Okay, welcome tonight to tonight's community session. Tonight's community session is simply
called love story. If you know, you know, if you're an OG, you might have been around
when we used to do this, this particular type of session, we haven't actually done it in
a long time. But we will start doing it. I'm not going to say regularly, but we will start
doing it semi regularly. And I'll tell you all about it in just a second. I have a few
community announcements to make spirit mate match intake forms are ready. So we are ready
to share the spirit mate match intake form, you might ask, What is that? Well, it's kind
of like a glorified questionnaire of sorts. You know, I was calling it a questionnaire.
My husband corrected me. He said, Babe, it's an intake form. I'm like, Okay, it's an intake
form. Because the questionnaire is something that might not be connected to technology.
But this is connected to technology. So you would you're going to fill this out. All right,
we're going to put up a link and all the groups, you're going to be able to fill it out. And
it's gets pretty specific. It's gonna and it's important that you fill it out in in
its entirety and its totality. So it might ask some really personal questions on there.
And I just want to let you know that the answers that you put, I'm gonna go really slow right
now as I'm making this announcement, because people will start emailing us with all kinds
of questions. And you know what, the answer is usually we're already shared. So I'm gonna
go really slow, because I know I talk fast sometimes. So it's an intake form. No one
will see the answers to it, except for the computer, the computer. So be honest, okay,
don't leave anything out, don't skip anything. And there are required fields that you can't
skip. You can't skip them, even if you want to, you can't. And so it's important that
you fill it out fully and honestly, because it is going to use technology to help the
matchmakers find you compatible matches. All right. That is what the purpose of this is.
Now everyone in the community about be at a different kind of level of being able to
interact with this new system, this new service, because it is a matchmaking service. But all
of you, without exception, will be able to fill out that intake form and go into what
I call the dating pool. It's not the data pool, it is a data pool, but I'm calling it
the dating pool. Now some of you might be on the shallow end of the dating pool. And
some of you might be waiting out to the deeper end of the dating pool, but you'll all be
in the dating pool, which will be good. And we'll explain to you as we go forward, what
we're going to do with this information, what the computer is going to do with it,
what opportunities do you have to engage with people that match with you based on the criteria
that this algorithm puts out. It's going to be great. At the very least, we're going to
put together really curated online and in-person events. And at the very most, you actually
might be using this technology, the matchmaker might match you with your spirit mate. Personally,
I might personally do that. But like I said, and I'm going to be very clear, it all depends
on what level of membership you're in within the community. And those are things that will
be explained later as we go forward. Now that we have this service available that so many
of you have been asking for, for so long, Jackie, can you matchmake me? Can you matchmake
me? Is there a matchmaking service? Is there a matchmaking capability? Yes. Now there is.
Now there is. I want to also, because a couple newer people, and I don't even know if they're
here to phase three yet. So maybe this is redundant for me to say this, but, or pointless,
I should say for me to say it, not redundant. I say this all the time, but I don't know
if it's going to reach the people that need to hear it. And that is, there are so many
things that should be happening to you and in you as a result of being in this community.
Only one of which has to do with your love life. Hopefully you see that there's so much
more value here. And if you don't, then it's possible that you're dealing with some kind
of anxious attachment, meaning that it's all about where's the person, where's the person,
where's the person that's going to complete my life. Where's the magic bullet of happiness
that's going to change my life. If I could just find that person, then everything's going
to be okay and be better. And that's not necessarily true. It isn't. And so I really want to encourage
you to take advantage of what you've been sent here to take advantage of.
Now we have a rollout plan and Bethany, I see you're here. Thank you for being here
tonight. We have a rollout plan for this.
new service, because we have to get 1000 plus people to do the
intake form. In order for this to work, we need all of you to
do your intake form. Okay, so it's going to take we have a we
have a rollout calendar. And so we're going to go ahead and
share that intake form with you when, as soon as possible here,
we're going to decide within ourselves as a team tomorrow
morning on our meeting, what what's the best way to get it to
you? Should we post it as a link in the app in the resource part
of the app, all of your groups have a resource page in your
app? Is that how we do it? We email it out to all of you. But
then some of you don't ever check your emails from us. So is
that not the right way to do it? You guys? You have no idea how
crazy it is behind the scenes trying to serve all of you. And
we're doing our best. We have an amazing team. And I'm so
thankful for our team. But we are doing our best. And so we're
going to give you a calendar of what you can expect. Just know
this, the sooner that you fill out your intake form, the
better. And I know you're gonna have lots of questions like, you
know what, I don't think I should have answered that
question that way. I'd like to go back and change that answer.
Is it possible for me to go back and change that answer? Someone's
gonna ask that. Right. So we have a chat bot that is being
programmed right now. She's not ready to go yet. But her name is
Jane. And she's Jackie's little know-it-all sister. If you guys
don't know this, the media company that my husband and I
founded together many years ago is called Jane Media, J-A-N-E
like the girl's name. And so our chat bots name is Jane. And
she's going to be a little smarty pants know-it-all when we
get done with her right now. She's just still learning what
she needs to know, thanks to good old AI. But eventually, she
will be able to answer any and all questions that you have. And
that will be great. But in the meantime, you know what we're
going to do? Instead of you emailing us, please listen very
carefully. Do not email us about spirit mate match service. Do
not email us. If you email us, I know this is mean we're going to
delete your email. We're not going to answer it. Because we
told you not to. So what I do want you to do is I want you to
pay attention in the app, anything that's pinned to the
featured section. If you're in a Facebook group, you can pay
attention there because we will still pin it to the featured
section of that group as well. But also pay attention to the
calendar that we're going to give you. And so if that date
hasn't passed yet, then that means we're still working on
that level or that tier of letting people on. And guess
what we're going to have instead of you emailing us, we're going
to have information sessions. We're going to have zooms like
this where you can come and ask all your questions at one time.
And some of our staff will be here to answer all those
questions. Does that sound good? Because this rollout is
going to take a few weeks, several weeks to do. And so it's
important that we don't want you guys to get discouraged. But we
also want you to know that we're moving forward, moving forward
fast. I have a whole different announcement to make that
doesn't even have to do with this is that just as exciting as
this, that I can't tell you tonight because otherwise my
team's going to vote me off the island. Because they're like
Jackie, you can't keep a secret. You tell people too soon. And
then everyone's emailing us and asking us when when when when
but I will tell you that it's another whole rollout that we've
been working on behind the scenes that also will be
available in the next few weeks. And I'm going to tell you about
that soon. And I'm going to be doing something around the
subject of that rollout on Supernatural Saturday this
Saturday. And so if you can be there, be there. And if you're
not there, be square. All right, because it's going to be great.
Make sure you watch the email the replays of anything and
everything you miss. And yes, there will be replays for those
information sessions. And so if you ask us in the app, hey, what
about this, we're just going to give you the link to the replay.
It's just easier. It's better that way. That way all your
questions get answered. Okay, cool. All right. All right. Okay.
So for those of you, all of you should be phase three that are
in here. Right, Bethany, that's all we have is men in phase
three. Is that correct? Men in phase three is what just phase
three and men tonight. Okay, so that being said, do not share
this information with your friend that's in phase one and
heartwork. You got them to do the hard work. Now they're here.
They're in phase one. You know why? Because this isn't
information for them. They're not going to get the intake
form. It's not time for them to do that. Our dating sabbatical
still exists for phase one, phase two, we're not going to
onboard them onto this while they are in their dating season.
That's true. We want to make sure that we get all phase three
and all the men on first night. You're like, well, Jackie,
there's not that many men. So what are you worried about?
There actually is I have a group of men. They're not in men
training.
for ship like Rob here is or Hunter is,
but they are engaged at some level with this community
and there's 900 plus of them.
So I have to get them into the algorithm, don't I?
Raise your hand ladies if you want me to.
I think that it's unanimous, all right?
So yes, we have guys that are here that are, you know,
doing the program part of what we're doing
and then there are other guys that are doing
that wanna sign up for the matchmaking side.
I personally think the guys that have volunteered
as tribute to do the program side,
we're gonna give them special perks
and they're gonna get, because of their membership,
they're gonna have a whole different tier
of being able to use the service
than the other guys or the other folks.
But when people hear about it,
they're gonna wanna join up
at that level of membership, right?
And so it's important
that we don't let the cat out of the bag.
Keep all cats in bags.
Okay, this is just an announcement
for this tier of our community
until we can get you guys all safely onboarded.
And you guys, I'm super excited.
We have been waiting for this as a team
for at least two years.
And so here we are and we're finally here
and it's really, really exciting.
