Starting With a Firm Foundation

Jackie and Stefana Bledsoe were not walking with Christ when they got married. They were already parents. So, after they were married and they experienced turbulence, Stefana began to wonder if maybe she had gotten married outside of God's will.

I didn't ask God. I didn't know that he said, this is supposed to be my husband. So, what do I do now? Because now you're telling me divorce is not an option. And I just remember the counsel that I received at that time was that if I made this commitment to Jackie in marriage, and even if it was out of order, God's grace was big enough to cover it. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapeen. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. We'll hear from Jackie and Stefana Bledsoe today about marriage being a covenant, how once we say I do, God adds his amen, so be it, and the covenant is sealed. Stay tuned. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I'll do a quick poll here. We'll see what you did and what you would recommend.

Okay, so the question is, should a husband-to-be, should he include his girlfriend in the search for a wedding ring, or should he pick it out and surprise her? So, first I want to know what you did. Did Ann see the ring you picked out for her before you picked it out for her? It's been so long. You don't remember? I'm going to guess. Really?

Oh, my goodness. She did not see it. I didn't. Oh, I was right. I honestly wasn't sure.

But I did give him an idea. Some hints? Yes, this is kind of what I like.

Like you were out at the mall and you just... I think so, yeah. Ann, Ann, I've got to be honest, she's been giving me hints again after 40 years, like, could we maybe update this? This is what the updated ring would look like. So, Mary Ann did not see the one that I picked out for her until I proposed, until I offered it to her. Ann, did she have any input?

I don't remember hearing from her what she had in mind. I think I picked it out all on my own, which could be, well, we'll talk about this, this could be a big fail for somebody. We've got some friends who are joining us today.

Yeah. Who are experts in rings. They know something about rings. Jackie and Stefana Bledsoe are joining us on Family Life Today. Jackie, Stefana, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. We're excited to be here. The Bledsoe's speak with us at our Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaways. They're from Indianapolis.

They do ministry in the marriage space. They've written a book called The Seven Rings of Marriage, which got me thinking about engagement rings. Did you pick out Stefana's engagement ring before you proposed? I did. She didn't see it?

She did not see it. I did not. Did you like it? I did like it.

That's a good thing. You still like it? Do you wish you would have had a say in it?

I do, yes. So, if you were counseling a young groom-to-be today, would you say bring her in or would you say surprise her? What's your answer? I'd say let her have input. She needs to have a – Because the ring is forever. But then you can't really do the surprise thing if she knows you're shopping for rings. Well, if you're talking about marriage and you're praying about marriage in advance, then I think you are kind of expecting a ring to come at some point. Okay, that's a good point. So, maybe you don't know when it's going to come, but just get an idea of what she likes.

It seems to, like, ruin it, though. No! Of course, I'm not the woman getting the ring, but I don't want to – You're already talking about it, so you're going to wear that ring for a lifetime. Yeah.

You like to have a little input. Can you get, like, a fake one and then when she gets it, say, hey, this isn't the real one, you get to go with me and we get to pick it out? No, it's sort of permanent. I did one time in our marriage buy a home that Marianne had not seen. Oh, wow. That was an epic fail.

That was one thing. So, if you're picking between wedding rings and homes, go ahead and pick the ring out. Let her see the house she's going to be living in. But I think that's wise advice. So, a woman's going to be wearing this on her hand.

She wants it to look good, right? Yeah. Now, say, are you still in the same home?

No, we're in a different home. The whole idea of rings, the book that you've written called The Seven Rings of Marriage, you take that picture of a ring and you say, there are seasons, there are episodes. We evolve in our relationship in marriage, but it all does start with that pre-marriage period, doesn't it?

Yeah, it starts with the engagement ring. And at that point, you know, that's the excitement. You're just like, yes, she said yes.

You know, that was a big deal to me because I wasn't sure that she was going to say yes. So, when she said yes, I'm like, yes, we're here. But now we have to go through and it's like, okay, what's next?

The excitement is there. When the excitement wears off, what are we going to depend on? And so, that's your foundation.

That's where you kind of lean on that and you want to go. We've got to build something that is going to be able to build a tall and strong marriage that lasts forever. Yeah, and you mentioned, obviously, seven different sort of seasons and you call them rings in your marriage. You know, I'm sure you're familiar, Bob, I know is, with at the Family Life Weekend to Remember, we always talk about the three rings.

