Spiritual Warfare Today, Common Marriage Temptations, The Power of Belief – w/ Tilly Dillehay

Aaron Smith (00:00)

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Marriage After God podcast. I’m here with Tilly Dillehay. Is that how you say it? Dillehay? Yeah, welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

Tilly (00:13)
You got it, first time.

And yeah, thanks for having me.

Aaron Smith (00:19)
So you are a mother, an author, and we’re going to talk about your book in a little bit, but I’d love for my audience to get to know who you are. How long have you married? What’s your little bit about your background story, kids, all that stuff?

Tilly (00:31)
Yeah, yeah, so I’m married to Justin Dillehay. He’s a pastor and we live in the smallest county in Tennessee, right? Right kind of in the mid Tennessee, about an hour east of Nashville. Yeah, Tennessee is great. It’s beautiful. And we have four children, 10 and under who were homeschooling. So we have, you know, very busy and full happy life out here.

Aaron Smith (00:45)
We love Tennessee.

Tilly (01:00)
I was converted about 15 years ago actually out in this small town. I could tell that story later on I guess, but I met my husband in this small church where he is now pastoring.

Aaron Smith (01:13)
wow, that’s cool. Yeah, well tell me about that. So you came to Christ 15 years ago in this small town, in a small church that your husband now pastors. Tell me about that story.

Tilly (01:24)
Yeah, yeah, so was raised in a Christian home. I’m one of seven. I know you guys have a big family too. So I was number two of seven kids in the Nashville area. And I grew up, I graduated pretty early from home school and went to college and just ended up basically apostatizing after college, after a rough four years or so in school. And

As a young adult, my parents kind of discovered where I was at, just how badly I was doing, just depressed and addicted and apostatized. And they said, well, why don’t you break up with your boyfriend and go do some counseling with this pastor that we’re still friends with from when we used to live out in the middle of nowhere, who’s now a biblical counselor and we’re still kind of acquainted with him. So this pastor’s family…

invited me come stay in their home out here in Hartsville, Tennessee for two weeks and just counsel with the pastor. And over the course of that two weeks, know, he just, he had me just bring my objections to the faith into the counseling room. And that’s most of what we talked about. And at the end of two weeks, I was like, okay, I’m a Christian now. And it was, lot of it was also just living in that home and kind of being back in a Christian environment that was

Aaron Smith (02:44)
the

Tilly (02:50)
that was so healthy, you know, and just small town healthy, nothing flashy or, or cool about this church. was just faithful people living quiet, faithful lives in a small church. And so I moved out here. I didn’t have a job. I had no other reason to be here except for this church, but I just felt like I was wobbly and I needed, I needed help. needed more help, more counseling and just to be around people who were stable. And

People in the church actually hosted me. So I lived in a few different people’s homes and got I got work I didn’t work in us at this newspaper out here as the editor And then I guess it was about a year and a half after I moved here that Justin and I started dating He was I thought that I was escaping all men by moving out here But there was one single man in the church at that time and he was a pastoral intern named Justin and we started dating and Now I’m here

Aaron Smith (03:42)
That’s awesome.

So you grew up in a Christian home and you said you apostatized. You had some level of faith leaving the home, going to college. You would probably have called yourself a Christian, right? That’s, yeah.

Tilly (03:50)
Mm-hmm.

Definitely, yeah, definitely would

have. I kind of date my conversion at the age of about 22, when I came back out here, or when I came out here, but it’s hard to say, honestly. I could have just been very, very, very backslidden Christian in those years, but yeah.

Aaron Smith (04:17)
At some level, it almost doesn’t matter as in you are now with the Lord. And if you were there and then you had a season of, you know, turning your back on him, this, you know, prodigal child type situation, what would you say? So you were you were living however life you mentioned certain things we don’t have to dig into if you don’t want to. But things that were drawing you away from the truth, where you were with that boyfriend, what what drew

Tilly (04:21)
Right.

Yeah, no, I don’t.

Aaron Smith (04:45)
I’m trying to think about myself, like, what would have drawn me to want to go sit with a counselor? Like, that’s a big ask in the way I feel. What drew you to, was there already something happening in your heart before your parents reached out and said, hey, come talk to a pastor for you to say, yes, I will do that?

Tilly (04:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s a good question. So I think part of why it’s hard for me to date my conversion is just because I know the kind of seeds that my parents had been, especially my dad, you know, he, taught me so much about what’s good and true and beautiful as it, when I was a kid, he, ⁓ I really loved, you know, love my dad. He’s still living. but I guess, so it’s important to me to say like so much of what I was longing for when I was this

know, of miserable young adult was the order of truth being true and good being good and bad being bad, the things that, you my parents had taught me. So I feel like I had a stronger desire for heaven than the average non-churched young adult who’s not walking with the Lord. But I was miserable. The reason why I was willing to go do counseling is because I was suicidally miserable and unhappy in my life, you know, and I was…

dealing with an eating disorder like bulimia for the first, maybe the second two years of college and a few years after. I think I was drinking a little bit by that time. And then, you I had this boyfriend and the relationship with the boyfriend was, it was definitely not going anywhere in terms of like, you know, he was like a, you know, an artist, you know, he wasn’t thinking about marriage. And I had a desire for that too.