You guys, I have gone through this intake form
with a fine tooth comb.
I'm asking questions like, do you have any pets?
What kind of pets do you have?
Are you open to other people that have pets?
What kind of pet?
Are you dogs only?
Are you cats only?
Are you any kind of pet?
Are you allergic to animals?
You're like, Jackie, why all those questions?
Because tonight's love story.
And so we're gonna touch on a few love stories.
I'm gonna let you ask me as the matchmaker
any questions that you want about any love stories, okay?
I might leave out some names to protect the innocent
or the guilty, but all love stories,
including my love story is up for grabs tonight.
And the reason why that's part of this intake form
is because I have seen people break up
and or get separated from being married
because of a animal.
Yes, just a few weeks after the wedding.
You know, I thought I could,
but I just really can't live with your cat.
Are we kidding right now?
I mean, I personally don't like cats either,
but I don't like them because I've never been around one.
Maybe I would like a cat if I knew a cat
and a cat knew me.
I personally think those little flat faced cats
are pretty cute, little grumpy cats.
I'm not allergic to cats.
And so there's no reason why I can't be around a cat.
Some people will say I'm allergic
instead of saying I don't like.
It's not the same thing, all right?
Okay, and so all kinds of different questions
about church attendance and spirituality.
Some people wanna marry someone who likes to go to church.
Like they like it.
Like that's their thing, going to church.
They're like, woo-hoo, going to church.
If that's you, there's a match for you.
You guys can go to church until your little hearts explode.
That's great and wonderful.
Other people are like, yeah,
I don't want to not have spiritual community,
but my spiritual community looks more like
a group of other Christian people
that I do a Bible study with or that I do life with.
We have a home group.
We have a cell group.
We have a house church.
We have a guys group that meets every week, whatever.
So the algorithm is gonna take all that into an account.
And when I tell you that I could punch in as a matchmaker
and say, I need a match for my client
that likes cats, doesn't have any children.
They can be married, but only once, right?
They are this denomination.
They believe this.
They don't believe that.
They're this tall.
They live in this general region.
You guys, it can show me the people.
It could get that specified.
Really, it can.
Now, I am not putting any space on the intake form
for your non-negotiables that are not from heaven.
Ladies, okay?
So if you put six, five, blue eyes, finance, trust fund,
it's not gonna compute, right?
If you guys know that joke,
you've been spending way too much time on TikTok.
All right, so there is a place for height for all of y'all.
We have a lot of really tall.
You guys, can we normalize short kings?
and tall Queens.
Can we normalize short Kings and tall Queens?
Can we?
Cause that's what I got going on.
The short King and a tall Queen.
Can we normalize that?
Cause I think that's fun,
but we do have a lot of really tall beauties
in our community.
And it's harder to make matches when you're tall
because a lot of times tall women don't want to be
with shorter men.
And I think you should get over that.
My husband's going to be here soon and he's going to help.
So tonight is called love story.
Sometimes we have like specific couples come on
and share about their story.
And tonight what we're going to do is we're going to do
ask the matchmaker in the way of,
I can tell a few stories.
You can ask me questions like what's the craziest match
or you know, what's this or what's that?
Or tell us about, you know, a match that included this
or what do you think about this type of love story?
I know a lot of us get really, I think
I'm judgmental of other people's love stories.
And just cause you don't like their love story
and you don't think that their love story happened
the way that you think it should happen
or the way that you think a love story should happen
doesn't mean that their love story is inferior
to any other love stories.
Does that make sense for everybody?
And then I can share with you the love story trends
that I'm seeing.
Bethany's on here as well.
So she can, she, do you guys know,
do you guys know that Bethany is a success story
of this community?
And so just so you know, for our team,
we like to hire from within.
So everyone that works on our team is a former student.
Everyone, right?
And so Bethany's on here with her, you know,
she can answer questions about her love story.
I don't know if Mr. Cooper is here.
He's not, okay, David is here though.
All right, I'm five nine and taller in heels.
Kimberly, it's okay.
You know what I have to say about height differences?
Doesn't matter how tall you are when you're lying down.
That's all you need to know.
That's all anybody needs to know about that.
And there's ways in pictures to like stand in front
or kind of stand a little bit behind
to kind of make it look like you're the same height,
no matter how different the heights are.
Ah, it can work out.
All right, here comes David.
I see him already giving me the eyeballs.
Like, oh Lord, she's gonna be inappropriate tonight.
Am I ever appropriate?
That's really the question.
Guys, we just had a video of our little grandson.
Here's David Dorman.
We just got a video of our little grandson.
We have twin grandbabies, a girl and a boy,
and they'll be two years old next month.
They're yummy, okay?
And he, a fire truck was going by
and he was yelling about it.
He was like, and I'll just let you use your imagination
of what cuss word he was screaming
at the top of his little lungs.
It rhymes with truck.
Those TRs are hard.
That sound is hard, y'all.
Poor little guy.
And you know who used to do that when he was a little boy?
Right here.
His mom was horrified.
His mom was a sweet church lady that was horrified
by her little cussing toddler.
And I loved, I loved, I loved also,
I loved also American flags.
American flags.
And so-
Oh no, don't do it.
I'm not gonna say it.
Okay.
I'm, one of the letters was left out of the word flag.
No, no.
And then you probably imagine craziness.
Did you?
I lowered your chair.
I don't like it.
Yeah, well-
He lowered my chair, you guys.
Get out of here.
Because there's only like one inch difference between us.
You're 5'10 and I'm 5'9.
He's 5'7, y'all.
On a good day.
It's what it says on my driver's license.
It says 5'9.
On a good day, he's 5'7.
All right.
Okay, I see-
If I wear those special shoes,
I can get an inch taller.
That's right, you can.
You can wear your cowboy boots.
All right, 128 people live.
I see some new faces here.
I see some new guy faces too.
Oh my gosh, Ty, are you here in the flesh?
Ty's back.
Hey.
Sup, Ty?
That's exciting.
All right.
It's been a while, huh?
Yeah, it's been a minute.
You're back from the dead, bro.
Yeah.
Good to see y'all.
All right.
Okay, ladies.
Got another silver fox back.
Here he is.
All right.
I see Matthew.
Matthew's new.
Hi, Matthew.
I just, we haven't, I haven't seen you.
It's good to see you.
Yeah, he's been around.
Yeah, you've been around, but I haven't seen you.
You're another one.
That's back or you're not necessarily here all the time.
I think it's real busy.
Matthew gets real busy.
Okay.
All right.
So ladies, we have some of our other guys that are in mentorship.
These are guys that have bought all the way in.
And so I think there's about, um, around a hundred ish of those guys.
All right.
So, um, let's talk about love stories.
Okay.
No holds barred.
You can ask whatever you want.
Let's just start out with our love story.
Cause you were going to tell us so many people haven't heard our love story.
And remember how I said, you can get judgmental.
So I'm going to D I'm going to say something really shocking when David and
I met, he was my neighbor, as you guys know, if you don't know, you didn't,
then you didn't read any of my books.
Cause I tell that story and all my books are well in one of them.
And we've told that story a thousand times.
It seems like, but I yelled at him.
I yelled at him because I had gotten an email that same day that I met him that
said that a sex offender had moved into my neighborhood and he was out moving
in next door and I lived in a very small little cul-de-sac neighborhood.
So of course I didn't realize that that email was for the, the
whole area that I lived in county, not my neighborhood.
Okay.
I wasn't smart like that.
And so I just assumed he was the only person moving in.
So I immediately assumed that he was the sex offender that
the email was warning me about.
My side of the story is I was just minding my own business.
Sweeping my driveway.
He was 36 years old and I was 32 years old.
We've been married for 17 years now.
Okay.
It was April, 2007.
And he was moving in.
That's right.
Yeah, I moved in.
Yeah.
And I got that email and my daughter decided that she wanted to be
best friends with his little daughter.
He had a nine year old and I had a six year old and she went
over and went into his garage.
She was playing in the yard with her other little friends.
She decided to go over next door and go into his house.
And when I came out looking for her, I couldn't find her.
And I was freaking out single mom.
Okay.
Just crazy.
I was going through a lot.
I was in a trauma response and I went over there and I saw him and I saw my,
as soon as I saw him, my daughter had come out of his garage with his
daughter and I just lit into him.
I just yelled at him.
I'll let you guess.
Like as a single father.
You, you think I know where my daughter's at on a Saturday afternoon,
like beautiful day, kids are out playing in the court and everything.
I had no idea that her daughter was in my house or even where my daughter was.
