We finished Our Chicken Coop, and here is what we learned about doing hard things

Jennifer (00:09):
Hi, and welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

Aaron (00:12):
We’re your hosts Aaron Jennifer Smith. We

Jennifer (00:14):
Have been married 15 years and have five sweet children who are growing up way too fast.

Aaron (00:18):
We love God and we love marriage

Jennifer (00:20):
And we love to be honest about it

Aaron (00:21):
All. Marriage is not always a walk in the park, but we do believe it has a powerful purpose.

Jennifer (00:25):
So our goal here is to open up the conversation to talk about our faith and our marriage,

Aaron (00:30):
Especially in light of the gospel.

Jennifer (00:32):
We certainly don’t have all the answers, but if you stick around, we may just make you laugh.

Aaron (00:35):
But our hope is to encourage you to chase boldly after God’s purpose for your life together.

Jennifer (00:39):
This is Marriage after God.

Aaron (00:47):
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. We’re your hosts, Aaron

Jennifer (00:52):
And Jen. Jennifer, Jen. Jen, Jen

Aaron (00:54):
<laugh>. So glad you’re here. In today’s episode, we’re going to be diving into a talk about our chicken coop.

Jennifer (01:02):
I told you not to be weird. I told you

Aaron (01:04):
Guys the problem is you need tell me not to be.

Jennifer (01:07):
When we went to go start, I said, please don’t be weird, but we’re not just talking about chicken coops like a know-how. More so what we learned about working together and finishing something hard

Aaron (01:17):
Because it was very difficult. This chicken coop,

Jennifer (01:22):
Today’s episode is brought to you by our book set, 31 Prayers for My Future Husband and Wife. Well, there’s the 31 prayers for my Future husband and the 31 prayers for my Future Wife. Now, most of you listening are probably already married, so you won’t need this set, but you probably know someone who would benefit from it like a teenager in your life. Niece, nephew, a friend. These books include 31 Prayer Days of Prayer for a person desiring to get married one day. So maybe they’re currently single or maybe they’re already engaged. This book set will be a blessing to them to read and pray through. So if you are single listening right now or in a serious relationship but not yet married or if someone who’ll be excited about these books, please go to shop dot marriage after god.com or Amazon to check it out.

Aaron (02:06):
Awesome. So

Jennifer (02:09):
I feel like I’m getting better at those

Aaron (02:11):
By the way. You are getting better at those a little bit. A little bit, yeah. But there’s something that’s coming up that’s pretty important.

Jennifer (02:20):
I know I haven’t cried about it yet, but there’s something very significant about our oldest son turning 10.

Aaron (02:27):
Yeah. He’s no longer in the second or the single digits

Jennifer (02:31):
And he never will be double digits again. Yeah, this is a huge deal. Can you believe

Aaron (02:35):
It? Yeah. And as he said, he, he’ll be in triple digits when he is turns a hundred, so that’s awesome. He’s going to be in the double digits for quite a while.

Jennifer (02:43):
So I don’t know if we already mentioned this, but 10 years ago we read Love Does by Bob Goff. It came out the same year that he was born and so he was a baby and I remember specifically getting so excited about the part of the book where he talks about taking his kids on these 10 year year old adventures. So if you’ve read the book, you know exactly what

Aaron (03:01):
You’re talking about. Probably my favorite part of the book

Jennifer (03:03):
Actually. Yeah, it’s what stuck with us. Sometimes you read something and it just totally sticks. Well, we’ve talked about it every year with every kid’s birthday and we remind each other how great this will be and we’ve prepared ourselves for

Aaron (03:13):
It. <laugh> until it comes up and you’re like oh

Jennifer (03:15):
Wow, that’s kind of a big deal. So we know that. We know Elliot, and we’ve talked to him enough to know that his ultimate dream excursion would probably be to South America. South America, right.

Aaron (03:27):
South America. Tropical snakes, po deadly, poisonous things.

Jennifer (03:32):
Some birds. Something is stuck with that kid that South America is like dream world for him. I

Aaron (03:37):
Don’t know

Jennifer (03:38):
The rainforest

Aaron (03:39):
And I would love to take him to Brazil.

Jennifer (03:40):
Well, what it probably is is he, Aaron has shared stories with him from Brazil when you went on your trip. So he probably connects to you with that,

Aaron (03:47):
But he wants it.

Jennifer (03:48):
Okay. But we’re not taking him to South America.

Aaron (03:50):
No. We thought about him, we’re like, I’m not taking sun out of the country right

Jennifer (03:54):
Now. Not yet. But we were like, well what’s comparable? What’s like, where is there somewhere kind of gives you that tropical filling? Maybe not in this season, but <laugh>

Aaron (04:04):
Most seasons

Jennifer (04:05):
What we thought about was Florida

Aaron (04:08):
And he’s actually mentioned he wants to go there. Also, his ideal would be of course South America, but I think Florida, in his mind, it matches all those things. There’s palm, he has this thing about palm trees.

Jennifer (04:18):
So real quick, where do dreams like that come from? Because when you’re a kid you have, well, he’s been learning over the years, but I mean what does the basis for something like that kind of stem up from? I’m kidding.

Aaron (04:29):
I have no idea. But something, there’s something in his heart that he desires. Maybe it’s because we live in a place that gets cold. He deserves,

Jennifer (04:35):
He’s the complete opposite. He wants,

Aaron (04:37):
Yeah, whatever’s the opposite I guess. But that’s funny is he also loves the snow and all this stuff, but there’s something about him. He wants to go see some poisonous snakes and he wants to go see these

Jennifer (04:47):
Colorful birds. I’m saying kids have preferences and I just always get curious on what sets them on that, that path or that thing that

Aaron (04:54):
We should mention to everyone listening just in case they ever mention to our son. This is a surprise.

Jennifer (04:59):
Like friends of ours

Aaron (05:00):
Listening and they can’t tell him. He doesn’t know. So

Jennifer (05:02):
Until it happens, what’s going to happen is he’s going to wake up him up early on his birthday and surprise him with a few days in Florida and you guys are going to go explore and where are you going to take him?

Aaron (05:14):
It’s going to be fun. We’re going to do some things. We’re going to eat some alligator and we’re going to go, okay, we’re going to go. What are those airboat rides?

Jennifer (05:20):
Like the swamp rides? Yeah.

Aaron (05:21):
I don’t know if it’s going to be beach weather necessarily, but it might be beach weather for us. Cuz we’re like, I have no idea in cold weather. And if it’s 70 we’ll probably go out to the beach

Jennifer (05:31):
And we’re like a national Park family. It’s like we always try and hit ’em up wherever we go. We have the game, the national park game. What national park are you going to take ’em to?

Aaron (05:38):
The Everglades. Cool.

Jennifer (05:40):
I really have, that

Aaron (05:40):
Works out. I’ve never been that far south. We lived in Florida for a little bit. We never went this far south. Yeah, why not? I

Jennifer (05:45):
Don’t know. Oh, we were broke.

Aaron (05:46):
That’s what it was.

Jennifer (05:47):
Yeah. Gas, gas money.

Aaron (05:48):
We were

Jennifer (05:49):
Broke. We should have explored Florida while we were

Aaron (05:51):
Leaving, but we’re, I’m going to take him there and it’s going to be fun a few days.