Aaron Smith (06:22)
Right.

Tilly (06:28)
you know, because that was also something I was raised to expect was like people get married and they make commitments to each other. And, and, ⁓ I, I spent time out in the world where I realized this is not what these people expect. Like they don’t expect you to do what you say you’re going to do. ⁓ so I think there was a kind of just the world having no wall or ceiling or floor that agnosticism is a scary place to live, you know, and

Aaron Smith (06:57)
Mm-hmm.

Tilly (06:58)
I was hungry. So I think about the time my parents came to me with that proposition, I think by that time I was starting to realize this is not gonna be the answer. I haven’t found the answer. So I guess I was desperate.

Aaron Smith (07:13)
Hmm.

My dad, I don’t know how if this is like fully true, but I’ve always considered my dad always said that the most miserable people are those who know God and are not following him. And I feel like there’s some level of truth to that because I know that there are people that don’t know God at all and can be miserable. But when you have like you knew something good and it sounds like was it was your walking away from the Lord after you got to college?

Tilly (07:30)
Hmm.

Right, right.

Yes. Yes, for sure. In fact, it was after I graduated from college that I really finally openly just said, okay, I’m not in. And it was just so much struggle. think just slowly damaging my conscience over the years of school by doing things that I knew were wrong for me to do sort of led the way. It was also really tough because I had been

Aaron Smith (07:48)
Like you entered in like fully like, I’m a Christian and,

Mm-hmm.

Tilly (08:15)
I had been raised to depend on my parents and to kind of expect that they would really be a big part of my launching as a young adult. And unfortunately, this was a very, very rough time in their own just faith journey. Like they were really struggling in their marriage during those years as I was growing into young adulthood. And this is kind of a story for another time really, but my parents actually divorced in 2020 and remarried in 2021.

My husband conducted my parents’ wedding ceremony, remarriage ceremony, after my dad proposed in front of all the kids and grandkids in their home. So that’s long story, but you know, that definitely, you it’s part of my story as well, that my parents were really not available to help me launch into adulthood when I needed that, you know. So it’s just amazing.

Aaron Smith (08:49)
re-merge.

Wow.

Tilly (09:14)
how the Lord works.

Aaron Smith (09:16)
It’s one of my fears about launching my children is college. And I’ve just heard this story a lot. I went to college, I got my bachelor’s degree, but my college was much different. was much more similar to a vocation school. I didn’t live on campus. was like, I went there every day, home, went there every day, went home. So I don’t have the traditional college story that a lot of people do.

Tilly (09:22)
College.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (09:41)
Was there a lot of influences as you were there that you feel like, like tempted you to walk away, drew you away from the things that you believed?

Tilly (09:46)
Honestly, yeah. Right.

It wasn’t like the classic, you go into the classroom and the professor says, God’s dead, and you say, no, I’ve never encountered these. It wasn’t that whole thing at all. It was a Christian school. mean, it wasn’t maybe the healthiest Christian school, but most of my friends at least were professing Christians. I would say honestly, the thing that…

Aaron Smith (10:05)
Mm-hmm.

Tilly (10:14)
The big mistake of those years was just me not knowing how to handle my time and just getting where I didn’t. I was 16 when I moved onto the campus. I just didn’t know how to handle things like crushes or staying out late. know, like it was nothing crazy. No one was drinking and party. Like it wasn’t even that. It was just literally time wasting. I was. I know that is a thing to look back on. I probably wouldn’t.

Aaron Smith (10:35)
Were you living on campus at 16? Wow.

Would you do that with your kids?

Tilly (10:44)
I probably

wouldn’t. I would let my kids go probably and do classes like you did at that age. But I also don’t think I would have my kids being in a hurry to graduate and go to school. Because I don’t know if there was any advantage really. But it was awful young to be living on campus and not to have lot of restrictions on just life management stuff that I didn’t know how to handle.

Aaron Smith (10:50)
be home.

that. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that. I think it gives good, as we get into some more stuff we’re going to talk about, it seems like it gives good direction of where your book came from. just seeing these things.

Tilly (11:22)
Right. Yeah. Well the first chapter

every other chapters is a mixture of stories from friends fiction truth You know, but that first chapter in the book is pretty much autobiographical Can we can we pause for a second so can go help my son with something? Okay

Aaron Smith (11:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally. Go for it.

Tilly (12:24)
Thanks for your patience.

Aaron Smith (12:26)
No problem.

I get it.

Tilly (12:35)
All right, so.

Aaron Smith (12:38)
So, Tillie, you wear many hats. I know how this feels. My wife does too. You’re a pastor’s wife. You’re a homeschool mom. You’re an author. You do a podcast, right? Your own podcast? Okay. We as in you and your husband?