What a typical man, a woman would have known.
All right.
I mean, I would have checked in an hour or two or three or six, but you know,
come on, I yelled at him and I ripped his head right off.
I yelled at him.
I was like, look, bro.
I knew I know who you are.
You know, it literally was like that.
It was bad.
But the thing that I want to bring out tonight, besides the crazy origin
story of our relationship is that both of us by the state of Ohio, which is
where we met and where we lived, we were both legally married on that day.
When that happened, we were both legally married.
And this is how we could get our judgment panties in a wad
over other people's love stories.
17 years in, we've raised a beautiful blended family together.
We've had so many amazing ministry opportunities together.
We've both been healed and done so much, you know, so many layers of
heartwork and also have done that with other people and we've helped save so
many marriages, we've helped people get out of marriages that were abusive and
unsafe, we brought so many marriages together through this ministry, this
movement last year, single, but when we met each other, we were going through
it in the area of our own marriages.
My pastor had gone to prison.
And that was the only family that I ever had.
I was raised as a teenager in a home for unwanted children.
That's literally what it said on the sign, the home for unwanted children.
And so I got married at 20 years old, didn't know Jesus married.
The first boy who acted like he was going to take care of me and help
me and be nice to me and kind to me.
And it was an abusive situation to say the least.
Um, but I started going to his church with him two years into our marriage
and that became my family for the next 10 years of my life.
That became my family.
It was the only family that I had.
And then the pastor got in trouble for all kinds of stuff, 23 felonies.
He was convicted of 22 of those felonies.
And you guys, this happened overnight.
This didn't, it was a slow burn.
It didn't happen over the course of five months or a year.
It happened in one week and one week, someone found out about
something the pastor was doing.
And they told someone else who told someone else who told the advisory
board of the church who called the police.
And then literally they came during a church service.
and took over the church and told everybody at one time what was happening.
It was crazy.
And then I had a nervous breakdown.
I had a nervous breakdown, and so when this man moved in next door to me,
I was trying to navigate through my nervous breakdown.
I had been in the hospital, the mental health hospital,
trying to figure out in my life what was real, what wasn't real.
This man that's been discipling me since I was 22 years old
is not who he says he is.
He has an alternate family.
He stole all the money from the church.
No one's talking to each other.
I don't have a church anymore.
My whole family's gone.
My husband's gone.
Now what?
And so, yes, I was legally married, but I needed a friend, you guys.
I needed someone to help me.
I didn't have anyone to turn to in the entire world.
I didn't have family, origin family.
I now didn't have church family.
I didn't have any friends, okay?
And I also didn't have a husband that I could lean into,
and I had a small daughter.
And so do you see how sometimes God will allow us to be in each other's lives
for reasons and for seasons, and sometimes that will turn into something
more like our situation that turned into a marriage?
And so it's important not to judge other people's origin stories.
Now, David was still married because his wife had left two years
before that day I yelled at him in the front yard,
and the reason why he was moving in next door to me
is because his house was foreclosed upon because of that divorce.
He had stayed in it as long as he could, but now they were taking it,
so he moved into rentals, which is what I was in,
and he moved in next door.
And his whole life had been completely turned upside down two years earlier
by his wife just waking up one day and deciding
she didn't want to be married anymore,
and she also didn't want to be a Christian anymore.
She wanted to deconstruct her faith,
and part of her faith was her marriage because her and David
were both on staff at a megachurch, and she didn't turn back.
And so when I happened upon him in the front yard and yelled at him,
she had left two years previously, and he was in the last moments
of the bankruptcy, foreclosure, divorce, discharge.
Paperwork.
All the stuff.
Covenants are not ended in American court systems, y'all.
If you did have a covenant with someone and it wasn't just some contract
that you made under dress, under false pretenses,
with bad information, that's what I call a lot of marriages,
they're not covenants at all, but if you did have a covenant,
that covenant was broken way before you ever made it to the divorce court.
And got the legal paperwork that says you can take back your maiden name
and move on and buy things without the other person's credit or their taxes.
You know?
And why am I saying that?
Because so many of our success stories, they don't look good on paper.
They're not perfect on paper, and you want to know why?
Because people are not perfect anymore.
People have a lot of baggage.
People were never perfect, but a lot of times when people got married,
it was their first marriage for both people.
They didn't have any kids from a previous marriage.
They didn't have all this crazy baggage and abuse and different things
they were carrying around.
Nowadays, that's not the case.
It's really complex.
It is.
And I'll tell you, there was a moment, you know, as we were neighbors
and we started becoming friends because it was summertime or beginning,
just at the end of the school year.
I worked at the Christian school, and Jackie needed someplace for her daughter
to go during the summer, like a summer program.
And we happened to have a summer program at our school,
and I knew that it was closed, or she was telling me it was closed,
and I knew that it was closed.
But I also knew the coordinator of the program,
and so I pulled a few strings and got her daughter in there.
So as a good neighbor, as friends.
Now, of course, I was stricken by her beauty the very first time I saw her,
so I was definitely interested for the future.
But there was, so as we were getting to know each other,
I had to understand her story.
I had to understand where she was at.
I just finished praying in my heart, not that day, but in that season,
Lord, I, you know, I'm getting divorced, in the process of getting divorced.
I don't want to be alone.
But at the same time, I have these kids.
I have a ministry job that I'm doing.
I have lots at stake.
I can't just, you know, go out and just any woman, you know, and so forth.
And God was very providential in bringing us together.
And even though it wasn't the way I would have scripted it,
or we would have written it out if we were writing our own love story,
God providential.
does things in order to have people cross paths.
And a lot of what we teach and what we see in this community
is the providential working of God.
And then sometimes it's not,
sometimes it's our own doing
and we're our own trying to bring things together.
And sometimes it's better just to let God do what he does.
And so there was even a moment where I was even saying like,
look, I understand our situation, your situation,
my situation, I can't be the one necessarily
holding your hand through that part of it.
And so there was a time where it was very precarious
because we were interested, but we were still just friends.
It wasn't until we made a step towards the romantic interest
that we knew things were already taken care of
as they should have been.
So it was an interesting journey and fun.
I call it my summer of love because we met in April
and by November we were married, eight months.
Crazy y'all, it was crazy for sure.
Just so you know, we were both legally divorced
when we got married.
Yes, that is true.
All right, all right.
I'm nobody's sister wife.
That's not what's going on here, okay.
Wrong religion, okay.
So what's going on with that little window up there?
You see it?
Okay, let's fix that.
So there's a lot of like myths
of what it needs to feel like or look like
or what it needs to be in order to be okay
or to be spirit led.
A lot of people have preconceived ideas
of what their love story is gonna look like.
And so they won't pay attention to anything
that doesn't have those details.
Guys, I've heard it all.
I have, I've heard it all.
And so any questions that you guys wanna start asking
in the chat, you wanna mute yourself and ask a question
about love stories, about what if this,
and just anything, anything that you think
would be fun to ask.
One thing I know for sure is you do not have
to be attracted to the person that eventually
becomes your spirit mate at first sight.
It does not have to be love at first sight.
It was rage at first sight for me and this guy right here.
I was in a trauma response.
I was concerned about my daughter.
I was going through so much as I just explained.
And I was just-
I didn't even know I was getting yelled at actually.
He got the mama bear.
That's what he got.
I was like Joey from friends.
I was like, hey, how are you doing?
I was just like, hey.
No, no, no, no, no.
And I did not think he was, nope, nope.
She did not think it was cute at all.
I didn't.
So weird though.
It was.
I'm like, I'm so cute now.
And I just don't understand how,
not from the very beginning.
Because I had stranger danger.
I had stranger danger and you were a stranger.
I'm not a stranger now.
No, but and you had weird friends and he did.
He had this friend that came over.
I was outside when this guy pulled up and I heard his base.
Guys, this is, when I say that this is like
the most suburban area in the whole world.
You don't hear any base ever in any way, shape or form.
And his friend is pumping his base.
Like, I don't know, at least a mile away,
I hear him coming and I'm from Cleveland
and I'm from the city and I'm from, you know,
so I'm used to that, but not where I,
not where we live together.
And I was like, who is coming?
And then here comes this car, tinted windows,
low riding, pulling up in front of our little,
you know, townhouse.
And then this guy gets out and he's pimp limping
up the driveway to his door.
My wing man.
Guys know what a pimp limp is?
You know what that looks like?
I do, because I'm from Cleveland and I'm from the city,
but this little cinnamon roll.
I'm a little neighborhood white boy.
This little cinnamon roll.
I was like, how does he know this person?
