Naked marriage goes back to God's original design for marriage. And the first picture he gave us of marriage is in Genesis chapter 2, and he says that first couple, Adam and Eve, they were naked and unashamed. And that nakedness wasn't just a picture of physical intimacy, even though that's a beautiful part of it. But it's a picture of having nothing to hide from each other and being completely vulnerable, completely open.
And that's what God desires for marriage. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.
And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So we don't often talk about 1999 in our marriage. Oh, 1999.
Ooh, yeah. It was one of the tougher years. Why? I lost my very best friend to cancer. And it was my sister.
She's my best friend. She led me to Jesus. She died of, gosh, I get teary talking about it. She died of lung cancer.
My parents had never smoked and she never did. And she was gone within five months, leaving her four sons. And it was really a dark time for us in our lives. Yeah. And I mean, it was dark for you.
It was dark for everyone, really. And as your husband, you know, I've always said, you know, that's one of the things I love about Ann Wilson is your strength finders. Like number two is positivity.
Yeah. And like if you walk in the kitchen one day and you're not positive, I like fall on the floor. I can barely function, which is, you know, like I'm so codependent on your positivity.
But you went through our marriage, went through 18 months, didn't it? Yeah, I was grieving and I could not conjure up anything. I was just at a dark, dark place questioning everything. And I felt like I had absolutely nothing to give. Yeah, I can remember the day I heard you laugh in the garage.
I was in the kitchen and I think it was two years that I hadn't heard you laugh like belly laugh. And, you know, we're bringing that up because when one of the spouses or both are really struggling emotionally or mentally, it can really impact a marriage. And I think it can lead one or both of you reeling, not knowing where to go, what to do. And you're wondering, will our marriage survive this? Yeah. And so I'm excited because we've got two friends in the studio today, David and Ashley Willis, who I didn't say David and Wilson.
David and Ashley Willis. Welcome to family life today. Thank you. You're sitting over there being so polite. You know, you can't interrupt us.
And here you are sitting in the studio. But you guys have this amazing ministry that you have committed. It has been two decades or so of your lives to help in marriages like what we just described thrive in the midst of good times and tough times, right?
Yes. I mean, it's you know, we definitely have walked through some dark times, just like what you described. And yeah, it's our heart to help people navigate these things, because it is in those times that, you know, even though we are personally going through a hard time, I think we can turn and kind of put it on our spouse and think, oh, did I marry the wrong person? Or maybe the marriage is the problem. Maybe it's all their fault after all, you know, and so we want to help couples just like you guys are doing, you know, help them see that they can get through these hard times. And not only that, but there's really kind of a strength you find on the other side of that, when you lean into each other and really give it to God through that hard time, you can really grow stronger through it. Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about Dave and Ashley Willis, because I know you've written, I didn't know this many, 15 books. Is that right? Yeah. You guys are young. It's not like you're this old couple. You're young. You must be cranking them out every six months. Well, some of them are just really short.
Like, I've got a few really, really short ones, like children's book length, probably, just to add to the total count. You were impacting people socially on the internet before anybody was really doing it. And so you have literally, for two decades at least, really impacted marriages. And then you start this thing.
You got to tell me what this means. Naked marriage. That's your ministry.
That's your podcast. The book we're going to dive in today is Naked and Healthy. So obviously, you have a title like Naked Marriage that gets people interested.
What's that all about? It does. We're not part of a nudist colony, just to clarify. But naked marriage goes back to God's original design for marriage. And the first picture he gave us of marriage is in Genesis chapter two. And he says that first couple, Adam and Eve, they were naked and unashamed. And that nakedness wasn't just a picture of physical intimacy, even though that's a beautiful part of it.
But it's a picture of having nothing to hide from each other and being completely vulnerable, completely open. And that's what God desires for marriage. And so we've tried to build our own marriage that way through all of God's principles for what a marriage should be. And just be a safe place where other couples can talk about it, whether it's sending us messages online, which was happening long before we ever had a podcast, or we're doing marriage ministry full time the way we are now. But we're just trying to point people back to God's design in a world that has gotten really confused about issues around sex and marriage and what it all means and what it's all supposed to look like. And God's perfect plan is still perfect. And we're just trying to help point people back to that. Yeah. And it's one of the things I really appreciate about your ministry is it's biblical. I mean, it's centered on the Word of God.