You know that one, right? Yeah, tell us more. You know, the engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering, right? And everybody laughs because, you know, suffering is part of it.

But you develop that more in depth because you obviously include suffering. But let's talk about it. So, I want to know this. What is your engaged story? Like, how did you propose? Was it like epic? Was it this cool moment?

Was it epic, babe? It was special, but it was not expected. We weren't preparing for it.

We hadn't prayed about it. It was not what we would advise. Jackie, am I hearing like a trend here? Like, okay, so the engagement ring wasn't quite up to par.

What's happening right now? Yeah, and our story is the opposite of what we teach couples now. So, we were not prepared because our relationship was on rocky ground at the time. And it was a point where I was like, okay, Lord, is this who you've got for me for the rest of my life? And if so, you know, what do I do? So, I was like, okay, I'm going to get myself together.

And it was actually her birthday, 2001. And I was like, okay, this is not what you pray, fellas. This is not what you say. So, if she says yes, then yes, that means God did set her aside for me. If she says no, then it wasn't it.

So, keep going. But no, it was the details of the actual proposal. We were at her favorite restaurant at the time, which is no longer there. I can remember sitting in the back corner. I was so happy that they put us in the back corner. There was one other couple there.

I don't know if it was a couple or a couple ladies or something. And the whole time we're talking, I couldn't think. So, I'm sitting here nervous, just probably sweating.

I don't know if I was sweating. My heart was racing. And then it was almost that point where I was like, am I going to do it or am I not going to do it?

I finally did it. I got down on one knee and I asked her and I don't think she could even hear what I said. I was so nervous, I couldn't get the words out. I don't think she heard me. And I could hear the people was like, is this what I think it is behind us? I was like, uh-oh.

Now we've got an audience. So, she has to say yes. And so, I ask her the question and I'll let you share your side of that. It was sweet.

I didn't expect it, but it was sweet. And I said yes, obviously. How long had you guys been dating?

Probably two or three years. So, wait, why didn't you expect it after two or three years? We were completely out of order. So, we weren't exclusive to one another at the time. Jackie wasn't exclusive.

Oh, maybe we should do a little counseling here. You were exclusive. I was. Wow.

So, what's going on here, Jackie? Well, this explains why you're saying we did it wrong and now we have a vision of how to do it. There was no prayer. There was no counsel.

There was no premarital counseling. It was just kind of me living a life and God was like, this is not where you're supposed to be going with your life. And he just started making me more increasingly more uncomfortable with how we were living or how I was living.

I can't put that on on Stefana. And then finally I was like, okay, Lord, this is what I want to do. We actually had our daughter was 10 months old at our wedding day. So, we were completely out of order. And we always tell couples this because we were that couple sitting in a small group and hearing everybody share their marriage story.

Oh, I prayed for this and I prayed for that. We got premarital counseling and we were kind of like, don't call on us. That wasn't us. We didn't do it. So, we felt shame. We felt shame because of that. And so, now we share it openly because we know there's some other couples that didn't start the quote unquote right way, which is we know in order of what God says. We don't do those things before marriage because we know what it brings into marriage when we do that.

Okay, you got to back us all the way up because I'm doing the numbers in my head. So, you guys met when you were teenagers? We did. And started dating while you were teenagers? Yes, we met my senior year, Stefana's sophomore year in high school, small town, 40,000 people. Everybody knows everybody. But for whatever reason, we didn't meet until my senior year. Our families, literally our grandmothers, our maternal grandmothers were best friends.

But God must have known what she would have seen in me. And she met me before then. So, we were friends then.

Kind of dated a little bit. I went away to college. The mutual friend that introduced us kept kind of contact with both of us and always let us know, hey, Jackie's back in town because I went out of state.

Jackie's back in town or hey, did you know Stefana's here? So, everybody else kind of saw something there. But I don't think me mentally or emotionally I was ready. And you were probably not ready at that time either. After graduating college, I moved to Indianapolis. She was one of the two people that I met or that I had known since I was in that new city. And we kind of got reintroduced by the same mutual friend.

And that started a friendship, you know, probably the best way it should have started from the beginning that we didn't start when we were in high school. And so, that's the quick summary of it. But it sounds like you had some good input, you're listening to other couples and they're talking about how to do it right and yet you didn't. So, the question is why? Was it we don't need that? We don't believe that? I mean, was there something going on that made you go, that's good wisdom but not for us? Yeah, well, those couples we met after we were married.