Jennifer (05:54):
So it’s not a cost effective type birthday. He

Aaron (05:59):
Only

Jennifer (05:59):
Gets one. It’s in a

Aaron (06:01):
Splurge. He only gets one.

Jennifer (06:02):
Yeah, one 10 year old birthday. Yeah, that’s it.

Aaron (06:04):
But then when he’s like 20, he gets to take me on a trip. So we’ll talk about that on the trip. What

Jennifer (06:09):
Are you most excited to do? Because I’m jealous. I’m over here going, man, I should have been

Aaron (06:12):
The one now. I’m excited about all the stuff of course. But I’m mostly excited about having a few days just alone with Elliot. I think he’s what he’s going to be most excited about because

Jennifer (06:23):
We always do stuff as a family and there’s five kids and so it’s a constant loud, busy

Aaron (06:29):
Well and trying to split attentions and all the things and our kids feel it and I think it’s going to be a really awesome thing. No breakup, just have a few days and where he knows it’s just me and him. I’m not going to bring my computer. I’m not going to. I’ll have my phone phone of course, but it’s not going to be a work trip. Nothing like that. Just me and him. Cool. So I’m mostly excited just about the hours with him.

Jennifer (06:49):
What kind of questions are you going to ask him or do you know? I don’t know. Gosh,

Aaron (06:52):
I don’t know man.

Jennifer (06:53):
Maybe ask him if he has any questions.

Aaron (06:55):
Actually really good at questions.

Jennifer (06:56):
He’s a good conversation.

Aaron (06:58):
So I’ll ask him a lot to ask me questions. But I do, I kinda wanna know who he is becoming, what kind of man he is becoming. Cool. I wanna explore that with him. So awesome. I’m excited for that. But on some more important topics, chicken

Jennifer (07:13):
Coops.

Aaron (07:13):
Chicken coops.

Jennifer (07:14):
Do you guys even wanna hear about chicken coops?

Aaron (07:17):
Yeah. It’s funny that people are probably like, what are they talking about? But why? We do normal things in this life and sometimes not nor so normal things, but all things we know God can use and God does. And it used these things in our life and turns

Jennifer (07:33):
Them into podcasts,

Aaron (07:33):
Turns ’em into podcast episodes and that’s most important here.

Jennifer (07:36):
Okay. How did we tie chicken coops into this idea of encouragement for finishing a hard thing? Because that’s really what we’re getting at is as a married couple, how do you do hard things? Well,

Aaron (07:48):
And that’s the good question. That’s the question to ask because all of us, everyone listening, we have, there’s things that just pop up in life. They’re pretty extraordinary things, but they have real effects on us, emotionally, spiritually, mentally,

Jennifer (08:03):
Challenges, they’re difficult.

Aaron (08:05):
And as we always talk about how do we deal with these things? What is God using these things to drop in us and pull out of us. And I think that’s what we’re trying to talk about. What is God? What was God showing us? Well, when of this chicken

Jennifer (08:19):
Coop and when we were talking about drawing this into an episode I think the hardest part, just right off the bat about this whole process was we didn’t know exactly what we were doing. It wasn’t like we had plans, we were,

Aaron (08:32):
I’ve never built a chicken coop before.

Jennifer (08:33):
We’ve never built it before. We’ve never had chickens before. And we had this space in our backyard that we were kind of stuck in a box to use and so to speak. We wanted to,

Aaron (08:43):
Wanted to. Yeah. And we’ll get into that a little bit. But this thing is not your ordinary run of the mill chicken

Jennifer (08:49):
Coop. Why can’t we just do ordinary things sometimes

Aaron (08:52):
We don’t do ordinary things. Everything we do is extraordinary.

Jennifer (08:55):
Jennifer, I had a friend call it the Chicken Taj Mahal.

Aaron (08:59):
This thing is not small

Jennifer (09:00):
So big, but I told a friend of mine while you were out there building it one day I took a snapshot and I sent it to a friend and I said, if Aaron just ran plumbing out there, we could rent it out on Airbnb for chicken lovers.

Aaron (09:13):
I made the same joke without knowing you made that joke serious to the guys because it’s funny, this thing is 400 square feet and I’m only saying that because that’s to show the scale of what we’re doing. Yeah, I didn’t realize.

Jennifer (09:25):
But we also don’t have four chickens. We have

Aaron (09:27):
A lot of chicken. We have 23 currently. Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer (09:29):
We’ve been watching a lot of YouTube on how to, well even just had basic chicken

Aaron (09:34):
D, iy chicken,

Jennifer (09:35):
How do you do chickens and how do you build coops and how do you take care of ’em? And

Aaron (09:39):
Apparently there’s a lot of videos

Jennifer (09:40):
And there’s this thing called chicken math and everyone who owns chickens I guess knows that you can’t just start out with one two. Well

Aaron (09:47):
You tell you yourself if you’re going to get three and you’re like, but you know what

Jennifer (09:49):
You end up with 30. Yeah.

Aaron (09:51):
And that’s where we’re at right now.

Jennifer (09:53):
Apparently some people in our family really like the chickens.

Aaron (09:55):
Well let’s start off with me wanting zero chickens and now we have 23, so don’t give away the

Jennifer (10:00):
How does that No, we’re not there

Aaron (10:01):
Yet. How does that work?

Jennifer (10:03):
Okay, so do you wanna explain real quick the shed and the post ordeal now what it was and what happened?

Aaron (10:08):
Okay. Yeah. So lemme give you some back story. Set. The scene, we bought this property and on the property was a shop. It had all these, it’s a, what do you call, pole barn. Yeah. It’s got eight poles on the ground, concreted in, and then all this sheet metal around it. And it was already here,

Jennifer (10:24):
But we had to take it down.

Aaron (10:25):
We had to take it down. It was a part of our permitting to get the house, to build the house. And so when we were getting towards the end of building the house, I literally spent two weeks taking every piece of it apart, unscrewing every screw, taking every piece of sheet metal down taking every piece of wood down ke and w the whole time. We’re trying to recover every bit of material we can

Jennifer (10:48):
Because we knew we had projects around the house that we wanted to use it

Aaron (10:51):
For. Lots of things we’re like, oh, tree houses and chicken coops and bunk beds and bunk beds and all these things. And if anyone out there has been doing any projects, lumber is just crazy expensive. And so I’m thinking I’m just going to keep all of this as I can. And I took the whole thing apart, stacked it all up next to our garage and waited to use it. And we had all these posts in the ground, concreted in just sitting there waiting for us to do something with. And my thought was, I don’t wanna waste these posts. They’re already here. They’re already kind of shaped out. Why don’t we just build our coop

Jennifer (11:23):
Into us? The ground was level and clear so it made the most sense. And

Aaron (11:27):
Originally we were going to kind of split this shop in half and say half of it was going to be chicken coop, half would be maybe a greenhouse. And as we’re going to talk about it, we

Jennifer (11:35):
Got really excited about the space we could provide for our chickens.

Aaron (11:38):
We’re like, we can give this chickens the best life ever. So that’s kind of the backstory of why this thing is so big. The size of the shop. <laugh> was the shop.

Jennifer (11:50):
It’s smaller than the shop, it

Aaron (11:52):
Was going to be 40 by 20 cuz that’s how deep it was. It was 20 ish feet deep, but now it’s 40 by 10. Cuz we took some of the posts and moved them,

Jennifer (12:02):
Which a large portion of it is the run

Aaron (12:03):
Is most of it is this chicken run. And then a small part is this is the coop. And so that’s kind of the backstory on our little chicken coop.

