Healing Through Grief, Removing Masks, Finding Wholehearted Love – w/ Caleb & Stefanie Rouse

Aaron Smith (00:21)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Marriage After God podcast. I’m here with Caleb and Stefanie Rouse. Welcome to the show guys.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (00:27)
Thanks for having us, Aaron. Yeah, we’re so honored.

Aaron Smith (00:30)
Am I saying your

last name right? It’s Roos? Roust. There you go. See, I knew I had to ask. I should have asked before we started actually. Caleb and Stephanie Roust. Okay, like house. Perfect. Well, welcome to the show. I’m excited to be talking to you guys. We’ve kind of had a sort of a relationship for years now. We were just talking about that. How did we get connected years ago? Because I don’t quite remember exactly what it was. I think I reached out to you maybe about doing a giveaway or something.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (00:33)
It’s Rouse. Like House. Like House but with an R.

It’s all good. It’s all good.

Yeah.

Yeah. So Stephanie and I had been, you know, doing things online for a little bit and we were really, you know, starting to transition in the relationship space and, getting some traction. And all of a sudden I get a DM from like the marriage gurus of gurus and you say, Hey man, love what you guys are doing. I’d love to send you guys some of our resources and let’s, you know, do a giveaway or something together. And I was like, yeah, love it. Want to learn from the best.

You and so you sent us like a ton of your books and I still remember, I think the guy’s name that I sent it to is a guy that won the giveaway. And he said, I love these books. They’re amazing. They’ve really helped my marriage. And he’s in like Texas somewhere. Um, but it was great, but yeah, we got connected and then yeah, we’re getting to come back. Yeah. And we, um, in my Bible study that I was in at that time in LA,

Several of the women had had your books and one of the women, read your, well, your wife’s book, Jennifer’s book about prayers for your future husband. And her and her husband were both reading them at the same time. And then they ended up getting married. Like they were both praying, they were both reading your books, praying for each other. And so I had, I think we had your books, like these prayer ones that we still have that we’ve had very well.

Aaron Smith (02:12)
⁓ I love those stories.

⁓ shameless plug, I

love it.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (02:23)
They’re very

well loved. We’ve gone through them so many times. have like, yeah, page after page. These are I started I said finished so many times before that. So I just started counting in twenty twenty twenty one. I have it down as I’ve done it 30 times on here, like read it through 30 times on here. That was when I started counting. Yeah. So it’s it’s been a lot of time. So your books are very well loved. We pray.

Aaron Smith (02:39)
That’s amazing.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (02:51)
for each other every day. we always did before your books. And then that just helped give us a guide and just always so passionate about doing that and helping others do that. thank you.

Aaron Smith (03:02)
Well, that’s amazing. I love that. I never know. We have this ministry and we’ve been selling books for years and writing these books. We don’t always get to see how people have used them or the fruits of them or anything like that. And so it’s really cool to see that you guys have done that. And what’s been amazing also is watching your guys’ ministry grow since then. You guys have your own books now, right? We’re going to be talking about one of your newer books towards the end of this episode. don’t you have some… Do you guys have some prayer books? I feel like I…

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (03:21)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Yes,

they just released this year. our, you know, 52 prayers for your wife and 52 prayers for your husband. Yeah, and they’re devotional books. so, yeah, our publisher, Tyndale, we wrote our other books with, they approached us and said, hey, what do you think about doing a prayer book like a 52? They had an idea for it. And we said that’s like what we love doing the most. so, yes, we jumped on it. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (03:36)
I knew I saw those.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (03:57)
That’s amazing. We’re really excited about that. That’s been such a blessing. And like you said, you you never know the impact. And just the other day, the lady that works at our local, we have like a local coffee shop in our neighborhood, which is amazing. we in this really cute little like there’s only a thousand people in our town, really cute little neighborhood. It was like a hallmark town. Anyway, so this lady and she had started reading the book and she sent me a picture of like one of the things that was like an action step that she was doing. She’s like, look familiar. And I was like, that’s amazing. Like, so cool.

you know, the lady at the coffee shop.

Aaron Smith (04:29)
I love that. Do you ever get approached sometimes by just strangers in the street like, hey, I follow you. Thank you so much for what you’re doing.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (04:34)
Yeah,

yeah. People at church or something, they’ll be like, hey, I saw you in your version or I saw you at, know, or whatever it is. they’re like in LA with the church. It’s like, there’s your relationship. We do a lot of things with like, ⁓ pre-married people or singles and stuff. So like a lot of people are like, that’s, this really helped me through a heart breakup or different things. So. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (04:49)
Yeah.

The the speaking of the pre marriage thing, that’s that’s a huge need these days. I feel like more than ever. Just the the single the world of the singles with the way social media is with the way the world is and we feminism and all of the things that have just kind of twisted everything. It’s really awesome that you guys are ministering in a large way to. That that demographic, it’s it’s so needed.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (04:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah,

we’ve been really trying to, you when we started out, have such a passion for marriages. Like when we talked about just doing anything online or just as a ministry, we were like, we want to change marriages across the world. And we were like, huh, how do we get people, where do we have the maximum impact? And we’re like, Hey, why don’t we get them before they get married? And we just have had such a passion about really training our clients and people that we work with have just.

Aaron Smith (05:47)
⁓

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (05:51)
helping them thrive in their relationships now and their relationship with God now, because you need some of that to be in order not to take the ultimate, like, a huge bag of luggage into marriage. The less luggage you carry into it, the less you’re gonna have to take care of once you’re there. And it helps so much.

Aaron Smith (06:05)
Yeah.