Tilly (12:44)
Yeah.

Yeah, we just started back in on our podcast actually. Yeah.

Me and my friend Abigail Dodds, she’s another author. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (12:57)
okay. Awesome.

Awesome. So how do all these different roles, how are you doing this in your day to day? What does this look like? have, have, I can see, I know how mine works, my situation, but everyone’s different. How is that playing out in your life?

Tilly (13:14)
Yeah, it’s good. have to keep an eye on it, I guess. You always have to keep an eye on it. And Justin is definitely, he’s the one who has kind of the final say about like, there room in our life for this thing, whatever this thing happens to be. So that’s very helpful, because I do tend to be very optimistic some of the time about what we can get done. sometimes it crashes. But I mean, you can see I’ve been getting up to

go shut a few doors while some kids are working on a project in this room. My son is drawing in the other room, you know. This has to work as part of the family kind of atmosphere or else it doesn’t work. the kids, you know, I was homeschooled as well growing up and we tended to get our actual academic work done in about three hours every day. And that’s kind of been my experience. Yeah. So that’s a lot of.

Aaron Smith (14:05)
Yeah, similar with us.

Tilly (14:10)
That’s a lot. you have to be home in order to really make it work a lot. But you there’s a lot more time in the day. I just am amazed by how many other things we also do. Just playing outside or we were we were tapping a maple tree yesterday to get some sap out of it because we just found out in our homeschool that you can do that. So just fun things. It’s a it’s so fun. The age that the kids are in is just such a fun age. But

Aaron Smith (14:30)
Awesome.

Mixer up.

Tilly (14:40)
Writing books, I think my first book I wrote before I had kids, I think I finished it up with a baby, my first baby in the early mornings or whatever. Mostly I think I’ve written books in early mornings. Sometimes, you my husband’s a pastor, so Monday tends to be kind of his day where he’s not, he’s trying not to work as much as possible. He tries not to work. And so there have been seasons when he would say, you know, Monday afternoon,

Aaron Smith (14:54)
Mm.

Yeah.

Tilly (15:11)
go to a coffee shop and go do some writing or whatever. And that’s kind of, it’s almost like a treat, you know, cause it’s different kind of work than I’m doing most of the day. But yeah, I just, think it’s a constant, it’s a constant give and take, I think of just shifting according to the season, you know, and I’m sure that’s how y’all do it too.

Aaron Smith (15:32)
We have very similar situation, especially if we’re going to get into writing a major book. My wife does often write the majority of it. I wrote a lot of the Marriage of a God book we published in 2020. But we plan it. like, this is going to be a heavy lifting season. There’s going to be a lot of time that you need to be a way to write. Go and just write. Because she’s the kind of woman that she’s like, I need like,

Tilly (15:38)
Mm-hmm.

Okay. nice.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (15:59)
uninterrupted hours to be able to get into this. And it makes total sense because I’m similar in many ways, I love that. Yeah, exactly. love that you, you’re, looking at it from the sense of like family first and if these things can fit in. that’s, that’s a lot of how Jennifer and I have always done things because I don’t ever want any of this to get in the way of, what we’re doing. So Jennifer, this last season of podcasting has not even been a part of it really.

Tilly (16:01)
Mm-hmm.

Deep work.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (16:25)
Because

we just had a new baby and I was like well I’ll figure out another thing so that you could focus over here and and then there might be seasons in the future where that changes so That’s really cool. So let’s talk about your book. Let’s talk about You said you wrote your first. What was your first book? That you wrote and then we’ll get into the book that you were talking about today

Tilly (16:32)
That’s great.

Yeah, so the first book was called Seeing Green and it’s about envy. So, yeah.

Aaron Smith (16:49)
Wow.

I just talked about envy and jealousy. So I’m to wait. I’m fighting a cold. So we just talked about envy. I’m a pastor also of a small home church. And we just talked about that yesterday. And so so seeing green was your first book, it was about jealousy, envy. And now your new book, it’s My Dear Hemlock, is that what it’s called?

Tilly (16:55)
Mm-hmm. That’s okay.

Okay, okay. Fantastic.

Aaron Smith (17:16)
What inspired you to write this book? Where did come from? And what’s unique about it?

Tilly (17:24)
Right. So I’m sure most of your listeners are probably familiar with the screw tape letters. It’s such a classic from C.S. Lewis. But just in case, you know, someone hasn’t read that, is that’s a book of letters from one demon to another. This older, more experienced demon is writing letters to his nephew, Wormwood, and he’s giving him advice about how to tempt the patient. And the patient is a human man, a young man.

living in the 1940s, and they are trying to draw him away wherever possible from the enemy, distract him from where the real battle lies, and ultimately gain his soul, basically, for their father below, as they call Satan. So this book, My Dear Hemlock, was very much modeled off of the screw tape letters, but I have a female patient living today.

and we have two demons with really kind of more of a female, a feminine voice. mean, Louis had almost like an Oxford Don, like sarcastic British sounding voice for his demon in Screwtape. And my Madame Hoaxrott character is more of like a, almost like a, like a catty madam. So, so yeah, you follow the patient.

