just do a shake. You gotta get the malted powder in there. I don’t even know what it is.
– I know.
– But they put it in.
– I always think of moth balls, I don’t know why.
– It has nothing to do with moth balls. Can I get the chocolate moth ball shake please?
– Okay, moving on, ask me number two.
– That’s a good one, question number two, for me, for you. If you had three hours to do whatever you wanted and money didn’t matter, what would you do?
– Oh my goodness, that’s a good question. The first thing that comes to my mind is just like, spa day, by myself, getting a massage, in the dark, in the quiet.
– Cool, dark.
– Yeah, a three-hour massage, that’s what I would do.
– Three hours straight, you wake up at the end of it. -Okay, maybe I do halfsies massage with pedicure or something like that.
– That’d be good.
– That’s what I would do.
– Okay, men, take notes. Alright.
– Okay, my question for you is next. Be nice, okay, be nice about this one. -Okay.
– I don’t even know why I’m asking it, but I thought they would like to hear. What is the hardest thing about doing a podcast with me?
– Nothing, it’s awesome. It’s always rainbows and butterflies. The hardest thing about doing a podcast with you is when I ad lib and you’re not prepared, and you just stare at me, and I’m like.
– Now they’re gonna look for that.
– No, we cut that all out, it makes it sound like we’re all prepared, but.
– It’s true, here’s the thing is, we have different styles of doing these podcasts.
– I could just gab.
– Yeah, and I like to be super prepared, and so I’ll literally rather read off a piece of paper.
– We’ll be reading a note and I’ll be like, you know that one time, what did you think about that? And she’s like.
– I didn’t write that down.
– And then I’m like angry. I’m like, why didn’t you just answer it?
– I don’t know why, I get nervous.
– I know, and as I’m asking you the question, I just think to myself like, I shouldn’t even ask this. She’s not gonna answer it.
– That’s okay, you can keep asking. We’ll just cut it.
– Oh, I’ll say the second hardest thing is we do this during naptime, and since neither of us can watch the kids, it’s like we have this big of a window to do it, and so since we have to do it together, it’s just we have to coordinate like perfectly.
– Yeah, but we’ve been lucking out.
– We haven’t missed a week yet, yet. Okay, my question number three for you is this. This is also a what has been the hardest–
– No way, we just think alike.
– What has been the hardest lesson you have learned as a wife?
– That’s very big, that’s a very big question.
– What’s the hardest lesson?
– The hardest lesson that I’ve had to learn, I feel like there’s so many things that I’ve learned along the way.
– Put ’em in order, from one to, I’m just kidding. Just the hardest one.
– I can tell you, right off the bat, is probably submission and respect and just even in little things.
– It’s just so hard to respect me, I get that.
– Well no, but you’ll come up with an idea for something, and I’m so quick to just be like, no. And I don’t even need to give a reason, because I know in my head that’s not how I would do something, or–
– Yeah, ’cause it’s not the way you would do it.
– And it just causes a little bit of contention, so.
– So you’re saying you’ve learned submission and respect?
– I think I’ve gotten better over the years. I’m still learning it.
– Which is totally honest, and I love that.
– I’m trying to be obedient to the Word and let you lead us and our family and me, specifically. And also, coming from examples in my life of really strong women, I didn’t see that exemplified really well, so I just think that submitting to you is not the easiest of things for me sometimes.
– Okay, so the question wasn’t the hardest thing you’re still learning. I’m just kidding, that’s a good answer. -Be nice.
– Would you say though, since you brought that up, that the more you walk in submission and respect for me in that biblical mindset that God wants for you to have towards me, do you see me growing in that area of being respectable, being follow-able?
– I do, and I think that the more that you continue in your walk of letting the Lord lead you, I trust it more, like I trust you more, and I think that the more times that I walk out submitting to you, that it becomes easier for my flesh, if that makes sense. The more I practice it, the easier it becomes. Doesn’t mean that there’s still some days that are hard, but I have gotten better at it, and I see the benefit too. I see why God put that order in place for a marriage. I feel like it makes it more possible to have a thriving marriage when there’s someone that’s leading and somebody that’s willing to come up under and support and follow.
– Cool, good answer.
– Yeah.
– Okay, what’s your number three?
– Oh yeah, we’re asking each other questions, right. Okay, so number three is, How do you envision our life and family in 10 years? So just to give you a perspective, I’ll be 42, you’ll be 44, and Elliot will be about 15. I know, it’s really weird, crazy.
– Well, why’d you have to go and do that?