It's vulnerable. That's the naked part, you know, naked and unashamed. And you're always helping. I mean, you're literally helping couples. And it's really interesting as I picked up your latest book, Naked and Healthy, it really gets into what we started with, the mind and the emotions, how that affects a marriage, the body or the physical and the spiritual. And so here's the thing before we even dive into that, because I really want to talk about where we started today, the emotional part of a marriage. But, you know, one of the things that we do and we got to talk about this now, because there's a promotion going on right now with Family Life where you can go to the Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway half off.
Now, if you're wired like me, I say yes to half off. So I'm going to go so you can go to any one of 60 different marriage conferences around the country. Go to familylifetoday.com.
You can find a marriage conference near you or you can go to a destination one if you want and spend Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning learning how to build a marriage that God wants you to have. It's a great weekend. It really, truly changed our marriage. It changed our life.
I feel like it changed our legacy. And so to get half off is an amazing deal off that registration price. Yeah.
So I'd say even right now, go online, go to familylifetoday.com, sign up, have a great weekend. It's going to literally change your life. So now talk about the emotional part. You have your own personal story of how this played out in your marriage, where the mental and emotional part affected you in your marriage in a negative way.
Very much so. You know, Dave and I got married pretty young. I was actually still in college when we got married.
Dave graduated from college one weekend. We got married the next weekend and then he started working for the college that I was attending. And, you know, it was just this fairy tale for us. And, you know, being naive and being very young, we just thought we got this. And we were also both communication majors. And so we thought we know how to communicate and our marriage is just going to be awesome. No problem. Exactly.
No problem. And so we get married and, you know, we're in that honeymoon phase. But very quickly, I just noticed that I'm not quite myself and I'm having trouble sleeping. I will just you know, I had these lingering, plaguing negative thoughts and fears that I had a really hard time shaking off. And then before you go on, tell me about those thoughts and fears, like what was going through your head?
Oh, my goodness. I mean, I really it was like an onslaught of just trying to I don't know. I think I went through an identity crisis, really, because we were actually having a little bit of trouble with some family members in the beginning of our marriage. And it really threw me for a loop, to be honest with you. It was very earth shattering in my my little world. And it caused me to have a little bit of it, like, well, who am I? Because this relationship that I really had almost just depended on and to find myself by was all of a sudden just crumbling to the ground. And things weren't really how I thought they were. And it really sent me into a massive depression.
And and then I started having your one. This is in the first year. And it happened within like the first two weeks. And it just I mean, it was like day after day. I mean, then holidays would come and it would get worse on the holidays. And it was just terrible.
And it went on for several years. So let me let me go to you, Dave. So here you are, you're newly married, like, oh, this could be amazing. And here, Ashley is in this phase of life in this depression. Were you thinking what just happened? Like, are you doubting? Who is she? No, no, I never doubted.
Who is she? But I was still completely terrified at the situation. Like I knew who I married.
I never had a doubt in my mind at all about that. And I was so thankful and have been every day of our marriage that she's my wife. But I I just didn't know how to help. And I didn't know how to get us how to lead through that. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
I didn't know what she was supposed to do. So it became a time in our marriage where we really had to to lean on God like never before. And it kind of it was a good way to start out in that way, because it it forced us to realize the obvious, which is we can't do everything in our own strength. We need the Lord. And that isn't just something we said like that is something in that moment we had to live. We had to say, God, help us through this.
Show us what to do. And God helped us in a lot of ways through that. And it was it was a slow process. You know, he usually the healing happens in slow processes.
Unfortunately, we want it to happen fast. But yeah, it's usually a journey. You were saying how many years it went on for at least four years. I can distinctly remember like, you know, you kind of with depression, anybody who is listening to this. When you're first depressed, you kind of get used to it and you don't realize that's what you're going through. And you kind of chalk it up to sadness or I'm just having problems with this one relationship in my life or whatever it is.
You call it circumstantial. But, you know, looking back, I think it was actually probably even more than four years, but definitely four distinct years where I would I mean, I was crying. I would just cry all the time.