Aaron Smith (18:35)
Right.

Tilly (18:50)
from when she’s a new convert, she’s in her 20s, probably, newly married, and you follow her all the way into her middle age.

Aaron Smith (19:00)
And the character, the patient in the story is a believer. Is that how this works? She’s a believer and a new convert, a recent convert. So these demons are fighting like, we got to get in soon to steal this.

Tilly (19:05)
She is, that’s right. She was recently, yep, yeah. She’s a new convert, yep.

That’s right. And she married another,

she married another human Christian man. So we don’t like that, but let’s get in there and start working. So.

Aaron Smith (19:28)
So that it’s a really interesting, I remember reading Screwtabletters years ago. I haven’t read it in a long time. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve gotten more sensitive to things, demonic things, like even movies. Like I don’t like watching movies that have, like I’ll watch movies that are thrillers and are intense, movies that have anything demonic in it. I don’t want anything to do with it.

Tilly (19:43)
⁓ Hm.

Yeah, I don’t either actually.

Aaron Smith (19:55)
So how did you, in writing this, you have to be, as a writer, have to get into the character, you have to get into the thought process, the mind, how did you feel doing this, writing from the perspective of two demons as a believer?

Tilly (20:11)
Yeah, that’s a great question. So.

I feel like writing in this genre, I know that thinking like a demon and trying to understand what motivates them, you know, that’s tough. But again, actually the book was written over the course of a few years, so I really didn’t spend a lot of time at any one time writing in this voice, which was helpful. Because I think I’ve heard Lewis really struggled writing screw tape letters, that when he was done with it, he was kind of like, whew, I’m done. I can’t do that much longer. That was hard to be there.

Aaron Smith (20:29)
Mm.

Yeah.

Tilly (20:44)
But I think he wrote his kind of at one very, he wrote at a gallop. I think it was pretty fast. So for me, it would be like one letter and then I wouldn’t use the device again for a few months. So that helped. I did feel that way a little bit when I was reading the audio book. It was like, ooh, this is a long time to be talking this way. Yeah, right, that’s right. But.

Aaron Smith (21:08)
Oh yeah, it’s like hours.

Tilly (21:12)
But really, and this is the strength of screw tape as well, I feel like what the genre really is about is having a way of fictionalizing human scent. So I think a lot of it really is about the heart of the human patient and the demon is describing some of the sort of ugly interior facts about temptation, you know.

Aaron Smith (21:28)
Yeah.

Tilly (21:41)
And in that way, think really, I think really that’s what those, that’s what makes the book work is just understanding human nature and being able to write about it in a way that the person reading might say, ⁓ I recognize that I’ve had that experience, but I’ve never named that before, you know, and that’s what’s useful. I think about the fictionalizing of this is that.

you’re not saying this is you necessarily, because I doubt any woman would read this book and have experienced every temptation in the book. It’s kind of like a worst of is real, but I think it being fiction means it just might sneak around and surprise you from the side in a way that a straightforward piece might not.

Aaron Smith (22:29)
I think in our current culture, especially in our current Christian culture, there’s been a postmodern, you know, did this whole swing away from the ethereal, the spiritual, that like, everything’s physical, everything’s, you know, very similar to what the New Testament church had to deal with. And Paul had to address with Gnosticism and like, this everything’s just what we see and is physical or it’s all spiritual. Like it’s this total separation, which is not how the Bible describes our

our experience here. It’s very much both, and it’s happening simultaneously. But currently there’s this idea of, and I’ve heard this from people, how do know the difference between a spiritual attack and if it’s just something happening, right? Which is like, on some level it’s like, it really doesn’t matter because the Bible gives us instruction on how to deal with…

Tilly (23:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (23:28)
doesn’t matter what comes, gives us instruction on how we’re to behave and respond. But we’ve put demons and the enemy and Satan and spiritual things in this category of almost as if it has equal power to God. And we minimize the power that’s inside of us, which is, not what the Bible teaches. How in the story do you illustrate this, where do the demons have

Tilly (23:32)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (23:57)
supernatural like powers that this this patient has no power over has no ability over has no Does it make sense trying to like it? It’s a thing that’s happening in in our Christian culture of Almost feeling weak and we’re giving too much power somewhere. It doesn’t belong. Yeah

Tilly (24:05)
Yeah, yeah.

too much power to them. Right,

yeah. So I mean, I think this is something that even Lewis talked about, that even in his time, think the pretending like demons don’t exist at all was one of the ditches that he was dealing with, like where even Christians were kind of materialist and not even aware of demonic activity. So I think that’s one ditch, you know, the ditch of…

Aaron Smith (24:29)
Yeah.

