The average age for marriage today is 29 for guys and just a little over 27 for women. That means Harold and Rachel Earls were well below average when they became husband and wife. I think some people question should you get married young or get married later if you even have a choice, but one beautiful thing I think that came from that is that we were so young that we could really form and craft our future and our identity in each other and in God. Rather, when you get older, sometimes it gets harder to merge those two lives together.
So, we actually had that going for us because we knew what was on the other side. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.
I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. We'll meet Harold and Rachel Earls today and hear about their incredible marriage adventure. Stay with us. Welcome to Family Life Today.
Thanks for joining us. I feel like this feels like it should be a screenplay to me. It would be a good screenplay. This epic love story that we're going to hear. I think some of our listeners go, I already know this story because I know this couple because I've been watching them. They're beautiful. That's right. You watch on their YouTube channel.
You see what they're doing. They've got a book out now called Higher Calling, and we're glad to have them joining us on Family Life Today. Harold and Rachel Earls, welcome.
Hey, thanks for having us. Hey, only if Channing Tatum can play me. Oh, Rachel, who would you pick?
I call Rachel McAdams. Okay. Ooh, that's a good one.
I can see this is a nice movie. I don't know. You've already thought this through, haven't you? We have.
Put some thought into it. Maybe these guys would be stepping down because you're pretty amazing. I don't know about that.
Our acting ability. The Earls family vlog has been online for two or three years now, longer than that. A long time. Started back in 2014 when it was just Rachel Earls. It started with your viral video about having a boyfriend who was at West Point.
Yes, it did. And just grew out of that. As I said, you guys have written this book. Harold, you, up until recently, you were in the Army. You went to West Point. You just completed a tour at the old guard guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns, right? I did. So I was the commander of the guard, actually, at the Tomb of the Unknowns soldier.
Yeah. And you've told your story. Your book is kind of a memoir, both about climbing Everest, which we're going to get to, but I want to- Just a small little- A little weekend jaunt you took. But I think we want to go back and- And I was fascinated in looking at your book at how quickly you guys knew this is the one. Oh, yeah. So tell us how you met.
It's weird of again. So my best friend in the whole world, Tommy Ferguson, they're cousins. So he was always like, hey, I have this awesome cousin. She's a redhead.
You have to meet her. And for me, I was like, hey, man, I'm just not into redheads. I was going to say, what's the redhead part?
Yeah, exactly. Which the funny thing is now, if you fast forward, I have a redheaded wife, a redheaded child, two redheaded sons, and a redheaded dog. So God's just really had his fun with me. But eventually I was like, hey, I'm not into redheads, but he showed me a picture of her. And I was like, man- Now I'm into redheads. I'm into redheads. And so from there, I talked to Tommy.
He's like, hey, I've paved the way. I've already talked to her. She knows who you are.
So I shot her a friend request on Facebook. Okay. So you had already been set up by Tommy. No, I did not know anything at all.
Yes. So I was going into my sophomore year of college. I had just previously had a breakup the year before. And so I'd really just been spending my time healing and pursuing God and just falling in love with him all over again. And I remember just that night before I'd been writing in my journal and I was praying to God, just saying, hey, like, I know there is a great guy out there for me and I am okay if the timing is not right now because I'm so happy.
But could you just give me some sort of sign that maybe he's out there? And sure enough, the next day is when I get this Facebook request from Harold Earls. And I was like, who is this person? And I saw our mutual friends on Facebook were just my family members.
And soon enough, I get this message telling me that he's actually in a relationship with my cousin. I thought it was funny. I was so confused.
And Tommy had not told me anything at all. So this is I was blindsided, if you will. But did you check him out?
Oh, I did. After I saw that message, I was like, okay, pictures. And I noticed military and baseball. I was like, what is going on here? I start calling my mom because my mom is a knower of all things family. And so my mom, like, who is this person? And she denies it. She's like, I don't know anything, which is very bizarre because she knows everything.
And again, she denies it. So I'm like, okay, I guess I'll figure it out for myself. And we start messaging back and forth and pretty much just instantly hit it off.
