There is nothing that we can do to make God love us more than He already does. And there is nothing that we have done or will do that'll make him love us any less. And we can apply that to each other. That is, as our pastor says, not only a game changer, that's kind of an everything changer in marriage and life. We've experienced some.
really, really hard and some really, really sad. I think the fact that we are still here, maybe just being really honest in our journey and honest about some of the things we have done, right, wrong, or indifferent, maybe would encourage other people. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, Hard Won Wisdom from a 40-year marriage.
Mary Beth and Stephen Curtis Chapman join us for a guided tour of their love story. And what a story it is. Our featured resource is their book, Still Here, Life Together on the Long Way Home. Go to buildingrelationships.us. And Gary, I can't wait to hear you talk with your long-lost cousins, Mary Beth and Stephen Curtis.
Well, I'm excited about this. You know, anytime the name Chapman is there, they have to be great, you know.
So I'm really excited. And especially to talk about them about their life, you know, their journey together.
So, yeah, I think our listeners are going to enjoy our time together today as well.
Well, let's meet them. And between Gary and Carolyn's marriage and Stephen Curtis and Mary Beth's marriage, there's 104 years. of combined marital experience.
So let's get to it. Stephen Kurtz Chapman is the most awarded artist in Christian music history with 60 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, five Grammy Awards, 10 certified gold or platinum albums, and he's charted an unprecedented 50 number one singles. He's also the only Christian music songwriter to receive the prestigious BMI Icon Award, and he's an official member of Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Mary Beth Chapman is a New York Times best-selling author, co-founder and chairman of the board of Show Hope, an internationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to caring holistically for children by engaging the church and reducing barriers to adoption. She holds an honorary degree of Humane Letters from Anderson University and has been inducted by the National Council for Adoption into the Adoption Hall of Fame.
Now, here's the important part. Together, they are parents of six children, and they are Grammy and Pop Pops to seven grandchildren. And their new book is our featured resource. Still here, just go to buildingrelationships.us.
Well Mary Beth and Stephen, welcome to Building Relationships. Thank you for having us. I'd also like to say that, you know, my maiden name is Chapman.
So there's three Chapmans actually represented here. Really? Did you marry your cousin? You know what? I didn't look too far back.
I am from Kentucky. You know that, Gary.
So, you know, that has been our long-running joke. As far as we know, we are not related other than the fact that we'd been married about five years. And you probably, as a Chapman, know this too, but. You know, Johnny Appleseed, you know, the legend, you know, of Johnny Appleseed was John Chapman. And um I grew up, you know, being told that I was Distantly related to Johnny Appleseed, thinking that was pretty cool.
And it was a scary day about, I don't know, three or four or five years into our marriage when my wife one day announced to me, you know. I grew up being told that I'm related to Johnny Appleseed.
So I didn't, it took me a while to tell her.
Well, I was told the same thing growing up, so who knows? But anyway. All good. As far as we can tell, there was no connection there other than just the same last name. But that's how we met actually.
We shared a mailbox together in college, and they assigned two people to a mailbox together, and Chapman drew us together, and here we are still.
South Carolina, yeah. My granddaughter went there. Oh, okay.
Well that now there's one in South Carolina, but there's one in uh the one that we went to is is uh it's Anderson, Indiana. It's just outside of Indianapolis. Bill and Gloria Gaither had a program, music program there that drew me there. And then Mary Beth grew up in the denomination that that was kind of the school that, you know, if you were going to go to Christian school from the. From her church and kind of where she grew up in the Church of God of Anderson, Indiana, that was Mecca.
That was the place where you wanted to go. Oh yes, I got you. I got you. Oh yeah, I'm aware of that school too.
Well, Stephen, uh, let me ask this. Did you have any idea how many weddings would use the song, I Will Be Here? And when you wrote it, did you imagine what it would be like 40 years later? True story. I had recorded that song, and my the producer of that record.
Dear friend, a guy named Phil Nash, we had just sung the vocal for that song. And backstory, and we shared a little bit of this, we've shared it over the years quite a bit. But my mom and dad, who were just a wonderful, I sort of watched Jesus change their lives and their marriage. They got married as kids, babies, and was kind of a mess. But God really did a remarkable work in their marriage.