That is what I wanted to know.
And you guys, he literally did one of these things.
Look at, I'm-
How do I know him?
None of your business.
That's what he would say.
That's what, that's what Wilson would say.
And so I'm out in the driveway washing my car
because y'all, this is, you know, the early 2000s
and we still wash cars by hand.
I was washing my car out there.
And this guy is pimp limping up the driveway
and goes one of these with his sunglasses,
watching me as he's going up the driveway
with his sunglasses down.
And I was like, oh no, oh no, no, no, no.
And so what happened?
He got a demerit.
Cause I barely knew him.
friend. He got a little black mark on his report card because this guy was like checking me out,
looking me up and down. I noticed it took like a couple of days for you to come back over and
talk to me. Oh my gosh. It was like hillbilly elegy. Oh no. And so then I found out later
his name is Matthew, this guy. Um, he's very nice. He just, I don't know. I don't know what
he thinks. I don't know who he thinks he is. I don't know. He thinks Marvin Gaye lives inside
of him. He is a legend in his own mind. He is a legend in his own mind. He is the dorkiest
white guy that you'll ever see. And then when you get to know him, you're just like, all right,
I guess you're a little cool. I'm not sure. Maybe you are. Maybe you're not. I don't know. Um, but
he is part of the reason he's in our love story. That's true. So even though at the beginning,
I was just like, no detention. No. Who is your friend? What is this? I worked at a pizza parlor
and somehow these guys found out where I worked and they both showed up there together, him
and Wilson. Yeah. And they were sitting in my section. I came out of the kitchen and they're
sitting in my section. I want to check out what's going on a grapevine pizza. I was so nervous. You
guys, I was just like, and then I went over to the table and Wilson obviously didn't take my
class because he starts asking me all kinds of personal inappropriate questions. He went deep.
He did. He went deep. He's like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? What are you going
to be doing a year from now? You're going to be doing the same thing. You know, what's what's up,
you know, starts tossing me questions about my, my marriage that's ending about this, about that.
I'm like, who is this guy picking up all the details. And I have a tray full of popcorn and
I'm just trying to like talk. And I'm trying, I'm super nervous. And then I went to do like
something like this and then I flipped the tray and the popcorn flips the entire popcorn thing
all over the floor shower on everyone. Cause I was so nervous by all this guy's questions,
but you know what? After that doesn't miss a beat, like keeps on talking, like have carrying
on the conversation 10 minutes later, I'm like, are we going to, are you going to pick up that
popcorn? I mean, I like, are you just going to leave it there on the floor? I was going to leave
it on the floor. Y'all. I was just trying to ignore that it even happened. You know, one of
those awkward kind of things, but I will tell you this after they left, I just couldn't get that
guy's words out of my mind. Like, are you still going to be doing this a year from now? Not the
pizza, not working at the pizza place. I was a broker insurance broker during the day. And at
night I worked at this pizza place because single mom y'all that's why. And I was just like the
relational stuff that he was asking me that was completely inappropriate for him to ask me.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was like, no, I don't want to be in this space,
but I don't know how to get out of this space. And that was a catalyst for a lot of what became
the heartwork. Right? So good things happen. And a lot of times they have crazy origin stories.
The good things that happen in our life. They have crazy origin stories. Like the one that I
just said, some crazy guy, my first impression of him was not him, but my first impression of the
guy was like, Oh my gosh, what's wrong with this guy? This guy is trouble. This guy is weird.
And he actually ended up asking me a life changing question, right? It can happen. Okay.
Rachel's like, we're cute. Yeah. We're you guys. And here's the thing. We just had our youngest
daughter get married and you should have heard the speeches at this wedding. It wasn't one speech or
two speech. It was like five, six, seven speeches, people praising our family and all of our children
and how amazing our children are and how our children have changed their lives and bless them.
Their peers were telling us that their parents of their peers were telling us that,
you know, you guys, we did good. When we got married, our kids were six, nine and 11. Now
they're 29, 27 and 23. The two girls are married. The boy's probably going to be married before too
long. He's in a serious relationship. All of them chose amazing people, not perfect people,
but amazing partners. We did good. If you don't think something good could come out of divorce,
you're wrong. Divorce is not the end of the story. It's not. Our family is well-adjusted.
You know, our kids, yeah, they had to do some hard work. Their parents got divorced,
but the way that we raised them and the way that we raised them all together,
the way that we loved them, the way that we did hard work with them from a very young age,
the way that we chose spiritual communities that focused on grace instead of legalism,
the way that we left everything behind that we had known in religion and had made a exodus towards
grace and towards kingdom. Yeah. It was not easy you guys, but God led us out and we did it. And
now we get to live in the fruit of that. Yeah. And this woman here, I'll tell you, you're the
greatest mom. You're the mom of the century. Really? She kept a lot of us together, all of us together
for so many of those years.
years through all the ups and downs and the craziness and no money and whatever we were
doing.
Well, you guys, you know that I love my mom and she's safely in heaven.
And I know that she wanted to be a good mother, but she wasn't.
And so the biggest accomplishment of my life would be to be a good mother.
And I'm glad that that's, I'm glad that that is, I'm glad that that stuff that other people
are saying about me.
All right.
So guys, the story isn't over with divorce.
So let's have some love story fun.
Let's tell some stories that are not our story.
You can see we've been together.
We're celebrating 17 years of marriage in a couple months.
We'll head into our 18th year of marriage and um, our kids are all grown to married
one going to be, and we have two twin grand babies.
This is their year picture.
There are two, almost two now, but you can see them a little nuggets and, uh, God is
good.
And you guys, this is not special stuff for just special people.
God has a love story like that for you.
And that's the whole purpose of tonight's session is that you would be filled with faith
that what God has done for others, God can do for you.
And tonight's date is significant is 8 22.
That's new beginnings and partnership.
That's why we decided to do this session tonight because it's on eight.
That's the Hebraic number for new beginnings.
And 22 is the number of partnership and agreement.
So come into agreement with us tonight that God has a new beginning of partnership for
you.
Okay.
And also 22 is number of the bride, both the bride of man and the bride of Christ.
Okay.
A couple, a couple of questions, a hand, hand, right?
All right.
Hands raised.
Johanna, Johanna, Joanna.
I'm sorry.
I'm hooked on phonics.
Please tell me again how to say it.
Johanna.
Like Hannah.
Oh, Hannah.
Thank you.
That helps.
Hannah.
Yeah.
Hannah.
Okay.
So I was just curious, and this is, this may be taking it in another direction, but out
of all the love stories that you've been a part of over the years, have you ever had
anyone that has regretted not having sex before marriage?
Not that they told me, I mean, no one, no one has ever shown up and said to me, Hey,
I just, I really wish that I would have had sex before marriage because, um, the sex is
really bad and you know, I wish I would have known this would have been a deal breaker
or, you know, their sexual habits are really bizarre.
And I feel like this is showing me trauma that they have that I didn't know they had.
I will tell you this.
If anyone has had an extensive porn addiction, that's going to affect your sex life.
And so it's important for you during this preliminary time in your life where you're
preparing for marriage, that we get that healed so that your arousal is not attached to things
that are detrimental to your partner.
Okay.
So that the things that turn you on, so to speak, are not things that are degrading to
them.
That's important.
And if you have any kind of impotence issues, um, ladies, uh, for those of you that are
having that change of life, you know, these are all things that you can begin to work
on.
They have proven that all of that stuff can, uh, be that stuff can be helped.
It can be a lot of that has to do with hormone issues.
A lot of it also has to do with circulation issues, blood sugar issues.
Our bodies are all interconnected.
And so, um, making sure that you have really good cholesterol, blood sugar, all of those
things can help with those problems.
Um, let's talk about sex before marriage, because I will tell you that we've had quite
a few love stories that once they were engaged, they went ahead and started sleeping together.
And some of them even living together.
How do y'all feel about that?
That has happened in this community.
I did a poll on my Instagram, 15.5 thousand followers.
I don't know who all those people are.
They're obviously not all people that are in this community and have listened to my
teaching, but I just simply asked, do you think that living together, if you plan on
getting married is okay.
And most people said no, but quite a few people said they weren't sure.
And I'm glad they were honest.
They weren't sure, like maybe, you know, and I noticed that the majority of those people
were either.
They're older than 60 or millennials.
So Johanna, why do you ask?
I thought you'd ask that question.
Well, because in my years of just watching marriages
in the Christian community,
I've seen and known a handful of,
well, both sides, I've seen the stories
where people are, gosh, I wish we would have waited.
