For Everything There Is a Season

Have you found that trying to schedule a date night with your spouse just seems to fall flat?

Jackie Bledsoe understands that feeling. When we recommitted to dating, those first few dates were kind of like staring at each other, like, okay, what are we doing, babe? You know, so what are some things that we can talk about that are not just family business?

And by family business, kids, work, money, schedules, and all that, we're like, okay, how can we start sparking other conversations that will allow us to dig deeper than stuff that we talk about all the time and makes our date nights boring? This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. We all know how important regular marriage maintenance is, but it can be hard to implement at times. We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. We're talking this week about how marriage is not a three-ring circus, it's a seven-ring circus. We've got Jackie and Stephana Bledsoe joining us. Guys, welcome back to the program.

Thank you. You've written a book called The Seven Rings of Marriage, and what we've been talking about this week is the fact that every marriage does go through seasons, and it's not like it's a straight path. We can circle back around, like some of the seasons we've been talking about, some of the rings we've been talking about, discovering doesn't just happen in the early years of marriage, it continues to happen throughout marriage.

And persevering has to happen because trials come along later. So, all of these rings of marriage we have to revisit over and over again, don't we? We do. And I think that I don't think we expect that. It's kind of like parenting. Once we have this phase down, we'll never enter that phase again.

But it seems like we do continue to circle back, but hopefully we've learned enough in the first ring that we can kind of get better to move on. Jackie and Stephana live in Indianapolis. They are the parents to three. They're Hoosiers. They are Hoosiers.

I would say Hoosier for four years in college. That's fun. Parents of three children, they speak with us at our weekend to remember marriage getaways. This idea of the seven rings of marriage is something that, as you were looking at your own story, your own journey, even early on, you could see some of these rings we've been through, some of these rings are still ahead for us, right? Yeah, we were probably 13 years in marriage at the time when we wrote it. And so, we were kind of looking back. It's like, man, we've been through a lot, babe.

Look at what God has brought us through, what His grace has kept us together through. And then we just started kind of going through them. And we realized we were just getting started really in the mentoring, which is one of the rings that we'll cover, I'm sure today. But we were in that journey.

Yeah. The seven rings that you lay out, the first one is the engagement ring, understanding where you're going. The wedding ring, understanding commitment, foundation. The discover ring, where you're learning about one another and learning, oh, there's some things here I didn't know were there. The persevere ring, where you're sticking with it, even when times get tough.

What's the next ring? Yeah, after you go through that, you have some broken pieces in your marriage. So, the perseverance is the fourth ring, which is kind of like the fork in the road. So, some couples choose to go and get out of the marriage, some choose to stay in the marriage, and some choose to just kind of stay in our marriage is just where it is. But then we come to the restoring. And that's where we have to allow God to go to work and to restore the broken pieces, broken hearts, all the things that we brought about or that we went through during the perseverance in our marriage. Yeah, there's a lot of forgiveness that happens in the restoring. Yeah, you talk in that chapter about drawing a line in the sand.

What does that mean? Basically, we're not going back. This is where we are. And we talked about persevering, how people go and fork in the road. Well, now we're moving forward.

So, we're not going back to where we were. So, we have to continue to lean on that commitment in the wedding ring, also our foundation and our relationship with Christ. But it's something that without, like Stefana said, that forgiveness, you're going to continue to deal with the suffering that happens in the persevering.

And we want to say, God, we want to give this to you. We can't heal our marriage on our own. We can't heal our own hearts. We can't even change our hearts without His grace.

And so, we're leaning heavily back on those early rings, especially the engagement ring. How would you guys say if somebody's saying the flame has gone out in our marriage, like we're really struggling, I don't even have any feelings. How do you rekindle when that love, that feeling to come back?

And is it even necessary? I think that's important. Jackie and I went through a phase where we weren't dating for years. In the early part of our marriage, when our kids were young, that we had allowed just the routine of life to take over. And I think if you start there, just spending some intentional time with each other, even if it's 15 minutes a day, spending that time together so that you work on your friendship in your marriage again, that's a good place to begin. So, just talking.

Yeah, just talking. We try to have at least 15 minutes per day that we're sitting alone, no phones, away from kids, TVs and all that, consistently. When we do that, that flame, that spark is still there. But when we don't, we feel disconnected. We don't know who the other person is. And it's like a stranger that we're living with.