Jennifer (12:11):
And we wanted to share that. We hope that by sharing our story, we’re not just talking about how we did this thing but

Aaron (12:18):
We’re not giving DIY tips.

Jennifer (12:20):
I mean if they hear any that they wanna use, that’s fine.

Aaron (12:23):
Our next podcast I DIY projects are in

Jennifer (12:25):
The house. No, but the importance of this episode is that you guys can apply any wisdom that we gained in building this project but we gained it. In hindsight,

Aaron (12:36):
We look back and I’m like, how could we have done that

Jennifer (12:39):
Anyways, as we should share it with you, we just hope that it blesses your marriage because we all know that we do hard things in marriage,

Aaron (12:45):
Aaron. Well, just in life, just in life, there’s lots of hard things. So

Jennifer (12:49):
It will inevitably come up like a D R Y project, a job, a ministry opportunity or just raising our kids,

Aaron (12:56):
Just raising our kids. The hardest project we got going on as our kids.

Jennifer (13:00):
But we do hard things

Aaron (13:02):
And that’s something that we tell our kids. And so that’s something that is, it’s like a unintended bonus phrase that we doing this

Jennifer (13:09):
That’s like a phrase that we

Aaron (13:11):
Our

Jennifer (13:12):
Tell our kids,

Aaron (13:12):
We tell our kids we do hard things.

Jennifer (13:14):
No, we say we’re the dismiss. We do hard things.

Aaron (13:17):
We make a whole over and over again statement about it

Jennifer (13:18):
Because we want them to do hard things when they’re older.

Aaron (13:20):
And so lesson number one that we learned from this pretty large project, larger than we thought, bigger than we expected, harder than we thought. Cuz I actually, in my mind, I tend to you minimize, I’m very positive thi thinker. I’m like, oh, this is going to be so easy. It was not is we do hard things and that’s okay because there’s lots of hard things in life and they’re good and can be good

Jennifer (13:47):
I should say. And the reason we embrace doing hard things as a couple is because we give our children the opportunity to witness and sometimes participate in seeing that and in seeing how a marriage can work it out

Aaron (14:02):
Together. Not only did my kids see me sweating and bleeding and all the things of taking all the metal in the wood and

Jennifer (14:09):
Helping you take screws

Aaron (14:10):
Out of things and helping me take screws out and recovAarong all of that material and spending weeks doing that, they also experienced us taking all of that thing we did

Jennifer (14:18):
And building something beneficial and

Aaron (14:20):
True. Turning it into something new that we wanted that’s actually kinda beautiful and functional too, which is actually most important.

Jennifer (14:26):
So lesson number one, we do hard things. So I get this text from my friend Midsummer and she’s got these extra chickens and she needs to find them a home mind. Our house is not finished at this point, but there we’re living in our trailer. But there is electric, there is electricity and we’ve always talked about getting chickens. So I’m thinking why not now? Yeah,

Aaron (14:45):
Well part of the idea of the property is like, hey, we’ll have some chickens and we’ll use it and make,

Jennifer (14:49):
We were in dream mode up until this point. But then it became a reality of it was all time an opportunity. So Aaron says to me, no, no, this

Aaron (15:00):
Is pretty much was like, this is

Jennifer (15:01):
Not

Aaron (15:01):
A good time, the right time to get some chickens.

Jennifer (15:04):
So that was back in July today and it’s

Aaron (15:07):
Still not a good time to have chickens

Jennifer (15:10):
Because I’m being serious because we were talking about this because the learning curve for us never owning chickens before, the finances that goes into taking care of them and building this,

Aaron (15:20):
All of the projects that we need to get done on the house.

Jennifer (15:21):
Just everything else that we functional, the requirement of doing the coop and just

Aaron (15:26):
The money to spend on the chickens and just, you

Jennifer (15:30):
Had insight into all of this and you warned

Aaron (15:32):
Me. I did

Jennifer (15:33):
Warn, but warned didn’t listen and I twisted your arm and I convinced you against

Aaron (15:37):
And it was supposed to be 12 chickens.

Jennifer (15:40):
Yeah, I’m really sorry. So lesson number two here now it is, it’s

Aaron (15:45):
23.

Jennifer (15:46):
Lesson number two here. Moving on in the story is that the things that are important up front get pushed to the back burner when you make a rash decision or when you make a decision that’s not fully thought through

Aaron (16:01):
When they’re based on impulses, impulses, emotions, which

Jennifer (16:05):
My decision was based on impulse where you kind of just said, okay, you leaned into my desire for

Aaron (16:11):
I doing, it’s my usual

Jennifer (16:14):
Stance with you <laugh>.

Aaron (16:15):
Just so everyone’s listening, my usual stance is to give you what you want.

Jennifer (16:18):
So what’s your lesson number two here? I think it’s a little bit different than

Aaron (16:21):
Everyone else. My lesson number two is I should stand my ground sometimes when it comes to chickens.

Jennifer (16:27):
All right. So I guess the point here is that

Aaron (16:32):
What things have we had to push off that are genuinely, I wouldn’t say most important, but you don’t have ’em now? Because I’ve been working on this chicken

Jennifer (16:43):
Goop. There was a couple things inside the house once it was built that we were like, we’re going to add later a linen closet in going into my bathroom. There was going to be these awesome shelves and I was going to put my towels,

Aaron (16:51):
All her towels sit on our hutch.

Jennifer (16:53):
Yeah, just like, but I’m a place to go. Okay, so we, I’ll give

Aaron (16:58):
About the thing that you

Jennifer (17:00):
Have to wait for. You have to weigh out the necessities is what you’re saying. Yes. Okay.

Aaron (17:05):
So going into lesson three but also talking about lesson two, this idea of me standing my ground and saying, no, we’re not going to do chickens. I think it’s more important is to be better at calculating the cost as the word says that the builder counts the cost that we look at what does this mean if we’re going to get these chickens? Because it’s easy to glamorize it and say, oh it’s going to be fun, it’s going to easy. We just feed ’em and we put ’em in the little metal tin thing. And then my thought of, well the chicken coop’s not going to be that hard. Which is also not true is going into lesson three is that we should be more heed, more wisdom and be respectful of insight. So I brought up like, hey, this is not the right time

Jennifer (17:48):
And I should difficult have let pride or desire cloud my judgment and listening to you.

Aaron (17:53):
Because we could have looked at it and been like, well we have all these other things that are important. Why don’t we wait until those things are done? Which if we really wanted the chickens and waited, it would’ve pushed us. We could’ve been like, oh, let’s get these other things done so that we can get the

Jennifer (18:08):
Chickens. We’re in my backwards thinking. I thought if we get the chickens now, it’ll push us. There was a lot more stress involved on my

Aaron (18:14):
Life. Kind of true. But then it actually, it stops us from doing the other things that were also necessity important,

Jennifer (18:21):
True learn from us.

Aaron (18:22):
And we weren’t ready. That’s another thing. We weren’t ready for them. Which was the wisdom I gave.