But then I've also seen the other side where it's like,
yeah, I would have turned out this guy
that this one lady married never wanted to have sex.
And she went seven years in a marriage without sex.
And maybe there could have been some signs
that she could have seen beforehand.
But I've known a few people that have regretted
not having sex before marriage
because they may have seen things
and think that maybe that could have helped them
not go a certain way with the person
that they ended up getting married with.
Yeah, and I hear what you're saying
and I don't wanna dismiss people's hypothesis
of what they think could have helped them
kind of dodge a bullet.
But the truth is, biblically speaking,
that fornication is what out of covenant sex is called
and it's actually a whole different bullet.
And so even if you end up marrying that person,
engaging in fornication with that person
before you marry them is always a bad idea
because it actually introduces what sin introduces
into relationships and that's death.
So what I've seen specifically and had a front row seat to
for people who have had sex before they've gotten married
has been that it has introduced death to trust.
So even though it's consensual, no one was being forced,
no one's being coerced or pressured,
the woman, the way that the feminine is made,
she expects the masculine in a divine sense
and covenants are only made divinely, y'all.
You can make contracts all day long
with anyone you wanna make,
but if you wanna make a covenant, then that involves God.
In order to invite God into sealing your marriage together,
both people have to be in agreement
with each other and with God, right?
And so one thing that a woman, the feminine expects,
even unconsciously in a covenant
is to be covered and protected.
And so if a man is willing to, even if you want to as well,
not follow God in his behavior towards you
before you're married, then it introduces the idea
that this is not truly a man of God.
Now I know that's not fair
because you wanted to do it too, right?
And it was completely consensual,
but at the same time, it's not about fair,
it's about spiritual transactions.
And sex is a spiritual transaction.
It's not merely a physical transaction.
That's what the Bible tells us.
It's not common, it's actually holy.
So these are the issues with premarital sex
because it's going to introduce distrust at the best
and at the worst,
it's going to actually introduce infidelity.
It's very quiet on this call.
I know.
You guys, we were next door neighbors.
And when I tell you that we wanted to go ahead
and get the party started, we did, you know?
And we got the pre-party started,
but we wanted to get the full party started, but we didn't.
We were next door neighbors and we could have,
but we made a decision that, you know what?
God's way is the best way.
And we should just do it this way.
We weren't religious or legalistic about it.
We just knew that that is what we should do.
And we did it.
What's interesting-
Can we talk about this right here too?
Without sex?
No, this is the six years.
Go ahead and say what you're gonna say
and let's make sure we go back here.
I just, you know, to put a little bit of perspective
around the whole sexuality,
all of the questions around sexuality,
I'm not gonna try to historically comment
on periods of time or whatever,
but this is a relatively new thing.
Sex is not new, but the whole heightened awareness
over sexualization of a culture that we live in is-
So good.
It's new, overlaid with all of the technology and information that we have about it. Like, you could have looked at Sodom and Gomorrah and say that's an overly sexualized culture and it was at the same time probably even worse than what we see today.
And at the same time, the, we all have been to a degree, you know, sexually abused just by the culture we live in the attention that's given to sex and sexualization of, of, of everything and everybody I mean you can't even sell like, you know, gum
without it being sexy you know it's just ridiculous.
And so we all are dealing with this so that's why these even this that's why these questions even come up, or why there's such attention given to why this is so important, you know, and if you were to be honest, not that you're not being honest
but if you were to just kind of like look at it for, you know, on its face, you know, sex in, in, in general, it's just overrated.
I mean how much of it, can you like consume, obviously a lot, but I'm just saying it's just like what, I mean, this is why you get desensitized to the act of the intimacy the beauty the holiness of the actual sex act in a covenant holy relationship
is because there's so much input of it through everything that's around us, let alone, consuming it yourself in an appropriate way so it's just really troublesome to begin with and I'm not, I'm not coming down on I'm just saying it's a really hard
thing to do because these are real things that people experiencing their, their, their things, but the marriage is an a time to be able to bring all of that into perspective, the, the, the, what are we doing here.
Marriage is for the purpose of coming together in into me see it is the bond of matrimony, it is a holy thing, it is a most vulnerable type of interaction.
And so, so spiritually speaking what people don't realize is that sex in inside covenant actually promotes connection. Yeah. Okay. But outside of covenant it promotes disconnection. Yeah, even though it might be good it might physically feel good.
Remember your body is not the thing making the covenant, it is your spirit and your soul making the covenant. Okay, and so your spirit and soul have to be able to connect before your body should get its chance, your body should be the last thing that connects.
Right.
And if your spirit and soul feel safe and your spirit and soul are being well taken care of, then your body will want to as well. Guess what if they don't care about your spirit, then they're not your spirit mate.
If they don't care about your body, then they're your flesh mate their body mate.
Hannah saying something about didn't I say on a previous live that it was okay to live together if you're engaged, because that is those are practical as practical advice about the woman who lived, because she moved from across the country and lived in the
house as her fiance in his daughter's room.
Those that's practical advice. The question that I asked on my Instagram implied sex before marriage and implied living together as husband and wife without being married.
So, basically speaking, you might have to share accommodations leading up to the wedding we did that my lease was up on my townhouse, what about a month before.
Yeah, a month before. And so I moved in to his townhouse me and my daughter moved in with them. And up until the wedding. So, dwelling, dwelling in a doss domicile together and living as a married couple together, two different things promise you I did it with my ex
wife for two years as I was living in my house estranged from my wife for longest time.
And so, not saying that's ideal. It's not, you know, I think I'm glad that sex got brought up. Thank you, Johanna for bringing it up so I think that one of the things that we all forget is that most people.
Most people have not had sex, the way that God intended it.
And I'm not talking about the missionary position y'all. Okay.
All right, I'm talking about the connection of spirits full and body through into me see the place of trust and connection, the place where the place where you know your, your oneness really is magnified.
Most people, you know why they haven't had it that way.
know what it is. No one ever told them about it. And all of
the examples and modeling they have for sex have been not good.
Movies, music, pornography, family, you know, public
education, peers that are watching movies, and you know,
porn and all different types of things. And so they're finding
out about this cursed state of sex, just like everything else,
sex has a divine design, and it has a cursed state. And so a lot
of people have been partaking of it over here. And yeah, it feels
good to your body. Until afterwards, when you're left
with shame, you feel shamed, when you feel disconnected, you
don't even know why you're like, I'm married. Why do I feel bad
about having sex? Because your spirits and your souls are not
connecting, your bodies are connecting. And afterwards,
you're feeling used. That's why. After it's all over, and
everyone's gotten what they came for, you're feeling used,
you're feeling empty. And so so many Christians are waiting till
they can legally have sex, do it God's way, don't be disobedient,
but their heart is full of garbage about what sex is. And
even though their body has not, you know, forgive my language
been penetrated in intercourse, or vice versa penetrated anyone
in intercourse doesn't mean that when you get to that moment,
that it is not going to invoke shame inside of you because of
all the bad information and baggage that you brought to it.
There's a lot of layers here, y'all. A lot of layers.
So I have a question around that. Okay, call me, I don't know
how to how to process this. But I have, outside of covenant,
or outside of marriage, had sex where I felt the the complete
merging together a oneness. And I didn't feel that with every
sexual experience of people I've had sex with. But I did in one
particular case. And I don't know how to compute that because
I felt that merging together of complete oneness. We both felt
that. So does that mean I'm like I just said, it's not it's
not common. It's spiritual. So there is emerging together
during sex. And that's where a lot of soul ties come from. So
when we're not planning on being part of covenant with each
other, when we haven't made a covenant commitment, just so you
guys know, I don't think covenants are made in churches,
just like I don't think divorce courts and covenants. I think
that covenants are made between two people and God. And then I
do believe that there is there is precedent in the Bible for
there to be a witness portion of that. Okay, so whether
someone witnesses witnesses it afterwards, or someone witnesses
it beforehand, you know, back in the olden days, they used to
witness the consummation of marriages, and that the
covenant actually was created by sex. Did you guys know that
that's how the covenant was created? The covenant was
created by the two people coming together in in, in having sex.
And so, and then the party got started. And so, yes, there is a
spiritual aspect to sex, Johanna, there is. But if you're
not making a covenant with that person, then to what end?
