Do You Have What It Takes To Make A Difference? The Answer May Surprise You

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Do You Have What It Takes To Make A Difference? The Answer May Surprise You!

Resources from this week's podcast: 

• https://cmr.biola.edu/resources/mentors/
• https://www.love-wise.com/

Mandy [00:00:01] Welcome to another Art of relationships podcast. We are grateful for listeners like you. Let's get right into it.

Chris [00:00:11] Well, welcome to another Art of relationship podcast. Alisa, it's so fun to be able to do this on all topics related to, relationships, marriage, all kinds of topics related to intimacy, right? Spiritual, physical, you know, emotional intimacy. And those are really fun to be able to do together.

Alisa [00:00:30] It is fun. And this being so close to Valentine's, we have a very special, couple of guests here in our office in a very special topic that we want to talk about today.

Chris [00:00:43] Yeah. Let's, introduce you to, Bill and Pam Farrell. You guys, thanks for joining us.

Pam [00:00:48] So great to be back at Biola.

Chris [00:00:50] Oh, yeah. And you've been here before, obviously, because you have a connection, right?

Pam [00:00:54] Right, right. We graduate. Well, Bill graduated I was the only pregnant, student on campus undergrad at the time. I was hugely pregnant.

Chris [00:01:04] That was quite the controversy out.

Pam [00:01:06] And there was a little bit there. Check in for my ring.

Alisa [00:01:08] Yeah I bet.

Chris [00:01:10] Yeah. So you were both undergrads and Bill? Yeah.

Bill [00:01:13] I actually came in for graduate school, so. Yeah, I entered Talbot in the early 80s. Yeah. And, it's a great experience. I was one of those people that came in kicking and screaming because I just wanted to get out into ministry, and. And when I realized I needed to go to seminary, I was like, kind of disappointed. And I look back on it when I probably shouldn't have been disappointed because those are great years, and I've still got friendships from those years that I was here at Biola. And, Jim Conway was one of my most significant. Professor and mentor, and I actually led his funeral and celebrated his going home to be with the Lord. So it is a lot of life changing things that happen here. Biola for Pam and I, I've.

Chris [00:01:56] And is this where you guys met then?

Pam [00:01:57] And we actually met even younger. We got married at 20, so we met. I was in junior college. Yeah. Okay.

Bill [00:02:04] Yeah, we were involved in crew. Yeah. Back then was Campus Crusade for Christ, and we met at a leadership conference through that ministry.

Pam [00:02:11] Good place to meet a good person at a leadership.

Alisa [00:02:13] Yeah.

Chris [00:02:14] Did you guys know, 40 years ago, 44 years ago, that you would one day be in ministry in the area of marriage? Was that always the plan?

Pam [00:02:22] We knew we would be ministry. Like when I came to Christ, at eight, I, I knew that a pastor led me to Christ. And so I'm like, oh, those are good people. I think I want to go into ministry one day. I didn't know what it would look like, you know? But I felt the call way back then even.

Bill [00:02:40] And I, I grew up in a pretty crazy home, and one of my mom's big responses to her fear was she isolated us. So I came to know Christ because I saw an evangelistic film in high school called The Exorcist.

Pam [00:02:55] Oh my God.

Chris [00:02:56] That's pretty evangelistic.

Pam [00:02:58] I still haven't watched it.

Bill [00:03:00] It's still recommended, but it scared me to reading the Bible. And when I came across first John four four, which says, greater is he who is in you, that he who is in the world. It turned the light on. And meeting Jesus was pretty dramatic for me. So I went from somebody who was pretty shut down and pretty numb to somebody who found life. So by the time I got to my freshman year in college, I was pretty sure I was going to be in ministry. And that's the only thing I knew to look for anybody I was going to date had to have a heart for ministry. And it was it wasn't well-developed. It wasn't well formed. I just knew if she was going to be in ministry. She's not she not for me. And when I met Pam and I saw her natural love for ministry, it made it impossible to resist her.