And I grew up, as a result, in the church singing. With my family and just really had them sort of, and even Mary Beth and I both, when we got married, as kind of the model of how we wanted to sort of do our marriage and our family. Both of our sets of parents, amazing believers, but my parents were probably even more so vocal about it and really, you know, their marriage was, they counseled people. And so we thought, well, and they really got it. Figured out.
And about five years into our marriage, they got a divorce. And it was a Very, very, you know, pulled the rug out from under me for sure in many ways because we they were just a stable sort of role model. And so that song, I Will Be Here, was written out of that pain and that Uh, just sort of that dark time, uh, both of us looking at each other saying, Wow, we thought you know, we'd heard them say hundreds of times, divorce is not even a word in our vocabulary, that's that's just off the table. And then suddenly, here they were divorced, and so that really shook some of the foundations, I think, in a way for us. And that song was written for me to say to Mary Beth.
You know, hey, you see the panic in my eyes. I see it in your eyes. We know we're a mess. We know we've got a lot of stuff between us we didn't know when we got married that's coming to the surface that is going to take you know a long time in the rest of our lives to figure out, but I will be here. on this journey beside you by the grace of God, that is my commitment.
And so I wrote that song. And I remember my producer, we just sung it in the studio, and he walked out of the the control room in the studio and said, Man, That song is going to be sung in a lot of weddings. And I looked at him with kind of a surprised look on my face. I remember it like yesterday, and I said, You really think so? It doesn't feel like a wedding song because where it came from for me was such a song of just determination.
You know, tomorrow morning, if you wake up and the sun does not appear, you know, that's not the kind of song you think, oh, I want to sing that at my wedding. That's kind of a downer, you know, but it was a reality for us. And so, I truly, to answer your question, had no clue that it was going to be the wedding song that it became. And I'm obviously very, very grateful on many levels for that being the case. Yeah, absolutely.
And if folks h sing the song at their wedding, maybe they're more likely to follow through with that, you know?
Well, that's the hope. And that's what I've loved about knowing that song has been a part of so many weddings. Yeah, great. Mary Beth, take us back to the first time you saw Stephen. He mentioned it was at Anderson.
But tell us what happened. You know, um, I, um, yep, I went to Anderson University partly because I wanted to leave home and have an experience away from college. Um, my, I grew up in the Church of God, and so I really wanted to attend Anderson. Um, I went for freshman orientation, which was like a week ahead of when classes started. And my college roommate and I decided to go to a welcome back to school concert that was being given by a college band named Chapman Henderson.
And so, the first time I saw Steve, um, he had a long, flowing blonde mullet down to about his shoulders, and he was playing a green, I guess that was a fender, green, green guitar, a green guitar, I don't know what it was. Um, and he had cowboy boots on, and he talked very, very southern. I'm from Ohio, and so I just remember kind of looking at my college roommate going, Well, Mm-hmm. That's kind of a cute little hillbilly. And I didn't think anything about it.
I had no idea we were sharing a mailbox. At that point in time, I don't think he had introduced himself from stage, so I don't I didn't even know that that was Steve Chapman. And so, yep, that's the first that's the first visual I had of him. Wow. How did you come to know that he was the one for you?
We officially met through a mutual friend of ours on campus. Steve asked him who I was when I walked past at one point. And then all the dots became connected that we were Mary Beth Chapman and Steve Chapman and that we were sharing a mailbox. And that kind of ensued the conversations that we would begin to have. And I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he was quite taken with me.
And so we began to take, you know, I tell my kids and my grandchildren all the time, when they have a visual of when Stephen and I met and began talking, you know, they have a visual of what they know, right? Cell phones, texting, being able to get in touch with someone right away.
Well, you know, the internet didn't even exist. I don't even, we didn't even have computers when we were on college campus.
So he began to follow me around. My children would call it stalking. I would call it following me around. And I would wait in line in my dorm for him to be able to call. You know, to the hallway, so that I could talk to him on a phone that actually had a cord attached to a wall.