Tilly (24:40)
There’s me, there’s God, there’s maybe my sinful flesh, and those are the only parties at work here. And I would say that the church culture that I’m a part of in this kind of reformed, whatever, just the culture that I happen to find myself in, I think that tends to be more the ditch. Like I don’t hear people in my church, they don’t talk about like Satan was doing this, and that’s why I, they’re not talking about those things.

So I would say that’s one ditch to kind of be too little aware of the fact that maybe there are spiritual forces at play in our everyday lives. And then I think another ditch that I also have seen is the devil made me do it. Yeah, or just where everything is about, it’s all about what did Satan do? What did the devil, what is the devil interfering with me in this way so that my lunch wasn’t what I wanted it to be? Or just, yeah, just little inconveniences become demonic activity or.

Aaron Smith (25:17)
Mm-hmm. They have this out of the road.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tilly (25:35)
or sin becomes demonic activity. So I think what was important for me to, like the rules that I was operating under for the demons in this book are mostly they’re concerned with the heart. Mostly they’re concerned with we want to preoccupy the patient in this area so that she doesn’t understand where, she’s not thinking about what God the enemy wants her to do. Like that’s the whole battle is.

Aaron Smith (26:02)
Hmm.

Tilly (26:05)
distract her from what he has clearly told her to do in his word. What obedience is going to look like for her in this season. What he wants her to focus on. Where her work lies. Where her priorities should lie. Like those are the things that the demons care about. There is one letter where the demon says, you want, you you can interfere. I know you hate her body and you hate the physical world. You hate

You hate babies being born. You hate all these physical things. And I know it’s disgusting, these creatures, you know, who are physical and spiritual, as if that makes any sense. So I know you hate those things. You would like to interfere. If you want, you can go before the enemy and request permission to do that. But in this, under the rules of this book, the demons have to ask permission to do those things. That was just basically Job.

Aaron Smith (27:01)
Where do you get that from?

Yeah, Joe.

Tilly (27:03)
Yeah,

yeah. I guess because also I just, I just don’t, I don’t have any category for demons being out of bounds, for demons doing things outside of sovereign will. So I guess, yeah, the power of the demons is pretty limited. But they are also saying, this is a temporary measure. Our Father below has assured us.

Aaron Smith (27:17)
Yeah.

Tilly (27:33)
This is just for show for now. You know, later on we won’t have to do that. Ask for permission so.

Aaron Smith (27:38)
Mm-hmm.

I love that. That’s something that I constantly have to remind my kids of these things. When I teach about it’s, I don’t know what you call it, demonology. Not that I spend a lot of energy on teaching that, but there’s a reality to the spiritual that we need to, that like you said, we’ve fallen to certain ruts where we give too much power to the enemy. And then there’s the side where we pretend like they don’t exist.

Tilly (27:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Right.

Aaron Smith (28:11)
all throughout scripture. Even in the New Testament, most of the miracles Jesus did were casting out demons. there’s clearly a spiritual realm. Yeah, we are spiritual. the Bible, I was just, when I was teaching in First Corinthians yesterday at church, Paul’s addressing the Corinthian church and saying, you you’re acting immature because you’re merely acting in the flesh.

Tilly (28:23)
many of them.

Aaron Smith (28:39)
but I want to be able address you as spiritual people. And the difference is, as Galatians talks about it, is either you are walking in the flesh or you’re walking in the spirit, but as you’re saying, the enemy, the devil, the demons, they are going to address us that way. They’re going to try and get our eyes off this walking in the spirit, the fruits of the spirit, the spirit that God put in us, and live in the flesh.

Tilly (28:42)
Mm-hmm.

Right? Yeah.

Aaron Smith (29:05)
Like, so that’s like, cause they hate us, right? Like

you’re saying, I love that you’re, you’re drawing attention to the, the right things and not over emphasizing the wrong things. What are some of the, the temptations? What are some of the things that this, this patient, the woman is being tempted with by these, these demons?

Tilly (29:28)
Yeah, so I really wanted to talk about marriage a lot in the book because the patient in Screwtape never got married, so you don’t have anything about marriage. And also just because having the fictional device allowed me to explore a lot of different things that I couldn’t have done if I just were to sit down and write a marriage book. So early on, she’s a newlywed and some of the things they’re talking about are just simple things like

make her believe that common courtesy with her husband, saying kissing him hello when he gets home, saying thank you when he takes out the trash, like common courtesies are below her notice. And then when when discourtesy grows into real resentment, don’t underestimate this. Like this is where hatred begins in a marriage. So tend to this hemlock and also, you know, teach her to

pay close attention to his spiritual growth and not to her own. She’ll kind of be looking over his shoulder all the time about his own spiritual habits. There’s a chapter where the demon is saying, tempt her to believe that she’s somehow married down, because he’s just an average hardworking guy who wants to go to work, come home, enjoy life with his family.

Aaron Smith (30:55)
Mm.