Pam [00:03:43] And we, you know, I we look back now, and we both came from crazy chaotic. You know, my I'm the first born daughter of an alcoholic dad with severe rage issues. Like, I wish that our family would make the headlines, but not for a good reason. Or like man shoots family and shoots himself. Domestic violence is the home I grew up in. But my mom's best friend, she loved Jesus, and so she invited us to come to church. And so as a little seven year old, I walked in. I'm like, ooh, that's what love looks like, I want to know the author. Love Jesus. And so we look back now, we're like, oh my goodness. God took two broken young people, rebuilt us because of our zeal on fervor. For Jesus is like, oh, the Bible says it, let's do it. Okay. And he rebuilt us from the, you know, DNA up, basically. And now we're in, marriage ministry and family ministry. So pretty much nothing freaks us out. People can share it pretty much anything. And we're like, oh, yeah, God can handle that.

Bill [00:04:38] At least I know she's wearing a Dodgers hat.

Alisa [00:04:40] I am, I am.

Bill [00:04:41] One of the tendencies I've learned about my family for for generations that I know of. When people get married, they find a way to break the relationship with their parents.

Pam [00:04:50] But really don't.

Bill [00:04:51] Like. I didn't know my dad's family ever. And from five on, I didn't know my mom's family. And I now have a picture at Dodger Stadium with my dad, myself, my oldest son and his son, and generations of men in my family sitting together. It hasn't happened for 100 years.

Alisa [00:05:08] He's.

Pam [00:05:08] God rebuilds bridges. Yeah, and we.

Alisa [00:05:11] Owe it all to the Dodgers. I'm in. God. Yeah.

Bill [00:05:15] Not exactly in that order, but.

Chris [00:05:17] That's right. Well, you know, it's it's so amazing how God, takes us, like, you know, the verse in Colossians where he says he's rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his son, Kingdom of light. Right. So then how did your guys's rescue and transfer into the Kingdom of Light? Well, I'll ask it this way. It began a journey and a process in you. You guys met, you get married, but you knew fairly early on you were going to to do ministry, and you landed on marriage. Why was that? Was was it because of trying to break that history and say, we're going to take a picture one day with all four of us? And even if you didn't think that that was God's plan, it was it's so amazing how he takes broken people. And there's so many listeners, you know, to podcasts like this who think, you know, I just don't have a good model. I don't have good parents, I don't have a good family. I don't know what I'm going to do when it comes to, you know, difficult times in in relationships. Will I even be able to succeed in relationships when no one else has? Right. And so you guys are a testament to the fact that it is, permanent transfer into light. It doesn't mean that we have all the tools yet, but at least we have that foundation.

Pam [00:06:35] Tools and skills. Very important. Obedience. Hugely important. Well, I look back now and, when I, we got married, you know, we were super broken. But we're trusting Jesus. And immediately we started teaching youth ministry. Like the day we got back from our honeymoon, we were youth pastors. And it all the questions and all the, angry arguments seem to be relationship driven, you know, between parents and kids. And so that kind of started the path there. And then, so then we started teaching relationship seminars for the high school and college students. And then the parents were like, like, what are you going to teach our kids? And then they had their own questions about relationships. So then that kind of expanded into us teaching relationship seminars for parents, so that their marriages could stay together. And, my parents actually divorced. And, my first time they saw each other was at our wedding, and it was so toxic that we had family members assigned, you know, like, okay, you take care of that, make sure it doesn't wreck everything. You take care of mom, and, you know, that kind of thing. They were on their best behavior. It ended up being wonderful. But, I look back now, it's God put the pieces together in a beautiful way. And really, very soon God called Bill here to Talbot.

Chris [00:07:54] As you think about, in that journey, there are some who are just starting that journey. What what would you tell them right away? Let's say they know they have a found date. They know they've come to Christ. They they're dating, they're engaged, they're newly married, but they come from your background or my background, to be honest, in a lot of backgrounds that are not healthy, not good. And so you guys used to teach them in this college class or in this relationship class. What what was one thing that stuck with you that helped them the most? What what advice did you give them?

