From Divorce Papers to Divine Restoration – Interview with Kevin & Bree Bailey

Do you desire to pray more for your spouse? Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together.

(00:49)
Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today we’re looking for people who have been blessed by this free podcast and our free daily marriage prayer emails and who want to help be a blessing to others. Creating and hosting this podcast and sending out our daily emails do incur financial costs, and we want to invite you to join our faithful patron team to help financially support these resources so that they can remain free for all who need them. Please join our patron team today and become one of the faithful financial supporters who desires to help bless thousands of marriages around the world. Your support will help us pay for the creation, hosting, and promotion of our podcast and daily emails. Thank you, and we hope to see you become a marriage after God patron.

(01:33)
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Marriage Effort God Podcast. In today’s episode, I have an awesome conversation with Kevin and Brie Bailey, and they are the founders of Reverence Restored Ministry where they encourage marriages toward reconciliation, toward restoration because of their own story of restoration in their marriage. Kevin and Bre, he had filed for divorce and then God got ahold of his heart and God got ahold of her heart and the rest is history. Good history by the way, and so I pray that you enjoy this conversation that I have with Kevin and Bree Bailey, where they talk about how God restored their marriage, brought them back from the brink of divorce, and now they have a thriving, awesome, loving marriage. Not a perfect one, but one that is built on Christ. And so I pray that this episode really encourages you.

Hey, I’m Aaron. And I’m Jennifer.

And we’re the hosts of the Marriage After God podcast. Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage that chases boldly after God’s will for your life together.

We want to invite you to subscribe to our show wherever you watch or listen.

We are so glad you’re here and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you and your marriage.

Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast

Everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. I’m here with Kevin and Bree Bailey, welcome to the show.

Yeah, Aaron, thanks for having us.

I don’t know how many people know you guys. I learned about you guys online and I know you guys have ministry together online and pretty popular, which is really awesome. Why don’t we start with just you sharing who you are, how many kids you got, how long you’ve been married. I want to get some of that biography here. It’ll be nice to get to know you guys.

Yeah, you want to do it?

Sure,

Go for it.

Yeah. Thank you so much. So yeah, so we have been married for 21 years and together 24, and we have a perfect marriage. Everything’s been amazing. We’ve done everything the right way. No, I’m tea

Except for 95% of it

Except for a large portion of it. But yeah, so we’ve been married. We have three kids, two girls and a boy, currently two dogs. We live in Omaha, Nebraska, and just doing life.

Yeah, awesome. So you guys have a bit of a story that we’re going to dig into and the story is a catalyst for the ministry, I would imagine, right?

Yeah.

Okay, so why don’t we start with that. There was a turning point in your marriage. You said you had been married for 21 years, but you knew each other longer. So how long ago? 24. That was in 2000. Were you guys, how old were you guys back then?

Yeah, gosh, she’s way better with numbers than I am. She remembers all of these important details. So 23 and

20, I was 20, he was 22. He helped me celebrate my 21st birthday, so he’s about a year and a half older. But yeah, so we were both in college and met at a party.

Yeah, we’ve had a wild story, Erin. So Brie mentioned we’ve been married for 21 years. Brie, our oldest daughter who is now 26, is my stepdaughter, Brie’s biological father. So

Biological

Daughter. Biological daughter, excuse me.

(04:49)
And she was two when I met her. So I was pretty wild rambunctious, really trying to figure out my life at that time. Met Bree and was like, okay, this is the one that I think I probably need to clean up my act for. So started that process, kind of quit hanging out with some of the people I was hanging out with, and we just started to really hang out quite frequently and decided that, okay, this is something we want to do. So we got married and didn’t really have the guardrails to run on and what that looked like. Both of our parents came from great marriages. Our fathers have both since passed away. Bree’s father passed away when she was what, 13 or

15? 15, yeah.

Played an important part in our story with just some of the stuff about not having a dad in the picture, but everything was great on the outside. We were doing life. I was chasing a corporate career, really thriving in that, moving very quickly up that corporate ladder and very quickly identified that, okay, my job is to provide financially for the family.

(05:48)
Brie was a nurse by trade, so more of an hourly position, and it was my way. I’m the one making money, this is our marriage, you’re going to do it the way I say no understanding of how to do that the right way we have today. But went on that path. So the first 12 years of our marriage, we spent seven of those in counseling, in and out of counseling back and forth, and really behavior modification, really walking out of there sometimes just learning how to fight better and not having this great understanding of what it looked like to have an amazing marriage. So it was ultimately a counselor that told us the best decision for us to make was to separate and pretty tragic when I heard that. Of course, I didn’t have great male figures, good role models to look at in my life. Everybody was kind of in that corporate America world of, hey, make money, don’t worry about your family. You’re providing, they’re going to take care of themselves. I was traveling a lot. So for the first time I kind of got the authority from, or the green light from somebody in authority that said, Hey, divorce is probably the next best step for you guys. So we separated. I filed for divorce and immediately started in another relationship right there that actually started before that.

(06:59)
So spent 10 months separated a hundred thousand dollars to not get divorced, and then I’ll fast forward to literally one week before a divorce was to be finalized on April Fool’s day, I called her up and said, Hey, can we connect? First time we’d really spoken in 10 months about anything of substance up to that point. It had really only been about transitioning kids, things like that. And I just looked at her and said, I’m so sorry for the pain that I’ve caused our family. And her first words were, I forgive you. And then she said, I want to put this marriage back together, but I’m only going to do it if we do it the right way. And of course I’m like, yeah, that sounds great, but I don’t even know where to begin. And she was like, I don’t either, but we’ll figure it out together. So said, there’s nobody I’d rather go on that journey with than you. And I wish I could say everything was perfect from there on out, but that was just the start. Right.

Lemme ask a question. So you guys have known each other since college at College Sweethearts. You guys met at a party. Did you both have any faith background walking with the Lord back then? Were you raised by Christians? What was before we go to post-divorce? What was your faith journeys back then? Or was there not at all?

Yeah, I can go first with that. I grew up Presbyterian and small town church. Went to church every Sunday and you would ask me now or even then, what is a Presbyterian believe in? I was like, I don’t know. We’re not Catholic. So we go to church on Sundays, we go to confirmation and it’s nothing against any specific denomination or religion, but it’s like, man, I grew up in a great home, checking the box, going to church on Sundays, and really it was like, man, I learned early. I like to have fun and so I’m going to do what I want with my friends. I was a good student athlete, that sort of thing. Do what I want on Friday and Saturday, go to church on Sunday, no matter if I got home late or not. I was going to go and I was going to sit through it and my parents did the best job. They were raising four kids and it’s not against them. I just didn’t have that realization or desire to know God other than Sundays and praying when I was really desperate for something.

Right. And then Kevin, did you have

A background?