And we just began taking a lot of walks, a lot of talk, talking, talk, talk, talk. We talked a lot, and we met in September, and by November, we were saying. We loved each other and by March we were engaged.
So I would imagine that pretty quickly it was I I you know, I'm gonna go on record to say it was pretty much love at first sight. I knew pretty quickly he was the one.
So Stephen, I want to ask you the same question that I asked Mary Beth. How did you come to the conclusion she was the one God had for you? As she said, pretty quickly, I mean, I was smitten right from the get-go. I met her. Um in the cafeteria.
and sat down. I knew her name. From the mailbox, my friend that had kind of pointed her out, I saw her and he waved and I said, who is that? And he said, Mary Beth Chapman, and I say this in concert, and it sounds like a joke, but it's true. He said, Her name is Chapman.
I met her last night. She's just a new student, and You guys could be related. And I don't know if I said it out loud, but I know I thought, I hope not. Because I was immediately just she was very lovely, big brown eyes, and And I just thought, wow, she's very beautiful. And so I.
Kind of sought her out in the cafeteria. I thought, well, we're sharing a mailbox together. We at least have to know each other because it's going to be, you know, we're going to be, we're going to at some point meet. And I think I sat down at her table and said, hey, I'm Steve Chapman. And I'm sure at that point I said, hi, I'm Steve Chapman.
Because she, being a Midwest girl, has worked on me for 42 years, I guess, now since we met to try to get a little bit of the. the hillbilly out. But I listen back even to some of the recordings of me in those early days, interviews and things that I would do and think, wow, you really you did have a lot you you you you had a lot of work ahead of you with with me and But I remember asking her. We we I kept Finding her on campus, had friends on the lookout, like, hey, we had a Mary Beth sighting, she's headed this way.
So I would kind of just happen to be out in front of my dorm at just the right time. And And she would come by, and so I asked her on a date, and we were talking about this last night, actually, because we saw that Red Lobster is like, you know, in financial straits, and are they going to go bankrupt or whatever? And we, our first date, and we've always talked about and joked about this, but it was Red Lobster. And I say it was, you know, those cheddar bay biscuits and a plate of popcorn shrimp. That is a recipe for love because that's where I fell in love pretty much with Mary Beth Chapman.
And but to really say when I knew. Uh, and I told my kids this because you know, my boys, uh, we have two boys, and um, they would say, Dad, how did you know? Because they're both married now to amazing uh women, and and I said, You know, guys, there was a point where I had, you know, dated girls and had girlfriends, and some that were, you know, I would have thought were somewhat serious even at the time. But. The the first time that I ever had someone in my life that When I thought about the future, when I looked down the road, You know, to any things about what I felt like God was calling me to.
I was already writing songs. I'd been very blessed to have a relationship starting to. Build with Bill Gaither, and he was publishing some of my music and encouraging me. And really felt like maybe this was the direction that God was going to allow me to go. A dream come true to get to write songs and do that.
But anytime I thought about what the future looked like, she was always. Right there beside me, she was in all of those imaginings of the future, all those pictures that I had, and that had never happened before. I'd never really thought anything about. You know, someone in my future with anybody that I'd ever had a relationship with or dated or whatever.
So that was pretty much for me the way I knew.
Okay. That's it. This is the one. She is the one. If she'll have me.
And I think, I mean, I have a lot of letters and things that she would leave me that would make me believe that she was at least almost as smitten with me as I was with her. She wasn't running away. I wasn't having to chase her too hard. She was pretty catchable, thankfully.
Okay, so now we're looking back on 40 years of married life. With all of the that the two of you have accomplished, you know, professionally and in the adoption arena and so forth, where does a 40-year marriage rank? Yeah.
Well, on what scale? You want to go on the scale of blessing, accomplishment, challenge, hard, probably number one on all of that? I think where my mind would go to if someone asking me, where does a 40-year marriage rank? I tell this story in the book. In 2011, our first grandbaby was born, and she was born in Ireland.
Our oldest daughter, Emily, and her husband were studying theology over there, and she was getting her master's at Queen's University. And so, our first grandbaby was born overseas and could not wait to get there. And obviously, the first is special because it's the first. It's who makes you Grammy and Pop-Ups, right? And I remember standing at the crib with Stephen in this little closet that we had, you know, helped Emily make into a nursery.