Bill [00:08:32] So I got to tell you, Chris, we started actually pretty awkward because we get married, we're 20 years old. We looked at each other and said, wow, we love each other. We love Jesus, and we have no idea what we're doing. And we used to go to church and we would stand in the back and wait for people to sit down, and we would look for couples that looked like they liked each other.

Pam [00:08:51] Like that had a little bit of gray hair, you know, maybe they had the arm around them or holding hands. And we and Bill was so smart. He put us right behind that.

Bill [00:09:00] And our church had a greeting time. So during the greeting time, we'd shake hands and I look at the guy and they say, it looks like you're in love with this woman. It is this real. And if you said yes, I would say, well, how do you do it? Which you can't answer that question at church, so that.

Pam [00:09:14] Usually.

Bill [00:09:15] You usually they do an invitation to go have lunch afterwards. And at lunch we just ask them all kinds of questions like, what do you do first thing in the morning? Well, what habits do you have that help you, you know, make this work, right? What are the dumb things you've done that you wouldn't recommend to anybody?

Pam [00:09:29] What are the hardest years and how did you get through them? And it was really wonderful to see the patterns. And so mentoring that's what we would say. Get some good mentors.

Chris [00:09:39] You know that's just so encouraging. Lisa I think it's so similar. What great advice right away. First of all. And that is all of us start out, in this very young phase where maybe we don't know everything, and there are those who have lifted ahead of us, and you just look for the people. Least I remember, that was really on our hearts when we first got married. You had great people that you looked up to, that that were in a great marriage. And then when we got married, that's exactly what we did. We started looking for couples. And in fact, we found some.

Alisa [00:10:18] We really did, because both of us, Chris grew up in a home that was broken by divorce by the time he was seven. No young around junior high. And then my parents ended up divorcing after I was gone, after I had married and left. You know, it's like the last vestiges of what kept them together with just the kids. Once they were gone, they found they had nothing left and they ended up divorcing is. So we both came into marriage knowing what we didn't want to do, but we didn't really have the skills to know what to do in the right way. We just knew what not to do. And so, thank God for those couples that the Lord brought into our lives through a couples Bible study. Our first year, there was a couple to the navigators that led a couples Bible study, and we were all newlyweds. And there's this couple. They probably been married 25 years, had four kids. They were awesome and just poured into us. But this is the interesting thing I was when I was in college, before I'd even met Chris, I was really involved in the college department, really involved in church, had grown up in church, came to faith at a young age. And, and so it's always part of my life very different from Chris, who they didn't hardly darken the doorstep of church unless it was Christmas or Easter and in eventually even not that. So we grew up very differently. But when I was in college, there were a couple of couples who worked with the college students at my church that I like. I would watch them. I would listen to how they talk to each other. I would watch the way they treated each other, like you said, like that arm or around the husband's arm, around his wife holding hands, the way they handled. We were on mission trips during spring break and not everything goes right. During the mission start, we were actually building a church in the middle of Utah, a Baptist church in the middle of Utah. That's my home territory. Oh, really? And, and, you know, when there's a lot of construction, you're tired. You're going like 18 hours a day, five days in and a week. Yes you are. You're not always at your best. But I watched those couples and how they navigated when things weren't going well. And it was such an inspiration to me because I looked at them and I said, that's what I want, Lord. I don't want to settle for mediocre. I don't want to settle for second best, because maybe I'm getting impatient for you to work in my life. I'm committed to waiting for whatever is best and least.

Chris [00:13:04] I could tell that was. I mean, you talked about that when we first met as really important. Like, you just look for couples, like. Yeah.

Alisa [00:13:14] And how many couples at church have no idea that someone is watching them?

Bill [00:13:20] Yeah.

Alisa [00:13:20] Somebody's listening to them. Someone's taking a count of their interactions. They have no idea.