Jennifer (18:28):
Yeah. Okay. So we get the chickens as babies and immediately the kids fall in love with them. And if I

Aaron (18:34):
Would’ve thought our kids would chickens so

Jennifer (18:36):
Much,

Aaron (18:37):
No. And Wyatts out there all the time, he’s just holding the chickens. I always ask ’em like, how’s your girls doing? And he just smiles at me.

Jennifer (18:43):
So if there’s any redemption to this story at all, it’s that the kids love the chickens and have a responsible, have a responsibility in caring for them.

Aaron (18:51):
See how could it be so wrong <laugh> when it’s so right.

Jennifer (18:54):
Yeah. I never grew up with animals like that.

Aaron (18:57):
I know

Jennifer (18:59):
That’s

Aaron (18:59):
Another thing to consider actually is what we’re capable <laugh>, what we’re capable of. You. You’d never grew up around many animals. You said you had a few animals but they weren’t even yours. There were someone else’s, right. Your sisters or your mom’s. I grew up with tons of animals. My mom took it. We were just talking to the kids about this.

Jennifer (19:18):
So you really knew

Aaron (19:20):
I did what it would take. I literally did. Cuz it’s never as easy as it sounds. My mom took it. Everything she found injured squirrels and injured birds and rabbits and Lisa, my mom, we had every kind of animal ferrets and parrots and rats and you just name it, we had it. Squirrels. My mom nursed a squirrel back to life once <laugh>, nothing think was cute. I, I have much more experience on my side, but that’s also tainted my view. And that’s something we’re going to talk about is this ability to transition and be able to embrace new things. But it did change my view on animals. You would think I’d be an animal lover. My mom, I do love animals much more than you do, I would say. Or I should. Are

Jennifer (20:01):
You learning?

Aaron (20:02):
I’m more prone to enjoy animals but at the same time I’m a little lazy now. I’m like that’s a lot of work, those animals. So I understand it. But you

Jennifer (20:11):
Haven’t been lazy with the chickens.

Aaron (20:13):
No, I’m, that’s what I’m saying. I’m growing back into this. Oh I could handle animals again,

Jennifer (20:18):
Someone’s gotta show the kids how to handle the animals.

Aaron (20:20):
No, they’re better at it than I am. Like they go love on those animals so much.

Jennifer (20:25):
Okay, so you kind of already mentioned this, but lesson four is being careful when you’re not prepared. We weren’t prepared to build the main coop at the time that we got everything, all the chickens. And so we wasted some of our time cuz we ended up having to build a temporary coop before the main coup

Aaron (20:43):
Because they were little and living in these little metal tints

Jennifer (20:46):
And then they outg that and then we weren’t,

Aaron (20:47):
They grow really fast.

Jennifer (20:49):
So if you don’t wanna waste your time and you don’t wanna waste your resources or anything, just be prepared. <laugh>, be more prepared when you make the decision.

Aaron (20:58):
Yeah, it would’ve been better if we could’ve had the thing done before we got the chickens, but at the end of the day we also can’t know. Yeah we were, we’re learning. We’re learning. And you know what, chickens are really resilient. They did. They’ve done great. Now

Jennifer (21:12):
They, I’m not so much they,

Aaron (21:13):
They’re having a hard time going in the coop cuz they’ve lived out of a coop. So that’s

Jennifer (21:17):
Not what I was going to mention. I was going to mention that they were free range for a little bit because the temporary cos were small. And so we let them out in the yard during the day.

Aaron (21:24):
They only stayed at night in these little temporary coops just to protect them. And then we would let ’em out. Free range.

Jennifer (21:30):
They pooped everywhere. And every once in a while if the slider, the sliding door got left open, we’d hear a kid yell, there’s a chicken in the house,

Aaron (21:36):
Not ate chicken. There were several times that there was a flock no in the kitchen. Oh yeah. I’m not kidding.

Jennifer (21:43):
You guys did not know that I

Aaron (21:44):
Had to wipe up the poop. I had

Jennifer (21:45):
To, you guys did not tell me that. I’m glad you didn’t tell me

Aaron (21:48):
That. All. When they’re out, they come up to the sliding glass door and it’s like they want to, they’re like, what are you guys doing? Heck of the glass.

Jennifer (21:54):
They’re very friendly chickens, they’re follow us around. They just wanna play.

Aaron (21:59):
We think they’re hungry but really they just wanna be near us and wanna be held. It’s so f I like it a lot but at the same time I’m really the biggest motivation to finish the chicken coop was the poop on my patio because I don’t mind the poop in the grass cuz it’s good for the grass. But there was poop all over. They don’t want to be on the grass. I don’t get it. There’s nothing on the patio for them but they cut all of them.

Jennifer (22:20):
So this isn’t one of our lessons

Aaron (22:21):
Live on our patio.

Jennifer (22:22):
This isn’t one of our lessons. Try and

Aaron (22:23):
Get in the house.

Jennifer (22:24):
If you don’t wanna deal with animal poop, just say no to animals.

Aaron (22:27):
That’s true. Cuz animals poop and shed, those are realities.

Jennifer (22:34):
So we couldn’t get the main coop built until a few things got checked off of our list cuz we moved into the house. We had some inside projects like building the boys bunk beds and getting the beds off the floor. We had a deadline for our next book due. So that took a lot of our time and focus work life, starting a new season of homeschool,

Aaron (22:53):
Moving in,

Jennifer (22:54):
Starting the podcast.

Aaron (22:55):
We had a lot of stuff going

Jennifer (22:56):
On. I feel like every minute of the day was accounted for the whole next year.

Aaron (23:00):
It totally feels like that sometimes. But what finally motivated us to get moving and just do the chicken coop was knowing that winter was coming. Where we live now gets snow earlier than where we used to live gets. And so it was like this now there’s like a deadline we see on the calendar. It’s like snow’s coming. We’re like, oh, we should probably give them a place to stay. And that pushed us to move forward and start doing it.

Jennifer (23:27):
So when you started out to build a chicken coop, like I said earlier, you didn’t have plans that you were going by. So you basically, no plans looked at this situation and you said, okay, this is where I should start.

Aaron (23:39):
Here’s a post and here’s a post and here’s a post.

Jennifer (23:41):
You started measuring and then you had to go back to our scrap pile and see if pretty much piece by piece if we had what you needed as you went.

Aaron (23:48):
Yeah. The benefit of recycled wood is that I didn’t have to pay for it. The downfall is that I literally have no idea what I have. And

Jennifer (23:55):
You had to check through all of it, make sure it’s straight.

Aaron (23:57):
Yeah, well and then I would put a board up and then it’s split in half cuz it was not good wood and I’d have to pull thing off. And so that’s where the difficulty of this comes in is never doing this before. No plans. The wood is not new. And so I’m just dealing with literally hacked pieces of wood, old pieces of wood, twisted pieces of wood.

Jennifer (24:19):
And then every once in a while I’d catch you just kind of mid projects. Staring, staring, staring up at not

Aaron (24:24):
Every

Jennifer (24:24):
Once in a while, something and I’m standing behind you with my gloves on, ready to help going, what is the holdup? What are

Aaron (24:29):
You doing? Well you would constantly say, just do the next thing. I’m just go on, what’s the next thing?

Jennifer (24:33):
I’ve got 800 things behind me needing my attention.

Aaron (24:35):
And I would look at you and I’d be like, I literally have no idea what I’m doing.

Jennifer (24:38):
So the next lesson is encouragement from a spouse goes a long way and I cut on pretty quick. So I use my words to remind you what you’re capable of previous pro projects that you’ve accomplished.