Thank you. Because I mean, I don't know if I answered your
question. But yes, there are, there are guys that get created
by that. And I'm not, and I'm very aware of that. Like,
there's no, that's not new information. For me, I'm very
aware of that. I think that that's my part of the question
and why I'm thinking about all this and bringing it up is like,
because of my, my experience in life and choices I've made in
thinking about, okay, I really would like to not have sex with
somebody before I get married my partner, and then I'm running
up against with the sexual healing that I've done in
healing, if I still am running up against these questions, when
I meet somebody of like, well, am I going to be set? I have
been very satisfied. And I do understand that maybe, maybe
there's something I haven't experienced, it's even greater.
But like, I am, I am hitting those things of like, well, can
I trust? Like, can I really?
Can I ask you? Can I ask you? I mean, you're sharing personal
information. So I'm assuming that you're open to questions
why this person that you felt so merged with and so one with
why didn't you marry them?
Because at the end of the day, they weren't, they decided not
to be a Christian and it was going to we were we didn't think
that it was gonna work. He didn't want he he
the decision and he didn't want to be in that, in that type of relationship.
And let me ask you a question. Did that, did that break your heart? Absolutely. Yeah. And
this is the reason why. So while you may have found someone who, you know, you're hitting on
all cylinders with and your body's decided that they want it to be on board with that,
that soul connection that you guys had, you didn't have the spirit connection. Couldn't
get there because he, you know, he didn't want to surrender his spirit to Christ.
And so there wasn't anywhere to go from there. And when there wasn't anywhere to go from there,
then that causes heartbreak. You know, God knows how we're made y'all. And I just want to let you
get a new note. You guys know, the character of God is not to create rules for the sake of rules,
not to create boundaries for the sake of boundaries, not to put up guardrails on roads,
just because he wants to. It's to protect us because he knows the frailty of our design.
He knows what we can handle and what we can't handle. And he knows the spirituality.
Okay. And the power of sex. He knows it's a make you or break you kind of situation. I want you
to raise your hand. We didn't intend on going here, but holy spirits brought us here. So this
is what we're going to do. I want you to raise your hand. If you've had some sort of sexual
experience, it doesn't have to have been intercourse, but some kind of sexual experience
that you felt at some level broke you. It hurts you. It broke your heart. You felt deceived. You
felt used. You felt taken advantage of you felt violated, or, you know, you just, you felt so
connected and they passed away. They're they're gone. They're not on the earth anymore. You felt
blindsided or deceived by someone who, you know, promised you a lot of things.
And then I didn't work out. It didn't happen. You guys, the majority of you have your hands up.
Okay. It's a huge number of people. So hopefully you can see this by that, that small exercise,
the power that this has on people. Okay. So may all the people, may all of you, may all of you,
the next sexual experience that you have, where your body is wanting to jump on board with what
your spirit and your soul have already signed off on. May those experiences be experiences that
make you better people. May those experiences be experiences that heal you because I believe
hurting sex healed in sex. May they be experiences that help you feel more connected to God.
Did you know that good sex helps you make you feel more connected to God? I know a lot of
people are like, well, I don't really want God hanging around while I'm having sex.
And that's your first problem. You sex has shame attached to it. So for you,
yeah. Just so you know, God can see you having sex just so you know. So it's not just like,
he's like, okay, turn that video screen off. They're having sex over here. You guys,
that's not how it works. We're inside of him. It's in him that we move and breathe and have our being.
And I think this is a really important subject. You and I were actually talking about it.
Yeah. I just, you know, I'm just still so taken aback, not, not in the context of this conversation.
I think this is a, just a precipitation of what I'm feeling, but I'm just so in our culture and
our world, especially in the Christian community, this is such a tab taboo subject because of the
shame, because of the over-sexualization it's in quite honest, I don't mean to reduce it to
such a simple thing, but it's, it's a bondage of the enemy, the strategy of the enemy to just keep
you out of, you know, intimacy out of truth out of like, and, and, and that being said,
we have to make sure that all of, you know, that just like Johanna, if you've had sex
outside of covenant, the story's not over for you. It's not like, it's not a one and done
situation where you can't come back from that, or you can't make a decision to do something
different than that. It's not something that you can't, you know, move, move upwards from.
I think that the problem is, is a lot of people don't understand that sex is not physical. It's
spiritual. It has physical aspects to it, but it's a spiritual act. Yeah.
You guys know how people always say that rape is not a sexual.
It's a sexual act, it's an act of violence.
Yeah.
Because there's a spirit attached to it,
a spirit that wants to, you know, violate, humiliate.
Completely rob of identity.
Yeah, steal your identity.
You guys, when armies would be at war,
one of the first things that they would do historically
when they came into places that they were occupying
or taking over is they would rape
all the women and children.
Yeah, rape, pillage, and plunder.
I mean, that was like common.
Do you think it was just because, you know,
excuse my language, but they were horny
because they had been in battle for so long
and they just wanted to come in
and have sex with a bunch of people?
No, it was domination.
No, it was about domination, intimidation, and fear.
Thank you.
I'm not laughing at that,
but I'm laughing at how in tune we are.
And you guys, that's what sex will do.
And the thing is, is you know what?
We always call good sex something
that makes us feel good in our bodies
and we have good orgasms and that's good sex.
Wow, man, that was good sex.
Good sex is when you feel connected
and you feel seen and known.
You feel safe.
You feel that oneness.
You feel that divinity of God.
That's good sex.
The stakes are high in this.
And the reason is, is because this is just one
of those areas where it's just so divine.
And it's just, it's easy to get it wrong.
It's the same reason why baking a cake,
baking cake is difficult.
Simple ingredients, very simple ingredients.
But how many, you know, cakes have you ever had
that were just like, oh my gosh,
this is the best cake in the world?
It's because someone knows how to put those ingredients
together in the right way that just is so unbelievably
like, like this is out of this world.
I mean, I'm just, you know, it's like,
this is just one of those things where, you know,
the stakes are really, really, really high.
But you guys, a lot of times we equate sex.
It's so good, babe.
That's such a good analogy.
Is it really?
It is.
It's so good.
We equate sex.
Holy spirit speaking through you.
We equate sex to the animal part of us, right?
Hormone part of us.
Oh, I just can't wait to have sex, you know?
Yeah, well, that's the kind of animal part of you, right?
You're physical, but you're also spiritual
and you also have the soul part, this heart part of you.
And so sex can't be just good for the physical part of you.
It has to be good for all the other parts of you as well.
And you guys, I just, I don't want to burst your bubble,
but the physical part of sex,
a lot of times when you're really attracted
to someone physically, it's hormonal.
It's a hormonal thing.
Guys, I just want to let you know, women are on a cycle
and I believe men are on a cycle too.
We don't talk about men's cycles as much as women,
but women have cycles and men do too.
And women have a cycle where she will literally
eat your face off.
She will, all right?
This is why even people in terrible marriages
where they're mistreating each other
and talking down to each other,
end up having all this crazy, what I call porn sex,
where they just are all over each other like animals,
you know, fight and make up
because it's hormonally driven.
You'll see that depicted in a movie and it'd be like,
oh, see, they really love each other.
No, they don't really love each other.
They're just, they're just raw.
The producers put it in their interviews.
Yeah, from the immortal words of Tina Turner,
what's love got to do with it?
Exactly.
Nothing.
All right, so I'm glad we talked about this
because I think a lot of people
are equating sex with love and love with sex.
And we're talking about love stories.
So this has turned into sex story tonight
instead of love story.
But I also want to say-
But people need to understand that, you know,
the thing that's driving you
into wanting to have relationship is the spirit of God.
The thing that's driving you to partner
is the spirit of God, okay?
It's not your body that's like, I'm so lonely
and I just want someone to hold me
and I just want to, you know, make love with someone.
You know, that's part of it,
but that's not what's driving you to partner.
What's driving you to partner is it's your divine design
and it's so much more than sex.
Yeah.
So much more.
And I'll say one more thing really quickly.
Johanna, one of the ways that we get around
what you're talking about ending up with someone,
like you said, you have a friend
that didn't have sex for six years.
First of all, that wasn't a physical issue
where this man had a low libido
and didn't want to have sex or something more going on.
on in that story.
Okay.
There's something more going on in that story.
Yeah, he could have had some impotence problems.
He could have had some libido hormonal problems,
but he also probably had some heartwork problems.
There's also probably some issues that you're not privy to
of things happening in that situation.
And one of the ways we get around that
in the premarital phase is you do good coaching.
Simbis, which is what we teach,
save your marriage before it starts,
and what we have available for our people.
If you want to take that course,
we get into the sex talk.
We talk about sex.
The computer rates your desire for each other.
It even asks how, you know,
your plan for frequency of sex,
like once a week, twice a week, twice a day.
It rates all those things
so that you can have those discussions
way before you ever say, I do.