Okay, so I feel like we put a little bit of the cart before the horse. Let’s take a step back. I’d love to know so my audience can get to know you guys. I’m sure a bunch of them already know you guys, but give me some of your guys’ background story, some of the biographical information about you guys so they can get to know you guys a little bit more.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (06:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So Caleb and I have been married for over 11 years. Yeah. And like he said, just have such a passion for marriage. My background story a little bit, I grew up in a Catholic home, but didn’t do anything, like never read my Bible, never really did anything.

much with like my relationship with God and God totally transformed my life. I did such a 180 after my sophomore year of college and just totally, I mean, Jesus totally like wrecked me in the best way possible and like the way I was living was so different then than the way after he just encountered me in such a crazy way. And I got engaged. I was after that and I was in this,

relationship set to be married and on Valentine’s Day, three months before the wedding, the wedding was planned and paid for. He broke up with me on Valentine’s Day, took back the ring. And it was, he was someone that was really foundational in my faith because I was a very new believer. And so it was, and my old friends weren’t in my life because it was just, I couldn’t be around it because of just lifestyle differences and everything when I was a new believer. And so that was a time that God just totally

Aaron Smith (07:32)
Yeah.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (07:37)
let my worth be in him alone. So many things were taken and he then, he really propelled me to go to a Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California to get my master’s in marriage and family therapy. just the girl that was so bad at relationships that she got, that relationship didn’t work. Now it’s just something I’m so passionate about helping others that have put their worth in men, had a lot of issues and hard.

breakups to be able to really thrive in the relationship with God and be set up for a healthy marriage. so I love, you know, I’ve been counseling since then and love helping people in relationships. And then when I met Caleb, you know, getting to partner together in ministry and help people together. And so. Absolutely. I’m so proud of you. When I hear her story, I always get so proud of all that she’s been able to accomplish. You’re amazing.

Aaron Smith (08:06)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (08:36)
Yeah, I, little bit similar, some differences, but I grew up in a Christian home and my parents were in ministry for the longest time, their whole careers, and later on started to make my faith my own. And then I suffered in college. This is a very short, condensed version, but in college I suffered what I call the three dominoes that fell apart in my life. One,

I lost out on my dream to play basketball professionally. I was playing in college, loved it, doing really well. And then I hurt my back one day in practice and everything was done. A couple days later, girlfriend, actually that happened later. A couple of days later, my grandpa, it was my birthday, he died. He went into the hospital, had a good checkup, walked out to the parking lot, had a heart attack and died. And then my girlfriend of five years, just a, you know.

Aaron Smith (09:09)
Hmm.

Well.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (09:29)
few days after that broke up with me. And so these three core things in my life were just torn from me. And I spent years trying to figure out what God has for me, what plan does he have? I hadn’t been, I’d been in a relationship, but I wasn’t that great at relationships yet and just really wanted to figure out what God had for my life. eventually led me to going back to school. got my master’s in education.

Aaron Smith (09:51)
you

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (09:57)
I was a teacher for almost 10 years. And then I met Stephanie and along that journey and God was just pulling me, wooing me back towards him and healing those wounds. And Stephanie was a massive part of that. She really changed my life and helped me to start really taking my faith seriously again since high school and college. And so now we get to combine our giftings of marriage and family therapy and education. And we have courses.

Aaron Smith (10:05)
That was part of the story.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (10:27)
and all that kind of stuff, know, trainings and we help our clients, we run all kinds of things and write books. And God is just amazing how he can take our, seems like ashes in our lives and bring it into beautiful gardens.

Aaron Smith (10:43)
I love that. And you guys do have an incredible, thriving online ministry. I mean, if anyone follows you on Instagram would know that. guys have… I mean, my wife and I have been in social media for a long time, but you guys very quickly surpassed what we were doing, which I’m totally fine with because I love more and more people out there spreading the good news of Jesus and also encouraging relationships to be healthy.

I’m all for, but you have this ministry on then you were talking about. Sounds like you both have these backgrounds that have melded together almost perfectly in this relationship and in being able to minister in this way. What was the catalyst though for, I mean, you were a teacher, had aspirations for basketball. It sounds like you went to school, Stephanie, for therapy. So you were wanting to go that direction already, but what was that aspiration of like, okay.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (11:13)
Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Aaron Smith (11:31)
We are gonna step into something online. We’re gonna do this thing. now you have, now you’re where you’re at. What was that trigger point?

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (11:37)
Yeah,

yeah, I talk about that. I remember when I was in my master’s degree and all my friends at Fuller were talking about different things they wanted to do and I worked community mental health and then I did private practice and I just kept feeling this nudge of like I’m not going to be doing any of these things that all my classmates are talking about like what they want to do next and

⁓ the private practice, I had the best boss ever that ran the private practice and she’s like, I want you to be like, my, you know, like protege. Yeah. Like, and I just felt something was off. Like I loved it, but I just kept feeling this nudge of that people online, like people were hanging out on social media and that I, everything that I learned in my program, I hadn’t known before. There’s so many things that changed my life once I got my MFT and I was like,

my marriage and family therapy masters, like, why don’t people know this? Like why this would have saved me so much heartbreak. I wouldn’t even have been in like most of these relationships if I would have known this information. just started, God was healing me through the program. I did all kinds of extra trainings, anything full or offered. And there’s so many amazing ministries in Pasadena, just so many like powerful prayer ministries. So I got all the extra trainings of like,

Aaron Smith (12:36)
Mm.

Hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (12:55)
I mean, I was so hungry and I didn’t know anyone. Like I was hungry for God’s word. I was in Pittsburgh. I lived in Pittsburgh. I was in Pasadena. Didn’t know a soul. So any extra time I was at church, I was learning extra. I’m like so hungry to know as much as I could for me to get healing and also for to help others get healing. And I just kept feeling this nudge of there are so many people online that around the world that do not know any of these things. So what if we could, or me, I didn’t know Caleb yet, but like.