You know To started reflecting back on, I guess at then it would be 30 years of marriage, just reflecting back on we really could, we could have missed this, you know, like with all of the valleys, all the mountaintops, all the valleys, all the hard, we make no bones about the struggle has been real, and yet. You know, the theme of the book is just bearing with one another in love and just continuing to choose each other and continuing to show up and make decisions to stay the course and love each other as Christ has loved us, and all of the things, right? And I think. In that moment, looking at this little baby in a crib and looking at him holding hands, it's like, we did it. We are still here.
We're doing it. I think it ranks pretty high because my greatest accomplishments are my children and my grandchildren. And so I think it ranks pretty high when you have seven grandchildren now that you're in a relationship with together. My thought with that, and and you know, you asked about the song I Will Be Here. And, you know, from the very beginning of our marriage, I mean, it was very Much than the number one short of following Jesus until.
We saw him face to face. It was for both of us. And even we talk about, I tell this story in the book about getting your engagement ring and walking the mall, you know, for miles and miles around the mall because I knew when I gave her that engagement ring that this was forever and ever. Even asking her to marry me, it was just there was something with the weight of that that I felt. And I really believe we talk about it in the book that.
There was more going on now that we look back than, you know, even just, hey, I'm going to ask this girl to marry me. But, you know, and I don't know all of this to be sure, but just the sense of looking back now from everything to, you know, show hope and what God would do with our family and our marriage in that area to, you know, a song like I Will Be Here that has impacted so many that would not have been written apart from our journey together and the ministry that God has allowed the two of us together. Because every song I've sung, every, you know, every bit of that has been because of our journey together. It wouldn't, none of it would have happened apart from that. And there was a, I believe, even a cosmic battle of sorts going on at that moment because there was a real reality of what was going to be ahead for us and the ways that God would use that and use us that we felt the weight of it.
Even in our very young age, I surely did. And felt like, you know, this is the number one thing, second only to following Jesus. And even at times of saying, if I have to lay this down, the meetings that I had with counselors and pastors and even managers to say, look, I don't even know. I am not willing to lose my marriage, my family at the cost of a successful career, one more record sold or tour done if I can't really have peace. That as hard as this is, God is still giving us the green light, giving me to carry on because I would see the toll that it was taking on her being a mom raising three kids.
So, all of that to say in a long, long-form way, that. to cross the forty one year mark and say we are still here by the grace of God is number one, only under the banner of walking with Jesus and that being the ultimate goal of this life, it is to be at this point on the journey with Uh with my bride. And I think any of us who have gone through things and had a long-term marriage certainly feel that way.
Well, Mary Beth, I've heard that you were both a little hesitant about writing a book about your marriage. Why is that and what changed your mind? Yes, very, very hesitant because there are so many amazing books written, very helpful books written for marriage. I feel like for Stephen and I, we were not necessarily able to write the book on what to do, but that we can give a real honest approach of what not to do. And the fact that we have, you know, taken 10 steps forward, five steps back, the longer we talked about it, you know, since the song I Will Be Here came out.
There have been people along the way, oh, you guys must have this all figured out. Why don't you write a book on marriage? And we just felt like. You know, we were too young. Our journey, there's so many struggles, you know, trying to keep a family together with a husband who travels so much and just all the differences.
We got married thinking, this is going to be easy. Our last name's the same. We love each other. All the things that I loved about him that were so opposite of me, how quickly they become the irritants potentially in a marriage. And so we didn't feel like we were ever at a place.
Where we were not the experts, we're still not the experts. But I think in the last several years, as we've experienced some. Really, really hard and some really, really sad. I think through people feeding into our lives, we just realized that maybe the fact that we are still here, that we're still together, that we continue to choose each other, maybe just being really honest in our journey and honest about some of the things we have done, right, wrong, or indifferent, maybe would encourage other people.
Well, I think that's going to be true. I think this book will indeed do that. Uh Stephen. As you look back, what are some of the most persistent struggles Uh that you all had in your marriage.