Chris [00:13:27] You know? So let's ask Ashlee. Ashlee? You're dating? Ashlee is part of our podcast at times. Ashlee, you're dating someone. Is that the same today? I mean, we were talking for us. This happened 30, 40 years ago. But today we have young couples like you. You're in church, you're dating somebody seriously.

Alisa [00:13:48] You're watching us like a hawk. No, we have it together.

Chris [00:13:53] No, that's not what I'm asking.

Alisa [00:13:54] Oh, that's not what she said.

Chris [00:13:56] But tell me about young people. You know, people dating today. Is that still something that you look forward to? Or you see or you notice couples that are doing well?

Ashlee [00:14:06] Yeah. Yeah, I can think about different seasons and different couples that have been really impacted. Full in different seasons of my life. I can think of, a lifelong family, friends that I also babysat for. That walked with me through different relationships in high school. And, I can think of a couple in particular who my boyfriend and I go to communicate with them and served in youth ministry with them. And I remember going to community group, a couple first couple of the first weeks and just being an all about their vulnerability, their prayer requests the first week or both for patients with one another. And they were very open about their kitchen fights in the way that they can easily get frustrated about loading the dishwasher and how the communication is impacts and all these things. And I remember, my boyfriend driving home and being like, wow, we are both just really in awe of their vulnerability and their willingness to just be honest with those in their community and ask for prayer and invite them in. And so that was really eye opening, encouraging for us. And, there was also an assignment that my wife and to do where we, went to our mentor's house and asked them just questions about their marriage for I think it is a marriage of or a psychology of marriage class, rather. And they shared some really, really raw, really hard things about their marriage that from an outside perspective, we would have had no idea about. And just seeing, the way God has moved in their story, it was really moving for us. And I think being, exposed to vulnerability and community and realizing, yes, these people are older than us, but they're also our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we can learn a lot from them and alongside of them. And so from that, being encouraged to go up to people and ask them, hey, can we hang out with you guys are, hey, if we watch your kids go out and date night, you know, just getting involved in their life in different ways, I think has been huge in in my relationship and just my life in general.

Chris [00:16:03] I love that, Ashlee. Thank you. You know. I think this whole point kind of can be summarized this way. All of us are looking and need mentors. Need somebody to look up to. Even when you've been married 44 years, right? There are still ways that you can pour out both from above, you know, people and or and or feeling someone who's younger can actually help you because you have to live it. I think the number one thing young couples struggle with and young people struggle with is inauthenticity. They see you at church, but then they notice how you treat the other person or you're not, you know, acting the same way, the way you're speaking. And that could be devastating. So you guys learned right away. And I think this is what Elisa's point to us. You find those who have an authentic connection between what they say and who they really are, and that's really easy to do.

Bill [00:17:03] And I would say to people who are listening, you, you don't have to be a professional to do this. Amen. Like I've noticed, every church we've been in, there are people in the church to have real world wisdom, but they're not presenters, so they don't feel like they have much to say. And I would say great marriages. You may not be able to teach a class. You may not be able to get up and give a presentation, but you could probably take a young couple to lunch and just say, if you have any questions, we'll do our best to answer.

Chris [00:17:29] Well that's.

Alisa [00:17:30] Great. You know, what I notice is that when you when you talked about like that couple you set behind at church, you it doesn't sound like you said, hey, would you guys be willing to mentor us? You didn't use that phrase. You just said, hey, would you be willing to go to dinner? To lunch? And can we ask you some question.

Bill [00:17:49] That smooth at least say like the invitation lunch came from.

Pam [00:17:52] Them? Yeah. It was we were grateful because we're so awkward college students at the time, we're like, oh, well, wisdom and free lunch. Thank you.

Chris [00:18:02] That's such a good point.