Yeah, very

Similar. I grew up in more of a religious based church routine. We would go to church every Sunday. I’d be hungover, I’d be out partying. The only rule we had was show up for church at 8:00 AM so I would stumble my way in sleep there. In fact, sold drugs at church at one point in my life. So that was a great spot to go make a few drug deals. And yeah, man, I was not living a very good life. I didn’t really ever understand the Christianity aspect. I didn’t really, I never paid attention. It just wasn’t exciting for me. I had no draw to it. I didn’t feel the heart connection. It was just a check the box routine. My family was very active in our church. My sister was actually a youth part of the youth ministry team there. It just wasn’t my thing. And then as we got married or while we were married, got married in that church, we kind of stuck with that same routine. It was just a Sunday, put on our Sunday best show up, put 20 bucks in the offering thing as it went by and felt like we did our job and we could check that box to say, Hey man, we’re going to heaven. So purely a religious routine. There was no relationship at that point.

None of it was real in your hearts at those moments.

No.

Which is something really cool to hear about your guys’ story because it just shows that though your hearts weren’t in it though you weren’t faithful. God was, and he was there and guiding you. So you get married and you have a stepdaughter now, and you then have your own children. That was all, how long were you married before this breakup and 12

Years. 12 years.

And so you, you’re 12 years in, which is by the way, way more than average I think, which is amazing to think about. Okay, you’ve thrown the flag in, you’ve thrown the towel in. That’s the analogy actually, you’ve thrown the towel in, you want to get a divorce. Kevin changed in your heart in that time between wanting to get divorced, separating and finalizing the divorce.

Yeah, it’s one of those things of, it’s hard to put the pinpoint moment on it right? To say, okay, this is what happened. We had two significantly different journeys post me filing for divorce. I went the way of the world. Bree went the way of the word. She really leaned in and said, okay, I’m going to trust God in this moment. I’m at my worst. I’m losing my husband, losing everything that we had been working so hard for. And I just went to go party and just live in complete debauchery and really every aspect of my life. So I really have to attribute that to the power of prayer. Brie and surrounded herself with some great people that were going to help her learn how to fight for marriage. She had people that were helping her do the work in her heart to remove bitterness, remove anger, remove resentment.

(12:19)
While those things still came up, not something we can talk about. She had a great process in place that she went through to learn how to keep her heart clean and not giving up on prayer for our marriage to be reconciled. When people would say something to her of the nature of, I don’t know why you just don’t give up. He’s not coming back. Her response would be, I’m not giving up on this marriage. I’m not going to give up hope. And then for me, really that pivotal moment during our deposition, our lives were scattered across the tables. And I had alluded to earlier, we didn’t have great communication during any of that separation. I was very mean, very angry, had all of that bitterness and resentment just pint up inside me, didn’t know how to get it out. So I was drinking a lot more frequently than I ever have in the past doing things I shouldn’t have been doing.

(13:07)
And I had all of that still in me. So we were sitting in this deposition for the first time, really across from one another. My attorney’s on this side, her attorney over on this side, the person taking the notes over here, but I saw a life errand scattered out across the table in the financial form of like, okay, really if you draw that line down the middle of a table, my stuff’s on this stuff on this side, her stuff’s on that side. These were our joint things together at one point. And nobody else in the room would’ve known this except her or I. But I took care of most of that before. So I saw this person on the other side of the table who really just didn’t have her stuff organized, not together, was just frazzled in the moment. Right? Survival mode. Yeah, survival mode of that.

(13:53)
And I had a little bit of empathy in that moment. I was like, oh no, I really let this person down. She doesn’t even have her stuff together. And that was probably more controlling in that moment than it was really having empathy. I was disappointed that I had left it in such disarray, but then they start talking about splitting the assets and stuff. And it was, I think March 17th, 2015 or 16, I guess it would’ve been March 17th, 2016. And then I ended up going out that night and partying my face off. And one of the guys had asked me, how was it today? And I was like, I kind of felt bad for her. But then I shut that off, Aaron and I didn’t really think about it again until March 31st when I had texted her and said, Hey, we need to talk tomorrow. So

You took the opportunity, there’s the anger, the hurt, the bitterness, the frustration, and then you get this out, a counselor says, Hey, maybe you should. And you’re like, yep, that’s what I’ve been looking for. Thank you. So you take that permission, which the enemy deceiving you into thinking that was permission, and you go and you’re just trying to take advantage of all the things maybe you have been wanting and holding off on or because you now have this new found freedom, Bree, you do something very different and I want to know why is what you did so different? Why did you go a different route? Because you had the same permission in some aspects. So what was different on your side and what do you think attributed to you being guided in that direction?

We had always loved each other so much. We were attracted to each other. We had fun together and we had gotten so angry and so tired, and we had both over the 12 years threatened divorce. Oh, so maybe we should just get divorced. We had some friends who started to get divorced, and we had always, I don’t think that even though we said things like maybe we should get divorced, I look back and I never wanted that. I never wanted to be divorced. I never wanted to have a broken family. I already had a daughter at this time. She was 17 and our daughter was 17. We had two little ones who were eight and four, two girls and a boy altogether. And I just was sad. I was like, no, this cannot be the end. Yeah, we’re a mess, but I do not want to get divorced.

(16:31)
I don’t want to have a broken family. We had seen how that kind of went for our older daughter over the years, going with her dad every other weekend and all the frustration with that. And I couldn’t do that to her again, and I couldn’t do that to our two younger ones. And I just feel like God gave me a desire to fight for my marriage. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but I did. So early on when he came to me and said, I think we really should divorce, I’m moving out. I was like, no, we can fix this. It’s Kevin and Bree. We’re in love. We have fun. We’re not going to do this. And I went into control mode

(17:15)
And I thought, okay, we have to do this, we have to do that. And I had a friend say, you got to reach out to so-and-So she gave me the name of a marriage mentor who was going to encourage me. I was like, well, I don’t know what she’s going to do, but I’ll try it. I was desperate. I reached out to a couple different things people, and I just really got the encouragement early on, you guys are a mess, but God can fix this marriage. And I’d never really thought about God fixing anything like that.

(17:48)
I probably participated back in the day when people would say, once a cheater, always a cheater. How can you ever have trust again when someone hurts you? And I got the book, the Power of the Praying Wife, and I learned, wow, I had not been holding up to my end of the bargain. I hadn’t been praying for my husband. I had been operating out of fear and hurt and always was making him. I just didn’t really take it seriously. I guess I never was faced with, oh my gosh, we were almost going to divorce. I never thought that would happen. So when it did, I first was in shock. I went into control mode. And then I just was lucky enough and blessed to have women around me to say, you’re not giving up.

God

Can do a miracle. We need to work on this. Give up control. God can do this. And so I just had that hope and faith early on. It wavered from time to time. I got tired and I got frustrated, but God gave me that desire, I truly believe early on.