Well, we didn't get "The 5 Love Languages" book early enough. No, that's for sure. I was sitting there thinking when you asked that question, Mary Beth was answering, like, what took us so long. And we have, I have to confess this to you because we probably, in every interview we do, and even as we were talking about this, we have, if your ears have been burning, we have mentioned, you know, the guys who need to write these books are, you know, the Dr. Gary Chapmans who have it, who have the, you know, the love languages and the expertise and the, you know, the, and those kind of things.
Aren't those, those are, you know, the people that write books on marriage. Ours would be the other love languages not to use, you know, or the ones to stay away from, the bad languages of love. No, but, but, you know, and honestly, So many times, you know. we have found ourselves Either, you know, going to the conferences or reading the books and thinking, man, we are just doing this all wrong. And we are both such I think you fixed, you know, want to do it right, to a fault, to a degree that that's probably been one of our great.
Challenges and struggles, expecting ourselves to do it right and each other to do it right, which is the reason that we have, if we come back to one. Truth. It's so simple and almost feels like, well, that's not so encouraging or... Um you know it it seems like That's it, really. But we have come back so often to You know, scripture talking about bearing with one another in love, you know, learning about the fact that patience, you know, the word for patience, you know, the original root of that word is long-suffering, to suffer long, to realize that you are.
Not going to ever do it. right doesn't mean you don't continue to move in those directions. Learn what you can learn about Be a student of the other person, which I think from what I have appreciated, even about how you've written in your books, that is, we're called to do that. Continue to be a student of each other and learn to really love each other for who they are. And I think some of our biggest struggles.
early on were Certainly for me, trying to Fit Mary Beth into a mold, even if I read the book, like, well, you're supposed to do it like this, and I'm supposed to do it like this. Here's how, you know, here's how it's supposed to go. And so much of that, that would drive us to just a place of frustration. And I'm never going to get this right. And I'm going to keep blowing it.
And so then the shame comes in, and the hopelessness, of course, the enemy is always there ready to throw fuel on that fire of hopeless or, yeah, this is probably just too, you're just too different, too broken. It's going to be too, you know, too hard. And sadly, we have realized as well in our years and years of counseling with many different. People who are Christian counselors, but we talk about this in the book as well. You know, that there have been many times when we probably, if we'd have wanted it badly enough, would have had permission from even the experts to say, man, yeah, this is probably just too broken or too hard or whatever.
And for us to really continue to Realize that you know we have been invited into this relationship. That is so much more God's intention, we believe and are continuing to come to believe at a deeper level. That He intends for us marriage to make us wholly, much more than happy. And if our goal is. happy and You know, how do we just get this figured out and get it where we're not having to bear with each other?
We're going to stay. Really frustrated and really disappointed. But if we can recognize in it that God's doing something through all of this to make us more like Jesus and, um, And continue to just grow us deeper in him and More of an understanding of how Jesus loves us, which is the whole point, than. Then you get these amazing moments that we have Been so blessed to experience, which is Mary Beth was referencing earlier. You know, the last chapter of the book is called It's Worth It, because we just sit here with, you know, battle scars and all of that on our lives and our journey and our marriage and grief and sadness and loss, but just this gratefulness for where we are now and what we get to experience together.
Okay. You're listening to the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Our featured resource today is the book by Mary Beth and Stephen Curtis Chapman, Still Here, Life Together on the Long Way Home.
Find out more at buildingrelationships.us or go to fivelovelanguages.com. You know, Stephen, as you were describing some of the struggles that you all had in your own marriage, I'm sure that our listeners, many of them, identify with that. In fact, I think most marriages have times in which they go through that. I know Carolyn and I certainly did, in which you feel like it's just it's not working, you know. And I think this book is going to encourage a lot of people.
to stick in there, you know, and let let's keep growing. One of the things that you mentioned is that in in as a part of your marriage counseling uh one uh several years ago, you took a personality test. Mary Beth, what what did you find out from that that was helpful to you?