Go ahead.
You know, the wisdom of scripture,
the wisdom of God, the wisdom of heaven,
you know, you can always find a story
that can be the exception to that wisdom.
Yeah, but this, yeah, but that.
And the thing about it is, is in every instance,
there's always a part of that story of information
that you don't know, or that's left out, that's not known.
It's more complex than that.
And the wisdom of heaven will always, always trump that.
But it is my, and I just want to say that in there,
but it's my desire that in this conversation,
even as we're having this, that, you know,
everyone on this call is single.
I would never want anybody to leave this call
having heard this discussion
and feeling less than feeling like,
oh my gosh, it's so hard to overcome this,
or I'm hearing all this in juxtaposition
with my life experience and what I'm going through
and making it sound like this is,
this is really not only difficult,
but then even more shame,
because you're realizing things
about your own experience with sexuality.
There's no shame in this at all.
Shame is not a productive heavenly emotion.
So we're just going to set that aside
because that's not what this discussion was about.
And it was Holy Spirit led.
So I really just want to make sure
that the residue of this conversation
is that you are lifted up and you are encouraged
and you are enlightened by how we were talking about it
so that it can be something that you can consider.
This is a hard thing.
As the scripture says, this is a difficult thing.
This is a hard thing.
Let's ponder this.
Let's consider this.
Let's take this with great value
into the relationships that we're about to have.
And you guys, I noticed that
there were a lot more people on camera
when we started talking about this
and people turn their cameras off.
And so they don't even feel comfortable enough
to have their camera on for this discussion.
And these are things that we have to get ahold of
before you would ever get married.
It's hard.
Because if you have shame attached to sex,
then we need to deal with that, right?
We need to talk about that.
And this is another reason why we don't have sex
outside of covenant because God lists that as sin
and sin brings shame.
So you don't want to be in the sin shame cycle, right?
You don't want to be in that.
And I've even seen people try to legitimize
their sexual decisions by rushing to get married
to someone that they know they shouldn't marry
because there are other areas that are not safe
in that relationship, simply because they were having sex.
It's like, okay, well, I know this is wrong
and now I'm going to go get married so we can make it right.
Y'all do not do that, all right?
Just like any other behavior that's unworthy of you
and unworthy of your right standing with God through Christ,
we call these unworthy things sin.
Just like any other area where you would fall short,
there's forgiveness for you, there's grace for you.
There's changing direction and repentance
and doing things God's way instead of the way
that you were doing things, right?
And so please, that's all you need to do.
You don't need to try to make it right
by doing something else that's wrong,
like getting into a marriage that is not healthy.
Don't do that.
Babe, you're like a little furnace.
You're making me so hot.
Guys, I'm over here having like hot flashes
because he's emanating so much heat.
It's 106 degrees in Texas today.
It is, it's so, I think you just want to go
bake a cake with me.
I think that's really what's up.
If you guys didn't catch that,
then you weren't listening to my husband's perfect,
perfect cake analogy.
Okay, all right, so we have a few more minutes.
I know we had a big, long sex talk.
I think that it was definitely on time
and I'm glad that it happened.
So we're going to shift out of sex story
into back into love story.
Does anyone have any fun questions to ask
about love stories that maybe we have seen?
I will tell you that the trend right now in love stories,
it doesn't mean this has to be the trend for you,
but the trend.
is people falling in love with their friends.
I'm seeing it, it's happening so much right now.
So many love stories from our community
and from people that I'm involved with,
with private clients and people that have come to my events
and different things.
They are falling in love with friends,
with people that have always just been their friends.
And then all of a sudden-
They're your best friend, right?
God opens their eyes and shows them
that there's something more.
I don't, here's the thing.
I don't really think we were ever really friends like that.
I know we say we were friends, but we weren't.
There was all kinds of-
Just finding this out.
There's all kinds of romantic tension there.
There was always romantic tension.
These people are legit friends, completely platonic.
No, that's true.
We did not- Fully friends.
Truthfully, we did not know it yet.
Yeah, truthfully, you always liked me
as more than a friend.
But you're my best friend right now.
I know, thank you.
Stephanie had a question a little while ago, Jackie.
Okay, let me roll back.
Unless you know what it is, Stephanie.
Oh, she has her hand up.
She has her hand up.
Oh, okay, go ahead.
I was just typing it, but I'll just ask.
Can you share about people who've come into a relationship
with like different faith expressions or traditions?
Like, I'm thinking like Catholic and Protestant,
and if there's two different or how that could work.
You know, we have seen that.
We have seen it.
And that is another area on our Symbus, spirituality.
And what do you think it's important to have in common?
And what don't you have in common?
And, you know, people have different upbringings
that were raised in churches and denominations.
And then some people are newer believers.
And while other people have been in a certain denomination
for a long amount of time,
I think that it's important to know
that you agree on Christ.
Just so you know that.
B, don't be unequally yoked.
That's talking about Christ.
It's talking about the teachings of Christ.
And so if you can go to the teachings of Christ
in the New Testament,
you can go there in the New Testament,
and you can agree on those things,
then I don't consider you unequally yoked, right?
If you can agree that those are the most important things
in which to build your life and your marriage on,
then I wouldn't consider you unequally yoked.
Now, that being said,
if you are trying to date someone
who has very, very different political views than you do,
and they have made that their religion or their doctrine,
this is right, and this is wrong,
and socially and economically and different things like that,
or they have taken things in the Bible
that are not in the New Testament,
and they're not in the teachings of Christ and the apostles,
but they've taken just random things from the Old Testament
or other places,
maybe Paul's letters and different things,
and they've made a theology out of that,
and they're dogmatic about that,
and if you don't line up to those things,
like, for instance, here's something that just come to mind,
women shouldn't talk,
and they shouldn't talk in the church,
and they shouldn't teach.
You know?
Well, I obviously don't believe that.
Right.
And, you know, my former husband
believed that women shouldn't cut their hair,
and that they should never wear pants
because of some random scripture
that was being mistaught in his denomination,
and so, that being said,
if they're a dogmatic person towards theology
that you don't believe,
and you're not able to get into agreement with,
then that's not gonna work out.
Yeah, the biggest thing is about agreement.
And having a teachable and open heart.
The biggest thing is about agreement.
If you need to just agree on core truths,
and that's where you agree,
and that's where you align,
that can be a beautiful relationship that works.
I mean, the scripture says, you know,
can two walk together except they are agreed.
And it all comes down to what areas
are important for us to agree upon.
Some wanna go really elaborate,
and others go really very simple.
So the key is, is agreement.
Yeah, the key would be agreement.
I've known people-
And the key is also giving the other person room
for their personal relationship with God.
David and I don't worship the same.
We don't connect with God the same way.
And if I would sit in judgment of his relationship with God
because it doesn't look like mine,
then that wouldn't be right.
And vice versa, that wouldn't be right.
And so it's important
that you look for fruit in people's lives,
fruit of relationship with God.
However the fruit got there,
however they're, you know, plowing the fields with God,
and whatever that looks like for that fruit
to grow in their life,
maybe being out in nature, hunting,
some men, they feel really close to God.
They're really talking to God
and having relationship with God while they're out,
you know, killing God's creatures.
I don't know.
But David really loves music.
He never feels closer to God
and getting downloads and having God.
speak to him and even bring correction to some things in his heart and life than when he is
worshipping, like playing music, listening to music and playing music. You know, there's stories
of people who were flat out just wrong, but they agreed with each other in their wrongness
and they have beautiful relationships. So if you're talking about like people just getting
along and being in a good marriage and a solid marriage, there's lots of people that have good,
working, solid marriages and they're just flat out wrong. So if they can do it, you know,
two people that agree on actual truth can agree and work in relationship.
Would you recommend that they attend different churches in their denominations if they're
different or too different? Here's the thing, and we say this during Symbus, I'm going to say it
now. I don't think that your relationship with God and the discipleship of your relationship
with God is just one building, just one group of people, just one building. I think that it's
important to have community. And so if you have a church that you go to that, you know, yeah,
the teaching isn't really, hasn't really been hitting the spot for a long time. And the fact
that you're not learning anything new, you don't feel like you're being stretched or challenged,
but the community, you know, aspect of it is, is really important to you. Okay, great. But you need
to be somewhere where you're getting stretched and challenged. I don't believe that anyone should
be going to any church exclusively, which means you're not like going other places, spiritual
communities, conferences. You gotta be going someplace where you're getting stretched,
where you're getting challenged. If you believe the same thing, the exact same thing, every I,
every T that you believed even a year ago, I would challenge that you're not growing in the Lord.