That’s amazing. Do you feel, I mean, it sounds like the, because you sought out a mentor, someone even encouraged, you had a friend that encouraged you to seek this person out and gave you a contact. You felt like there was a lot of weight on you because you went straight into that control mode, which makes sense. It sounds like. I mean, it’s part of the grieving process. There was a grieving, there’s now I’m going to try and control this in my own power. But then there was a shift from filling the weight on your own shoulders to this community. There was other people in your corner. Did it feel like weight was lifted off of your shoulders? Maybe not all of it, but did it feel like it was easier to carry when there was women around you encouraging you speaking truth to doing this with you?

I really had a lot of good friends around me. I started to realize pretty quickly that I had a lot of good friends who wanted what was best for me. They cared for me, excuse me. They felt bad for me and they were telling me what I wanted to hear in the very beginning. He’s a jerk. Just leave him. He’s never going to change. And I started to think, I don’t know if I agree with that. I believe in him and I’m her and I don’t like our situation. But I started to kind of pull away from some of those friends because even though it was what I wanted to hear in the very beginning, it wasn’t serving me well. And so as God brought other friends, some knew and some that I had been in contact with, they spoke life over me. They spoke hope.

(20:36)
They showed me stories and introduced me into the Bible. And for the first time I had a desire to read the Bible. I was so desperate. I think that there was only one way to go. And I went to a different church that was a Bible teaching church. And it was one of those days where it’s like, man, everything that message was for me. That’s exactly what I needed to hear. And opportunity at the end to give your life to Christ, to walk up and do an altar call, surrender your life. And I went like a beeline straight up to the front, sat there, and this woman walked through me or walked with me through the process of surrendering your life, who’s on the throne of your life? And can I trust God enough to save me and give me eternity and give me peace and also give him the opportunity to save my marriage? And so I just was blessed enough to have all these things. God’s so faithful. And so then that’s what gave me the encouragement to keep fighting another day, keep trusting. And I still had a choice, but I said, okay, Lord, I trust you. I trust you to redeem my marriage. And that was hard.

(21:58)
That’s so good. But it was so easy at the same time,

Kevin, yes. I want to contrast this on Brie’s side of the relationships she had and how that helped her. What was the relationships on your side? What were the voices on your side saying? I’d like to hear that side.

Yeah. I think the best way to describe it really, Erin, is just that I was in the world, man. I went and hung out with all divorced people, people that were partying, buried myself even further into work. So I was getting all of my identity through these things of the world and what she was doing. It’s really where in scripture it says that it would be the death or the stench of death is really what she was to me, where those filled with the spirit will be a sweet aroma. But she was the stench of death. I absolutely hated

To those perishing.

Everything that she was doing was just pushing me further away. So for those that are in that position and there’s that tension point of what do I do? We couldn’t have had two contrasting differences in what was happening in our lives right now. In fact, when everybody was pouring into her and speaking encouragement into her, all it was doing was pushing me further away. And most people would’ve said, well then forget it. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? But one of my favorite things now even to share about and why you hear so much passion about this is because the power of God is so profound when you truly trust him. I got to watch and now I’m a witness and have a front row seat to seeing what God can do when you press into him and trust him through that process over time, slowly chipping away, she started to apologize, just not just apologize, but ask for forgiveness and these random things that had taken place in our lives.

(23:44)
I’m so sorry that I spent money without talking to you about it. Can you please forgive me? And I’m like, screw you. I care about that money. Those were my responses in those moments. I didn’t know that each one of those was just a little seed or a little arrow that’s just penetrating my heart. And then over time, as I can look back now, I can be like, wow, God, you are so patient and so faithful. I mean, it got really, really ugly, Erin. I said some really, really mean things to her about faith, about Jesus, about all of that because it was just so ugly to me. It smelled like death. I wanted to get away, and it was very easy for me to continue down this path. But then the way that the Lord just tapped on my heart in a special moment, and I would love to say that I was obedient. I guess you could somewhat say that I was obedient. I was truly following his spirit in that moment, but didn’t know that that’s what it was. He was just truly guiding me through this whole journey of starting that reconciliation process, which I’m sure we can get into. But yeah, two completely different scenarios in both of our lives taking place. During that time, I was in the world and Brie was in the Word

And your community, the men were just telling you what you wanted to hear. Kind of like Bri’s first group of friends that she’s like,

Sure, it wasn’t just men for me, sorry to interrupt, but I mean, I was around other women. Everybody I was hanging around was just divorced or had been divorced or never been married, and I was just in the party scene, man, I completely jumped in to something opposite of the character of the type of person that I thought I was. But when I truly look back at it now in my insecurity, I was just getting filled up by the things that they were saying to me, and that’s what was motivating me until just all of a sudden I’m empty. We all have that God-sized shape hole in our heart. And all of a sudden I had that and I realized in a moment that he was the only one that could fill it.

And I do want to say, we talk about not giving up in our marriage coaching program and the couples that we talk with, we are always like, do not give up. Divorce is not the answer. And it’s not the fact that if you have a couple or a man or woman that’s divorced, it’s not that they’re so broken that they made all the mistakes. They weren’t as good as us. And if they would’ve done the things we did, they would’ve been saved. We have friends and family who tried to do the best they could. They did marriage the best they could and had the Lord, and for whatever reason, their marriage wasn’t redeemed. And so to say that he hung around divorced people, it’s not that they’re second class citizens, not at all, man. It’s the fact that they were maybe divorced and still bitter

And

They were divorced and still hurt. I had one specific mentor that God placed in my life, and she fought for her marriage, I don’t know how many years, I want to say like four or 5, 6, 7 years, and tell God in her words, God released her from that marriage. She would pour into me as a divorced woman. She poured into me about the word and said, this is what you can do. She pointed out things that I was falling short in such a tender way to bring to my attention, don’t go down that path. Don’t treat him that way. Principles love and respect how to refine me. And so I had a divorced woman as well talk to me, but she spoke life into me just because she was equipped and she had been healed of a lot of things in her life. And so no judgment for anyone, but definitely two different paths. Two different situations.

Yeah. Well, Kevin, it wasn’t just that they were divorced. You were around people that were encouraging you in the wrong direction, not in the word or just at least affirming it. And Brie, you have, again, like you said, a woman who had gone through something but wasn’t using what she went through to teach you how to do what she did. She’s showing you what the word says,

And

That’s something I think a lot of people don’t realize is that it’s not our choices that qualify us to speak to anyone about the word of God. It’s the word of God that is truth. And then when we try and be faithful to that and say, Hey, I may have done this, but here’s what I’ve learned from the word of God that I can now impart to you. And so I love that. So Kevin, there was a moment, and like you said, you didn’t know it. You can’t pinpoint the exact reason, but I do want to know, like you said, you sat and you saw the finances and there was something that happened and you wrote it off as quick as possible, but you felt some wait, you felt some guilt. You’re like, oh, I dropped the ball on helping her be ready for this.