Well Yeah. This was, yeah, it was crazy. We took this, you know, we wanted to do preemptive, you know, it's like, we're going to do some preemptive counseling to just really help get us off on the right foot. And so we took this personality test and the counselor brought us back in his office and he laid the results down and they grafted him out. And I don't know if you can visualize this, but mine kind of started like on the lower left and it was just this graph line that kind of went towards the right in an upward, in a, you know, upward way.
And then Steve started low on the, you know, right side and went up towards the left. And so it made a big X on the paper. And he's like, I think, I think I've discovered some of what might be going on. And we're just like, look, we've been X'd out and we haven't even started. And so that goes back to that, you know, it's a mystery, right?
It's like we, you know, just for me anyways, you know, I fell in love with a man who had a lot of qualities that I did not possess, the, you know, much more of a free. Spirit at the time, although, you know, now 40-some years later, we've become much more alike. But, you know, that whole creative mind and the poet and the words and the just so much opposite of me. And then, you know, it's what attracted me to him. And then.
It doesn't take very long. I think we were on our way home from the honeymoon, and I realized that this was going to be a really long life, and that we better get as many people in our corner and get as much help as we can because the very things that attracted us to each other were going to become pretty quickly those irritants, right? And then, you know, life begins. And then you enter kids into that and career and schedule and life and all the things. And it can become quite a volatile situation.
At least for us, it was. And, you know, we had to find humor in it along the way. We had to find help in it along the way. And yeah, that early personality test was like, okay, well, we're going to have some challenges ahead of us. And as you said earlier, it is true, the old saying, opposites attract.
And it's good when you're attracted that way. But then you've got to deal with them in reality. Stephen, you talked about going for counseling. A lot of men, I think, especially men, are resistant to going to counseling. But how important was that for you, and how important do you think it is for others?
Well, I think the first thing, and to your point, is. What will cause so many guys particularly to resist? Is pride. I mean, it is a sense of I am supposed to. be able to figure this out.
And this is admitting some degree of Weakness, cluelessness, need, and all those are things that guys. Naturally, Don't gravitate towards as well, and yet line that up, hold that, you know, lay that over scripture. And Everything You know, that we are encouraged in scripture to do in order to gain strength is to acknowledge our need, our weakness. You know, his strength is perfect in our weakness. Love that truth so much, need it so much that I wrote a song about it early on in my career because I needed all these songs, are really just, I just need to keep hearing them over and over again myself say it to myself.
So I write a song about it. I will be here. His strength is perfect when our strength is gone. That was as much about our marriage as it was any other part of our life and my life, recognizing. You know, that God resists the proud.
He gives grace to the humble, acknowledging our need. You know, there's wisdom in the counsel of many. You know, it's full full of scripture. And yet, that sense, you know, that soon if I Admit this, then you know, I'm going to put myself in a vulnerable position. I'm going to have to admit that I don't have it all together.
I don't have it figured out. And that's scary. And you also add in growing up in The kind of you know culture that I did, and Mary Beth as well. Uh, I mean, she, you know, we talk a little bit about this in our book, and she talks very honestly about it in her book that she wrote a few years ago, Choosing to See, about her journey with depression and all of those things that we grew up where you just prayed harder and trust God more. Why would you need to go look, you know, ask someone for counseling or therapy or help because you just that that's a sign that you're just not trusting God, there's not enough faith.
So, I think it was. Really, my parents' marriage, you know, falling apart that got us to a place of saying, okay. That is going out the window. We need to acknowledge our Our need for some wisdom. It's very clear.
Thankfully, God put pastors in our life, Scotty Smith, Al Henson, some great pastors who were counselor pastors initially for us, who were able to encourage us. Hey, we think it'd be wisdom for you to seek out some counsel as well from some godly men and women. And that was a very important part of our journey, just learning the things that, again, you are brilliant in helping people understand. And you've written some amazing books I know that have helped people tremendously with understanding just what is that person saying and the language they're using or what their needs are real different from mine and they're wired differently. And all those things are so helpful and important.
And we just, we like. I think every couple needed some of that. Training and just equipping. And so it's been a huge part of our journey, and we're grateful for that for sure. Yeah.