And I know for sure that if you're in this community, you come to supernatural Saturday,
that you are not believing the exact same thing that you believed a year ago,
because I'm going to challenge you every Saturday. And why is that? Because Holy
spirit is challenging us to grow. This is a growth model. You guys, the kingdom is a growth model.
This is why, this is why people sit in churches for 30 plus years and oh my gosh, they're so
faithful and they're so wonderful. And they're so dedicated to that church and they haven't grown
one inch in 30 years. And they're the most, some of them, the most hateful, spiteful individuals,
because Christian people that you can imagine, because the kingdom is a, is a model that's
always moving forward. And so I would submit to you that if you're not moving forward,
you might actually be sliding backwards. Okay. I tell you, if I had a church, if I started a
church, I'd have a five-year rule. You can come to church for five years, but then after five years,
you have to go, you have to be out. You have to go do something, go fulfill your life's purpose,
go on a mission, do whatever. Like it's good. You can hang out here for five years. You're
not going to pastor a church. I'm not. You are. I'm just saying, if you are, I'll do it with you.
I probably wouldn't though. You wouldn't? We're going to leave Bethany and Brian. Would you be
my pastor's wife? Sing solos and specials? No, I will not. I will not be your pastor's wife.
Run the women's ministry? No. Y'all, he's just over here just trying to get my goat.
All right. Okay. So I believe that both of us are cycling through thoughts of what that would
look like and just the hilariousness of like how that would not work or go. But listen, you guys,
if you find someone who really believes that a woman's place is, you know, in a certain place,
and you don't believe that that's where your place is, then that's just going to have to be a
no for you. All right. Who's next? Go ahead. Janine. Hey Todd, can you make that go colder?
No, I don't think you can. It's 66. Yeah. Hi, Janine, are you ready?
Jill said first lady's Jackie. Oh Lord. Oh Lord.
There is a... Janine's not asking her question. So Maddie. Maddie.
Hi. Kind of related to what you were just saying. What if like say I am into growth mindset
and the other person's like, nope, here are the rules. We're going to stick with the rules. These
are my rules. I'm stuck in this problem. We're just going to stay stuck here in this place.
There is no compromise because I'm the man and I'm recovering. So I say this is how it goes.
Well, I don't think you should marry someone like that because it doesn't sound like that's
what you want. I mean, if you're a woman that wants that, I guess you can make that work,
but yeah, I don't know too many women that would.
Yeah. Okay. If, yeah, that's definitely, that's not going to be the right match for,
for 95% of women nowadays. But if that's something that you believe too, you believe
that the man is, you believe that the head of the house means that, which it doesn't just so
you know, scripturally, um, then, you know, more power to people that make it work for them.
You know, I'm not here to tell people that what they want in a partnership they can't have.
I have a male client right now who wants a traditional wife. He wants someone who
does not want to do anything outside of the home. Just wants to be home, being a homemaker,
making a nice safe place for him and their future children. And that's it. That's what he wants. And,
and he'll find it because there are women that want that. And I'm not here to judge those women.
I'm not here to judge them at all. And I do believe that children should be raised. Um,
and there should be a parent in the home, somebody, and they should, uh, if you're going
to have children together, you got to figure out how your children can actually be raised by their
parents and not by the public school system or daycare or something. And I understand that there
are financial things out there. And so you guys have to figure that out ahead of time in order
to make that happen. And so, um, but yeah, Maddie, if that isn't what you believe, then definitely
don't get involved with someone who believes that. Well, I left a relationship of things are
bad and will always be bad. So let's cry in our soup. And I just couldn't take it anymore. And I
had to leave that relationship. Okay. Well, that'd be hard. Yeah.
All right. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about victimhood, um, on supernatural Saturday,
as we go into some of our fun, um, announcements. And so kind of like what she was just talking
about. So what's kind of at the root of that, but take a few more, cause it was getting late now,
you guys, cause we talked about sex for so long. Um, we'll Sarah, go ahead. We'll take you.
Hello. Hi. Okay. Yes. Um, so if you guys can think of like the most supernatural love story
that, you know, um, and I'm talking about like, cause I'm super into like,
um, being led by the Holy spirit or like divine meetings, like, let's say you like missed a flight
and because you like missed a flight, you ended up in like a restaurant and that restaurant ended up,
you know what I mean? Like, you know how sometimes the Holy spirit can lead you
into different situations and places and you end up meeting like your spirit mate.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think. Okay. So like you gave me an example of something. So now I'm
trying to think if there was this one story with the, like the two people, they exchanged those
$5 bills and the one road on it. Stop. That's a movie. Sorry. Stop. He's being dumb. Serendipity.
So, oh yeah. Um, let's see. Um, uh, being in the right place at the right time. Um, I do,
we do have a love story where they worked at the same company, a very large company
and never met each other. And then they were at the same wedding. There's even pictures of them,
both dancing on the dance floor at the same time. Okay. So the bride is brides right here,
bride and groom are here and they're dancing on the dance floor. It's like, you know, everyone's
boogie in and they're on the dance floor too. Okay. But they didn't meet at that wedding.
So even though they worked at the same company and they were at the same wedding, knew the same
people, didn't meet, didn't meet at the wedding. Um, but then very soon after the wedding,
there was a company meeting that involved their departments and they were both at that company
meeting. And that's where they met, met for the first time and ended up getting married.
So it kind of shows like ships passing in the night kind of thing. And we actually have an
element of that to our love story too. So you guys know that he moved in next door to me and
I yelled at him, didn't know him, thought he was a sex offender. All the things eight months later,
we got married then maybe four or five months later, we were moving. Would you say, Oh yeah.
Four or five months later, we were moving and he's like going through all of his stuff, you know,
purging, throwing things out, keeping things. He's like, babe, come here. I want you to see something
funny. And I'm like, what? So I go in there and he pops a VCR tape in that's how old we are.
He pops a VCR tape in, of what ends up being this, this prank video. He was on staff at a
mega church, big mega church in Ohio for 14 years. And when he was the youth pastor of that church,
they pranked their staff, like the punk videos with Ashton on MTV, like those kinds of things
where they make up scenarios that are not real. And they try to make you think that that thing's
really happening. Well, they had pranked him like that and it was videotaped and it was very,
very funny. But the thing is, is that when he showed it to me that day, my mouth just
dropped open. And he's like, babe, what what's wrong? And I was like, I can't believe this.
And he's like, what?
And I said, I was at that event two years
before he became my neighbor.
Two years earlier, 2005.
So that was like four years or like, yeah.
Yeah, 2005.
He became my neighbor in 2007.
Okay, so in 2005, I was at an event at his mega church
that I did not attend.
It was an outdoor event.
The community was invited to it.
And my friend that went to his church
invited me to this event.
And on a big jumbotron outside this mega church,
they were showing these pranked videos of their staff.
And that video that he showed me of himself
was one of the videos that they showed.
And that was the last one that I saw before I left the event.
And I told my friend that invited me,
hey, I know that guy.
And she's like, oh, he's our youth pastor.
And I said, hmm.
I said, yeah.
And I said, I know him.
I said, I think that I might've gone to school
with him or something, or we worked together.
I said, I really know him.
And I just couldn't place his name.
I couldn't figure out who he was.
And she said, oh, his name's David.
I was like, oh, that doesn't ring a bell.
But I really know him from somewhere.
And I just really don't know where.
And that was the video that he showed me
after we were married for four months.
So I knew him before I knew him.
And when we did the math,
when we looked back at our lives
in all the years before we met each other,
you guys, we were at the same restaurants at the same time
because our churches were some of the only churches
that had Sunday night services in Columbus.
And we all went to the same restaurants
that were open till midnight on Sunday nights.
Applebee's, you know, Shoney's.
We knew a lot of the same people.
But we didn't know each other's.
Very strange.
So shifts passed in a night.
And it's a good thing that we didn't meet
when I saw him on that punk video and my spirit knew him,
but I didn't know why I knew him
because he was still married at the time.
In fact, your wife was just about to leave you.
His wife left him right, really right after that.
So, and then two years later, he became my neighbor.
And a year later, I saw that video.
Sounds like a movie.
Yeah, it does, but it really happened.
All right, friends,
we're gonna go ahead and let y'all go.
Thank you so much for joining us for Love Story.
I know it turned into, it went a different direction,
but I think that it was important for all of us to hear.
And so go out there and make good choices.
Understand that God has better things for you
than you would ever have for yourself.
And we'll see you on Supernatural Saturday.
Bye everyone.
Bless you all.
Bless you.