Oh, okay. So, we didn't have those relationships before we were married. So, we didn't have the right environment, I think, around us at that time for marriage the way we know what God intended it to be.

We say we got our premarital counseling at around our first anniversary, which makes no sense. But just through a class at our church that we took and a couple, you know, we're kind of connected to them. They attracted to us and we really kind of continued a conversation with them. And that's where we met the other couples. And then our circle started to change. God just started surrounding us with couples who were living for him in their marriages and then we found that it's like, okay, this is how marriage should be done.

And so, tell us about how did that come to be? Were you already involved in church? What was going on spiritually as you guys were engaged and then you're getting married?

Yeah, I think after we had our daughter, it made me want to live life the right way. So, I started going to church. Jackie came with us to church and we just kind of jumped into everything that we possibly could.

Every class the church was offering, we were involved in it and we just started learning and growing and having mentors. We didn't even know that we needed. So, that was kind of the beginning. Yeah, so we jumped in. Once we got exposure to it and once God kind of touched our heart, it was like, okay, this is what we need to do. So, we were hungry for what he was teaching.

We have a family, you know, that we don't know if it's going to last as a family like it should be. So, I wanted to change direction. And I just believe that God put in my heart that he was going to use me to change the direction of our family. And then also not just us, but extended family and things like that.

And he's continued to do that. But it started with us saying yes to him then after we had continually just kind of lived the way we wanted to. And so, as you write in the book about the engagement ring, you know, the first ring, what should happen? What is your vision?

You call it the vision phase, right? It's where you start to get a vision for what marriage is. So, talk to a pre-married couple and say, okay, what should happen in that? What would be the best, you know, for a couple that's dating or are going to get engaged? Because most couples are living together before they get married. Is that best?

I definitely say it's not best. It makes it easy for you to have an escape when things don't go the way that you want. Because what Jackie and I realized in that early phase is that we were both selfish. We lived our lives for ourselves and that it wasn't easy to come into marriage and sacrifice in different areas. And so, had we, you know, we could have easily said, this is not working.

I don't like it this way and I'm out. Whereas if you do it the right way and you're living for the Lord and you're praying and seeking him, then when you come together, it's not an easy out. It's a covenant that you've made, not just with that other person, but with the Lord. Yeah, the engagement ring is really about creating that foundation. And that foundation is rooted in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

And so, we realized that after, you know, at our first anniversary. And so, we wanted to make sure that everything we did at that point was built on that foundation. It's like, how would the Lord have us to handle this?

What do we need to do? So, we sought out his word in counsel. We sought out his word in classes. We read his word. We prayed.

And that set the foundation because we were counseled. We're going to come into disagreements. We'll be at different spectrums. But at the end of the day, we can agree on one thing. Okay, we're going to try to do our best to find out how Christ would have us to handle this. And we're going to try to do that as best we can.

Without that, I don't know what we would have done. Let's say you meet Dave and I for the first time. And we're engaged, we're living together, and we have no date set to get married. And we're like, it's really hard, but we don't see the hurry.

We don't see the rush. Counsel us. And we're just starting to grow in our relationship with Jesus. Yeah, that's many couples I think today as marriage is continuing to not be as important as it used to be.

And I think I'll just start asking questions and kind of get into their mind. Why are they making these decisions? Why are you choosing to live together now? Our parents divorced. Both of our parents seems really risky. You know, our whole future is at stake.

Why would we put that on the line? Yeah, we'd probably point them to the scripture and just start going into the scripture. And at that time, we'd really want to know if you guys were a couple who believed in Christ, if you had a relationship with him or not. If not, then we'd have to start there because we can talk to them till we're blue in the face about all kinds of other things.

And here's why you shouldn't do it. But if we don't get them rooted in the truth and get that relationship, then they can't receive that in their heart. So talk now, that's sort of ring number one, the engagement ring. Wedding ring, you call it the commitment phase. So what's happening during this phase? It goes from just the butterflies to we're in a relationship that we're committed to be in for the long run.

So there's no more outs, there's no more options. It is a relationship that you are committed to because you made this with your spouse and the Lord. Yeah, we used to have a real estate investing company.