Very, very quickly. What was it that you thought, oh, this is really this could be the one. What was it for me? So to give you some context. So the first time we had our first phone call, we were on the call for over six hours. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Yeah, you're right. The first phone call. First phone call for six hours. You didn't think we're going to be on a long phone call.
You thought not at all. Maybe 30 minutes. Six hours. Yeah. So I was actually walking around the baseball field at West Point.
I'd walk around the bases, walk around the bases, walk on bases, bases. It got really late at night. So I was like, okay, now curfew at West Point. I got to go back.
So I went back to my barracks room and laid on my barracks bed. But I'll never forget just the depths of conversation that we had. I think that's when it really revealed itself to me that I've never been so open and had such deep and emotionally revealing conversations to myself and about someone else before. And so that for me was like, oh, my goodness, I'll never forget at the end of the call, I actually was like, I think I found you. And I literally said that out loud. Oh, that's a good line.
Which seems crazy, right? Like someone that I have technically never seen before in person. But just through the connection that we had was like, oh, my goodness, I think God just revealed who I'm going to marry.
I find it interesting. I mean, you're hundreds of miles away from one another. You're a student at Florida State University.
You're at West Point when this is happening, right? Correct. You've seen a picture. You've seen some stuff online. I think he's seen about 30 pictures. But you go, I'm going to pick up the phone and call this person I've never met before who's a thousand miles away.
I'm thinking like, for what? I mean, if this goes somewhere, it can't really go anywhere right away. Well, that wasn't the plan. So I was Facebook messaging her back and forth. And my best friend, Tommy, actually got onto my Facebook and started sending messages as me.
So I had to expedite the process a little bit more. So I actually had to call her essentially as like, hey, I'm so sorry, like he got on my Facebook. That wasn't me saying ridiculous things. What was Tommy saying? Not appropriate things. I was like, hold up a second. Is this a big prank? What is going on?
I think we need to have Tommy on Family Life Day at some point. So a six hour phone call. When you hung up from that phone call with a guy who just said to you, I think I've found you. And this is like four in the morning, right? It was two in the morning. You're probably 20 years old.
Yes, we were 20. What are you thinking? I thought the exact same thing. Like, ditto. I know. And I think, you know, you have to understand a little bit of the background too. It wasn't just like, oh, phone call completely out of the blue. I had done a little bit of research then talking to Tommy and his mom and understanding who Harold was, knowing that he had a relationship with God and knowing also the type of man that my cousin Tommy was. So I knew he had to be, you know, a good guy himself. So I had a bit of that, you know, background information.
Well, I think that's so important. You actually mentioned it in the book that it became very clear that we were running in the same direction of life. And I think that when you actually see that and you find a partner and you look to your right and say, hey, I'm going this direction and so are you, that's when it really was revealing to us from talking to, you know, our family and her friends and learning where her heart was, where her passions were, how she pursued the Lord. That's when it became evident to me that, hey, you know, this is really someone, this is different than anything I've ever been a part of.
I have to share one of my favorite all-time quotes because you just illustrated it. Tommy Nelson, who's a pastor in Denton, Texas, speaking to singles one time. He said, if you're single, your job is to run as hard and as fast toward Jesus as you can. He said, while you're running, if out of the corner of your eye you see somebody running in the same direction at the same speed, take a second look.
Yes. And that's really the path both of you were on. Tell us about your faith story and like how faith became real for you guys. So, Tommy, we actually love this saying that Andy Stanley said, and it said, become the person that the person you're looking for is looking for. I have preached that saying many times. And it's beautiful.
It's essentially saying the same thing as Bob is what you just said. And I think for me to learn that, I'm very grateful for him as my best friend because I think we learned that at a young age. And we realized that iron sharpens iron, and we worked very hard to become the very best versions of ourselves.
And that took time. That took years because I know that if I would have met Rachel two years earlier than that, we never would have hit it off because I wasn't the man that God wanted me to be and needed me to be for her. And I think that was, you know, how he was working on me all along.