(28:46)
But then you wrote that off. Was there more moments like that and what were those that started moving you to this moment of making that phone call? Hey, mayor, after God, friends, thank you for your continued faithfulness and listening each and every week. Jennifer and I have often shared with you about how important prayer is in the life of a believer. It’s so important in fact that we’re told this in one Thessalonians, rejoice, always pray without ceasing, give thanks In all circumstances for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you. It is God’s will for us to pray, and we want to inspire you to begin praying for your spouse and marriage every day. This world hates marriage and so does our enemy because he knows the power that your marriage is meant to have in this world. He knows that if you and your spouse are praying and chasing boldly after God together, that the impact Christ will have in and through you will be powerful.

(29:29)
So we need to be praying more than ever before. Our heart is to encourage you along with everyone who listens to this show, to be praying for your spouses and your marriages to be strengthened, renewed, healed, prepared, and empowered to do the ministry that God has for you to do in this world together. So Jennifer and I would love to invite you to join the thousands of other couples in taking our 31 day marriage prayer challenge. This is a completely free and fun way to build a habit of prayer in your marriage. All you have to do to join is visit marriage prayer challenge.com and fill out the registration form. Once you do that, you’ll begin to receive an email every day from us during the 31 days to not only remind you to pray for your spouse, but we’ll also give you various topics and prompts to help you know what to pray for. We dare your marriage to start praying never before. Start the challenge today@marriageprayerchallenge.com.

Yeah, there really wasn’t. I wish that there was something spectacular about that, but there really wasn’t. I had this desire to call her on or to text her on her birthday, which is March 31st. So it doesn’t really matter the details, but something along the lines.

You never sent it before that though.

Yeah, I basically texted her and said, Hey, happy birthday. Do you want to connect tomorrow? And she thinks that I’m coming to connect with her to let her know that once this divorce is finalized, that I’m going to pursue this relationship that I’m in on even a further level. And up to that point, Erin, that was my intentions, not to let her know that that day, but I had no intentions of us getting back together. And then when we sat down, man, and just started to talk the power of prayer, I lost it, man. Water works for the first time, probably the first time I had cried about our divorce, and when I just said to her, I’m so sorry for the pain that I’ve caused our family, and her first words were, I forgive you.

(31:13)
That’s a story in the Bible right here I am hearing. I forgive you. I don’t even know what that means in this moment, but it felt good. So that was on a Friday, and then I had the kids that weekend because we were separated. I was in my apartment and I had the kids that weekend. It was a Sunday morning, and I called her up that morning and said, I think I’m going to come to church with you. And she’s like, okay. Well, in our previous life, previous marriage, our one bc, we had eight o’clock and 11 o’clock or eight o’clock and 10 o’clock, something like that. So I’m assuming that that’s kind of how, the same way that this works, every church I’d ever been in before had kind of this eight and 10. And she’s like, okay, well, it starts at nine o’clock. And I’m like, oh my gosh, the kids are jumping on the couch. I’ve got pork chops on the grill. And I’m like, well, I’m never going to make it, so never forget it. I guess that’s not going to work. I called one of my buddies, the guy that lived

Something stir in your heart like, oh, maybe I should.

Yeah, something was just, I’ve never been a quitter other than when I quit on my marriage. So here I was in this moment now of having this determination to figure out a way to make this work. So I called my buddy up and I’m like, Hey, bro, I need a huge favor. I need you to watch the kids. He’s like, man, I can. I’m headed to the gym with my kids. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. No big deal. Hung up. Then I called him back and I’m like, bro, I need a huge favor. What’s up? I’m about to go to church with Brie and I need you to watch the kids. And he’s like, what the what? And I’m like, okay, yeah. So I take off. And so then I call her, I’m like, I’m going to make it. And she tells me it’s out of high school on the other side of town or halfway across town. And I was like, okay, well that’s weird, but I guess I’ll go. So I just drove there, man. And I don’t remember all of the details of that day, but I was just on a mission, probably the spirit guiding my car. I’m just driving there. I show up at this church or this high school, it’s under construction, so we have to enter through the back door. I walk in and there’s loud music playing and people, of course, she had told everybody, Kevin’s coming. Kevin’s coming. He’s going

To be there. I had told two people because I was like, you better pray because I don’t know what’s going to happen. Because if I could interrupt, I had stopped going to the church that we had gone to for, I don’t know, 10 years. And I was kind of trying different churches because I was like, man, there has to be something more. There has, I just felt stirring. And so that was one of the things that he attacked in my character during our separation was, you’re not stable. You’re going to all these different churches.

You’re

Going Saturday night, you’re going Sunday morning. So I was already kind of like, oh, crap, what if he doesn’t like this church? And it’s a deal breaker and he thinks it’s weird. And so I texted a couple people, Kevin’s coming to church, and they were like, we’re going to be praying. And so word kind of travels when something like that’s happening, let’s pray. And so that was how it was.

And then I show up knowing what I know now. Our lead pastor wasn’t teaching that weekend. Our whole city had started this movement called

Everybody Wins.

Everybody Wins was the name of the movement. And it was a pastor from Chattanooga, Chattanooga, pastor Frank Ram Sewers at Calvary Chapel Chattanooga now. So he’s there and all of a sudden he starts teaching from John four that day, the woman at the Well.

(34:37)
And that was me. As I’m hearing all of this, I’m hearing the gospel message spoken for the first time in a very simplistic way that is resonating with me in my life and my story and everything that I’ve done. He’s talking about how she’s at the well, and she’s thirsting for more, knowing that the only way you’re going to get that thirst satisfied is by the living water. And I hear the words like legacy spoken in a way that I’ve never heard of’em before. Up to that point, legacy was always the materialistic things that I could accumulate. What are the things I can pass down to my family that are tangible assets, wealth versus culture versus raising my kids up in a Christian home. So weeping, just sitting there bawling. And then of course, this alter call moment, which is why I love any church that does a physical altar call moment, because without that, man, I don’t know what it would’ve looked like for me, but here’s this opportunity to respond and to step.

(35:37)
And I just looked at her and I said, I want to go up there. Will you come with me? And this is probably where I’ll cry. I went up there, man, and Aaron, I bawled. I left it all at the altar, literally bawling, bawling, bawling, hands on it, crying. And I’ve got people around me praying for me. And then we step out and we get an opportunity to pray as a group, a small group. And it was really just a powerful moment. I mean, you talk about the weight that was lifted off of Brie’s shoulders when she decided to give her life to Christ or trust the Lord with our marriage. I felt like I was walking on clouds the whole day. I mean, it was just like, wow. Everything that I had ever held onto was released in that moment. So really respond to faith. I would say also knowing what I know now, baptism in the Holy Spirit in that moment. I was filled in that moment to just be like, man, this is, I feel different. I wish I could say everything was great roses after that. But then we had to restart the process of learning how to put a marriage

Back together. Then sanctification began.