I literally just like the commercials you see on TV for antidepressants. I literally felt like this little dark cloud was following me around and I didn't want to do the things I once enjoyed. I just I just felt like a shell of a person.
And I remember, you know, that's when the enemy came in and just really played on that. You know, it was like he just tried to mess with me even more and started kind of feeding me these lies like, you know what? Dave's going to leave you.
You're not really the woman he married anymore. And are you really saved? Are you really saved if you are thinking these dark thoughts or if you're doubting God or if you're questioning your marriage or whatever it is?
You know, how dare you even think that? Like, you should be ashamed. I mean, I just had all those really terrible lies going through my mind. And I mean, it got really dark kind of in the midst of that four year journey of even thinking, I don't know if I want to live. Like, I don't know if I really want to continue living.
If this is living, I don't want it. And talk about spiritually. What did you feel? What were you praying in that time? I would pray. I will tell you, there's never been another time in my life where I've cried out to the Lord so much because I started actually my depression, as it often does for a lot of people, went into anxiety as well. And I would have anxiety attacks at night where I would just my heart would be beating out of my chest. I'd be in a cold sweat and I'd have to run to the bathroom and physically get ill because there's physical manifestations for mental illness. And I would be like in the bathroom just crying and literally out loud saying, Lord, please take this away from me.
Please, please just give me hope. You know, just crying out. I would a lot of times, too, because a lot I've heard from a lot of different people who've gone through anxiety and depression. It usually happens at night.
It's usually in those wee hours, you know. And and I would turn on like Christian television and I would just be trying to hear from God, you know, like I just need something. And I, you know, and every time he would, you know, God always comes right when you need him.
But for me personally, it wasn't like poof, it's gone. It was a journey. It was a gradual process. And I did go to Christian counseling.
That was a game changer for me. My Christian actually went to two different ones because we moved kind of in the middle of my depression. And both of my counselors really kind of helped me to do what the Bible says to do, to take your thoughts captive and to replace them with God's truth.
And that was something that I had to learn because I really felt helpless there for a while. And, you know, when I was first going through it, too, I didn't even tell Dave. I know he knew something was up because I just wasn't quite myself. But when I finally told him, I mean, he as my spouse, he didn't judge me.
He didn't say, you know what, you are right. You are damaged goods. I think I'm just going to move on.
You know, he didn't shame me at all. Like, you're not supposed to worry. Like, I mean, guys listening, the worst thing you could say to a depressed person is you're not supposed to worry or worry is a sin. I mean, it just makes us feel you're depressed again today. Yes. Like I thought you were over this. Yeah.
It's just because it's not that easy. I mean, it is it is such it could become a stronghold in your life. But I also want to say with that, that in those prayers, in those moments when I was crying out to God, I've never felt him so, so close. You know, and I literally felt the verse that says he is close to the broken hearted. You know, and and over time I I could see him giving me beauty for my ashes because I did. I felt like ashes. I felt like the beautiful life I thought I was going to live with with Dave. And at the time I had small children, even when I was going through this, I thought it's just burning in flames. Like I'm the one. It's me.
It's my fault. And I just had to learn that, you know, mental illness is no respecter of persons. Christian or not, we can go through this. But God is our healer. And with his help and if you're married, please help your spouse lean into your spouse in this. But with with helping each other through this, you can come through it. And I've been on the other side of this for years. Praise Jesus.
I mean, I've been free from anxiety and depressions for years and I'm so, so grateful. And I'm guessing you guys have met people that the spouse hasn't responded the way Dave responded to you, Ashley. Yes. Have you seen the negative toll that it plays out if you don't respond in a kind and generous and grace giving way?
Absolutely. And, you know, I didn't know what to say during those times, like I didn't have any. There was nothing magical that I said or did that helped. But I just knew I just need to make sure she knows she's not going to face this alone.
And so I just reminded her over and over that I'm here and we're going to get through this together. But I was not a perfect husband back then. Like, I don't want to paint this picture that like I was I was this this rock who was doing everything right. And because like I was in my own ways kind of messed up then, like I was struggling. I felt kind of inadequate and insecure because I didn't completely know how to help.