Aaron (24:48):
Just keep going. Aaron,

Jennifer (24:49):
I pushed you to keep going and I told you remember how good you’ll feel when you can say I did that <laugh>. Kinda like how after I give birth and

Aaron (25:00):
It’s like the encouragement was good. Hey because there was just did that, there was many times I genuinely wanted to quit because I would do a lot and be like, oh I’m awesome and this feels good and it looks great. And then I’d look at it and be like, oh but I didn’t do that and I didn’t do that or I did that wrong. Or my friend would come over who is a contractor and I’d be like, Hey you really should put some post between cuz that’s not going to hold up the roof. And I’m like, oh

Jennifer (25:23):
That was divine timely encouragement for you. It

Aaron (25:26):
Was great. Sure. I, I’m so appreciative. But it was those little moments that I would do all that work and it would feel so hard and then I would realize I probably didn’t do it right that I’d want to give up.

Jennifer (25:38):
Okay, but how did my encouragement help you push through and progress?

Aaron (25:41):
Well we finished.

Jennifer (25:42):
See, so

Aaron (25:43):
Your encouragement did something <laugh> you was, I was trying to find someone to finish it for me and then you would be like, Aaron, you’re almost done. Do you really want someone to cut? You’re going to pay someone to just finish the last few steps of it. I’m so much, I don’t know, clip two week. Oh it was hard actually cause I’ve never done anything like this before. Framing out walls and I

Jennifer (26:04):
Think you did a really great job. I can’t see

Aaron (26:06):
If you saw it, you’d think I was a

Jennifer (26:08):
That’s what I was just going to say. I can’t wait to see what you build next. I’m really excited for you moving on the

Aaron (26:13):
List next. I mean you have a list.

Jennifer (26:15):
I do have a list actually on it right now. So the next lesson I learned that was kind of hard for me was don’t be a distraction to your spouse and don’t be demanding. So what happened was <laugh>, about a week and a half after some of the chick chicken coop building was going on

Aaron (26:33):
I’m working hard on this thing.

Jennifer (26:35):
I know you were working really hard it sweating dirty. I was just standing there with gloves on going, here’s another screw here. What do you need? Water? Okay, yeah I didn’t do much.

Aaron (26:42):
Lots of time on your hands.

Jennifer (26:44):
So I was a little bored and I’m out there standing over by where the kids area’s going to be and there’s all these, it’s this brush weed stuff. I don’t even know what it’s called.

Aaron (26:53):
It’s just the natural whatever this vine weed thing is. And

Jennifer (26:56):
It’s all over in the ground. It’s

Aaron (26:58):
Like three to six inches underneath the and

Jennifer (27:00):
You can’t just pull it out. And so my great light bulb goes on and says over the weekend, let’s change things up. Instead of building the chicken coop, let’s do a landscape escape. Let’s go work on the yard. And so I rented for Aaron, I went out of my way to make a phone call and rented a mini skid

Aaron (27:18):
Steer. You know what a blessing it is that you, you just did this on your own and I didn’t have to do nothing about it.

Jennifer (27:23):
And I asked him to rip up. It’s probably less than a quarter acre. Right? Well

Aaron (27:27):
What happened is, what is that? I woke up in the morning and you’re like, Hey by the way you need to go to pick up this thing so that we

Jennifer (27:33):
Can You’re right. I should have asked you. That isn’t the lesson but that should be part of it for sure. I was very eager to get this done and

Aaron (27:39):
And all I’m thinking is what,

Jennifer (27:41):
This is what happened when you were building the chicken coop. I kept looking over in the corner and I couldn’t stand looking at it any longer. So something just got to me. But I couldn’t use the skid steer. It was too big and bulky for me. And so I needed you to do it. We ripped up. It took us three full days but we

Aaron (27:58):
Ripped three full days. Yeah. Friday, Saturday. Well three and a half, two and a half days. It was Friday, Saturday, half day Sunday that I had to, I was digging, I was literally digging six inches beneath the one more entire surface or more of probably a, but I was almost a quarter acre of our property.

Jennifer (28:17):
But I was helping you cuz I was going behind you ripping up all the stuff and making a good pile for you take away. So

Aaron (28:21):
Thankful you were there to help me.

Jennifer (28:23):
I heard more than one time in your kind request to ask that I don’t request anything of you until the chicken coop’s done. I heard your frustration but you were very patient with me and I appreciate that.

Aaron (28:38):
Well, the whole time I thought to

Jennifer (28:39):
Myself, but I do wanna apologize. I’m sorry for this.

Aaron (28:41):
Why am I doing this right now? I know. And this other thing, sitting three quarters or no, I know. Half done. Barely. Barely half done. Yeah. I know.

Jennifer (28:49):
Lesson learned. In hindsight, I think I should have re-listened to our episode about pacing ourselves again

Aaron (28:56):
<laugh> because that did not feel paste. Now I’m look, looking back, I’m happy that we did that also because we got rid. It’s done probably 75% of those vines. Yeah. But man, the chicken coop would’ve been done a week sooner probably. I know, I know. So,

Jennifer (29:14):
Okay, well

Aaron (29:16):
I think this is a common thing. We get in the midst of something and f starting something is easy. But finishing that thing,

Jennifer (29:23):
This is true. I have a pattern in my

Aaron (29:25):
Mind. This is very difficult

Jennifer (29:26):
Of having a hard time finishing or following through. I do too. I know that about myself.

Aaron (29:30):
A and so the new thing feels fresh. Exciting. Yeah. Oh let’s not going as it’s not done yet. It’s not exciting anymore. It’s looks difficult. It’s hard. Yeah. Let’s do this other thing and this will feel better. This will be more exciting. And what all that does is it just throws a wrench in the gears.

Jennifer (29:48):
So don’t throw a wrench in the gears.

Aaron (29:50):
Well for you people out there that have the ideas of the projects, <laugh> not going to point the finger at who that might be in the family. Just know if you want that thing done.

Jennifer (30:02):
Time is everything.

Aaron (30:03):
Don’t throw other things on top of it. Okay. Encourage ’em to do the one thing and finish it. So cool. That’s just, that’s one my little input if anyone wants to heat at the kit.

Jennifer (30:13):
Well moving on in the project, we are working really well together. I do wanna acknowledge that. Well at least I feel like when it came to the chicken coop, I did help and you did great. Was there present? Only

Aaron (30:25):
I wanted frustrations that there was not against you. It was just my frustration with the project. Yeah. Cuz I felt inadequate.

Jennifer (30:32):
But he had some help come

Aaron (30:32):
Out. Yeah, my dad came out, which if he wouldn’t have come out, I probably wouldn’t have finished the,

Jennifer (30:38):
Because he helped you with the most challenging part too.

Aaron (30:41):
The part that was

Jennifer (30:42):
Done. But you didn’t know what to do.

Aaron (30:43):
Yeah. Yeah. So my dad came out and I, I’ve worked with my dad my whole life ever since I was a kid. Every, my dad’s done everything himself. He had a motto, if someone could do it, I could do it. And he’s just always, he’s always What

Jennifer (30:55):
A lucky woman your mother was.