Yeah. Yeah, man, it was purely just the response moment. But immediately I got connected into a small group that day. So this guy came up to me, he was like, Hey, man, I’d love if you come to my group this Wednesday. And I was like, well, I mean, I guess that’s what we do now. So I’ll show up. And I just started showing up to a small group studying God’s work, continued to show up at the church, and just continued to go on that journey with the Lord. And then we started to put our marriage back together.

Gosh, that is so good. Yeah, I love stories like this. My wife and I had a similar story. I didn’t file for divorce, but we were going on our way to church. We did the church thing also, and we tried to do all the right things, and we tried to be Christian and we loved God, and we prayed, but we were also miserable and hated each other, and we were angry and bitter, and we both privately knew nothing’s changing. So this is probably our last day, and I’m sitting there in church and I had a very similar moment of just the Lord really speaking directly to my heart of saying, what are you doing? You’re holding onto all these things that you think she owes you for, and yet I forgave you for everything. And so forgiveness, first of all, it sounds like the catalyst of this was first Bree you going and meeting the Lord, and then him removing the burden from you and saying, I’m going to handle this, and you continuing to just trust him and allowing him and praying to him and pursuing him. But that forgiveness started then, right? Was that process of forgiving your husband in that moment, or was it in that season between him calling you for that time and you getting saved? Was that forgiveness like a process, or was it

(38:31)
Immediate?

Gosh, longer than I would’ve liked. It was a process, and I would surrender certain things, and then I would take ’em back,

And

I attribute it to, I’m going to release my cares to God. I’m going to release the balloon up to heaven of all my fears. But when I got threatened, I would reach and I take it right back. And I’m like, no, if I can be in control of this. And it was just God being so patient with me. And there were times where I got it wrong and I was controlling, and I did try to fix everything. And yeah, I said a lot of dumb things, and I made him feel bad for a lot of things. I tore him down, and God was so kind. Whether it was He would use someone to speak truth into me, he would bring up something in his word, a worship song. He was so close to be. So I can’t even believe how many times God didn’t give up on me during that process.

(39:39)
So yeah, it was continually that day that I got saved. I was able to place my trust in faith in Jesus to not only save me and start changing me, and it was a continual process for me to release control and little things. But I had realized during our separation, I had realized, gosh, I maybe didn’t have the affair, but I also fell short, and I was responsible for a lot of things, and that was heartbreaking. God was revealing how you weren’t really a godly wife. You didn’t take care of my son. And I felt like, oh my gosh, did I miss my chance? And I remember maybe a couple of weeks before, maybe a week or so before Kevin and I met on April 1st, he had reached out via text and said, can I share something with you? Do you remember that?

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah, go ahead. Forgot about that. And I was like, oh my gosh, he’s probably going to attack me. What’s going to happen? Oh, no. And he said something along the lines of, I always wanted to be your best friend. And I never felt like I was,

(40:57)
And I was broken because I knew that I had placed so many things over my husband and priority. I had placed my friends, I had placed our kids, I had placed my own selfish desires, and I was broken. And I remember driving and seeing that text come through, and I thought, you can respond one of two ways. One, you deserved it. I could reach out to him and say, yeah, well, these are all the things that you did, and this is why I treated you that way. Or I could say, I’m so sorry for that. That breaks my heart. And I remember crying in my car driving, and I said, that breaks my heart. I’m so sorry. And he said, I am too. And that was it. And then I called my mentor and I’m like, oh my gosh, listen to what happened. He reached out, what’s happening? And she basically gave me reassurance. I don’t know what’s happening, God’s moving, but that’s all you can do. Let’s pray. So I thought something was stirring, but I was so nervous to get let down. But I remember start seeing God would give me little glimpses of hope. And then even when I wanted to give up, I would say to my friends, I just want to give up. And she’d say, you’re not giving up.

Kevin, was that text message, it is probably a dynamic answer, not a straightforward one, but was it meant to be an attack or was it a true, you had a moment of this is something I actually desired that I’m mourning.

I’m sure that in that moment, it was the latter of that God was starting to do something in my heart. I don’t remember the specifics of the environment during that time, but I was learning. I was learning how to share my emotions in a way that I never had before. And that was only because here I was broken, knowing that our marriage was probably over. I felt like we were so far into it at this point that it would’ve been really hard to go back. So looking at it from 30,000 feet away today, I don’t believe that the motivation in that would’ve been to attack. I think I was probably just sharing my actual heart with her the best that I knew how at that time, because that was our goal. I mean, we can go back and look at our marriage video from the day that back in the two thousands when you put together the slideshow of all this stuff. So we had that

PowerPoint.

Yeah, PowerPoint. It really was Somebody did a video

Pre the indie wedding videos.

Yeah, exactly.

(43:59)
And it was us saying, I’m so excited for us to have our true best friend, Aaron. I didn’t know how much insecurity I had in my life this time. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t identify it. I couldn’t put a name to it. But I’ve struggled with insecurity my whole life, pressure to perform, had to do things the right way. A perfectionist in every area of my life, climbed the corporate ladder as quickly as I could. Those were really, really important things to me. Athletics, all of the above had kind of been labeled as not one of the brightest people in school told that I’ll never amount to anything. So all of those little daggers that get thrown out there. So I had a chip on my shoulder, I’ll prove you wrong. And that was really my life up to this point. And I think God was just working in me in a way that I didn’t know how.

(44:42)
And thankfully I had a bride that was ready to receive me with open arms when I came back to say, okay, let’s do this the right way. And then we had to learn what that looked like. So it was like we had been apart for 10 months. Marriage dissolved, been very, very mean. I’d been very, very mean to her. And she wasn’t always perfect on that side, but a lot more gentle than I was during that timeframe. So yeah, there was fear of us coming back together. What was it going to be like? And like I said, I wish it would’ve been perfect at that point, but man, I bought through it in the ditch. After that, we went through a process by the title of Heart Care. It’s the SOS ministry that we worked with. And it was an intensive 16, 18 hour process, huge workbook to go through where we had cleaned out our hearts with one another. But even after that, man, I was like, this sucks. This Christianity thing’s not what I expected. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do this anymore. And I almost went back to that person that I was with. And thankfully, worst decision I made was keeping my apartment. So I will tell everybody now, burn the ships. Burn the ships when you make that decision,

Good advice to put

Your marriage back together. And I did not do that. So I had these little outlets still, and I wasn’t, I was all in with my head, but not all in with my heart yet. So I knew I wanted it, but I didn’t know how to do it, and I wasn’t allowing the spirit to work through me in that. I was still trying to do things in my own way and piece it all together, but almost put that thing right back in the ditch. And I remember another text message. I was sitting in my apartment and something happened and I sent her a blue heart, and she sent me a purple heart, our two favorite colors, and I was just like, dang, what am I doing? I’ve got to figure out how to get this right. And eventually I did get out of my apartment, and then we moved back in. And then still now we’ve got two people that haven’t been in a home together for a long time. We’re one point not for the last handful of months, really latter, longer part of a year, a little bit further than that, because I think I extended my lease for a little while

And I could have killed him.