I just kept feeling this nudge to share it, but I didn’t know how. So I kept leaning into that. And I told Caleb probably pretty early on that I, but I didn’t even have like Instagram. had no concept for like online social media. never knew anyone that did that. I didn’t even have Instagram because I had a Blackberry. When we first started talking about that, we weren’t really online. 2013. We were still, it was still kind of very new. When did Instagram even come out?

Aaron Smith (13:40)
year was this? What year was this?

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (13:51)
Like it was such a new thing. A little bit before that, but we weren’t really on it, you know, like at all in Facebook. Okay. So very young. Yeah. But I had a BlackBerry so BlackBerrys couldn’t get Instagram. But I I just knew like with Facebook and blogs and all of those things. So I remember I like had a little blog and I would share the gospel on there. And I don’t think any, probably no one ever saw the blog, but like I remember just having this heart that like people need to hear.

Aaron Smith (13:54)
I’m gonna look, because I don’t know.

2010. So, yeah.

Yeah.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (14:21)
if someone could have reached little Stephanie online and I could have heard some of these things, like how much it could have transformed my life and my worth and my value and knowing it’s in Jesus instead of all these other places. And so it was, we were teaching and it just further, I got a job at the same school and I taught about relationships and I taught Bible at this Christian school he was working at. And then even further, all the kids were like constantly on

line. were on social media from, I had seventh graders, he had, you know, 10th and 11th graders. They’re constantly on social media and they’re like, that’s where they’re hanging out. And that’s where we need to start. And what they’re seeing is so horrible. Like, what if we could start, like I remember my Bible classes, I would tell my students like, cause there was like a social media class that I also helped to teach. And I was like, well, what if we start putting like good things out online and started sharing?

Aaron Smith (15:19)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (15:19)
God’s love online. And so, you we started doing that like in the class and just like as a class. And then I told Caleb, like, I really feel like I want to do this full time and really try to do it. it was after three years of our marriage, we had been saving up to go to Europe, just because we’ve always wanted to go. We still haven’t gone. We were we used all that money to pour into starting like an online ministry and just bought.

a camera and we took business. We never had a business course. never had, like we just bought some online courses that we took. And I was still teaching and I was an athletic director and I was doing, you know, all these extra things at the school at the time just to kind of make things go. But yeah, we took that leap of faith, but she said, like, I really feel like God is calling me to this. And I was like, I can’t say no to God.

And three years after that, I quit and went full time, you know, and God just kind of we just trusted and we were just obedient and God made the way. And that’s kind of how it’s always been. And I feel like it’s sometimes he just gives you the next step and you’re like, where’s this going? And he doesn’t, you know, but then he keeps walking and just seeing Caleb’s passion because he’s like, you know, I don’t know if you want to speak to that, just like how your your heart changed so much.

Aaron Smith (16:33)
Yep.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (16:46)
and you weren’t really knowing much about the marriage space or anything nothing. I knew nothing about the marriage space. I didn’t know anything about being online. I didn’t have an interest in doing any of that at the time. Yes. Yes. Yes, everything. That was not… Yeah. Until we just dove in, and I dove in and just learned everything I could at every level, and it was just so interesting.

Aaron Smith (16:58)
You guys’s learning curve was like everything. We need everything.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (17:13)
One thing I love about doing this is not only the ministry part, but there’s just this part of being online that is so interesting because it’s always changing and you’re always learning new skills and you’re having to adjust and you’re having to change how you’re doing things and you’re having to, you you can’t just put out the same thing all that you have to like, you know, continually move forward and grow. And so I love that part of it. So now I feel like I’m even more passionate about it than she is. Like, I feel like I’m like fully gung ho.

Even though we both are, like it’s so I’ve come alive. I like tell people that like basketball I always thought that that was supposed to be like everything but I feel like God was This is what God has called me to and I feel very very at peace with that and very passionate about it and I love it and I’ve been going with to Stephanie school of

masters in marriage and family therapy as as I can. But it’s been amazing to learn. any extra trainings. Training and reading books and reading your books and you know just learning everything I can to just walk out whatever God has for us in this.

Aaron Smith (18:20)
And that right there is such an important thing for all of us to consider is like, what is God calling us to? It’s not all going to be the same. It’s not going to be online ministry for everyone. It might be for some people. But that fact of like filling that calling, like, okay, like we have this passion in us or I have this passion in me. It started with you, Stephanie. And I’m seeing a need.

And then you’re like, okay, what does this look like, Lauren? And praying through it, then also preparing for it and building up for it. And you said something, Stephen, that was really interesting. And it’s something that I learned earlier. We’ve been doing this, I can’t even tell you, 2012. We started online. And when we were posting on Facebook, like Facebook was all the rage. You know, we had moved from MySpace and Twitter was barely, it was not even really a thing yet.

And we’re on Facebook. I remember when we were trying to start talking about marriage, which was weird for us because we were also new. My first initial thought was like, let’s ask people and talk about the hard things. And nothing was happening with that. was no like, I actually tried running an ad when ads were first available on Facebook. And I was like, I don’t know anything about this. I didn’t have any money, but I was like, I’ll throw a couple of bucks out and see what happens. And I tried an ad that was like,

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (19:21)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (19:37)
Is your marriage need help? Right. And it did nothing. Like no one wanted it. No one clicked on it. And I was like, okay. And then I did an ad that said, I love my husband. And it blew up. it was like, I was like, ⁓ interesting. was like, people aren’t like you saw in need of there’s all this negativity. There’s all this bad influence. There’s all this just the way of the world. And you’re like, why don’t we put something good? Why don’t we put something good out? Let’s show a different example, which is very much how

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (19:58)
Right. Yeah.

Well.