Alisa [00:18:03] I think what we're what I want to keen on is that. I think you hit the nail on the head, bill, when you said to many older, experienced, well-grounded, well, loving couples feel like they don't have something to offer because they just don't know. Well, if you asked me to mentor you, where would I start? What would I do? I we don't have a perfect marriage. What can I have to offer? But nobody, nobody has a perfect marriage. Bill and Pam Ferrell, you have authored 59 books over the years. You have traveled the world. You have spoken to hundreds and thousands of people, no doubt over 44 years of ministry, of marriage ministry, family ministry. And I'm going to guess you don't have a perfect relationship.

Chris [00:18:54] Let's talk about some of the faults that you guys have. Let's bring that up. Let's dive into that. Because, you know, we just we want to be really real in this book not least. That's a great.

Pam [00:19:03] Point, isn't.

Alisa [00:19:04] It? I mean, you don't have to have the perfect marriage. You just have to be willing. Yeah, you have to be teachable and you have to be a little bit further along down the road, spiritually mature, growing, walking with the Lord to pour into someone else and available.

Pam [00:19:21] Yeah, I just picture it as I'm a signpost. Walk this way, you know. Follow me as I follow Christ. And so if I can just point people to like verses, that'll help. Examples, little help things that helped us in the past, here's some great resources. And, you know, for those older couples that want to quote mentor pour into a young life, we encourage, hey, just take them to coffee and say, how can we help you? How can we walk alongside you? What would be encouraging to you? And if they want more formal, you know, mentorship? There are so many great Christian authors. And like in the back of all of our marriage books, there's, you know, mentoring questions or we call them, dinner and dialog questions. You can couples can use you can just pull out a question or two every time you're together. So it can be really simple really. It's that availability they were talking about that you just open the front door of your house and say, hey, come on in, be a part of our world and hopefully it'll bless you. It'll help you grow.

Bill [00:20:19] Okay. And let me just state one more thing because, I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle. Like we we would meet with these couples. There are two things that I was told by very ordinary couples that I have never forgotten. They stuck with me for four decades. First one was take sarcasm out of your marriage, which was really important for us. We don't do sarcasm well, and for us it would be a defense mechanism. And second thing I heard was don't ever lose your curiosity. I just stay curious about Pam the rest of your life and you will enjoy her. And I found that to be extremely good advice, and I heard it from an ordinary couple at an ordinary restaurant on an ordinary day.

Chris [00:21:00] Yeah. And so, Bill, when that advice that stuck with you. What what what did that mean to you? How did you practically do that?

Bill [00:21:07] When you're young and you're fascinated and, you know, you're young, all right? Chemicals in your brain that you're addicted to your spouse. I was just like, oh, that's cool. And now that I look back on it, I look at our life. In about every seven years, our life has changed. And as our life changes, Pam's approach to life has changed. And so every seven years, I get to rediscover who she is and what she's about. And so I have found that translating that into what I call recreational listening. Like as men, we always think there's a point to every conversation. So we going to find the point, find a solution and get to it. And I've discovered that when I replace that with I'm just going to take a verbal walk with Pam and take a walk through her life. I discover new things about her. I see the new approach that she's got to life. And it rekindles my interest in her. So I like to say I've been married to six different women, and they're all named Pam.

Chris [00:22:03] What? And, you know, as a psychologist, that's a very right on point. And it goes like this. Each of us have our own very unique created souls. We are unique as far as our likes and dislikes, our personalities, and that is well set within us, right? We? But what happens is life hits you differently than it hits your spouse. And pretty soon you have new ideas, new thoughts, new passions, new dreams. And to be able to keep up with that because you yourself, each one of us are changing. And I think maybe a subtle point that needs to be brought out is that people change, and sometimes it leads to, I don't even know who you are anymore and I don't like you, or I don't like this new person because they don't allow for growth, right? Or they don't.

Bill [00:23:00] Since that is my goal. My goal was to understand you, I understood you, and then you changed them and you violated the goal.

Pam [00:23:09] You know, one of the simple things, sometimes it can be really simple things that can change the trajectory of your relationship, whether you drift apart or whether you purposely drift together. And so what's a great phrase?