– Sorry, I just wanted to give you some perspective. We’ll be in our 40s, and we’ll have teenagers. So how do you envision our life and family?
– Okay, I pray that we’re 10 years mature. Not just older, but like mature in the word of God, that as a family, we are pursuing His will still, and I know we will be. I would say, most of all, that we will be just stronger and more biblical parents. I want, more than anything, my kids to just love God and love His Word more than I ever did.
– And that we have strong relationships with them.
– Yeah, so our son who’s already given His life to the Lord, I pray that when he’s 15, he loves the word of God–
– And knows it well.
– And knows it well, better than I did. At 15, I don’t even know how well I knew it.
– I think he’ll surpass us, I think he will.
– That’s my heart, and I tell Elliot that, I’m like, I want you to be better than me, and smarter than me, and wiser than me, and know the Word of God better than me, and that’s–
– How many other kids do you think we’ll have?
– Is that a, that’s not one of the.
– No, I know, I just added that, I’m just curious.
– Well, we have on every 16 months.
– Well, there’s a lot of people on social media.
– That’s 16 children.
– There’s a lot of people on social media that keep asking. They’ll say like, Jen, it feels like you’ve been pregnant for a long time, which it feels like I have, but.
– Yeah, it’s every year and a half, every two years.
– They are curious, those listening want to know. Do we have a number?
– I don’t have a number.
– Yeah, we don’t have a number.
– I don’t have a number, I just want to trust God. And I love having kids, and we’re gonna walk in wisdom with it, and we’re just gonna pursue God’s will for it, and I don’t need to give a number.
– Yeah, cool.
– If we have more, we have more.
– Okay, we’ll see in 10 years.
– If God stops it, God stops it, but we’re just gonna trust Him.
– Check back in, in 10 years, you’ll see.
– And you’ll see how many kids we have.
– Number four?
– Go ahead, I’m ready, not ready, kind of ready.
– If you could go back in time,
– Aaron always likes to do time travel stuff.
– Yeah, I do, we should do an episode on time travel.
– I know, teach them how to do it.
– I’m serious, we have a thing about time travel. If you could go back in time and tell your 18-year-old self one thing, what would it be?
– 18.
– Stop eating red burritos.
– Stop eating red burritos, yeah. Pursue Aaron harder, no I’m just kidding.
– Oh you did know me then?
– I knew you, and I pursued you because I remember you weren’t dating anyone at the time, and I just wanted to be with you. Okay, that’s actually when we started dating. I think I would tell myself to read the Word more, to build a stronger habit of getting in the Word, and I would tell myself that today. I feel like I’ve always had this desire to know God more.
– Yeah, what would you tell yourself today? Open the Bible.
– I do feel like maybe it’s not just a spiritual health, but like also health and fitness. I would just tell myself, start preparing now, go to the gym more, go.
– ‘Cause it’d be easier today to do it, because right now it’s hard gettin’ into it.
– So I wish I’d built more better habits back then. I think I would tell myself that.
– I would agree, for myself.
– Yeah, oh not for me.
– I would agree, you should’ve had better, that’s probably what I would tell myself to open the Word of God more and keep yourself healthy and build those habits. That’s good.
– Cool, okay.
– So what’s your number four for me?
– Number four for you was, what was your experience like singing in a hardcore band?
– It was awesome. -Say it louder, what?
– It was awesome.
– So people probably don’t know this about you, so do you want to share a little bit?
– Yeah, I used to be, it’s where these came from, my holes in my ears, I used to be part of the hardcore music scene, like heavy metal, and I was in a band for a little bit.
– What was it called? What was that band?
– We’ll just not talk about that.
– Okay, okay.
– It was a fun little season.
– I had a few questions that would kind of embarrass you a little bit.
– Yeah, it was fun. I don’t even listen to that music anymore, but I loved it back then. That was my high school years.
– I should’ve said screaming instead of singing.
– Yeah, it was screaming.
– It was more of like a–
– I didn’t sing, it wasn’t like, la, la, la. It was more like.
– I actually went to one of your shows, it was–
– Yeah, wasn’t it awesome?
– Yeah.
– That’s when you fell in love with me.
– Moving on.
– Number five, we’re coming to the end here, okay?
– Okay, here we go, okay.
– This one’s a good one. What is your favorite part about being a mother?
– That just makes my heart melt because.
– It’s okay, I’m earning points here, man, points.
– No, it’s a good question, there are so many things. Again, these are big questions, babe.
– Just favorite, the number one favorite part.
– I love holding my children and looking them in the eyes. I just love them being close to me. Even if that means sleeping in our bed or taking naps with them, or cuddling them.