Aaron Smith (20:04)
often we’re supposed to show our love is not by our words, but by our actions. so showing an example of Christ’s love, showing an example of a healthy relationship, showing an example of how God works. And so that was a big life lesson for us, business ministry lesson early on is people need encouragement. They need to be shown the right way, not just pointing out the issues and the errors. when you said that, was like, that is such a

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (20:24)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (20:33)
thing and I’ve seen it over and over and over again of why don’t we put something better out and what’s better than Jesus Christ you know it’s what’s better than the gospel so I yeah it’s awesome you guys have been in for so long too what was that you said that this was you know a calling what was there a specific moment they’re like we need to do this full-time because you said you quit and transition was there a specific moment you get sat down like we’re gonna do this

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (20:35)
Yes. Wow. Yeah. That’s so good. I love that.

Hmm, you know, we’ve…

I don’t know that it was like, I don’t even know how to articulate this, we’re just so, us two are very connected. And I feel like when we, when she started doing that and I saw like her come alive and then just getting a taste of it, like, I feel like I started to come alive and I was like, wow, you know, we work really well together. And there’s this, you know, when we see the impact and we see

you clients coming to us and saying their lives are changed or people are, you know, we’re just like, wow, okay, God, like you did this, you know? And so I think we just kind of were like, how do we make this happen that we can do this together and we can work together on this and continue on in this so that, you know, we can do it, like we keep saying, like where God has called us into. And I think that just was like a no brainer, but then it was waiting on God.

Aaron Smith (21:39)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (21:58)
and waiting on the timing of that, you know, and trusting that, you know, because if I could have, I would have just quit the first day, you know, but like we hadn’t established what we were doing, you know, and so just finding the right timing for that. And then I quit right before COVID. And so that was another thing, you know, right? Yeah, that was great for online stuff. I mean, but God makes the way. And so I feel like that’s such an integral part of our story.

Aaron Smith (22:14)
Perfect timing.

God.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (22:25)
our ministry and everything that God makes the way and we’ve seen that time and time again even when it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna happen God makes the way and I think for us it was just making that decision and then I feel like I had this note that I think we still have in our prayer book somewhere and I wrote down like Stephanie I’m all in yeah and ever since then I’ve just been like all in on it yeah you have the date we don’t have that prayer book but I I felt like

Aaron Smith (22:47)
Mm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (22:56)
for a while that he was kind of like doing not focus, like he was online, but there was like, he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to share online. Like he loved, like he knew he was loved sharing about Jesus and marriage, but other stuff too. like, so I feel like it was kind of all over the place. And so I feel like he made a decision of like, you know, Hey, this is the, I want to go in this with you. Cause I feel like I was kind of talking about one thing and he was talking about something else.

And it was a little bit disjointed and we just really took that to prayer. Cause we realized we’re like, Hey, we want to be in. Like if we’re doing this together, or if we’re doing two separate businesses, that’s fine. But how are we going to bridge? if we’re to talk about business advice and marriage, if it like, kind of wanted to be the same focus and in together. And, ⁓ he really prayed about it and I did. And he was like, yeah, I’m all in. And that date was, ⁓ just like, okay, like I want to put.

Cause I didn’t have like the same expertise in the beginning. You know, I didn’t, I didn’t have that same background and I wanted to develop that and learn that. And so once I was like, you know what, like I really feel like God is nudging me to go in this fully with you. I was truly all in. I’m going to, I’m an all in or not all in type of a person. And so when I’m all in, I’m like gung ho let’s do it. And I want to be excellent at it. And so, ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Good.

Aaron Smith (24:23)
Awesome.

Let’s talk about, so you guys are very uplifting and transparent on your online ministry. Just front-facing, like you guys are trying to be very honest. What are some of the challenges you guys have faced at being so open with your relationship and faith as you’ve been doing this ministry?

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (24:37)
Hmm.

Yeah. What do you think? Well, immediately it comes to mind when 2020 and TikTok and we had a couple of video go viral. It’s funny. never TikTok was his thing. So he was just he would just tell me, hey, Steph, just stand in front of camera and like point this way three times. And like then he made I didn’t know what he was going to do. So like all our TikTok videos, he just had me.

Aaron Smith (25:00)
That’s so funny.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (25:06)
do whatever, you know, that then he was gonna put the caption and whatever. So he put out a video and it was just like, I don’t know, six seconds long or something. And it said what we did before, how did you say it? Things we did before we had sex. And it just said that. then at the crescendo of the song, it popped up saying we got married.

And so I was like celebrating. And it was a trending sound, trending video, like people doing what I did before video. so I was just like pointing and I didn’t even like, no, but which is cool. Like I was fine with him sharing. And it was purposefully not like what you need to do before that or what this, was like, this is what we did because, you know,

Aaron Smith (25:37)
⁓ awesome. Yeah, Yep.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (26:02)
But yeah, it struck a chord with people and not a very nice, not a very nice chord. It was intense. And we were in tabloids. There’s like, like British tabloids. They Christian, Christian TikTokers brutally bullied from this video. And the tabloids weren’t mean. They were saying like, but it was.

Aaron Smith (26:07)
In a negative way, yeah.

They highlighting

what was happening.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (26:27)
Yeah, it was intense and there was like, you know, stitches and this and that that got millions and millions of view like the offshoots of it were just intense. So yeah, that was that was crazy. I remember that and I it really affected me in about like 2020. Like I think, you know, it was just a lot in general. But I remember that really affecting me and just feeling like I the way that it affected me worried me because I was like this.