Tilly (30:55)
because

he’s not trying to go and conquer the world or whatever, that you have somehow settled. And that can grow into real discontentment that can color your whole life. There’s a chapter about sex, about how she should look at it as a thing to give grudgingly when she absolutely must. There are chapters later on about just gratitude and how that can color all of marriage and all of life.

When you pick one thing that you see to praise and to give thanks for, it grows into more pernicious gratitude that colors all of her life. And never forget this is how she sees God as well. That if you can teach her to wait until everything in her life is exactly the way she wants it before she gives thanks, then you can, there will be stunning silence in her life basically.

Aaron Smith (31:49)
Hmm.

Tilly (31:55)
Yeah, just that this is the difference between a joyful person and an unhappy person is her either learning to give thanks or her not doing that. Yeah, and then there’s a little bit about children. There’s a chapter on the pocket mirrors, which is what I’m calling phones. So just the use of screens basically. And the fact that

Aaron Smith (32:07)
Mm-hmm.

Gotcha.

Tilly (32:24)
woman or a man who is addicted to their phone. It’s not just that you’re stealing time away from them. It’s that you’re lifting them out of the road of time. God designed them as creatures to walk through the moments one moment after the next. And if you can encourage this use of the screen, are

removing them from the road of time so they’re kind of floating out and above it and they’re experiencing time a little bit like we do as demons we’ve rejected God’s reality of time and And basically her mother muscles for just either work or play Either rest or or work you she’ll lose. She’ll lose the ability to even Sit around a table and enjoy conversation with friends

Aaron Smith (33:09)
Mm-hmm.

Tilly (33:18)
because she can no longer, she’s no longer strong enough to even walk the road of time normally. So yeah.

Aaron Smith (33:25)
What I love what you’re explaining is these sound like very common, normal temptations. I think of that scripture in 1 Corinthians 10, no temptation is overtaken. That is not common to man. Like these are very common. would imagine every woman is going to be dealing at some level with these temptations, with these thoughts. I’m going to ask you, Tilly.

Tilly (33:33)
Correct. Yep.

Right, right.

Aaron Smith (33:55)
how much of these are personal to you?

Tilly (33:59)
Yeah, well, I would say most of them. There are a couple of chapters that were borrowed from someone I know in terms of just what the specific temptation was. yeah, there’s a temptation. There’s a chapter where she has a coworker and she’s kind of dabbling in the idea of having an emotional affair basically with this coworker.

Aaron Smith (34:03)
Hmm.

specifics.

Tilly (34:27)
And I just wanted to explore feminine temptation of that kind, of just infidelity. And that definitely was kind of a borrow. There are some things about the husband that are really not the same as my spouse, like not the particular things that he does or says or whatever. But I would say the types of things, these are things about confessing sin to each other, like common habits in marriage.

Aaron Smith (34:34)
Hmm.

Tilly (34:56)
or the courtesy or the gratitude. Like gratitude has been a huge thing that the Lord’s been working on in me the last couple of years. Just the habit of thanking my husband for just doing what’s right and what’s good. Things that you just tend to take for granted in a marriage. And it’s just the power that a wife has to strengthen her husband into…

My dad used to say, put wind in his wings, the power of a woman to put the wind in his sails, you know, just by seeing and thanking and appreciating what God is doing in him. It’s just so powerful. And I see it being completely overlooked by so many women who just don’t understand how much power they have for the good in their husband’s life.

Aaron Smith (35:31)
Mm-hmm.

Tilly (35:53)
there’s just something about the human heart. see you see 10 things that are good and the one thing that isn’t good is the thing that draws your eye, you know. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (36:00)
We focus on you.

just wanted to let you know, you little dude.

Tilly (36:06)
Is there a little dude in here? Come here, dude.

Aaron Smith (36:10)
All right.

Tilly (36:11)
Okay, go through. That’s good. The girls are in there.

Aaron Smith (36:17)
I was watching him peek over and listen. it’s in your ride, the gratitude, the importance of that and the power of that. And it sounds like you show that contrast in the book really well of what they’re trying to tempt her to, you know, not be thankful, knowing what that produces. But the power of what happens. I’m imagining throughout the book, throughout the story, this woman as she does the opposite, as she

Tilly (36:21)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (36:47)
you know, fights that temptation with biblical truths, having gratitude. Do you see that breakdown of the enemy’s so-called power in her life?

Tilly (36:59)
Mm-hmm.

You do. Yeah, you do. Because there is a sense, there’s a conversation kind of midway through the book about how her life is developing, how she seems to have rejected your onslaught in this area and in this area. Things aren’t really going well for you, Hemlock, in your work. And I guess, yeah, just this sense in which you can see them

not even desiring to be in her home anymore because the home has become kind of a stronghold. We talk about strongholds a lot, think demonic strongholds, know, that place is a stronghold or he really, you know, Satan had this stronghold and I think it was just interesting to think about what are the places that demons don’t want to go because they’re strongholds, you know, that are, you know, of the kingdom and

that homes, there are homes that are like that, where you’re just like, the aroma in this home is a sweet smelling aroma. It is a place that I don’t think a demon would really enjoy being here, you know? And there’s a point later on in the book where you realize they are losing this battle with this patient. She’s, she is moving where she’s more and more beyond their reach. And I don’t really want to, I guess we can decide whether to spoil the ending or not, but.