Aaron (30:57):
Yeah, my mom was that kind of person that had the list of projects and it was like before he finished she got

Jennifer (31:04):
A man

Aaron (31:04):
You could do it. And she always was adding the next project. But he came and he helped me do the roof and that was a pretty daunting part. And so that was a huge, huge blessing cuz I feel like it launched me two weeks ahead on the project. Cause if I had to do it by myself, I would take seriously if I had to do that roof by myself, it would not have been done in one day. We did it with my dad. Wow. That’s cool. It would’ve been cool cuz we literally were doing it together. He was on one end, I was on the other putting these boards up. First of all, I wouldn’t have known what I was doing. So it would taken me just a long time just to figure it out. But I’m just thankful that he came and helped me with that. It was a huge blessing. One thing that was funny that we kept saying to each other, because we would be making these, would put a board up and it would be like crooked.

Jennifer (31:49):
Nothing was

Aaron (31:50):
Square. Nothing square, nothing lined up. And we would just keep saying to ourselves, it’s just a chicken coop. <laugh>. Like, I’m not building a house. I’m not building something that we’re going to be living in. It’s a chicken coop. Chickens are living in it.

Jennifer (32:01):
So we can’t rent it out on Airbnb. Nope.

Aaron (32:03):
I think we still could make some good money. There’s someone out there that loves chickens enough that would live in a chicken coop. <laugh>. Especially this one. All right. No, I just think this idea that just having a healthy perspective of what it is we’re doing to have a good attitude about it.

Jennifer (32:17):
Keep expectations low. It

Aaron (32:19):
Really well it helped me because I was getting stressed because I was like, I’m, I’m thinking I need to be framing this. I would a house or something that needs to be totally perfect, but it’s a chicken coop. Yeah. I don’t need to be overwhelming myself with perfection. I just need to finish and do a decent job. And I did

Jennifer (32:38):
Make the chickens happy

Aaron (32:39):
And I’m sure they’re happy. We need to get them to live in that coop still. But they’re pretty happy being in the run at least.

Jennifer (32:45):
So here’s the big question is did you prefer my help or your dad’s help?

Aaron (32:49):
No question. I preferred all the help. Oh, so <laugh>, any help was welcome. And so I was happy that you helped me cuz there’s plenty of times that I couldn’t have done it without you either. Aw see

Jennifer (33:02):
That

Aaron (33:02):
Sounds good to hear. I was super blessed that my dad came too cuz I don’t think I would’ve been able to do the roof. I probably could have done it by myself, but it would’ve been not easy.

Jennifer (33:11):
So we finished the coop, which is amazing and awesome. And offer plate that. I’ll

Aaron (33:15):
99%. There’s a few things I need to do

Jennifer (33:18):
On it. Fun things like the run?

Aaron (33:20):
No. Well yeah, that’s a part of it. The fun stuff. You wanna talk about toys for the chickens? People are probably toys for the chickens.

Jennifer (33:27):
They’re chickens? No. Like a dust bath area?

Aaron (33:29):
No. There’s like some things I need to do to seal it up a little bit better but oh it’s not the other world. Okay, I’ll figure that out later.

Jennifer (33:36):
Cool. Well how do you like it?

Aaron (33:38):
I think it looks really good. I was just,

Jennifer (33:40):
You drove

Aaron (33:40):
Up tonight, I just told you, I was like babe, I was just driving up and I saw the coop through the trees and it really looks like it fits with the house.

Jennifer (33:47):
You did a really good job. It looks

Aaron (33:49):
Good. It does fit. You would never know that.

Jennifer (33:50):
And the little ladies are

Aaron (33:51):
Happy. Scrapped it together with scrap wood. So

Jennifer (33:52):
They’re laying eggs already for us and the kids. I can’t tell you how in love they are with just the idea of going out there to get the

Aaron (33:59):
Eggs. They’re like, mom, this one’s still warm. And we’re like,

Jennifer (34:01):
Thanks. That’s awesome. Well actually made scrambled eggs with them. They taste really good.

Aaron (34:06):
They are really good eggs. One of the chickens keeps laying these double yolk eggs. The only eggs she lays is double yolk eggs. They’re these, they’re twice the size of the rest them. I wonder

Jennifer (34:15):
If that means something.

Aaron (34:16):
I don’t know. But I’m pretty stuck. I feel

Jennifer (34:17):
Like we have so much to learn about chickens,

Aaron (34:20):
But we have them and they got a place to live. Winning currently.

Jennifer (34:24):
So why they’ve heard the story here we are wrapping things up. Why is it good to do hard things together in marriage? What

Aaron (34:31):
Does this have to do with marriage? Yeah,

Jennifer (34:32):
Because it’s a marriage podcast. We can’t just talk about chickens, guys. Well

Aaron (34:38):
Doing projects, it gives you the opportunity to grow and doing these things. This was a way bigger than I thought it was going to be, but we did it. And that feels good at it forces us.

Jennifer (34:50):
Look at what we did to communicate.

Aaron (34:52):
We had to communicate a

Jennifer (34:52):
Lot to be a team to hand each other things and also participate.

Aaron (34:57):
Prioritization and timing of things. We had to put time to it. So we had to sacrifice time for other things.

Jennifer (35:05):
I like being with you

Aaron (35:06):
While we were out there. It was a lot of family time cuz we had to have the kids out there with us and it wasn’t like, we can just go do something else. We were like, well we gotta finish this chicken coop. We’re here today. We’re

Jennifer (35:16):
Also, and the kids got to help on it. We also get to see each other’s abilities. I got to see that you were capable of doing something like this. You

Aaron (35:22):
Do. Seeing me nail wood together

Jennifer (35:25):
And love I do. I think it’s resourceful and

Aaron (35:26):
Cutting wood with a saw. It’s

Jennifer (35:28):
Cool. I like it. We get to encourage each other along the way and that feels good.

Aaron (35:35):
I think a big thing that happens, we talked about this a little bit with what our kids see us doing and I think there’s a huge value in our children watching us do these things. And also being invited into them like hey, you can come. And a lot of our time that our kids are just playing with a hammer and nails while we were working,

Jennifer (35:54):
Stealing our tools.

Aaron (35:56):
Does anyone have my hammer <laugh>. And why would Redn go get it? Because they just wanna do that stuff. I remember being a kid, I did, I wanted to do the same thing. So they

Jennifer (36:04):
Have different ideas,

Aaron (36:06):
Loving them, watching us do this hard thing, build this thing and then at the end of the day be like, wow, look what we did. Yeah. Because I’m sure they feel like they’re a part of it. I think that’s a huge benefit to our children. Totally.

Jennifer (36:20):
I think also them seeing us do something start to finish and for us it brings that sense of accomplishment. We did that together.

Aaron (36:27):
They’re not just giving up in the

Jennifer (36:28):
Middle. It gives us courage to do other things together and to say yes to them when they come and accepting hard things for the good that comes out of them. Just having chickens, we’re receiving eggs. That’s good

Aaron (36:40):
And fun and fun and responsibility and building something that protects them and takes care of them and it’s ours. I also think because there were times in the middle of it that I did want to quit and I’m sure my kids heard me say that, but then not quitting. Yeah. It’s cuz that what that shows our kids is so those feelings do arise.

Jennifer (37:00):
So it’s an opportunity that tests our hearts and our stamina for when things get tough. And that to me is refinement.