I was like, yeah, I extended the lease. So I had a 12 month lease. It’s over. I actually extended it. Oh, that’s funny. And made all the excuses, just all the noise. So that’s part of it. What makes it so great now, on this side of it is when we’re coaching people, we can encourage them and walk with them and know that we’ve made a lot

This. Don’t do this.

We’ve made these mistakes, and I can tell you how it’s going to play out. Unless you burn the ships, you’re not going to have everything that you need to bake the recipe that you’re looking to bake. The cake’s not going to come out the way that you want it to. You have all the ingredients, but we got to get rid of a few of these things. That’s good. And then we started that process again of really understanding it. This time I was all in, and by this time it’s like it’s 2018, I had been really spending a lot of time with the Lord. So we reconciled in March of or April of 2016, started it, and then by the end of 2018, by that time, it was like, okay, I’m all in. We got to figure this out. And that’s really where we started to see up into the right movement in our marriage. Things were really starting to come together in a very special way.

But what do you do when you’re freaking out? You are hurt. We had some good tools in our backpack to choose love and respect to forgive. And we both, I mean, we’re saved Christians. We both get it wrong sometimes. We both let our own pride get in the way. It’s a constant daily battle. Who am I going to serve God or myself? And if I’m going to serve God, then it’s going to be God’s spouse, kids. And I had to deal with not slipping back into old controlling behaviors, not nagging, not giving him what he deserved, not what I knew God had for me to give him. And it was hard. We both made a ton of mistakes and slipped back into old behavior patterns. I remember one time we had this argument and I had learned just enough to be dangerous with the Lord.

(48:54)
And I thought I was a better, stronger Christian because I had been about maybe eight months further along in my journey than he had. And so when he was being a punk and immature, I yelled from the other room, and you’re supposed to be the spiritual leader of our family, and you’re not doing it. And then afterwards it was like, oh my gosh, who are you? Do you think that’s going to win back your husband? And then I was like, Ugh. So we both said and had done stuff, but it was just God was so faithful. And so we really both had to figure out, what are we doing? I cannot control him. I got to trust

God. But you’re not the only wife that has yelled that from the other room.

Those diets would just figure it out. I wouldn’t have to,

Right? Yeah. But it’s the reality of what you guys are talking about is, yeah, we have Christ and our salvation is secure in him, but our sanctification is a daily walk

Daily man.

He’s constantly cut, carving away all the dead flesh until we’re more and more like he is. So Kevin, forgiveness that not only did you experience the forgiveness of Christ, right is, I mean, it’s everything. It’s literally mean when you said you heard the gospel for the first time, that is the power of the gospel is realizing, wow, first of all, I need forgiveness. Second of all, I don’t deserve it. And then you’re like, but I have it. You forgive me. But then to hear your wife tell you she forgives you after all that you had done after all of these things, was that forgiveness, not to compare it to the forgiveness of Christ, but I’m sure it affected you differently, did it not?

Yeah. What it did is it really kind of wiped the slate clean. One of the statements that she made, and I may have said this early on, but when we were having that conversation was something along the lines of, I want to put this marriage back together, but I’m only going to do it if we do it the right way. And that’s with placing God at the center of it. And that’s when I was like, okay, I don’t even know what that means, but there’s nobody else that I’d rather go on that journey with than you. So the word itself, the definition of it, I knew what it meant, the procedural part of it,

(51:16)
I didn’t. And then I understand the forgiveness that I received by Jesus’s blood on the cross breeze already, already that told me that she forgave me. But then we had to learn how to do that together and how to walk through that process together and how to receive forgiveness from him, not from one another. But then there was a portion of that from one another as well to just release us of all of the offenses that we had had with one another. And that was a really powerful exercise that we got to go through with biblical counsel of really understanding all of the past pain and hurt. Not just that we’ve caused one another, but others have caused us. So it was just total freedom and just had to learn how to do that procedurally. So it was definitely different, Aaron, but the feeling was very similar, just total freedom

And that freedom is what we would desire. So I would imagine, hopefully not, but the reality of, and statistically, there’s probably people listening to this podcast right now that are either in the beginning stages of where you guys were and they’re on this journey of they’re about to be separated. That’s on their

Minds,

Or they’re in the middle of it, or they’re past it. But I want to, can you speak to them? You guys have a ministry called S Restored, and your whole focus is on encouraging the restoration of marriages. Essentially what you guys went through and desiring that for others, that they can also have that freedom. Kevin, you’re talking about that forgiveness, Bree, that you were able to show that transformation that the Holy Spirit brought into your life. Again, not that you’re perfect, but that God is absolutely moving and working and restoring your marriage, and ultimately restoring our relationship to the Father. That’s what Jesus does on the cross. I want to Kevin for a second, let’s speak to the husbands who are, we have this in our flesh. There’s this desire, this craving. It’s like looking for the grass on other side. If only I had this freedom, I want to chase this thing over, but I’m restraining myself purely out fear of being found out, fear of I want to encourage these men why or what I should say, how to change that perspective because to not run that way, what would you say?

Yeah, I think when you say encourage somebody, there’s two ways that I think about that. Number one, I think that you can be influenced or you can be an influencer or you can have impact. The difference being proximity. If you want to impact somebody, you’ve got to be close to them. So I would say number one is being surrounded by the right type of people. We say it this way, if you’re not for my marriage, you’re against it. And you’ve always got to be taking inventory of what’s going on around you if you truly have this desire to see your marriage restored. And oftentimes where we start on the early stages of that is pointing the finger.

And

I will say, look in the mirror as fast as you can, man, if you want a different marriage, start in the mirror. Every morning when you wake up, you have to make that decision to look in the mirror and say, am I truly doing the things that I’m called to do? Most of the time people aren’t equipped with what that looks like. Now, God’s word is amazing. We say it this way, you can have a good marriage, you can have a better marriage, or you can have the best marriage. The best marriages are the ones where you place God at the center of it. And as a man, speaking to men specifically because that’s who I coach as men, Bri coaches women, and then we coach couples together as well. For me, for men, it’s like let’s lay the foundation. It starts with being the pastor of your wife’s heart, the protector of her mind, and the provider of stability where we want to be yo-yos, right? We’re angry, angry, sometimes really passive. At other times it’s like we want to be stable in every set of circumstances.

(55:13)
Our wives have all of this stuff going on. Men have brains like waffles, women have brains like spaghetti. How do we manage that spaghetti with them and how do we walk through that with them? So protect her of her mind, learning how to work with her. But then that starts with really being the pastor of our heart. I love you. You’re beautiful, you’re chosen. You have what it takes. You’re an amazing wife, you’re an amazing mother. There’s nobody else that I’d rather be with than you. Those may be just words that we have to say until we get past that spot of them just being the words and we start to believe it. And then it’s like the five pillars. And I look at it from who’s giving me vision? That should be the Lord, who’s getting my best? That should be my family. Number three is who’s going to battle with me?