Why is this affecting me so much? I mean, there was death threats, there was threats like, I’m gonna, like, we are putting a curse that you would never have children. Like, there was like some really deeply personal things as we were struggling to have kids and now we have lost two kids. So like, there was deeply personal things, but I think I realized like, God had me take a step back in 2020. A lot of the things we were doing, the way we were making our money in 2020 was brand deals. Like, we didn’t have our courses, we didn’t have any books, we didn’t have…

Aaron Smith (27:13)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (27:26)
we were sharing the gospel online and we were sharing about marriage and godly marriage, but we didn’t have any way to make money. You don’t make money from sharing the gospel online unless a church is supporting you or something, you know what I mean? And so we weren’t making money. Right, and now Instagram pays for, they sometimes give money for if your reels do good or something, but that wasn’t even the case at that time. So our money was coming from brand deals. So we would post and…

Aaron Smith (27:39)
Yeah, it’s very rare that that’s happening. Yeah.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (27:55)
So at that time, God was really convicting me to stop doing all brand deals, which was our main source of income. Because he just stopped in COVID and then that was TikTok and we started building like a large following on TikTok. And I just, I felt too that God was saying not to do TikTok because I needed to surrender like that any worth that I was having in social media, God was really tearing away from me at that.

and 2020 and he was doing like such a work in our heart to stop doing that and so that we could handle whatever he had next in terms of, you you said, you know, sharing things online and you know what that impact is. And so I think he was just really building our foundation of trust in him and our worth in him and being able to surrender that. And I just feel like it was one of the best decisions we ever made to be obedient to those specific things. We had some really big brand offers that were

like super tempting to take and we had, yeah, and we turned them down and those brand deals never happened because of COVID, because they had to back out because of the state of the world. so God was testing our obedience muscle and I’m so happy that we said yes, like he knew things we didn’t know. And so he was having us take a step of obedience that it was saving us a lot of.

Aaron Smith (28:54)
Hard in that pass over here.

Wow

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (29:20)
and then it wouldn’t have even happened anyways. And then same with just like surrendering some of those things just helps solidify like our mission, what, know, we started making the courses, we started mentoring, we started finding other ways that God was wanting us to put our effort instead of taking brand deals. And we haven’t taken like really hardly any brand deals since like we only partner with like, you know, really like- aligned.

You know, like with World Vision that we’ve been, I’ve been sponsoring kids for like 18 years. You’ve been sponsoring for 15, you know, so, you know, things like that of things that are super, supervision aligned. But other than that, like God’s just for this time, I mean, not to say he wouldn’t ever open that up again, but he’s been allowing us to, he’s been providing through other ways of like our own resources and own things that he’s helped us be creative with. So, yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (29:52)
Yeah.

Well, it sounds like you guys are. I love that use of stretching our obedience muscles. You know, like that’s what God wants from us is not just like, this thing’s working. Therefore, that must be what God wants because there’s going to be plenty of times that God’s like, well, regardless of what you think is working, what do I want? And, you know, having that, that surrendered heart, being able to turn down money, being able to turn down publicity, you know, negative and positive, but even shutting down things because as believers, no matter what we’re doing, that that is the

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (30:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (30:45)
That is the case. That is exactly where God wants us is to surrender all of those things and not hold on to anything, be like, this is my identity. You guys have been speaking a lot about identity and it sounds like the Lord has been in your life addressing where your identity lies. you talk about that in your book and I want to get that in a little bit, but I did want to touch on if you’re okay with you talked about some loss.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (30:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (31:14)
with your

journey of trying to have children, I’d love to, if it’s too sensitive, it’s okay, we can skip over it. But whatever you’d like to share on how you guys navigated that season of life where you miscarried with your twin boys, is that correct? And how Caleb, you walked with your wife through that, how you both walked through that grief, how you guys pursued the Lord in that. Because I know there’s a lot of people listening that have dealt with this. I have close friends that have dealt with it many times and it’s…

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (31:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (31:43)
Never easy, never.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (31:44)
man. Yeah, so three years ago, we had been trying for years of trying to have children. And we found out right around this time, actually. Because it’s on his birthday tomorrow. so he found out. Thank you. And on my birthday is when we found out we were pregnant. And it was

Aaron Smith (32:02)
Happy birthday.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (32:11)
such like a, wow, God, this is crazy, such an answer prayer. And we were so excited and, you know, just getting to celebrate that season and, you know, later learning on the day. the day we went in for our first ultrasound, we had no idea. Which was three months. Yeah. Because we were traveling to California. in LA. Because his family lives there. Yeah. And we had just gotten back from LA and we had our appointment.

And we had no idea we had twins. So we found out that day at the beginning of the appointment that she’s like, she had written down on the thing, baby A, and I was like, that’s weird. And then she wrote down baby B. And they look so perfect. And you could see we’re like freaking out. They’re just like, look, perfect. But I’ll just never forget. She was like, not like she was not kind. She was not talking. She was

Aaron Smith (32:52)
no.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (33:06)
very quiet and it was really awkward. And we were kind of do we sound like we were so joyous, but also like, why isn’t she really saying anything? And we couldn’t hear anything, but we had never done it before. So we’re like, what are we supposed to hear something right now? You like you’re suspecting. Yeah, we could just tell in our spirit that something was off. And then so she had told us that we had lost them and

Aaron Smith (33:14)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (33:34)
It was just like the doctor came in and told us and it was. Yeah, yeah, I feel really bad. can’t imagine. And it was like the highest of highs, like finding out we have twins, like double portion and then finding out we had lost them in the same moment. It was just such like it was like a knee jerk, like you’re in a car wreck and you’re, know, like, whoa, you got hit with that.

Aaron Smith (33:41)
That would have been really hard as an ultrasound technician. I’m sure it’s always hard. Gosh.

Hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (34:02)
It just was, it was absolutely devastating. so, you know, watching Stephanie, were just like, we have to do emergency surgery. was a lot of things that they were worried about with my health because they’re like your uterine walls. It’s like you’re showing at six months because you, you turn walls, you know, and they were just real. There was a couple of things that they were really concerned about my health and they were like, we to do emergency surgery. And so it was like the high to low versus now like they’re acting like my life’s in danger and.