I've often said to people If you had a pain, physical pain, that persisted for a little while, you'd likely go see a doctor. That's right.
Well, if you have a relational pain that res that persists for a little while, why wouldn't you go see a counselor? That's right, that's right. Mary Beth, what role has prayer played in your life together? Um oh, it's essential, right? I am married to a man that prays and prays a lot.
And then I have prayed even for him daily, especially when we're apart. But I cannot remember a night that we've been together, physically together, that he has not prayed before we've fallen asleep. And even when we're apart, he'll call home and pray. Super important. I think for me too, as I, and I know this sounds probably a little oversimplified, but I've just, I pray a lot.
You know, those early, the earlier years when we would find ourselves really frustrated with each other or just the things that would irritate, you know, the small irritants about each other. You know, there's not anybody on this planet that I love more than the man I'm sitting right next to. And he's my best friend. Just don't want to do life without him. And yet there are those things where it's like, man, if I could just change that, you know, or if I could just, and I've just learned through the years, it's like, you know what?
You know, he's not my enemy. We have a real enemy that wants to keep us really upset with each other.
So I'm just going to take all of that frustration and I'm just going to talk to the Lord about it and let the Lord do the work in his heart, if there's work to be done. And then hopefully he's doing that the same with me. And then I'm asking the Lord to change my heart towards those things. Like, hey, help me not be so irritated about these things or help me. And then just the encouragement.
About just praying for him, you know, just the amount of work that this man does on the road, the pressures that's on him. And so, yeah, it's been a very, very big part of our family. Our children, you can ask any of them. We have done a lot of life. Hopefully, they will say, Man, we have had a great childhood growing up, and yes, mom and dad have also blown it.
And one of the things that we've been really, really intentional about as we were raising those kids was when we did blow it, we're also going to have, especially in front of them, right? We would also circle back and try to repair in front of them. And that was a lot of prayer and a lot of forgiving and a lot of, you know, giving it to the Lord and having them watch us do that and forgive each other. And so it is woven all through every aspect of our family, of our marriage, of our relationships. Stephen, what have you learned about handling regret and self-criticism about perceived failures, you know, in in your relationship or in your role as a husband?
Yeah.
That's a good question. I was reading Psalm this morning, Psalms, and even the cry of David crying out, God, my sins are many, I am aware of it. And what I have learned from the Psalms, and I'm a slow learner, and I don't think it was until really in the last, well, 15, I'd say 18 years particularly ago, because that was when we lost our youngest daughter, and I came to a deeper understanding of the Psalms. At that point, just because I had, I don't know, skimmed over somehow, I guess, so many of the of the harder psalms, you know, you get to the, your love is better than life, you know, those kinds of verses, and yet so much of the Psalms, the laments, the, how long, O Lord, where are you? Are you going to forget me forever?
I'm sinking down for the last time. And I am so thankful and grateful that those Psalms did not get edited out, the stories did not get edited out of scripture that I fear many publishers would have probably wanted to edit out or you sure we should leave that in there. That's not a real good look on a follower, you know, a man after God's own heart. But I have learned from Just Going deeper into those psalms, that what the psalmist does over and over again right is. run to God with those Disappointments, even in himself, and the shame and the failure.
Because we all make those decisions, and we see it in. You know, so many people's lives that will implode under the shame and finally just. either make, you know, a very terrible Decision, or you know, the power that that can have over someone's life: that I've not done it right, I've messed up, I've blown it. And it falls either Between us and God, and pushes us away. And we get to choose by God's grace where that falls.
We direct it to this is going to fall in a way that pushes me more into. unawareness of The great love that God has for us. And it's really the grace of God that Mary Beth and I have learned so much from our. Dear friend, pastor, mentor, Scotty Smith. Who really has through the years helped us come to understand there is nothing that we can do to make God love us more than He already does, and there is nothing that we have done or will do that'll make Him love us any less.
And if we can really continue to anchor our hearts to that, that is the gospel, right? That is the gospel message. We bring that into our marriage, bring that into our lives, so that we can say, Okay, God, if that's really true, then me blowing it. Ruining it is off the table. That is what you took on yourself when you went to the cross.