And every month I would look at probably hundreds of properties, either virtually or driving neighborhoods. We signed a lot of contracts to purchase properties, but we didn't purchase every single one of them because every single one of them had basically an out clause or basically a contingency clause where if something happened or something about the house didn't line up or maybe the numbers didn't line up or we discover something new is like, oh, this is no longer a great investment for us, we could be out. Well, that's the opposite of what happens during this ring because this is a covenant commitment where no matter if Stephana meets the expectations that I set, which may not be the right expectations or not, or whatever it may be, vice versa, that we have created a relationship built on a covenant commitment between us and between Christ as well. So that's what that commitment is.

It's stronger than just a contract that you can sign and say, oh, we're out of it. We are committing in a covenant way where no matter what you do, no matter what I do, we're in this thing together and with God. And that's what you mean by the cornerstone, that Jesus is the cornerstone of your marriage.

That's right. How did that play out for you guys early on? Did you struggle as you first got married? Did you hit a phase of a reality phase? Yeah, I think in that first class that we were in, I remember questioning, as we were hearing everybody else's story, I didn't do that.

I didn't ask God. I don't know that he said this is supposed to be my husband. So what do I do now? Because now you're telling me divorce is not an option. And I just remember the counsel that I received at that time was that if I made this commitment to Jackie in marriage and even if it was out of order, God's grace was big enough to cover it. And so that was kind of a turning point for us in the marriage, just kind of realizing that God would take care of even our mess.

He was big enough for that. You were thinking, I want out of here? I was questioning whether I'd made the right decision. I definitely was.

Based on what? Just hearing other people's story and the way that it should have been done and knowing that we hadn't done that. Okay, but were you happy in your marriage? It was hard.

That first year was really hard. We were both, Jackie's the youngest and I was an only child. And so we were both very selfish.

We hadn't ever had to consider another person's well-being in a relationship. And so that was tough. And so we were coming up against a lot of disagreements on how to be married. A couple could be listening and thinking, well, we did it the right way. And we still feel the same thing. We tried to do the right steps and yet we're in year one feeling the same thing you felt. You're looking at like, well, we did it backwards. We did it the right way and we still were like, I'm done. This is so hard. This isn't going to work.

I'm out of here. I would add too, I had a couple come up to us at the Weekend to Remember Conference and they said, we got married in Vegas. We were so drunk. We had no idea what we were doing. And they came to the conference saying, I think that we're supposed to get out of this because we didn't do it God's way.

And it's a little bit what you were sharing before. Like, is God in that? And that's what they asked me. We weren't Christians at the time. How do you address that with people?

Yeah. And that's where you have to lean on him. And that's where that foundation is so crucial. Just because you did it God's way and you prayed and you sought counsel does not keep you from going through challenges or troubles. We're told to expect fiery ordeals. In his word, he teaches that we're going to go through some things and that's where you got to have that to fall back on. You got to have your relationship with him that God promised this.

God will not leave us or forsake us. And that was it for us. It was so rough and so rocky. And just really, you know, you think two young kids coming together who neither one of us had really thought about marriage. We had a 10 month old. We were trying to learn each other with some baggage in our history. We are also trying to figure out life on our own and we're trying to raise a baby. And now all of a sudden we're married.

And this stuff is just so much so any little conversation could spin off into something that would last days, weeks or whatever. And a couple who's brand new or who has done everything what we're counseling and coaching couples to do now can go through the same stuff. But we always had to revert back to his word. We always had to revert back to prayer and just trust him in that point.

And that doesn't make it any easier. But that's what we had to hold on and that's what we believe. That's what we were taught and that's what we were coached at that stage. And, you know, I guess you can say we were blind enough to do it, but I'm so glad that we were because that allowed us, God, to get into our hearts, to start working on us individually and not me praying about Stephana.

I wish she would do this or vice versa. But he worked on us. He began to work on us and he kept us through whatever storms we went through.

And there were some storms that we went through. It's interesting too because you call this wedding ring the commitment phase. It's easy to think sometimes you make a commitment and you're done. Like, okay, I made it it. But the commitment phase never ends.

That ring's never coming off. It's like you have to almost up your commitment daily, sometimes hourly, because you get so hurt or so frustrated or so discouraged, mostly in your spouse, right? Because you're good, but your spouse, you know, I'm kidding, but you do know. It's like working out, same thing. It's like I got to sort of re-up every time I walk in the gym.

It's like actually I got to re-up to get to the gym, you know, to say I'm going to do it again. Does that ever end? I mean, you've been married many years now. The commitment isn't just the wedding ring. It doesn't just happen on wedding day or even for six months or first year. It never ends.