(55:51)
Now we’re speaking to the people that we’re surrounded by. That’s number three. Number four is will I be ready when it matters most? I have no idea when a physical attack’s going to take place, an emotional attack or a spiritual attack, but I want to be ready when that happens. Let’s stay ready so we don’t have to get ready. And then will my legacy last? And we can always go through that life cycle or that flywheel and say, okay, I’m off a little bit in one of these areas. What is it? Let’s get back to my vision. Let’s get back to who’s getting my best. Let’s make sure that I’m surrounded with the right people because it’s the environments change us, man, God doesn’t change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever more. So let’s get back to his vision. Let’s get back to giving my family the best.

(56:30)
Let’s make sure I’m surrounded with the right type of people and I’m doing the things that I should be doing if I truly want to be a great follower of Christ. And that’s kind of the other piece that I speak to of men is like number one, I look at things through the four pieces and I call it the colander. Number one is, is it making me a better follower of Christ? So that’s number one. Number two, is it making me a better husband? Is it making me a better father? And is it making me a better leader? That’s how I make every decision that I’m going to do when I’m going to say yes to something, when I’m going to go pursue something, whenever I’m going to do anything in my life, I want to make sure that those four boxes are checked. If only three of ’em are checked, doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it, but I’ve really got to think about that and pray about it and make sure it’s an invite from the Lord.

(57:12)
And is it making me a closer follower of Christ? Is it making me a better husband? Is it making me a better father or is it making me a better leader? And then I use that flywheel to go through that, and that’s the way that I encourage men. It starts with us, man. There’s this bad word out there right now in culture of toxic masculinity and I believe, man, whatever, call it whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day, we are called to lead our families extremely well. My wife should not fall underneath my leadership unless I’m submitted to the Lord. So I’m going to do everything I can to spend time with him, coach Min on what it looks like to spend time with him, let him work through us so that we can love our wives extremely well and be the best leaders that we can possibly be, not just in the marriage, because I feel like when we get this right, every other part of our life starts to explode as well. And that’s the beautiful part, man. It’s like once we’re working together and this thing’s firing on all cylinders, man, it just gets easier all the way around us.

Okay, so I can see exactly why you have such a large following on social media. This is so encouraging and it’s so true. Exactly what you’re saying. Brie, what do you have for the wives? How are we going to encourage? Some of them are going to be in the same situation, or some of them are probably on the Kevin side of the story, but what is your encouragement to them in this situation where they’re at right now?

Yeah, do not give up. Amen. Don’t give up. There’s going to be times where you’re so angry and you probably are justified for responding in a certain way. It doesn’t mean you have to. I realize when we were separated, I realized that I had fallen so far away from God’s design of marriage and I didn’t even know it. I was constantly responding out of hurt and out of past experiences that I had brought into my marriage. So until I figured out God can do anything, if God is who he says he is, if he raised Jesus from the dead, if he changed SA to Paul, he can change me and he can change my husband. And so one, I would say do not give up. Two, you got to take some accountability for the areas where you have fallen short.

It’s

Really easy to continue to point fingers. Kevin mentioned earlier, take a look in the mirror. Sometimes that’s not pretty. It is not pretty how I responded, how I’ve acted. And then be coachable because there’s going to be times where your coach or your mentor is going to give you a lot of advice, a lot of encouragement, and you have the opportunity to go one way or the other. But don’t give up. Take a look in the mirror, take some accountability and be coachable for sure.

You guys are so encouraging your story, by the way. I just want to ask you the question and I just want you to answer it as straightforward as possible. Can God restore any marriage?

Yes. Yeah,

I

Believe it too. Absolutely.

Doesn’t mean it happens every time, but there’s people here that are probably thinking, that’s great for you too. But what about me? And I want them to know that your story is the story that you have because God’s good. And you guys, Kevin, on whatever journey you were on, there was that still small voice. There was little convictions, little promptings, and you moved that direction. Brie, you did the same thing. And it’s because of God of what he’s able to do. I love that you said if God is who he says he is, and I believe that and the power of forgiveness. Kevin, you were talking about you understood forgiveness in your head, you understood the definition of it. It’s easy to know what a word means, but forgiveness is a supernatural thing.

Yes.

And I don’t think people realize this. Forgiveness is not a natural thing. It is not natural. Like, oh, I am just going to forgive you. Yeah, it makes sense. No, it’s absolutely 100%. It’s a spiritual supernatural occurrence. When someone forgives,

When

The Bible makes it,

It’s not for them. It’s for us, man. It’s for us. It takes so much off of us When we extend forgiveness, I no longer have to hold on to all of those offenses. Everything that’s inside of you, you don’t have to hold onto it anymore. It’s freedom. Freedom. You’re letting it go and you’re not letting them off the hook. We tell people that all the time, Aaron. It’s like, I’m not forgetting what we did. Yeah, God can erase your memory just like that. Yep. I would. It doesn’t

Usually work that way.

It doesn’t usually work that way. But if he wants, I’m not going to doubt what he can do because I’ve seen what he’s done in our marriage, so I’m not going to doubt it. And if he wants to do that for you, man, we’d love to have that conversation with you. I want to hear about that. And I’m sure that Aaron does too.

Yeah, exactly.

There’s some practical things that you’ve got to do along that journey. And when you get those gentle reminders of, oh, my wife’s not good enough, that other girl was this, the grass is greener on that side. No, you’ve got to have a system in place that you learn over time that teaches you how to work through those thoughts, how to take them captive. And I realize now on this side of it, and anybody that’s in this, the pressure isn’t there because all I have to do is stay connected to the source. Man. If I’m connected to him, it makes it so much easier for me to love her. And the moment that I’m not, the moment that we’re at each other, that’s something with me. I don’t blame her for that. I just go, dang, I’m obviously off. I haven’t spent the time that I needed to with the Lord, not out of a regular routine, not this discipline thing, but just He wants me to spend. He wants all of us to spend time with him. And when we do, he will sanctify you and he will sanctify all of us. Man. It’s his greatest joy to see his sons and daughters man, just draw closer to him.

I mean, the word tells us he’s faithful to finish the work. He’s began us.

Boy, you don’t know how many times I said that, Aaron, during this process, he didn’t bring me this far to leave me here. So let’s figure this out. Lord. David’s one of my favorite man. I love the book of Psalms. I scream to the Lord all the time and people will talk to me about that. And I’m like, I’ll bang in my steering wheel like Lord, whatcha doing right now. And I’m like, okay. I mean, it’s true. Have those moments with him and he knows your heart. Have all of those emotions with him so that when I come back to my bride, I can be like, man, I’m ready for you. What do you got?