So, just basic things like that is what we look to do. And they're really common sense things, but we just let life get in the way. Like that season when we weren't dating, we didn't even realize it. We were like, when's the last time we went on a date?

Demands of life. But you noticed it later. We noticed it in the disconnect between us. At that point, we got desperate for date night because we were hungry to spend that time together and continue to grow closer and get to know where Stefan is at mentally and emotionally right now and vice versa. What was the best question? What were two of the best questions that Jackie asked you?

I think the first one would be to get something prepared to wear. So I knew he wanted to take me somewhere. I knew that he wanted to spend time with me. It was like, I'm not just coming home and expecting you to have dinner ready and we're going to go through the normal routine. But can you prepare something? We're going to go out tonight. That was probably the first question. He's saying get ready because we're going out. I'll say the worst question I've ever asked is, what do you want to do tonight?

You don't like that? No, I feel like he's a planner. So everything in his world, he plans. But if you can't think about a plan for date night, it's like that wasn't very important to you.

She's throwing down on you right there, brother. Yeah, you can plan everything else. You plan a little time for me. So now you have a plan almost every time?

Not every time. At one point, we kind of traded off because I got overwhelmed with the planning. Well, what was appealing, the planning to me became appalling when I had to do it every single time. So I did. We actually came up and I created a little thing where, OK, we're going to plan how much.

Here's a high end date night, medium range and low end as far as cost, as far as time to prepare. And so we came up with some plans. So we did it and we got really, really consistent. And that was a very strong season in our growth and our connection.

And we've ebbed and flowed since then. There have been seasons where we kind of missed. But we'll notice that when we are dating and we were intentional about it, when when we make up our mind to do that, nothing gets in the way. You know, because there was a time it's in the calendar, but it's like those calendar appointments that you just kind of gloss over. And then there's another time where whether it's in the calendar or not, we're doing it. I mean, there's been times that we're like, OK, we had a date day making a Sam's Club run, a Sam's Club run because we just needed that time. So we're like, OK, how do we make this time? And that's a perception that we had early this date night has to be this big thing. You know, like, no, one of our marriage mentor couples said you have more dates where you don't do anything. So you have more time to just talk to each other versus being distracted by the things.

Those are fun. You need those new experiences, but just be together. What if it's like broken?

Because you're talking in the restoring phase about the fixing stage, which means something's broken. You mentioned earlier there's forgiveness in this stage. So what if, you know, you're at a point where I don't really want to go on a date with her.

I don't want to go on a date with him because they've hurt me. Maybe there's been adultery, maybe there's been a affair, maybe there's been something that really broke our spirit or even the relationship. So how do we get to a place of forgiveness? I know it's a big part of this this ring, which never really ends. It's always going to be part of your marriage. But talk to the couple that's really hurting. It's like, I don't even want to I can't date right now. I don't want to be with them, but I want to make this marriage work.

But I don't I don't have anything for them. I'm hurt. I'm broken. I need fixed.

What do you do? You have to make that choice to show up. And it's not going to be easy every time. You know, we used to joke that sometimes date night will become fight night. So we go in what we thought was going to even if we can get excited about it, it may end up in an argument that night. Or for Stefana, it'd be to get ready and all the effort and things that she did to prepare, like, hey, get something together. Let's go out.

Then it wouldn't live up to those expectations. So we went through many of those. But we still had to show up and just trust God that, you know, as we show up and be intentional about our marriage and connecting in that area, that we will eventually get over. And I think we did, because those when we recommitted to dating, those first few dates were kind of like staring at each other, like, OK, what are we doing, babe? You know, so then we started learning and we got some conversation started. So I get, you know, I'm the planner. So I like, OK, what are some things that we can talk about that are not just family business and by family business, kids, work, money, schedules and all that.

We're like, OK, how can we start sparking other conversations that will allow us to dig deeper than stuff that we talk about all the time and makes our date nights boring? I think you said something key. It's kind of making that decision.

I want this marriage. And so being willing to do what it takes to to foster healing, I think you have to make that decision for yourself before you can move forward with any area of trying to fix it. Have you had a time in your marriage where you had to forgive one another? For sure. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I don't want to pry, but tell us. We came into marriage the wrong way. One of the things was that when we were dating, I was unfaithful to Stefana. So that lingered in our marriage for the first few years. There was always a seed of doubt or distrust. And even to, you know, what she alluded to about not sure if I made the right decision, like, did I rush into this decision because we had a baby when we came into marriage? And then, you know, there's been you can share any more.