You know, I was making some dumb choices, part of which, you know, not to dive too deep into this now. But I had had a past struggle before we got married with pornography and I fell back into that in those early years of our marriage. And that put all kinds of strain and confusion mentally, spiritually and otherwise, you know, on both of us. And it certainly, you know, when that came out, didn't do anything at all to help, you know, actually to come out of her depression.
I mean, if anything, it probably made that worse. And so it became another area where in that I wasn't helping with the healing, I was actually adding to the wound. And so we had to come together to to really find healing in the Lord and grace and hope in the Lord.
But if you are dealing with depression or anxiety the way that Ashley was, some of the things she did that I just commend her for that God really blessed and used is like, number one, she chose to hold on to God's promises even when she was feeling something different. Our culture kind of says, you know, your feelings are always right, your feelings are your God, your feelings are your truth and you just hold on to that. But she said, no, my feelings are lying to me right now. My feelings are real.
I mean, they're real. And I'm feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. But even though I don't feel it right now, I'm holding on to God's promises that he is good.
He is with me. He's for me and that I'm going to get through this. And she kept feeding her mind things that reinforce that message. You know, she was so disciplined and saying, I'm going to read the word today, even though I'm not feeling it. I'm going to put God's word in my mind to what I'm listening to and what I'm watching. I'm going to surround myself with people who love me and encouraging voices because I know I'm really vulnerable right now.
And if I'm listening to the wrong voices, it could have a really negative impact. I'm going to get into counseling. And I encouraged her in all those things. But she did the work and she continued to walk that path and God did the rest over time.
It wasn't quick, but over time that fog really lifted. And then she used that as part of her testimony and has helped thousands of people who are feeling the same thing. And we're in a time right now, you know, just in what our world's been through these last couple of years, where there's never been more anxiety and depression and confusion and uncertainty. And now more than ever, you know, we need to do those things that Ashley was doing all those years ago, turn back to the truth of God's word and to surround ourselves with the right voices and maybe detox from all the negative news out there in the world and say, I want to just kind of fast from that for a while and I want to feed on God's word and surround myself with people who love me. And healing can happen. God wants you to live with healing. He's not given us a spirit of fear.
He wants to give you a spirit of a sound mind. And if you don't feel that right now, don't beat yourself up. Don't convince yourself that it's because you're some kind of like terrible sinner.
This is just part of being a human being. Sometimes, you know, we deal with brokenness, but God wants to carry you through it. Now, either one of you guys ever feel like or sort of blame your marriage for the problems you were having? Because I think often we can get in a marriage and you go through something like what Ashley was going through. And you said, well, if I want to marry you or if I want to get married, I'd be in a different place.
I'd be OK. And it's easy to blame the marriage when the marriage isn't the problem. But did you find yourself ever doing that? I think I don't want to speak for you, but I think when we were having all that trouble with some family members, I am sure that crossed your mind. No, it really didn't.
It really didn't. Because one of the few things I knew for sure is that I married the right person. And if you're out there, I don't know if I married the right person. Hey, listen, guys, the moment you said I do, they became the right person, right? I mean, you committed your life to them.
God has made you one. But you never struggle with that because she's going through this thing you didn't see coming. I struggle with so many things in my life, like so many things. But one thing I have not struggled with is saying, like, oh, man, I wish I would have not married her. I have really honest I've had all kinds of terrible thoughts and dumb thoughts and sinful thoughts.
But that thought has never really entered my mind. I'm like, I know I know that I'm with the person that I'm meant to be with for my whole life. And I'm so thankful for her. And even at our toughest time, in her darkest time, I was so thankful to be her husband. If anything, I just felt more of a sense of urgency to remind her of that because she didn't believe that, even though it was true. But, you know, our feelings can lie to us. And so I just tried to remind her every way I could, like, I love you so much and I am so honored to get to be your husband.
And we're going to get through this together. And in her mind, wouldn't let her believe it at the time. But it was true. And I kept saying it. Well, I would even say things like, hey, I know I'm not keeping my end of the bargain here. Like, I'm not really who you married.
And I don't know if I'm ever going to be that woman again. So if you want to leave, it's OK. Like, I would literally say that. I would literally say it's OK, wouldn't I? I mean, we would have those late nights.