Chris [00:23:20] Purposely drifting to drift together.

Pam [00:23:23] And, one of the couples that I looked up to as a high school student, they took a walk to the ice cream place every night after dinner, and I thought, wow, you've been married like 40 something years and you're so in love. I can see it in your faces. And then I heard about walking hand in hand every night to ice cream. I'm like, well, there's a good payoff. There's ice cream. That's the one hand in hand. And so Bill and I have always taken a prayer walk every night and how we, kind of morphed it over the years is we talk about our requests, then we pray them up as we walk. And, during Covid when it was all, like, depressing. We would listen to a Christian comedian first, and then we would talk about our requests, and then we would pray them all up. Yes. And, our kids, as they are now married some a couple decades. They do that walk and talk to it. So it's simple. You touch hands. So you're, you know, your bodies are connecting. But you're touching hearts as you walk.

Chris [00:24:23] And what's a great question for him? I mean, how do you start it, let's say at a simplistic level. Hey, I'm listening to this. I want to do this. I need to get to Reno. refigure out my spouse and and I want that, too. And you know what's a good starting point? I mean, the walk with ice cream would be a great point to say, hey, well, what do you dream about most? Or what's on your heart? Do you guys have a good opening question that you like to do?

Pam [00:24:52] Or sometimes it's really practical, like, wow, what's on the front burner? How can I pray for you? You know what's on your heart? What bugged you today that I might be able to help with? And so sometimes it's like problem solving, but other times it's like, hey, let's talk about hopes and dreams. And this next year, if we could do one thing, what would you want it to be?

Bill [00:25:11] Well, we all have an advantage today, and that you could do a search on questions for couples and get inundated. And you can find the questions that are of interest to you because, like Pam and I, our questions for each other would be things like, hey, what are you proud about our boys with? And it would naturally lead to a sports or ministry conversation because that's what our family has been all about. If I asked Pam, Pam, what's the last thing that made you smile? She would go, oh, that's a great question. If I said, when's the last time you got applause in public? They made you feel important because she loves. Attention. Well, if she was shy, that question would not be good for our relationship. So I would say do a quick search and look for questions for couples and pick out the 2 or 3 you like, and then ask your spouse. And make it your goal, especially to the guys. Make it your goal to have at least a 20 minute conversation about that question. Recreational listening with recreational listening. Will.

Chris [00:26:09] Yeah. And as you do that search, by the way, you know, we have we have all those questions 32 questions to intimacy higher, 30 questions to spiritual intimacy on our website. But I love that, Lisa. It feels like, that idea is you can also do this not just with your spouse, but you can even take questions like that. We have found in work with other couples and walk through them together home with other couples.

Alisa [00:26:35] You can do it with your friends. You can do it with your kids.

Pam [00:26:39] Grandkids.

Alisa [00:26:40] Grandkids. Yes, I it's really fun. And I think the one the death knell of a relationship is complacency, isn't it? When we stop trying and couples I think that say, well, we just, we just grew out of love. We just grew apart. Well, you don't just grow apart. You stopped being intentional. That's right. The way you were at the beginning, you became complacent. Once you won that person's heart and you quit trying. Right. And so. So to take advantage of these opportunities, to be curious, ask questions, get to know them all over again. Just assume that there's always another layer deeper.

Pam [00:27:29] You could go, oh, that's so good.

Alisa [00:27:31] There's another area. It's like a your partner and you're both like a diamond, and you're constantly cutting new facets that make you sparkle, that make you shine, that make you different, make your partner sparkle and shine. You've just got to take the time sometimes to rub a little bit of coal off. Shine it up buffet by asking questions, being curious, pursuing, showing interest.