Aaron Smith (38:23)
Don’t spoil it. Yeah, don’t spoil it. I do want to ask. So I. There was two things I’m thinking about, because you’re talking about demons being in a home and I know that there are probably half of my audience is like now. And then there’s probably another half of like see, knew it. There’s demons here. This is like. I just. How much of this when we talk about the influence that the enemy might have on us, you know?

Tilly (38:23)
Yeah, but yeah.

Aaron Smith (38:52)
If I say, like, I have a demon in my home, like, that’s not quite what it means, right? Like this idea of, you know, being allowed to be near us. Like, again, I’d like to write up how I do believe that the enemy and any spiritual creature, just like anything in the world, has to get whatever boundaries it has, it’s been given by God and whatever permission it has. We look at that in Job and we see that exact story of, you know, the enemy saying, hey,

Tilly (38:55)
Mm.

Right, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (39:21)
You know, and he’s only allowed to go so far. He’s only allowed to do what God has allowed him to do for his glory. And it’s going to and it leads specifically to an awesome, glorious experience that Job gets to have with God. I just. I don’t know how I want to ask the question, but. The whatever the influence is that’s in the home, you know, whether it’s a demon or not, what is the solution to that? Is it I need to cast the.

Tilly (39:31)
Mm-hmm.

That’s great way to ask the question.

Aaron Smith (39:49)
I need to cast this demon out now. What’s the solution to dealing with spiritual things?

Tilly (39:55)
Right. I think that’s exactly the question that should be asked is what is the way to fight this battle, basically? What is the way that we fight? And we have the battle plan given to us in Scripture and it has to do with putting on the armor of God. So this is the Word of God, this is prayer, it’s the everyday Christian life has already been designed to deflect

the arrows of the enemy. Like that’s part of why he gives us these things. Knowing and reading the Word alone and in your home. Going to church where you’re going to hear the Word preached and you’re going to have other Christians who are part of your life and who hold you accountable and who speak the truth to you in love. Praying. Praying for what you…

need spiritually for what your children need for what your husband needs for what your wife needs confessing sin so that there’s no secret this is early in the book there’s this couple of think couple of chapters on confession of sin and just the demons saying we don’t know why this works the way it does we just know that when the humans confess sin to god and to each other it unlocks the cages we’ve built we build the cages and this unlocks them

Aaron Smith (41:12)
It does.

Tilly (41:21)
And how many times have we experienced that? That when we hide our sin, it does give Satan a foothold in our lives. That’s one of the clearest cases in Scripture of ways to give Satan a foothold in your life. It has to do with you sinning and covering it up. So these are not big mysterious things. These are not horror movie types of things. Like these are the everyday work that we do in the Christian life.

Aaron Smith (41:37)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tilly (41:49)
and the means of grace that God has given us. So it doesn’t need to… this is not a scary topic. This shouldn’t be a scary topic because we have… we have the armor. Say that? Not for the believer. That’s right. That’s right. Very scary otherwise. But yeah.

Aaron Smith (41:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, not for the believer. Not for the believer.

Yeah.

Tilly (42:10)
There’s hubby.

Aaron Smith (42:12)
Nice.

And that’s exactly how I encourage people when, you know, I’ve had people say, you know, I think my child’s having, you nightmares and I think this is demonic. Like, even if it is, like, I don’t know if it is, have, have, who he who’s in us is greater than he who’s in the world. And the authority that we have in Christ Jesus in our homes, the power that lives in us is

Tilly (42:28)
Alright, yeah, pray, yeah.

Aaron Smith (42:41)
It’s not even on the same level. It’s not comparison. It’s not like there’s God and then Satan’s here. There’s God and then all of creation. Right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s something that we need to have a right way of thinking about so that we don’t weaken the truth and strengthen the lie. We need to strengthen the truth and we need to believe the truth. And that, that leads me to my kind of my last thing I wanted to talk to you about is

Tilly (42:45)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (43:10)
When it comes to all of these things, the things that we, you know, dealing with temptation, dealing with influence, demonic influence, friend influence, college influence, whatever, wherever the influence is coming from, they have spiritual ramifications. Would you say, and this is, I’m a little biased in this because way I think on this, that it all comes down to belief. What are you believing?

Tilly (43:25)
Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

Aaron Smith (43:40)
And so

as this story is, are these demons, is there influence on trying to get this patient or the woman to believe something?