Likewise, meeting Harold, I think in my previous relationships, it was obvious that we weren't running the same race. You know, we weren't really both after God and to know Harold just feeling like we really were equally yoked was kind of this big eye opening thing of this really could be my person. But to rewind a little bit about my faith journey, it actually happened when I was in sixth grade. So I was going through confirmation and my grandma had just died at the same time. And it was the first time I had dealt with death. And I was questioning everything, you know, I'm learning about God, but here my grandma's dying. And I went to this confirmation retreat in the chapel.
There's these glass doors overlooking the lake with this cross in the middle of it. And they had sort of like an altar call where you could come down and pray. And I'd never done anything like that in my life.
But I decided to. And in that moment, I just felt God's presence. And that was when I chose and I just gave my life to God. And it was kind of that childlike faith, I think, in the beginning. But just every step of the way through my life, through all the obstacles, just like leaning on God, knowing that he was there when it sometimes felt like nobody else was. Yeah, she's actually always been steadfast in her relationship. I've actually had more of the roller coaster type faith.
I would have extreme highs, but I also would have lows. And so that's something that I've actually always looked up to you, Rachel, is just how you've always been so steadfast in God. I mean, we'll learn as we get to Everest. That's something I struggled at. I, while on the mountain, wanted to be close to God because I felt like I needed God close to me, not I wanted to be close to God. And so I think I've learned a lot from Rachel through all this.
How has your faith made a difference in your relationship, in your marriage, in your future? For us, it's the foundation. It's the bedrock, right?
If you have nothing to build on as a relationship, it's going to crumble away. But we know that we always have that foundation. We always know where our hearts are at. And so I think it makes it so much easier to overcome when you do have those adversities. Right. It's that common ground that everything comes back to, you know, that the answer to everything at the end of the day is God. And also, how do you love somebody?
Well, the greatest example of that is Jesus. And so to be able to live that out through your marriage, I mean, we have someone to look up to. So you're on that phone call. You can't get over this phone call, can you? I just want to hear what happened next, because I mean, I've never, I mean, we didn't say that after the first phone call, but I mean, you know. And you both know. Right.
And so, and there's this faith component, which is the foundation. So did you fly down there that night and get married the next day? Almost. Where did you go from there? So one, at West Point, you can't get married until you graduate West Point. So we had, no matter what, about a year and a half, we had to wait, thanks to the army. And so there was definitely big anticipation for actually meeting her in person for the first time. So I had planned to go and see her. We had planned for, I think it was about two months from that date to actually see each other in person. But unbeknownst to her, I was actually scheming behind the scenes and had coordinated with her friends and was planning on going down and surprising her. So my friends had invited me to this beach weekend. I was going to go with them and their parents to go to the beach. And so I'm like, oh, heck yes, this is so fun. So I start packing my bags, picking out my bathing suits, sending pictures to Harold.
Hey, which one do you like better? So cringy to think about now. I mean, I'm driving over, it's like midnight, to my friend's house.
I'm wearing my pajamas. And I get over there and our other friend wanted to introduce us to a guy that she had met. And so she said she was going to bring him over. And Harold also had told me that he was in the city that night with his friend, so he wouldn't be able to call me until really late.
Well, it was really late. And eventually I get that call from Harold. So I'm like, hey, then literally walks through the door, my friend and this guy that I'm supposed to meet. And so I'm like, hey, like, I'm glad that you called, but can I call you back? And he starts acting real strange. And I'm not liking this because he's like, no, like, don't call me back. Like, talk to me now type of thing, which was the first time that I was like, this feels weird. And then he says, why would you call me back when I'm already here? And opens the door and walks right in.
My friend had picked him up from the airport. And so it was just after midnight. I'm in a big camo T-shirt, Nike running shorts.
Well, that's fitting, though, a camo T-shirt. Nothing strange for her now. Literally. Well, what did that feel like? Was it awkward? Was it sweet? No, not at all.
Not at all. At first, before I came to the door, it was the first time that it didn't go according to plan. And I kind of was panicking.
I was like, no, this is not how it's supposed to work. And so I'll never forget that when I opened the door, it was like just overflowing the amount of emotions. I think you definitely cried. I did not cry. You say that every time I was my body was shaking. I just kept saying, what, what, what?