I would say no. I was like, I'm giving you an out. I'm giving you an out. And he just and it would be you guys like it's never convenient when you're going through your struggles in your marriage or in life, for that matter. And so I would hear he'd have like a full day of work the next day. And I think I mean, I was a student, probably a senior in college at this time. And I my classes wouldn't start till later, but I'd wake him up usually like two, three in the morning out of desperation. I mean, I would try not to. But I was just so desperate and I've been toiling for hours, you know, over whatever thoughts I had that night that were plaguing me.
And he would be like in a fog. And I would I would just say I'm feeling so bad and I got sick tonight and I just I feel so bad. You know what? You shouldn't have to deal with this. I'm a mess. I'm so I'm just a mess. And clearly I've done something wrong, completely wrong here. You know, you have an out. You have an out. You deserve so much better than me. You know, you deserve so much better.
And every time he would say, Ashley, I am not going anywhere. That's our gift. Oh, my God.
Yes. Gift that we can say that to our spouse when they're struggling. I'm thinking two of Romans twelve to and I love that scripture do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed.
How? By the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. And I think that being conformed to the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds.
When I was going through my grieving of my sister and I would say that's probably the time in my life where I was the most depressed. Would you say that? Yeah, definitely. But I found myself the same, actually, like my mind is reeling of what kind of God would take this 44 year old woman who has four kids, you know? And and then I would be asking, like, what if that happens to me? So your mind goes crazy, especially at night and learning to take those thoughts captive. Man, that was hard because my whole life I just let my mind go.
When you think of captivity, you think of a cage like you're going to put those thoughts in a cage and not let them run wild. And learning how to do that can take some time. How did you like what was your discipline?
How did you do that? You know, one of the most helpful things to me, I actually read a book and it's an old Beth Moore book. OK, and it's called Praying God's Word.
And one thing Beth Moore put in that book. But this is something anyone listening could do on their own is there was like a perforated section with just scripture. And and she had a little blurb in there saying, like, listen, you know, even Jesus himself, when he was going through his hardest time in the desert and being tempted, you know, he would quote scripture to the enemy.
He would say, no, no, no, this is what God says out loud. And she's like, there's so much power in that. And also, even if you're not saying it out loud, which I highly recommend, even just surrounding yourself in those places that you frequent, like your car, your bathroom, your bedside table, putting the words there, it's just powerful. And that's how you can renew your mind, because when you start to have that thought, you remember that verse and you're really meditating on that verse.
So I did that. And I still from time to time do that because it was just, you know, Proverbs three, five and six. You know, it was probably that my verse just that I would cling to so much time, you know, and not trusting in my own understanding, because at that time I literally couldn't trust my own understanding because my mind was not healthy. And so it helped me by putting different verses like that. It just really helped bathe, kind of wash my mind with God's truth.
And it renewed it over time. And, you know, the things that we tend to focus on, actually, this is a Lisa Turkers quote that I love. She says, the mind feasts on what it focuses on. And I wanted to feast on God's word. I didn't want to feast on the lies of the devil. I wanted to feast on his word, on his truth. And truly, when I was feasting on his word by just focusing on it, it's healing.
I mean, his word is healing. And it really, really it just it helped me tremendously. I wouldn't have been able to get through that time without it.
I mean, I'm just thinking of, you know, listener, maybe a couple's going through what you went through. And I know we're not sitting here like you never struggle again. I mean, it isn't like it was done and over. But you have helped so many.
I mean, I'm just thinking, man, you've given us like a prescription. And again, I know there's no step one, step two, but getting your eyes off of the problem and onto the Lord, getting them in the word. One of the things that really impacted us in that time period was worship music.
Oh, yes. I remember we would go to church and often I would be in the band playing and I sort of said, I don't want to play for a while. I want to be just standing and singing.
We couldn't sing. I would just weep. I remember I look over and Anna's on her knees, just weeping, could barely get the words out. But being in that presence and going vertical was powerful. There was something about when you worship. Your heart be cast to become soft and absorbs. Whereas before, wherever I'd go, I'd shut down my heart because it hurt too bad. But when music came and worship music, the intimacy of God's words tended to just pour into my heart. And I would just cry because the emotion of it. And I feel like that's super healing. So as you think back to that season of your marriage, how did that journey impact your passion to help people have naked marriages? Oh, my goodness.