Aaron Smith (34:23)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (34:32)
It’s just like urgent, like your life’s in danger. And it was just a lot. And so there’s like really intense surgery that we had to do like right after. And it was just like the amount of pain physically and mentally, emotionally, spiritually. That was just, we had never gone through that. Yeah. then, yeah, God, it was rough. was, it was a hard season for us. so we what you did the day after,

Aaron Smith (34:46)
Mm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (34:57)
When we got home, the we got home, I look at Caleb, I’m like, what do we do? And you said to me that we worship God. And he turned on a worship song. We just sat there worshiping. And it was just that holy moment of like, it just was one of the moments you’ll never forget in your life. else that I could possibly, I was like, I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know what to do. And I know that I read my Bible every day and

It says over and over, the God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And same God in my pain as he was when we celebrated. He’s the same God, you know, the day I was born until now, like all of these things. And so I was just like, that’s all I got. That’s all I have for you. And it was a beautiful moment. And we got to, know, we just made a choice very early on in that process. And like, I just think of people that are going through that and it’s so hard. I never had a red.

Aaron Smith (35:40)
Mm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (35:53)
I never had a register for that. You don’t know something until you’ve gone through it. So I had no comprehension of what that was like. us had known anyone. Neither of our parents, no one in our family, no one that we never knew had gone through that. Now a couple of my friends later on that had several kids then came to me and said that they had gone through that, but no one in our immediate family that we knew or we’d never walked through that with anyone.

Aaron Smith (36:05)
Hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (36:18)
I just encourage Stephanie and anybody who might be listening, like if you’re going through that, like I just told her like, whatever way we need to heal, whatever way you need to process this, I’m just here for you and I’m game for it, you know, whatever that is. And so she would read books and she’d like, this book says to do that. And we would just do it and we do all the different things and we would just try to process it with God. We would try to celebrate the life. And so we named them Asher and Shiloh. Those are the boys names.

Aaron Smith (36:32)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Those are beautiful names by the way. I know friends with not the same family but different boys with that name, those names. They’re beautiful names,

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (36:49)
Yeah.

Really? Yeah. Asher had,

and the ultrasound had a smile on it. You could see his face looked like he was smiling and Asher means happier smile. And so that’s one of the reasons. But yeah, so they told it, in these books, were like, honor them. A soul’s time being a soul does not raise or lower the value of a soul.

Aaron Smith (37:00)
No.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, those were your babies. Those children were made in God’s image.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (37:23)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

And eternity, like whether a soul’s like, you know, three months the soul was there or whether the soul’s like 90 years, 100 years of life, but it’s eternal soul. Like it’s something that is eternal, which I never, you know, this stuff that I didn’t necessarily process before, but I could feel that that was true based on like the value of like them. And I always, like I say to the women that I’ve like worked with since and

Aaron Smith (37:30)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (37:56)
you because they’re like, well, why am I feeling this way? I’m like, who else is living inside of you for three months or two months or one? Like literally, like there’s no closer, like three months of your life. They’re living inside of your body. that’s a, that’s a very intimate experience. There’s like what other or even people like, it was only six weeks, six weeks of someone living inside of your body, like your DNA and like no one else has lived inside. Like you for six.

Aaron Smith (38:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

is six weeks.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (38:25)
weeks, know, and so you’re amazing. It was the worst time, but also the time that Jesus just, I mean, the way he wrapped around us. I’m such a feeler. And it was actually a time for a period that I felt his love the least. I kept reading every single day. I read the verse. God is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. And it was a time where God was teaching me.

Aaron Smith (38:42)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (38:52)
Because like I said, I feel things so intensely, but I didn’t feel his love intensely, but he was teaching me his, like the foundation of truth is enough, even when I can’t feel it. It was like when you’re in that huge storm and you’re like rocking around like crazy and like he would be my piece at times, but the pain in every way was so intense, but I knew his truth. Like it was, I knew his truth even when I didn’t feel his truth. And I claimed it like we just were like, we’re not.

Aaron Smith (38:59)
truth of his love.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (39:21)
we’re still gonna do the things we always do that we know like we’re not gonna open our phones until we read God’s word and eat. Some days I would sit there for a long time mad and I wouldn’t open it but I wouldn’t do anything else but I would just talk to him. But to me I’m like, some people said that to someone and they said, that you were just having a terrible relationship with God at that point I said, I feel like that was the closest we’d ever like what relationship can you just sit there within hours and.

Aaron Smith (39:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (39:50)
silence or just being brutally honest, you know, and while then also seeking, like to me that like was such an intimate close time with the father of him, just like I know he was there with me and we put these pictures on our wall of Jesus. He’s holding our two, like you see him holding like his hands out and then you see his hands holding like two little boys hands. So we have them up, but I would just sit there and look at them and he, he

Aaron Smith (39:57)
Mm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (40:19)
that started then helping me to feel his love and started feel his peace and but it was a process it wasn’t overnight.

Aaron Smith (40:28)
Well, I love that perspective. It’s the right perspective is his love is there whether we feel it or not, because what he says is true. When he says something, it doesn’t matter whether we feel like what he said is true or not. is true. And actually, what you’re explaining that grief you’re feeling, I think there’s been a real, I would say the devil has influenced our culture in such a way. I remember when we first got pregnant, just

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (40:35)
Yeah. Yep, exactly.

Right.

Aaron Smith (40:58)
this sense of like, don’t tell anyone you’re pregnant until you got past a certain amount of time. And I remember thinking like, that’s normal. Like you keep it private and the reason you kept it private was just in case you had a miscarriage so that you wouldn’t have to have people celebrate for no reason or you wouldn’t have people feel the grief for no reason. As we’ve had children, as I’ve had friends go through miscarriages and have, that is such an anti like children sentiment. It’s like,

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (41:10)
Right.