– That never happens, ever.
– When they’re randomly playing, they come run up and jump on my lap. I love being so close to them, and it’s hard when I’m pregnant and my belly gets too big, ’cause I feel like there’s this distance of like, I can’t get close enough to holding them, so I think it’s just that being able to embrace young children, I just love it.
– That was cool, good answer.
– Yeah, okay, so.
– My last one, what is it?
– This is number five for Aaron, what one piece of advice would you give to husbands to help them lead their wife better?
– The same advice I’d give you when you were 18. Say that question again, actually.
– Okay, what is one piece of advice that you would give to husbands to help them lead their wives better?
– Oh, okay, so there’s the scripture that there’s the parable of the plank eye, and it says, how can you get the speck out of your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own eye? And it’s this idea that you can’t see clearly ’cause you got this thing in your eye. So the idea would be lead by example. So don’t be trying to pick at your wife and change her when you are lazy, and when you aren’t opening the Word of God, when you aren’t pursuing God, when you aren’t being the kind of man that God has called you to be. And so, this has been something that I’ve leaned into a lot in the past few years in leading you, is any times I’m like, ah I wish Jennifer would change in this area. Immediate, the Holy Spirit’s like, well, how are you doing that?
– That’s really good, and you have been leading out in this way, so give them a couple of examples of how you’ve been doing this. I can think of two, right off the bat.
– So if I desire you to be in the Word of God, I should be in the Word of God first. And it’s not about order, its about if I’m gonna expect my wife to do it, that should just be part of my life. And so before even going to my wife and saying, why aren’t you in the Word of God? She should be seeing me putting my face in the Bible. Another thing is fitness, if I go to my wife, and I’m like, I want you to get in shape. And I’m lazy and eating and getting out of shape and not caring and have no discipline in that area.
– I was going to say the discipline that you’ve had in eating, specifically.
– We just talked about that, yeah.
– Yeah, has had a huge impact on our relationship and your physical fitness and your ability to have energy, and I’ve seen the change in you, and I just told you this a couple days ago, that it’s inspired me to wanna move in that direction and be more healthy in the things that I’m consuming.
– Yeah, so leading by example because I’m visible, and I’m gonna be showing my family like, hey, this is how I want our family to live. And so I don’t necessarily need to force anything on anyone. I can encourage it, and I can encourage from a place of authority because I do it. And that’s the idea of the plank eye. It doesn’t say, don’t do it. It says, take the plank out of your eye so you can see clearly in your brother’s. And so, I can see clearly in to my wife’s life by walking the way that I would want her to walk. Another area is intimacy.
– I was gonna bring that up.
– Yeah, so this was a big shift for me as like, oh my wife’s not pursuing me. My wife’s not giving me my physical needs.
– Or not initiating, or.
– Or not initiating, and I felt the Lord say, well, how are you pursuing her romantically? How are you making her feel loved throughout the day, how are you touching her? How are you holding her and encouraging her with your words? And so the most immediate effect I had on that was, let’s say I was coming into bed, and I wanted to be with you. Instead of saying, hey, let’s be together. And you’re like, you haven’t talked to me all day, right? I’ll come, and I’ll say, hey, can I give you a foot massage, can I rub your back? And I had to specifically do it with the intention of not receiving anything in return because I wanted my heart to be right. I didn’t want to be manipulating the situation. Now, often it turned into something more. But that wasn’t my intention, and I would even say, hey, I’m not expecting anything, I just wanna serve you. And then often turned into, well I wanna be with you now.
– Well there’s this thing that happens when I see my husband lead in this way, lead by example, and fulfill the things in my life to encourage me and serve me, it does stimulate this desire to want to do the same thing. It’s like the opposite of the chaos cycle. It’s the love cycle, and so I think that’s a great piece of advice for husbands.
– Yeah, so this was a fun little thing. I loved all your questions.
– I loved yours.
– Those were great.
– I was really nervous to do it, but they weren’t too hard. That watermelon one was kind of hard.
– I know, of the math questions. Don’t do math questions on a date night, unless math’s like your love language.
– Oh, speaking of date night, we wanted to encourage you guys to do something similar on your next date night, so.
– You could steal our questions, we won’t be offended.
– You can steal our questions, but the hardcore one might not make sense for some people.
– Well you’d change that one to be more specific to your spouse.
– Each person take time to write out five questions, and make it super random, and just have fun talking about it and seeing what the other person has to say, ’cause this was fun.
– Yeah, hey, thanks for joining us for this fun episode, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today’s show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