Aaron (37:07):
And it’s something our kids are growing in and learning. They’re like, man, I don’t want to clean up after myself or I don’t want to finish this thing. But then seeing us follow through is something that we also don’t want to finish. It teaches them that they can too. Yeah.

Jennifer (37:24):
Do you feel like doing things together with me gives our marriage a sense of purpose, even though it’s not necessarily kingdom work or ministry, it’s still

Aaron (37:32):
Purposeful. Well I, I’d call it kingdom work and ministry work. I wouldn’t put this on probably top of the list, but a part of our kingdom work, and we mentioned this in a lot of our podcasts, is our ministry to our children. Them watching us work together, create things, build things, work hard, finish projects. Even when we want to quit is ministry to them. It’s showing them that’s true. How to do the same thing. Not with a chicken coop, but with anything. Starting a business, being married, they see us go through hard times and we don’t give up. They see us struggle and then we thrive. And this coop is a coop. But to them and to us, it’s just a part of our life that shows them how to be grown up and how to be faithful and how to continue on and how to do things that are hard.

Jennifer (38:24):
One of my favorite things about working together with you is that we’re not doing it alone. There are times that we have a alone time that a hobby or something that we enjoy doing alone. But when we work together and we need help and we are doing something hard, we’re there together. And we’re not just isolated and feeling discouraged because we’re alone. We’re doing it together. And I appreciate that about marriage and its purpose that it serves there.

Aaron (38:47):
So we got some scripture here that just kind of ties into some of these concepts. Why don’t you read the first

Jennifer (38:52):
One, the first one’s, Colossians 3 23, whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men. So basically, no matter what we choose to do or work on, if we have a posture of our hearts to do it for the Lord, that’s a good

Aaron (39:07):
Thing. And that’s, what

Jennifer (39:08):
Else does it mean? What

Aaron (39:10):
It means? Everything. Whatever it says. Whatever you do. So if I’m going to be putting my hand to writing a book as we’re doing right now, if I’m going to be putting my hand to making a chicken coop, building a home, raising my children, homeschooling, whatever, homeschooling, whatever our work is, whatever we put our hands to, he wants us to work hardly. It reminds me, Anna, we brought this up in several, several seasons ago about the workers at the temple and this desire that it was put in them and also the creativity and the skill to create something beautiful for God. But that’s what we do in life. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a piece of art,

Jennifer (39:47):
But we get to express ourselves through our work.

Aaron (39:50):
The attitude we have is how we paint that beauty. That’s really cool.

Jennifer (39:53):
I like

Aaron (39:54):
That. So whatever we do, we’re doing it

Jennifer (39:56):
For the Lord. And what benefit does that have to our marriage when we have that perspective or posture?

Aaron (40:02):
Well, if I would’ve had it more often, I probably would’ve had a better attitude at most sometimes when I was doing it to

Jennifer (40:08):
Be more enjoyable.

Aaron (40:09):
And I mean enjoy the process more, enjoy just work. This is hard and I’m enjoying it. It’s good to work hard and do hard things. So I think it’s beneficial to just recognize that the things we do are more than what the thing is. They’re more, does

Jennifer (40:31):
That make sense? And our attitude towards it influences or impacts kind of the atmosphere of mm-hmm. What you’re

Aaron (40:39):
Sprinting. Yeah, I was watching, which is a big deal.

(40:43):
So the next verse is Galatians six, nine and it says, let us not grow weary of doing good for induced season. We will reap if we do not give up. So what’s beautiful about that is in this thing, there were times that I felt like giving up like I’ve mentioned, but it’s good not to give up. It’s good to complete something that you start to dedicate the energy and the efforts and to show, hey, I’m going to finish this thing. I began just like God does in us. He finishes the work, he begins in us.

Jennifer (41:23):
When I heard you read that verse, something that came up into my mind is sometimes when you’re working together with your spouse and you don’t agree on a certain part of the project, sometimes you let pride frustrate you or offenses build up. And so when I hear, don’t let us grow weary of doing good, I’m thinking in the marriage itself, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing together, but how is your marriage being maintained while you’re doing those things? And don’t grow weary of doing good there. Just for the sake of your perspective of how the project should

Aaron (41:53):
Result. Well a good example I was at various times, discouraged, bad attitude, frustrated. It was hard cuz there I would get and then I would be, I’ll get to a problem with this building and I’m like, I literally dunno what to do cuz I’ve never done this before. I don’t have the tool for it. Whatever it was, you could have gone grown weary in encouraging me and could have got just fed up with me and said, fine, don’t finish it. But you didn’t. You kept encouraging me, which was a good thing. Yeah. Loving me, reminding me that it’s a good thing. Reminding me that it’s okay. Also reminding me that like, Hey, why don’t you take a break if you can’t figure it out, it’s okay. Hey

Jennifer (42:31):
Go do some landscape.

Aaron (42:33):
Let’s take a break and do something else for three days.

Jennifer (42:34):
Something else that frustrates you.

Aaron (42:36):
But that’s a part of that idea of not growing where and doing good to the others. So in me and how I speak to my children about the project, reminding ’em like, Hey this is a good thing. Hey this is an exciting thing. What

Jennifer (42:49):
You can’t say if you don’t believe

Aaron (42:51):
You gotta believe it. Yeah. It’s

Jennifer (42:52):
Good. Right. So is there a time one should quit? Is that a good question to ask or,

Aaron (42:58):
Yeah. When we were discussing this tonight, I brought this up cuz I think it would be wrong for us to say, Hey, never give up on a project you started. I think there’s probably some time that we’ve endeavored in something and we’ve actually done this ourselves. There’s been projects we’ve pursued that in the midst of it, we realized this isn’t aligned with where we want to go. This isn’t healthy,

Jennifer (43:20):
Conducive,

Aaron (43:21):
Healthy, our marriage, it’s a healthy firm marriage. It’s not conducive to our ministry. And we have to make the hard decision of like, hey, we’re going to pull the plug. And so I would say

Jennifer (43:32):
Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Aaron (43:34):
Yeah. And also be discerning and prayerful and

Jennifer (43:37):
Yields the spirit. <laugh>. Because he will tell you

Aaron (43:40):
And walk in wisdom.

Jennifer (43:41):
So the thing that we’re basically saying here, don’t give up on each other.

Aaron (43:46):
Yeah, that’s true. Don’t. Don’t go wearing doing the good thing. The good thing. That doesn’t mean that the thing you’re doing is good <laugh>. Right.

Jennifer (43:53):
Which you might have different opinions about.

Aaron (43:55):
Right. Because there could be something that we endeavor to work on that could actually be unhealthy or unwise. Yeah. Or financially destructive. Yeah, that’s true. That’s a big deal. So good points. I think we’re just, we want to give that rounded out view that we should be aware of is the thing we’re doing. Something that we should be pursuing. And I actually genuinely thought that several times with this chicken. I was like, we could just get rid of the chickens. This would be so much easier.

Jennifer (44:24):
The last verse,

Aaron (44:24):
We wanna, I’m glad we have the chickens. I love chickens.

Jennifer (44:27):
The last thing I wanna share, the last verse we wanna share is Proverbs 1423. It says, in all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. And what stood out to me about this is that there’s benefit to marriage when we help each other accomplish desired tasks. So you’ve got to-do lists, I’ve got to-do lists. We work together, we mm-hmm <affirmative> chomp at ’em and boom, we’re happy, we’re satisfied.