I'm sure there's a lot more forgiveness stories from you for me than the other way around. Yeah, I think just everyday things, you know, being short with with one another. I think you have to recognize Jackie is very much one that has to eat.

So he's going to be short. He's going to be quick if he, you know, with words, if he's not well-nourished. And I have had to forgive him many times over just being hangry.

If you look that up in the dictionary, you'll see my picture. Well, you know, somebody told me years ago, they said, you are most vulnerable to sin when you are hungry or angry or lonely or tired. And that's been true in my own life. I'm weak in those moments.

And so I think we can all understand that the halt idea, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, when somebody is empty or not at our best. And in those moments, I think it was Ruth Graham, Billy Graham's wife, who said that a great marriage is the union of two great forgivers. This is going to be a discipline that we're going to have to practice throughout our marriage. Learning how to seek and grant forgiveness, how to restore what gets broken, how to take the fractures and reset the bone and let some things heal over time. And there may be some soreness there for a while, maybe tender for a while.

But if we don't do that, then we're in real trouble. So, learning how to forgive as a part of the restoring phase of a marriage, this is essential for every couple. Let's go to the next ring about prospering.

What's that? Yeah, I think that's what we all come into marriage hoping for, kind of the vision that happily ever after is kind of what you envision. But it really is a perspective change. Once you've gone through these other rings and you recognize some of the areas that have been hurtful or have challenged you, your perspective has changed on it. It's not just the end of the world because for whatever thing that tripped you up early on in marriage, so you're in a stage where you're healthy and you're more mature. Yeah, and that doesn't mean your marriage is perfect when you're at the prospering. You're still going through maybe some of the similar challenges that you've gone through before. But you're more mature and you handle it so much different. Early on in our marriage, a minor thing may send us in a tailspin where two, three, four days a week that we're not communicating at all. And now we're like, that thing, we can get over it much quicker.

And so, that's one of the biggest things. And it's a ring or season of celebration. It's like, man, look what God has done in our marriage. Look what we've gone through and that we're still here staying. Let's celebrate. Everything becomes a celebration.

Is there some story about diapers that has something to do with prospering after suffering? I don't know exactly what this all means. I think we need to hear the story. I just got nervous.

I don't know what's going on. I was talking about the season when we had Joshua. Joshua was our third born. And you've reached this point in your pregnancy where you just want things in order. You're nesting. And so, I had this diaper genie that had been given to us at our baby shower months earlier. And I had just reached a point in the pregnancy where I wanted things to be in order and I wanted the diaper genie put together.

And Jackie agreed he'd be the one to put the diaper genie together. And I just was really been out of shape about it not being put together at some point. And I think in his mind, he was going to do it. But in my mind, I was ready for it to have been done. And so, there was just this big blow up argument that we can laugh about today. But in the moment, it was not a fun feeling.

It was very frustrating. Yeah, probably, you know, you're still pregnant. So, I'm like, yeah, I'll get to it right before he's here.

Yeah, why do we need until then, right? We're not changing diapers right now. I thought this was the guy that was organized and liked things a certain way. She thought so too.

She discovered something new that day. Dave and I have had this conversation so many times where I'll ask him to do something and then he doesn't do it. And so, he said, you didn't say when you wanted it done. And I said, if I ask you, it means right now. That's what it means right now. That's what it means. But he didn't know that and I've never communicated it. Yeah. Oh, that's funny.

Let me ask you this. Can joy and suffering coexist in a marriage? Well, I think one thing with the prospering is we noticed that some of our greatest times in our marriage were some of our hardest times. So, some of the times that we were suffering, there was a period of time where we were homeless as a family. And not only were we homeless, but it was the second time. There was two periods of that. One time was just when we had our daughter who's our oldest.

She was by herself. And the last time was, or the second time was when we were all five of us. And so, during that time period, it was so hard and so unknown and we didn't know what. But God brought us closer together. We were a homeschooling family.

Stefana was directing a homeschool community. So, we'd have to go to a church once a week to set everything up. I was kind of like the building maintenance guy. So, I'd set up all the classrooms at the church that we were borrowing from. And we'd pack up and go back. Well, we were homeless, so we had no place for all that stuff.