I agree 100%.

Aaron Smith (41:25)
No, like

whether that child ever makes it full term or not, it’s a child and it’s your child and it’s worth celebrating and it’s worth mourning over. And that those things are not negative things to make someone celebrate and then have to mourn. No, actually, that’s what we’re to do for each other. And it’s a it’s a hard thing, but I just appreciate that you guys walked through that together. And I just want to encourage anyone out there that is pregnant to not hide it for fear of if you lose that child.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (41:29)
And it’s celebrating. Yeah. it’s worth mourning. Yep. Come on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (41:55)
to celebrate that child for however long you have them because God might give you moments with them, God might give you years with them, but totally worth celebrating and totally also worth the mourning. And your grief that you felt is from the love that you had for your children, which doesn’t make it feel any less grief-stricken. It doesn’t take away the pain, but it actually is. It’s proof that those children existed and that you loved them.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (42:08)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (42:24)
And I think that’s an amazing thing and beautiful. So I really do appreciate you sharing that journey. I hope that someone that’s listening right now is encouraged by it because it’s a pretty common thing these days, which is also really sad. But that was really good. I appreciate that. I’d love to talk about your book. I know we went from something pretty heavy, but your book is called Wholehearted Love. I’d love to you guys to share what encouraged you guys to write this book and what was some of the

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (42:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (42:54)
the passion put into it.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (42:55)
Thanks for sharing all that, Aaron. Yeah, I appreciate your encouragement. good. you know, we wrote this book. we had like an agent had reached a book agent had reached out to us and ask us like what ideas we had. And we had this idea, like the ideas of things we did in our client work of just we call it like the toxic cycle, but the pain in our lives and the things that

really attack the love and respect and violations of love and trust that we experience and then how that impacts relationships. Since we do this cycle with our clients that I learned from Terry Hargrave, one of my professors at Fuller, also did it, him and his wife did our premarital counseling and Terry and Sharon. And so we kind of do it a little differently and share a lot of his insights too in the book, but just.

personal stories and ways that we realize that the pain and the arrows that come to hit us in life can really put up these scars that then don’t allow us to really experience God and others in the fullness of the way that God intended that to be experienced. And so we both had that feeling from past pain that we had experienced in our life, but then also that breakthrough of being able to show up just fully and wholly yourself.

Aaron Smith (44:21)
Mm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (44:21)
And so we wrote this whole idea and then, you know, some book, some publishers liked it and we, Tyndale, we started working with them and we started writing the book at the same time. We only had just started while we found out, like right after we found out were pregnant and then right after the miscarriage. So the whole manuscript was basically due in this time of what?

Aaron Smith (44:42)
man.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (44:47)
us processing this like deep grief. You’re writing a book about wholeheartedly love. When honestly like so much of my heart just wanted to shut down like you know and what I was writing God was having me do and God was having like the all the tools that I was giving in the book that God was having me put that into practice in a way that was working and was healing parts and just like coming alive and getting to

Aaron Smith (44:56)
Yeah

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (45:16)
be so real and honest and vulnerable with God and with Caleb and with the close trusted people in my life and just seeing, I’m like, okay, well, if this is to minister to me and then Caleb, I felt like had a similar experience, it ministered to us so much because I really feel like God was giving us different stories to process and different things to share. So we were really living and walking the book out as we were writing it.

Aaron Smith (45:42)
Hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (45:45)
So it’s a very like vulnerable book. But it felt, you know, it felt kind of cruel at first of like, God, your timing on this is terrible. You don’t like that. But it turned out that it’s like everything he does, like his timing actually was perfect and it was for this bigger purpose. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. it’s we.

Aaron Smith (45:56)
Yeah.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (46:09)
I feel like the message that really resonates with us and one of the main reasons why we’re so passionate is we know what it’s like to live kind of loving with half our heart and half out there and half not. And we both through our journeys and growing with God have learned to be more wholehearted and we wanted to encourage others to put it out there with God and to let God into these places in your heart.

those back rooms that no one’s ever been into and allow him to heal that so that you can now live and love with your whole heart and you can love others, you can love God and you can love yourself fully wholeheartedly the way that God designed it. And we’re so passionate about that. That’s like Stephanie said, so much of what we teach our clients and the freedom that we want them to have. we…

We live the mistakes so that we can help people not have to do that. And we want people to be able to fully experience that. And so yes, having to then go through the biggest loss of our entire lives during writing, don’t think was a, you know, I don’t, I don’t want to call it a mistake, but I would say like God was definitely working on our hearts and has always wanted us to fully focus on him. And there’s a message in there for somebody going through that as well. And so we just wanted to be able to do that.

Aaron Smith (47:31)
I don’t believe in coincidences. I say this a lot on my show. I believe God works all things together for good for those who love Him or called according to His purposes. And I also, know that based off of what the Bible teaches and what I’ve experienced personally and what you’re describing is God tests our faith. Because a faith that’s not tested isn’t a faith at all. If you’re asked to step and you say, I think I can. I believe I can. I believe you told me to. And you don’t.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (47:49)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (48:01)
then there’s no faith. And so

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (48:02)
Right. Exactly.

Aaron Smith (48:03)
it sounds perfectly like God to test what you say you believe in the moment of you trying to tell others to believe the same thing. And God’s like, well, do you believe this? Are you going to walk in this? And he does that with all of us. You talk about in your book, you were just talking about how to have this whole heart and we have past things that I know we got to close out soon, but I just want to get to one more point before we do that.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (48:06)
Amen.

Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Aaron Smith (48:31)
Masks. How much of this idea of the masks that we put on come from misplaced identities? Like you talked a lot about identity. How much of that is like, I’m protecting myself in this way because of this way I think about myself, the way I identify myself. And I also don’t look at you the way I should because of the way I identify myself or what I’m identifying with. What would you say to that for people that might be interested in your book or?

just as believers, you know, in our walks with our spouses.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (49:01)
Yeah, think so much of how we interact with other people and things in our life come from the pains that we’ve experienced. know, we oftentimes see people out of the lens or out of the place of pain in our lives and we put on these masks to protect ourselves. You know, I’m the put together person. I’m the, you know, person that, you know, has it all together that hasn’t been through pain. I’m the super Jesus person, but inside I’m

I’m like dying, I’m hurting, I’m in this immense amount of pain. And so I think so much of the time, you know, I talked about in the book, like how many times I was walking around with this mask of just, I had to be this like perfect Christian guy who had just lost out on all these important things. And how do I even process that? And so for me, it was taking off the mask and then being okay with what’s underneath.

Aaron Smith (49:33)
Yeah.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (49:59)
and being okay with dealing with those things and allowing God into those places in our lives. And I would just encourage anybody who feels like they have to be something else or to feel like they have to be something for somebody or whatever that is, or even in their relationships or in their marriage. I would just encourage them that God has uniquely created them for a purpose. he, like you said in Romans 8.28, he has a purpose for their lives. He has…

Aaron Smith (50:16)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (50:27)
and does all things with his greater purpose in mind. And I believe that God can heal those moments if you run to him. God is not afraid of dealing with your pain. He welcomes it. Just like Stephanie, if she knew that I was in pain and I came to her, she would want to know that. Whether it’s like this horrible thing that I’m yelling and I’m hurting, God wants to know that and even more deeply, he’s our loving father.

Aaron Smith (50:41)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (50:54)
When I found the most peace in my life is when I was able to face those things head on, remove those masks and be able to rest in the Father in that and allow Him to fully heal those areas. It doesn’t mean it’s not gonna come up and there’s a grace over that. In the times that it does, like there is absolute grace over that. But as we do learn to face that and test that muscle again of obedience, of like, God, I’m just gonna put this back in your hands. I’m gonna put this back in your hands. I’m not gonna hold onto this.

Aaron Smith (51:06)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (51:23)
You when I hold onto this, causes me to be bitter. It causes me to be, you know, frustrated. It causes me to be all these things that I know I’m not meant to be. But when I release it to you, I have peace. I have your grace. And I know that there’s purpose. And I know that there’s a plan. And you are good now, and you’re going to be good in the future. And so realizing that and being with him in that, I think is such a valuable thing.

Aaron Smith (51:43)
love that.

I think if anyone’s taking anything away from this, it’s if God’s good now, he’s going to be good in the future and he’s been good in the past. He’s always good. As we before we close out, was there anything else you guys would like to share with our audience and encouragement or and also let everyone know how to find you guys?

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (51:51)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, did you have anything you wanted to share? Well, I just think this whole conversation just makes me like I think of whoever’s listening and just thinking of You know, I think there’s so many ways that I disqualified myself or that I I just had so much self-hatred my whole life so I’m just thinking of someone today that just feels like stuck or just Stuck in like even comparison or just not feeling good enough or anything like that and just it’s a reminder that any

Aaron Smith (52:30)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (52:34)
Like our stories are a testament, like any day’s a chance for just a fresh start with God. You know, and just His mercies are new every morning. And it’s just that chance of like, right now we just get to bring it to Him. Like whatever we’re holding, whatever, even things like when I first encountered Him, like the masks I was wearing, I’d been wearing for 20 years, know, and it was, whatever, 18 years, and how He’s so good at being like so gentle and kind and patient with us.

but that he wants to take it. And if he doesn’t, like it goes somewhere, you know, the pain or whatever we’re facing. And usually it goes to places that, you know, it grows in places we don’t want it to grow. And it’s like, he’s the best gardener to have that peace come. So I just pray that people would feel encouraged that it’s like, okay, it’s not too late. My story’s not over, that God has a plan and purpose and he’s with me and for me. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Aaron Smith (53:31)
Caleb

you?

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (53:33)
Yeah, no, I just fully agree with that and I believe that and that’s so powerful. Thank you for sharing. And as far as like where people can find us, most of where we post online is through Instagram. it’s Stephanie has found it at Stephanie period Rouse, Stephanie.Rouse. that’s Stephanie with an F. Stephanie with an F. And then I am at Caleb Jason Rouse. And then we just.

launched a brand new podcast. Called the Wholehearted Love Podcast. Love Podcast. Yes, and that’s on YouTube, Apple, podcast, Spotify, all the things. And we’re just really excited about just sharing stories of how God can help us live wholehearted. And we want people to come one way and leave another way and learn to live wholehearted.

in their lives. And so that’s something very exciting that we just launched. yeah, that’s where you can. We have a lot of free resources on our website too, StephanieandCaleb.com. So there’s a lot of different like eBooks, little devotionals, different, our communities, mentorship, different things there too. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (54:35)
I’ll make sure to put links to all these things in the show notes So if you’re interested in finding out about more about Caleb and Stephanie You can check them out there Thank you so much guys for sharing your story being open and transparent as you guys try to be on your on your own socials all the time I appreciate that and I’m honored to have you. So thank you so much for joining us

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (54:53)
We’re so honored you and your wife have been such a blessing to us and you in ways you haven’t even known. So thank you. Thank you and your wife. Well, it’s true and it’s a blessing. So thank you. Absolutely.

Aaron Smith (54:59)
You guys are so nice.

Thank you. You’re making me blush.

Well, thank you guys. God bless and I pray that your ministry just continues to grow and as you point people to Jesus.

Caleb & Stefanie Rouse (55:14)
And then yours too. Yours too.