Yeah. The Israelites would often when they were wandering in the wilderness, they would look back and say, God, did you bring us here to kill us? Exactly. And God says, I want you to remember what I’ve done for you. And it’s a much different mindset because you could be like, this is too hard. Did you just want me to die? And God’s like, well, no. I want you to look back and see what I’ve done

To

Get you to where you’re at. Something always I try and remind people of, we often, I dunno what the word is, we often conflate the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation. And like you, Kevin, you perfectly put it, forgiveness is for us, forgiveness only takes one person, which is a lot of people don’t realize this. Forgiveness only takes one person. Jesus forgave us on the cross. Even when he was spat on and beat, we were forgiven on the cross. The forgiveness. That was his part. That was what he purchased. The reconciliation takes two. There is no reconciliation without forgiveness, but forgiveness can be had and given without reconciliation. And so I often starting with forgiveness, it’s why we’re commanded to forgive, because that is the beginning point of reconciliation is without that there is no reconciliation, which is why Jesus did what he did. Yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That was the starting point. Reconciliation is possible with the Father because of what Jesus did. Reconciliation with your spouse is only possible if it starts from a place of forgiveness.

And if I could add one thing to that, I mean, I also think the most important part of that is the front side of that is the sacrifice. If we truly want that forgiveness, there has to be that sacrifice that’s made. And that’s that looking in the mirror saying, man, I’m going to own that part of it. What am I willing to give up in order to get something in return? Now, the sacrifice piece of that is I’m going to die to myself every single day so that I can receive forgiveness, so that we can move towards this restoration and build something beautiful. But every day is a sacrifice. I’ve got to be willing to give up to my flesh every single day, die to myself more of you, Jesus, so that I can love my wife extremely well and continue on this reconciliation and restoration journey.

Amen. Guys, you guys are super encouraging, and I just want everyone to go check ’em out online. Your ministry is called Reverence Restored, is that what it’s called?

Yeah. Yeah. You can find us at Kevin and Bree on all social platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all of them. But I don’t dunno

If you know this, but you just do a simple Google search and you’re like number one, Kevin and Bree. Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. So good for you guys.

Thank you, Lord.

Yeah. And you know what? There’s something really powerful on one hand of just a marriage, thriving, and then there’s something also incredibly miraculous and powerful on marriages that are restored that power, forgiveness and in showing how the gospel actually works. And I just love that it’s those stories over history that it’s like, see, it doesn’t have to end that way. It doesn’t have to end the way the world wants it to end or the way the devil wants it to end, that the restoration, you guys, I would imagine you would describe, you said you’re BC and then I’m imagining you’re 80. So the marriage you have now is not the same marriage you had before.

No. Nope. Nope. That’s one of the things we share. I mean, really one of our taglines is a new marriage with the same spouse. Because that’s one of the things Brie said early on is I want a new marriage with the same spouse. I don’t want a different husband. I want my husband back and I want this new marriage. And what’s funny about this part of you talking about the end, the message that she got saved at was called, it’s a common, not a period, which really is our story of our marriage too. It was a common, not a period, it wasn’t the end. There’s a common in there. And now we’ve got this whole another piece to the story that’s pretty special, man. And we just give God all the glory, man. Without him we wouldn’t be here. So super grateful for his patience with us and just the way that he’s so gentle and just ready to receive whenever we’re willing to accept his hand.

I had to get to a spot, Erin, and it happened on the day that I had my salvation, but then I had to remember that and I frequently would get so frustrated with the Lord, why isn’t this working? Okay, now it’s six months now it’s seven months. I wasn’t seeing a lot of fruit on his side, and it seemed like things were kind of getting worse. And so when the people would, so friends or neighbors or people who would say, when are you going to give up? When is enough, enough? And I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. But I continued to feel the presence of the Lord, and I got to a spot, maybe it took 10 months for us until I had to lay my weapons down and say, okay, here I am again at your feet again. I trust you. I love you, God. Here’s where I am. I’m begging for a miracle, but I had to fall in love with God first before I could even start to fall back in love with Kevin. And that’s one of the things that I remember saying to him. And I look back now and I think, wow, that was pretty bold. That was the Lord speaking through me. But I looked at him and said, I love you, but I love God more.

(01:09:18)
And that didn’t come. I mean, it came naturally that day, but I really did. I had gotten to a spot where I was like, okay, I am nothing without God. I’m going to trust in him, and I love my husband, but it’s almost like the song, even if God doesn’t restore my marriage, I love that song. He’s still good. Is he still who he says he is? Even if, and that’s not the result that I wanted, but that’s where I had to continually get back to and just say, okay, here I am. I going to trust in you God again today.

I love that God. He’s the same today, yesterday, forever. That’s exactly when I told you I was sitting in that church on that Sunday. What the Lord told me was like, if your wife never gives you what you want, if your wife never treats you how you want to be treated, if your marriage is never what you desire it to be, will you still love your wife? And I was like, dang. Even if I was like, I’m going to because of who God is, not because of who she is. And that was like you said, you needed to learn to love God more. And that’s what God was asking me. He’s like, are you going to love your wife out of your love for me, out of my love for you? And that was a choice I had to make in that very moment. I was like,

I’m going to do that. And I would say one more thing. You had asked a few minutes ago, what would I tell a wife? The man that I’m sitting next to today is a completely renewed, restored man,

(01:10:58)
That God has exceeded my own thoughts and visions of what a new marriage with the same spouse could be. And he’s a fantastic leader. He leads our family. He leads in the business world. I never even knew how God was going to transform my heart and see him. And I’m just like, I’m continually blown away. The people who knew us before our separation, the people who knew us during it, and maybe even the people that knew us early on, it is not just us being like, oh, we’re so great. It’s like, no, God changed us. And so if you’re a wife thinking, my husband is never going to change, it’s not true. God can do anything. And so to say that we have this platform now that we get to encourage others, man, it’s such a blessing and God can do anything.

Yep. You got to participate though too.

Yeah. Well, he’s inviting us into what he’s doing and say, yes,

It’s

Been a blessing. You guys have been a huge encouragement. I just pray that your ministry blows up not in the bad way, in the good way that many marriages are restored through being encouraged to seek out the Father like you guys have, and to let Christ work in their midst. And he did it in my marriage. And to be honest, he does it every day because we make mistakes and it’s like, okay, Lord, I need to change my mind.

Yep.

So thank you for being on my podcast and thank you so much. The Lord, best of you guys.

Yeah, thanks so much. Aaron,

Do you desire to pray more for your spouse? Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying, or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone, or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together.

(01:13:42)
Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today we’re looking for people who have been blessed by this free podcast and our free daily marriage prayer emails, and who want to help be a blessing to others creating and hosting this podcast and sending out our daily emails do incur financial cost, and we want to invite you to join our faithful patron team to help financially support these resources so that they can remain free for all who need them. Please join our patron team today and become one of the faithful financial supporters who desires to help bless thousands of marriages around the world. Your support will help us pay for the creation, hosting, and promotion of our podcast and daily emails. Thank you. And we hope to see you become a marriage after God patron.