Tilly (43:49)
Right. Yes, it has to do with truth. So what you believe matters. And that means that the things that you feed yourself to think about and to read about, you’re see every member of my family. That’s good. Hey guys, shut the door, please. I am so sorry. I know your production quality is probably much higher than this, we’re in a, room, yeah, that’s right. This bedroom is like a thoroughfare at the moment.

Aaron Smith (44:02)
Look at your cute family, it’s totally fine, I love it. I am pro family, so I’m okay.

No, you’re fine. I said I’m pro family, so we’re good.

Tilly (44:19)
So yeah, so yeah, I mean, this is something you hear in biblical counseling circles that I think is really helpful, but it’s, and it may be a little oversimplified, but think right, do right. So that what we are reading, what we are listening to, what we are feeding on matters. It affects what we think and the truth, whether we’re thinking what’s true or what’s false matters.

Aaron Smith (44:20)
It’s okay.

Yeah.

Tilly (44:49)
So it’s not, the things that you are, things that you’re reading and feeding on can be very harmful to you. But I just think those things shouldn’t be overemphasized or underemphasized in terms of the amount of power, you know.

Aaron Smith (45:10)
Yeah. When it comes to these things like temptation and sin and the enemy coming in and trying to… He goes for our minds. That’s why we’re told to renew our minds by the… Or we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds. That the transformation that we desire, that we seek, that going from we used to be this way to this way, it starts, of course, in the heart. God giving us a new heart, putting His Holy Spirit in us. the…

Tilly (45:21)
Right? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (45:38)
sanctification is happening in the mind, in the way we believe. for a long time there was sin that I struggled with, even as a believer, that I couldn’t… I felt like I was totally trapped, I felt like I would never get… like there was a stronghold. I believed that. And I would read scriptures like 2 Peter 1.3, His divine power is granted to us all things, know, pertaining to life and godliness. I would read scriptures like 1 Corinthians 10.13.

Tilly (46:00)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (46:05)
No temptation is overtaking you. But with every temptation, he’ll provide a way of escape. And I would be like, I don’t believe this. This, this, I’m sure this is true for some of them. It’s not true for me because that’s not being played out in my life. ⁓ but it wasn’t until I realized the reason I’m not being transformed is because I’m not believing these things that are actually already true. They’re not true someday. They’re not true for certain types of people. They’re not true. If I figured out first, they’re true now.

Tilly (46:26)
Hm. Hm.

Aaron Smith (46:34)
And I believe that’s a big reason why many Christians, many believers, stay stuck somewhere. And I think in our culture specifically, and I know we’ve got to come to a close soon, but women specifically, and not women specifically, I think anyone, struggles with what we’re going to identify as sinful, what we’re going to identify as wrong believing. Because you mentioned these temptations of like, you

Tilly (46:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (47:05)
wishing, you saying hi to my husband when he comes home, giving him a kiss. And that’s me, you know, being below my grade. And that’s me being too submissive or trampled on or something. Like, that versus, well, no, actually, I love my spouse and I want to show them that. And so I think a lot of this, and it sounds like your book really addresses this, is what are we believing as believers? Like, is our belief in Jesus Christ stop at the cross or does it go to the resurrection also?

Tilly (47:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm, right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. All right.

Right.

Aaron Smith (47:34)
Does it go to the new life in Him? Does it go to the, He’s

given us all power, or the power that grants us all things in life and to life and godliness. Do we believe the scriptures and what they actually say is true for the believer now, not someday? So I don’t know. I just wanted to end on that note about belief. And is there anything you’d to

Tilly (47:47)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. That was you

were talking early on about just the struggle of writing in this voice. And that was one thing that was really tough is that it was so hard not to be able to deliver the full gospel at any point in this book. You know, the demons were not saying Jesus Christ died on the cross. And it was hard because you would sometimes slip into just wanting to go ahead and give the truth while you’re in the middle of having to flip everything, you know. But

Aaron Smith (48:08)
And it has to, yeah.

Yeah.

Tilly (48:23)
The fact is that truth, that truth is the answer to every one of these things is that he has paid for our sin and he is transforming us now into his image. He intends victory in our life. And that’s gonna be slow perhaps in some cases, but it’s his intention and he will accomplish it.

Aaron Smith (48:27)
Mm.

Amen.

I think that’s a great thing to end on. Tilly, thank you so much. Can you share with my audience where they can find you and what’s name of your podcast? then again, name the name of your book and where they can get it.

Tilly (48:55)
Great, yeah, so it’s My Dear Hemlock. It’s available, I think, anywhere you buy books. And the podcast is called Home Fires. So I think, other than that, social media, I’m pretty weak to be found there, those two places.

Aaron Smith (49:06)
⁓ good.

That’s okay. You know

what, I’m trying to work myself out of that. So, Tilly, thank you so much. I pray that God blesses you and your book. And I just pray that people’s eyes are open to the power that is already in them in Christ Jesus and to just not give authority where it doesn’t belong. praise God for you and thank you so much for joining me today.

Tilly (49:15)
Yeah.

Amen. Amen.

Thanks for having me.