You took all the failure, all of the sin. All of the disappointment. And we now have your righteousness and your grace that we can bring into our marriages, even knowing ourselves to be the works in progress that we are, and our spouses, and my beautiful, nearly perfect wife, still a work in progress. And we can apply that to each other. That is.
As our pastor says, not only a game changer, that's kind of an everything changer in marriage and life and everything. Yeah.
Well, you all are in a new season of life now. I mean, your kids are adults. You have seven grandchildren. What's the best and maybe the most challenging part of this season of your marriage? I would say that the best part is being at the place where we get to enjoy these places that the taste and see the Lord is good.
We end the book with a story about a recent accomplishment, I guess you'd call it, within the last couple of years. That's something that my. Amazing bride championed for me in a huge way, probably wanted it for me even more than I wanted it for myself. And that was to be inducted into the grand old opry. You know, I mean, on the scale of all things that matter in life, it's not one of those things you go, that's, you know, that's a major, major thing.
But she She cared and supported me in that so much. And it really was, it's where my career in many ways began in Nashville at Opryland and at the Grand Ole Opry. And so kind of a full circle. And just the sweetness of the Lord in that for us to get to experience that together, for us to get to stand on that stage with our kids and our family around us, my dad and mom with me, and my dad, whose dream was to be on the Grand Ole Opry, and just to get to taste God's goodness in that. And moments like that, that we get to experience now, you know, just getting to walk down to the creek with our grandson, Jack, our two-year-old grandson, and throw rocks in the creek and just.
Get to do that together, you know, get to be at this season together is the great gift and the blessing of the Lord. And the challenge is, how do we steward this season well? Because, you know, there's still gas in the tank for both of us. Work with Show Hope, you know, ministry music. I feel like, you know, singing the songs, just did a big concert the other night at the Ryman Auditorium here in Nashville.
And, you know, and it was wonderful. And there's something special about singing these songs now, 25, 30, 40 years later, almost, 40 years next year from the release of my first record, that makes those songs and those truths even sweeter and more impactful than I feel like they've ever been in the lives of people. And that's.
So encouraging and a beautiful thing, but also, you know, we lay in bed last night watching a show, and Mary Beth's like, When are you going to do that? Just stop and let's retire because we only have 10 more years, we only got 15 more years. How many more years do we have? We need to be enjoying this season even more, you know.
So, that's a challenge, that's a hard thing to figure out. I had someone tell me the other day, I thought this was interesting. They're like, when you look at the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and the 80s, it's kind of like the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior class. And I'm like, babe. We're in our 60s.
We're already sophomores. Like, we gotta, you know, like, you know, when we're seniors, like in the 80s, we might not be able to enjoy as much life like then as we would maybe when we're juniors.
So, like, you know, we see, I see much more life, you know, in the rearview mirror than I do out through the front windshield.
So, I'm constantly kind of reminding them: it's like, hey, hey, you know, so the challenge is just what do we do, right, with the rest of the time that God would grant us, and you know, how do we enjoy our family? And if there's impactful ministry that still needs to happen, you know, how do we, it's, it's the same, right? You know, it's how do we balance all of it and do it in a way? But I will tell you this: from Grammy's standpoint, those grandbabies are coming in first. Yeah, oh, yeah, next to this one, enjoying this one.
Well, I can certainly identify with that, having grandchildren myself, okay.
Well, let me just thank you all for being with us on the program today and for taking the time and energy to write this book. I really think it's going to help a lot of folks. And so keep on going. As long as God gives you energy and gives you wisdom, keep on going. God bless.
Thanks for all that you have done in the Christian family and what you will do.
So God bless you. Thank you, brother. Thank you all so much. Have a good rest of the day. Thank you for having us.
Again, the title of today's resource is Still Here, Life Together on the Long Way Home. It's by Mary Beth and Stephen Curtis Chapman. Hope you've enjoyed the conversation today. Find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us.
And next week. Healthy people foster healthy relationships.
So join us next week as we work on our people skills. Don't miss author and counselor Deborah Faleda. Our thanks to Janice Backing and Steve Wick for their work behind the scenes. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
Thanks for listening.