Bill [00:27:57] I just feel they add one more thing, because one of the things I see couples getting conflict over is their strengths. Like there's areas of life, I'm strong and they come really easy. To me, it's predictable that those would be areas in Pam's life that are not her strongest, because we marry what we don't have and rather than stay curious about like came in those areas that are slow growth areas for her. I see couples all the time were critical in those areas. Well, if you would just do it the way I do it, if you would just be as good as I am in that. But the whole point is she bring strengths. I bring strengths that together were better, but our strengths also are point to friction. So if you can maintain your curiosity in those areas and just help the other person carry the weakness rather than be critical of it, it's easier to keep that intimacy going.

Pam [00:28:47] And I've seen that oftentimes if we talk to God first about those areas of friction or just like I feel like our hearts are drifting apart, God, or how can I like minister to my spouse? And what will draw us closer? You know, God is faithful. He will answer us, and he'll give us like questions to ask our spouse. He'll give us unique, fun ideas, to do with our mate that will draw us closer together. He'll even point out people in church to sit behind and have them take you to lunch.

Chris [00:29:18] Pam, I don't think this is from the Lord at all, but I do sense of strength and bill as the Dodgers and I don't know if it's a weakness of yours, but it could very well be that he's calling you to learn that line up like my wife has. You know who's playing, who's batting. That's not her strength. But anyway, you know, that's that's a possibility.

Alisa [00:29:38] As we wrap up today, one thing that I want to make sure that our listeners know about is through, you know, our podcast is sponsored by the Biola University's Center for Marriage and Relationships. And we have created a fabulous marriage mentoring curriculum called Marriage Mentoring. Yes. And it has a supplementary video that goes along with it. And so you can buy that bundle. Actually, we were at a conference just this weekend in Florida, and a man and his wife came up to me and said, hey, we just bought 50 copies of your marriage mentoring curriculum because we're going to start going through it in a class at our church. And that's a fabulous I'm so excited to hear that. Let me know what you think about it. But if you are interested and you would like to get your own copy to to go through with another couple a small group, or maybe it's just you and your spouse and you want to mentor your own marriage. We'd really encourage you. Check out our website at CMU, dot, Biola, Edu and look up marriage mentoring and you can purchase your own copies today. Get some for a friend. Boy, if Christmas wasn't already over, I would say, you know, get them as a Christmas gift.

Pam [00:30:51] Valentine's day, Valentine's surprise.

Alisa [00:30:54] Right. And so we'll wrap up today and Chris.

Chris [00:30:57] And in, Bill and Pam, you guys have so many books out there, we're going to put some links in there, especially for the ones that you think, and there are some books that you would recommend for young couples, for those that are trying to grow a lot of areas, shout it out right quick or we'll.

Pam [00:31:16] Put them in or like, waffles, like spaghetti. That's our bestsellers, translated into 17 different languages. And we have a version for singles and teenagers and married couples in a video curriculum. It's the gift that just keeps giving, so that that's what.

Bill [00:31:31] Most young couples find most helpful.

Chris [00:31:34] Great. Well, you guys look for that. We'll put the link in there if you didn't get it. Men are like waffles. Women like spaghetti. What we'll make. We'll put it there so you guys can find it. Thank you guys for just, sharing your heart. And I love your journey. How how we each look to others. We look to Jesus, as the guide, as our Lord. But along the way, along that journey. Pam, I loved how you said walk this way. Follow me this way. And that's the way you're going, because that's the way Jesus calls you to go in the whole.

Alisa [00:32:03] And we're just so grateful the way God has gifted you and the incredible opportunity for Kingdom impact, because you said yes to him and because Pam, you said yes to Bill.

Pam [00:32:14] Amen.

Alisa [00:32:15] So thank you. Those are good yeses. Thank you for being with us today. We love having you.

Pam [00:32:20] My life has always gotten better every time I've said yes to Jesus.

Chris [00:32:23] So good advice. And Ashlee, thank you too for your impromptu stuff for me. All right, well, we'll talk to you guys next time. Thanks for joining us.

Mandy [00:32:34] Thanks for listening to the Art of relationships. This podcast is only made possible through generous donations from listeners just like you. If you like it and want to help keep the podcast going. Visit our website at cmr.biola.edu and make a donation today.