I mean, I had a great impact on it because, you know, when I was first going through my depression, I really hit it from Dave because I didn't want him to see that part of me. And I think I was was thinking like, well, this is just going to go go away quickly. I don't want him to even know I'm having these don't need to bring it up.
Right. I don't even need to bring it up. Let me ask you, could you hide it?
Did you not see it? You know, as a young husband, I was pretty oblivious to a lot of things. Like I missed a lot of pretty obvious nonverbal cues that even 20 years later, I'm still not always great at picking up on. But I knew something was off. Yeah. But didn't know.
I didn't know. Like I was not equipped to really, really know. And, you know, in in the book, we talk about, you know, mental health. I think being mentally healthy and what's happening in our mind is one of the easiest things to hide from our spouse. And so that's that's really you really need the naked marriage, maybe more even than the other areas, because it's easy to hide what's happening in your head, like the thoughts, the fears you're struggling with.
You know, in my case, you know, the sin I was struggling with with these lustful images in my in my mind. In Ashley's case, you know, dealing and wrestling with this anxiety and depression and fear and uncertainty and feeling like she had to keep that hidden from us. And if we hide what's happening in our minds and hearts from one another, really, it closes us off. It creates a wedge in the marriage where God wants instead there to be a bridge where we can share all of it and bear one another's burdens. And so you've got whatever it is that you're facing, whatever it is in your mind that that you haven't really revealed to your spouse, bring that out.
It's going to it's going to bring your intimacy to a whole new level because the depth of your honesty really determines the depth of your intimacy. But any form of secrecy, it cuts us off from healing and it cuts us off from from our spouse. And so, like, really, the enemy's game is to keep us in isolation.
Like, that's always his game plan is to, like, keep us isolated, get us to deal with stuff on our own. God's plan for healing always happens in relationship or relationship with him, first and foremost. But then within marriage, especially, it happens within the relationship and being able to confess to each other and pray for each other and bear that burden together. And so when Ashley really trusted me with her struggle, even though it didn't instantly bring healing, what it did is it instantly started to bring healing in our marriage because now we could face it together. And now it wasn't as heavy for her to carry because I was helping carry it, too. It's so true. And, you know, we always say in marriage, it's never his problem or her problem.
It's always our problem. And I didn't realize that at the time. You know, but really, even though I'm the one who's going through mental illness, it's still affecting my marriage. It's still something that Dave is dealing with, whether I'm telling him or not. And so it wasn't right for me to keep it from him. But also, I think what actually motivated me to actually tell him was just out of desperation and needing help.
And, you know, again, I probably woke him up at two in the morning and just kind of told him really what's going on. And I just I did feel a release. I felt such a release and also a relief of he's seeing all of me. And this man still loves me and he still wants to be with me like I'm truly naked and unashamed. And, you know, Dave, really his his willingness to hear me out and to be there for me and kind of hang in the corner with me, so to speak. It really did help me get rid of the shame because I think shame was a huge issue for me back in those days. And, you know, when you realize that there's no shame here, that you just need healing and you need Jesus, you know, and God wants you to bring it out into the light.
That's when the healing happens. Well, talk to talk to the couple that's afraid because bringing something from the dark that's a secret to your spouse is a scary thing. And a lot of times we are so afraid we don't.
But you both I mean, Dave, you shared your struggle with porn, you share your struggle with mental health. That's a scary moment to step over that threshold. And yet, you know, we sit here and go, oh, that's the best thing. Yet I know there's a couple going down maybe for them, but not for us. We're so afraid we'll be rejected. Yeah.
Yes. So what would you say to them? Well, I'll say the mistake that I made is that I had to be caught for it to really come out.
And what that did is it created an extra barrier of trust to be rebuilt. And I wish I could go back and obviously not have done it at all, but have had the courage to share it. And once it did come out, then I got real honest real fast.
But I just tell folks, listen, the Bible says it and it's true. Like what's done in secret is going to be shouted from the rooftops. Like one way or another, what you're hiding is going to come out.
It's just going to. And so you might as well be the one to take initiative and be the one to bring it out because that's going to help the healing process. That's going to help trust be rebuilt faster because it's going to come out one way or the other. And so you be the one to do it and you trust God to do the rest and actually had that that courage and faith to say, I'm just I'm going to bring this out.