And that's your first IRL, first in real life face-to-face meeting. I-R-L? I haven't heard that one before.
Is this like a military term? What are you doing here? This is Twitter.
This is Twitter. You just say, you know, it's I-M-H-O-I-R-L. You are so cool, Bob. I try to stay up with all of this. Yo, Bob.
I do. How long from that first meeting until you said, okay, we are getting married? Well, there was a couple things between then. It was that night when he looked at me and said, you're my girlfriend. Oh, you didn't ask?
No, he didn't. And I said, I am? And then he very cutely said, wait, do you want to be?
Which of course I said, yes. And as he was going back up to West Point that weekend, I had this diamond ring that I wore on my right hand that my grandmother had given me. And he actually switched it over to my left hand ring finger.
And he told me he liked the way it looked. That's a good way to save money. That's what I'm saying. You don't need to buy a ring.
I like that idea. So were you thinking you were getting engaged right then and there? No, in hindsight, it would have been smart. It would have saved me some money.
That's what I would have done. So from that ring ceremony that we have right there, when did, I mean, you guys are talking from the very first, like, I think you're the one. When did you start planning out your future? That was probably about six months later when we got engaged. I think another time that Harold came down and surprised me. All about those surprises.
Yeah. So I will say the interesting thing with the Army is it's kind of a good thing and a bad thing, but it took out a lot of that unknown for us because we knew, right. We knew once graduation happened in May, we were going to get married. And then I was going to serve for five years, which is really a nice thing, actually, kind of having that stability and that purpose, if you will, that I think a lot of people kind of struggle with and we had the benefit of being young. Some people question should you get married young or get married later if you even have a choice. But one beautiful thing I think that came from that is that we were so young that we could really form and craft our future and our identity in each other and in God. Rather when you get older, sometimes it gets harder to merge those two lives together. So we actually had that going for us because we knew what was on the other side.
Got it. You know, everything you've described here kind of feels like it's been scripted. Like a fairy tale.
Channing Tatum, I'm telling you. There had to have been times during your dating, during your engagement where you thought, I'm not sure she's the one. I'm not sure this is going to work. There are things I've just learned about you that I didn't realize and that's given me second thoughts. Do you remember some of those? There's one time. I mean, there was times that I was upset. Army Navy game.
Yes. But there was one time that I really just had a doubt and the doubt wasn't really because of us, but it came down to his family. I felt like specifically his sister didn't like me and I knew how close that they were and I didn't want to come between his family. So we actually stayed up. It was the Army Navy game for baseball. Harold played baseball at West Point and we stayed up pretty much all through the night just talking through everything when he clearly should have been sleeping and preparing for this game. But that really showed me kind of that he was choosing us and his sister and I ended up working things out and we are on great terms now and I just, I love her so much.
But yeah, that was the time. We've got her on the phone right now. Make sure that this is all true. She's getting married in a couple of weeks. I got some questions for her myself.
One of the things that I noticed in your book was you decided to remain physically pure. Yes. That's a big deal. Yes. We did. Yeah. Yeah, we did. What made you decide that?
And did you take any harassment from buddies from that? First off, I know that I would not have been able to be in that position if it wasn't for honestly God being beside me the whole time. And then I credit a lot to having a best friend like Tommy. He was the same as me and how he chose to pursue his life.
And I really do feel that iron sharpens iron and we can hold each other accountable. And without him and without that type of friendship, I don't think that I would have been the man who I am today, especially in regards to remaining abstinent. That was a choice that we had. I am incredibly grateful for that. I think it is such a blessing just knowing that we both chose to do that.
There's a lot of beauty that comes from that, that I think that at that time when I was 15, 16, 17, 18, going through those challenging years of any teen guy goes through, seeing what now is on the back end of that, I am honestly incredibly grateful. Did the guys at West Point know you're not sleeping with your girlfriend? They did. Oh, they definitely knew that. You said just a second ago, the benefits were worth it.
What are those? Well, I think it's a beautiful thing getting to discover that side with your spouse, right? And there's so much intimacy that comes with that.