Aaron (44:50):
We talk about this on marriage after God a lot actually about this idea of coming together and using our energies and our powers

Jennifer (44:56):
And our talents. Combining resources. Yeah. Everything.

Aaron (44:59):
And

Jennifer (44:59):
Was that captain

Aaron (45:00):
Planet, I’ve almost said it <laugh> and hate us and moving that ball forward is much more powerful than both of us trying to tug at each other and do our own thing.

Jennifer (45:10):
Now here’s the warning and I’m sure we can all raise our hand and say we’ve done it. So this is just for everyone when we just say, yeah, we’re going to do that. Yeah, I’m going to help you with that. Yeah. Would that

Aaron (45:21):
Be nice if we, okay,

Jennifer (45:23):
But don’t follow through with it. It causes a lack of trust with words and a frustration to build up that nothing’s getting done because we’ve become talkers and not doers. Right? Am I wrong here?

Aaron (45:35):
Well if it’s something that’s worth doing, then it’s worth not just talking about it should be done.

Jennifer (45:42):
And if there’s something that someone’s ask your spouse is asking you and you don’t think that it’s a priority or you don’t think it should be done, then you need to say that too. You can’t just say Yeah honey, because that’s destructive if you don’t intend to do it or if you do intend to do it. But not right now.

Aaron (45:58):
If I say I’m going to fix that thing, it’s going to be done in the next six months. So just know <laugh> that

Jennifer (46:04):
As long as you communicate that there’s six months that I’m waiting, then we’re good. But if you don’t communicate that part, it becomes hard

Aaron (46:11):
Six.

Jennifer (46:12):
I think everybody agrees right now for sure. Everybody’s experienced. The frustration of hearing someone say, yeah, we’ll do that thing and then it not comes. So that’s all I’m saying is let’s be encouraging to one another by being careful of our words.

Aaron (46:25):
So I think that’s important. I think the point is, is not being just talkers but doers. Yeah. So we now have a chicken coop cuz we did it. Did

Jennifer (46:31):
It do okay. So is there a thing you listening, this is not for Aaron and I, our to-do list is completely done now.

Aaron (46:39):
It’s not. It’s so funny that you said that.

Jennifer (46:42):
Okay. Is there anything in your marriage or

Aaron (46:45):
I’m, I’m putting that at the refrigerator. What to-do list. We’re done is done.

Jennifer (46:49):
So is there anything in your marriage, anything on your to-do list that feels hard that you’ve been avoiding that probably should be done, that that should be done? Or is a priority that we can encourage you to go take the next step towards it? Even if it’s just a conversation of, Hey, should we do this?

Aaron (47:04):
Hey we, there’s been a handful of books I’ve read on habits and productivity and they all say something, grace to say, do the hard thing first. This is a big deal because often we push the hard thing off until last, but we don’t ever get to that thing.

Jennifer (47:21):
I just had a really random example pop in my head and it’s probably not a very great one, but I think people will understand. Okay, so I was watching a movie and it had ads playing on Amazon, and the first ad started out at 130 seconds and I was like, bummer. The second ad was like 170 something seconds, and I was like longer, and I was like, this is not, if it keeps increasing, the third one was like 30 seconds, and it kept going in small increments back up, but it didn’t feel like anything because as long as I avoided that hundred and whatever it was, I was okay. Does

Aaron (48:00):
That make sense? Yeah. I think Pandora or someone, another one of these apps has a, it says, listen ad free. If you click and watch this first ad and the ad is three minutes longer, and

Jennifer (48:14):
You’re like, oh, are you kidding me? But all it is, but if you were, do that ads broken up, right?

Aaron (48:18):
If you would, yeah, if you were to do that, you would get the whole thing. You would have no more ads for the rest of the time. But that’s the kind of idea. It’s

Jennifer (48:24):
Like a psychological thing.

Aaron (48:25):
Do that hard thing up front because

Jennifer (48:26):
Then everything else feels easy.

Aaron (48:28):
Everything else will fit.

Jennifer (48:29):
Sorry for wasting your time with that one. I know

Aaron (48:31):
<laugh>, everyone’s like, oh, Jen.

Jennifer (48:33):
Okay, moving on. Oh, Jen. Anyways, guys, we just wanna encourage you to take that next step towards whatever that hard thing is in your life and when the opportunity comes and you can say yes to say yes to it, obviously in wisdom, and consider the opportunity you have to work together beside your spouse to do something

Aaron (48:51):
Hard. Or most importantly, if your husband says, no, we shouldn’t do that thing, maybe you should just not do it. There might be, it might avoid some stress

Jennifer (49:00):
And some tension. Okay?

Aaron (49:02):
Yeah. But if you’re going to do it, I think you should do it with a good heart.

Jennifer (49:05):
All right? Right. Moving on. Okay. Weekly challenge, by the way, we hope you guys enjoyed that episode. <laugh>.

Aaron (49:12):
So many people are going to be building cheese shoes.

Jennifer (49:14):
Don’t get chickens. So last week’s challenge was to do something fun, quirky, silly, cranky.

Aaron (49:20):
Jennifer just shot me in the face with a silly string.

Jennifer (49:22):
I tried, he

Aaron (49:23):
Caught me. I saw her coming

Jennifer (49:24):
Though. He caught me in the reflection so I didn’t have to do it again. Some of the time. Hopefully you guys are enjoying these challenges and this week’s challenge is to write a letter of affirmation and share it with each other. So Aaron, you must write me a letter of affirmation and I’ll do the same to you. Yes, dear. Thank you. I wanted to share some encouraging phrases, phrases of affirmation for those of you who might need a jumpstart of encouragement. I like it when you, I love your, I appreciate it When you, I value your, I hope we, I envision, I can’t wait to,

Aaron (50:03):
So all you gotta do is answer all those questions.

Jennifer (50:05):
I mean, if you want to do that, Aaron,

Aaron (50:07):
You got a letter. This is exactly what I’m going to do. You’re going to get one of each of those.

Jennifer (50:12):
All right. Why don’t you close this out with the prayer.

Aaron (50:14):
Dear Lord, thank you for equipping us with strength and diligence to work together in marriage to do good works. Thank you for helping us to follow through with projects and do the hard things. We pray we continue to walk beside each other to do good work, kingdom work, and work that benefits our lives along the way. As we encounter tensions or misunderstandings, please fill us with the wisdom and self-control and our responses toward each other. We pray we would not let our pride get in the way of enjoying the process of doing hard things together. We also ask your Holy Spirit to remind us of the truth of your word. When we feel discouraged or disappointed, we pray we would not be a distraction to each other, but rather an encouragement to finishing Shing strong. Please help us to have lots of fun as we work side by side in any endeavor we pursue. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Jennifer (51:01):
Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. If

Aaron (51:04):
You found today’s episode fun and encouraging, please take a moment to share it on social media or in an email to some of your married friends.

Jennifer (51:10):
Also, would you please take a moment and leave us a review, reviews help to spread the word about our podcast?

Aaron (51:15):
Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode, and you can always check out more of our resources@marriageaftergod.com.

Jennifer (51:20):
You can follow us on social media from more marriage encouragement on Facebook and Instagram at Marriage after God at Husband Revolution, and at Unveiled Wife.

Aaron (51:29):
We hope you have an incredible week and look forward to sharing more with you next week on The Marriage After God Podcast.