I'm going to be the one to say it and bring it out in the open. And once we bring something from the darkness out into the light, it instantly has less power over us. That's just the way God wires things. And I think that she felt some some some freedom and healing start to happen the moment that she brought it out in the open.
I did. And vulnerability in marriage is key. But I think the reason so many of us are scared to share things like this in marriage is because we live in a culture that says you're crazy if you're going to be that vulnerable. Like, I remember distinctly one time we were having this kind of conversation explaining the naked marriage to to a single man. OK, but he had been dating and and the look on his face. He looked at us so perplexed, like you're like you're serious about saying everything, like not having any secrets and not having any hidden bank accounts and not having it passwords on your devices and things like that.
And I was like, yes, like in marriage, in order to have the kind of marriage God wants us to have, you know, you got to put it all out on the table. And he he kind of paused for a moment and he said, I've never trusted someone like that in my entire life. And I don't know if I ever can like that. That is so scary to me. I think he used the word scary. He said, like, that scares me to death, you know, and I my heart kind of sank because I thought that that's just the world we live in. And I think a lot of it comes from culture telling us that. But I also think it's because the brokenness. I mean, I think that a lot of times we don't trust our spouse for something that somebody else did to us. Maybe our spouse didn't even do it. But it's like we couldn't really trust our mom or our dad or we couldn't trust.
Maybe maybe you were married before and your previous spouse was just completely just you couldn't trust them. But I just want to challenge you to trust God and trust God with it, like in our case with Dave's pornography issue. You know, I was angry and I had my doubts and I was disgusted and I felt all those things. But I knew that God was bigger and I knew that Dave wasn't defined by his sin, just like he knew I wasn't defined by my mental illness. And so that's when, you know, we have to dig deep and pray and just just like you were saying earlier about how, you know, God keeping our hearts soft through worship and through prayer. And I think in marriage that is so key because when we are praying together with and for each other, he does. He does something miraculous where he really softens our hearts towards each other. And we begin to be less afraid because honestly, prayer is probably one of the most vulnerable things you can do with your spouse and the most intimate things you can do with your spouse.
And so I would encourage couples to start there if they're scared. I remember hearing someone say once that all of us would like to think that our worst day is not what defines us. It's not what we're known for in life. And in the same way in marriage, we'd like to think that our greatest struggle, our greatest weakness, the thing we wrestle with is not what defines us in our spouses eyes.
That doesn't mean that we ignore or gloss over the very real issues that we're all wrestling with. It means that in marriage we are to be, to use the words Dan Allender used once, we are to be intimate allies. We're to be working together for our mutual good in marriage and for God's glory. This is one of the things we focus on at our weekend to remember marriage getaways. These two and a half day getaways held in cities all across the country are designed to be an opportunity for couples to be refreshed and equipped in the basics of what it means to have a healthy, strong, godly marriage.
And we have a whole season of these events about to kick off next month. We want to encourage you to go to our website familylifetoday.com and find out when a getaway is coming to a city near where you live and decide now that you're going to invest in your marriage this spring at one of our getaways. In fact, if you're registered this week, you and your spouse will save 50% off the regular registration fee. So you can attend a getaway for essentially half price. You just need to sign up this week to take advantage of this special offer.
Go to our website familylifetoday.com for more information about the weekend to remember marriage getaways. Find out when one is coming to a city near where you live and then register online. Or if you have any questions, call us at 1-800-FL today. We'd be happy to answer any questions you have and help you with your registration. Again, the number is 1-800-358-6329.
That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Plan to join us this spring at a weekend to remember marriage getaway. And then while you're on our website at familylifetoday.com, look for more information about Dave and Ashley Willis' book, Naked and Healthy.
All about being transparent with one another and marriage, being emotionally vulnerable, being connected at the deepest level. We have copies of the Willis' book available. You can order it online at familylifetoday.com or you can call to order at 1-800-FL today. Again, the title of the book is Naked and Healthy by Dave and Ashley Willis. Go to familylifetoday.com for more information or call 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now tomorrow, Dave and Ashley Willis are going to rejoin us to talk about the importance of our physical health when it comes to our marital oneness.
Why is it important that we be physically healthy? I hope you're able to join us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