And I think that if you've had other outside factors playing a role into that, there's all these other questions that could be going through your mind. And I think the beautiful thing with us is now it's so fun to explore with each other in that way, because we know that we have that freedom. We know that we have that protection in each other.
Yeah. And it's just a safe place, you know, and our pastor has talked about it before, like not allowing anybody else into your marriage bed, even talking about a memory, you know, because memories are still there. And then that brings up insecurity. You have no idea what that part of your relationship is going to be like. And so to be able to protect that is just, I'm so thankful for. Did you have girlfriends wondering why you weren't sleeping with your hunky West Point boyfriend?
Yes, I did. But that didn't really bother me because I was like, okay, well, I'm not and I know what I'm doing. And why do you care anyways? We both knew what that moment was going to mean to us in our marriage. I think for us, because we were so passionate about waiting until we were married, I think it made it easier for us to do that, even though the physical connection was strong.
Take us to the wedding night. And I don't mean explicit, you know, I mean, I was just thinking you waited, you paid a price to wait. There's couples out there thinking it's not worth it. You know, again, I don't want to know anything about your wedding night, really. But in terms of remembering that moment in your marriage and your wedding, do you feel like yes, this was worth the wait?
That is we're glad we did it. It's interesting when you kind of go into the intimacy side of marriage, I expected immediately we waited 23 years, it's going to be this just beautiful thing right off the bat. And that's just not life. That's not marriage. I think we see movies and we like that's the picture, all these pictures, things, and it's just not like that.
Right. And I think now knowing that, but going through that discovery phase together, it has been incredible. And it has been something that we love continuing to pursue.
But I think that I had it all wrong in my mind, because I think of what culture and what the media does and what it portrays it into is not what it actually is and not what God intended. I think it's honestly just like love, you work at it every single day and it grows with time. So does your marriage. Anything great takes time. Exactly. Yes. It takes practice.
Lots of kids. The storybook, and we've really described it in storybook terms, but I want to make sure folks understand that along with the storybook, there's real life and you guys have conflict and you guys, you've got a real marriage with real issues and the fact that you purpose to do a lot of these things right and you pursued one another in honorable ways doesn't mean that now you have a ticket to a problem free marriage. But you're very open about it, not only on your vlog, but in the book you've written called A Higher Calling, where you write about pursuing love, faith, and Mount Everest for a greater purpose.
And I do have to tell you, when my wife read your book, she said, why does anyone want to climb Mount Everest? We've got copies of the Earl's book, A Higher Calling. You can go to our website, familylifetoday.com, to order your copy or call 1-800-FL-TODAY.
Again the website is familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today to get your copy of the book, A Higher Calling, by Harold and Rachel Earls. Now of course, this is Thanksgiving week and we don't want to skip over Thanksgiving and rush into Christmas even though there have been decorations in the stores for months now. But we do want to be ready for when the season arrives and Family Life has a resource that we have been making available this month to those of you who can help support our ministry with a donation of any amount. It's a resource called the 12 Names of Christmas and it includes a dozen kid-friendly Christmas tree ornaments, each one depicting a different name or title for Jesus, like I am the light of the world, I am the living water, I am the lion of Judah or the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Each of these ornaments displays that name and gives you an opportunity as a parent to explain more about the one whose birthday we celebrate in December. Again the 12 Names of Christmas is our way of saying thank you this month when you make a donation to help support the ongoing ministry of Family Life Today.
Family Life Today is entirely listener supported. It's folks like you who make this daily program possible along with the resources available on our website. All that we do here at Family Life Today is underwritten by folks like you.
So if you can help with the donation this month, we'd love to send you the 12 Names of Christmas as a thank you gift and we hope it will help your holiday season be more focused on Jesus. We also hope you can join us here again tomorrow when we're going to hear more about Harold Earle's Journey Up Mount Everest and about some of the anxiety that created for both of them. Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts Dave and Anne 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 of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Hope for today, hope for tomorrow.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-01-25 16:48:50 / 2024-01-25 17:00:52 / 12