So how do you live that out? Because there's going to be days coming. There's a couple listening right now says, I'm done. And how do you speak to them and say, don't give up. Keep re-upping your commitment.

What would you say? You're constantly continuing to grow closer to your spouse. And I think it's Dr. Chapman that says, marriage is either grow or they regress.

They never stand still. And so if you're not practicing your oneness and getting closer to each other in your marriage, then you're going the opposite way. So it is a constant thing that you have to remind yourself. I forgot the quote somebody said, you know, motivation is like taking a bath. You can't just do it once. You got to do it every day. You have to continue to push yourself forward in connection and striving for oneness. So it is a never-ending thing for us. And we understand that. I make a right decision today and something that happened between us.

And then next week make the wrong decision all the time. But I have to get up. Like you said, in the morning, you don't feel like working out. But now it's like, okay, I got to get up today and I got to go to the gym. I've got to get up and I've got to show kindness. You know, I've got to show love to my wife. I've got to do all these different things because it just doesn't come natural for us.

I'm hearing two big ideas emerge from this conversation. One is if you're on the front end of your relationship in the engagement or in the first year of marriage, your foundation really is important. You're building a future on the foundation you are pouring today. So don't skimp.

Don't shift into neutral and just cruise. Be intentional. Be purposeful.

Build a strong foundation in the engagement ring period. Do the hard work of premarital preparation. Get advice. Get wisdom. Learn. Grow. In that first year of marriage where you hit those bumps and those hiccups and those do come along for all of us, instead of just going, oh, I must have made a mistake, say, let me figure out how we make this work.

Other couples have. The second big idea I'm hearing emerge out of this is if you're 10 or 15, 20 years in and you go, we didn't pour a good foundation. I mean, we messed up on that early phase. Okay, call perma-jack. I mean, get somebody out there because your foundation can be fixed. It can be repaired. It's not like, well, we just need to blow this up and start all over again. No, you need to do the repair work.

Get some counseling. Get to a weekend to remember. Do the work today.

It may be hard work today because you didn't pour the foundation well at the beginning, but do the work today so that you can start building for a new future. I don't even know if you're aware that you mentioned several times mentoring our mentors, our mentors. And I think some people think they can do it alone. They have Jesus.

But that mentoring is really important that you have people ahead of you that you can look up to that are speaking into you, that are continually observing and helping and someone to go to. We need that in the body of Christ, and we're supposed to have that. And also, obviously, like Bob said, get to a weekend to remember, pick up a book called The Seven Rings of Marriage.

Here you go. I'm guessing you'd say read it together, not just alone, together and start working on the marriage. And figure out where are we or where did we do it right?

Where did we do it wrong? How can we move forward in health and in strength? We're making your book available this week to Family Life Today listeners who can help support the ministry with a donation. Thanks to those of you who partner with us to expand the reach of this program. You're helping us reach hundreds of thousands of people every day who are tuning into Family Life Today on local radio stations, receiving this via podcast, using our mobile app so they can listen. Lots of different ways that people are connecting with Family Life Today.

People are telling Alexa to play Family Life Today and listening to us that way. You make that possible when you support the ongoing work of this ministry. And if you can make a donation today, we'd love to say thank you by sending you Jackie and Stefana Bledsoe's book, The Seven Rings of Marriage, Your Model for a Lasting and Fulfilling Marriage. And the book is our thank you gift to you when you donate to support Family Life Today. You can make that donation online at familylifetoday.com or you can call to donate 1-800-FL-TODAY is our number.

Again, the number is 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. By the way, we just wrapped up our first weekend to remember in more than a year, had the weekend to remember in Branson, Missouri. We still have a handful of these events happening this spring.

And I'm not giving you details because these details are kind of changing as time goes. Depending on what's going on in different regions and hotel ballroom policies, things like that, but you can go to our website familylifetoday.com and find out when you can join the Bledsoes or the Wilsons or any of us at these weekend to remember marriage getaways that we host in cities all around the country. Again, find out more about the spring schedule for weekend to remember marriage getaways. And our hope and prayer is that come fall, we'll be back going full strength with the weekend to remember. So stay connected and we'll keep you up to date with that. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow as we're going to continue talking about the stages or phases that marriages go through with Jackie and Stefana Bledsoe. Hope you'll be back as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch. We got some extra help this week from Bruce Goff and of course our entire broadcast production team. 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 of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.