So, we had a storage that we were renting. And literally, our kids, every time we'd go to storage, it was like playtime for them. So, they're having the greatest time ever. They remember that season as a great time. At that same season, we were sleeping on the basement floor of some of our friends. To them, that was a week-long playdate. We were having meals together. We were always going somewhere together. Everything brought us closer together.

So, when we look back, a lot of the foundational things that we do in our marriage now were solidified in those days and during that season. But it was hard. You know, I was scared. We didn't know what was going to happen.

I felt like a failure. And here we are, and we talk about it amongst our kids. And it's like this thing that God was, it's like he had the shield of this covering over us. Where, yes, it's hard and you're going through stuff, but there's still joy in it. But we could have chosen to handle it a different way.

And sometimes God does his best work during those times. When I was pregnant with our first son, we'd been married six years. We just finished seminary. We bought a fixer-upper to make some money when we were in seminary.

Who does that? We did. And we had moved back to Michigan. That house hadn't closed yet, it had sold, and we had no money.

And we were on staff with crews who were raising our financial support, and we just didn't have a lot of money coming in. I was seven months pregnant, and we were eating oatmeal for dinner and crying out to God. Like, God, we can't do this. And I remember Dave saying, it seems to me like God isn't bringing in the money. So, what was your prayer? You had like a desperate prayer.

Yeah, I mean, simple prayer was, I mean, you know, you trust God as a missionary to provide your financial support, which with crew was our paycheck. And I made a vow on Ann and I got married how many years before that? Six.

Six years before that. If we ever don't have enough money in our account to get paid, I'll never let that happen. And we had just missed two paychecks.

Oh, wow. And just got done with seminary, started a new ministry, didn't know anybody in the new city. Long story short, I was starting to feel like, okay, God's leading us out of ministry. He's leading us to a business job. I had a marketing degree and I just thought, okay, so I made sort of a fleece with God. It's like, okay, I'm going to give you a month and I'm going to call everybody and ask and do what I need to do.

And if you provide, then I'll know you want us in ministry. And if you don't, then I think it's one of your ways you're showing us to move on. Long story short. And it was a substantial amount of money.

We needed $25,000 in 1985. Wow. Wow. And we prayed like, Lord, unless this comes in, we feel like we're going to go off staff. And we're okay with that. And so, I go to this Bible study and I meet this woman and I've never been to this study.

And she's asked me why we're here, why we moved to Michigan, all these questions. And so, we're on staff with crew. Dave's the new chaplain for the Detroit Lions. Which everybody thinks you're making all this money because you work with an NFL team. I'm making nothing.

They don't pay you. And she said, tell me more about this money thing. And I said, oh, well, we just raised support from financial donors who are really feeling like, oh, that's a cool investment of my money. And so, I just told her about it and she said, hmm, that's interesting.

I'd like my husband to talk to your husband. I'm like, oh, okay. And so, I actually, while she was at that study, was at a church doing my little pitch and asking people to consider supporting our ministry.

And back then, there was no digital. It was a three by five card and they write their name and a phone number if they're interested and they hand it in right at the church in an offering. So, I get in the car and I'm driving home and I'm looking through these cards and I think we got $5 a month from maybe 50 cards. Everybody else was like, I pray for you. And I was so discouraged.

And we're like a week from the month deadline. So, I'm like, I think God's leading us away. I get home and he goes, hey, you know, I met this lady named Ruth at this thing and she says to call her husband, Ivan. I'm like, what?

You what? I'm supposed to call some guy that doesn't even know me or you, his wife. And she hands me this phone number and, you know, no cell phones back then. I literally threw it on the floor. Like, and I called some guy, are you kidding me?

You know, I go into the office later that night and there's the card laying on the floor. And I'm like, okay. I dial this number, right?

And I'm not making this up. Hello? I mean, he's the most gruff guy ever. Hello? Hey, Ivan, my name is Dave Wilson. We haven't met, but my wife met your wife, Ruth, today at a Bible study or something.

Yeah? I was just like that. And I'm like, well, Ruth mentioned to my wife that I should give you a call.

What for? She didn't say anything to me about it. I mean, it's just like that. I'm not exaggerating. I'm like, well, here's our situation.

We're on staff with Athletes in Action, a branch of CREW, and we're missionaries and we raise financial support to do our ministry. So why are you calling me? Well, like I said, your wife told my wife, and I'm literally like looking at Ian like, this is the dumbest thing ever.

This guy is so mean, you know. And he goes, well, tell me what you're doing. And I said, well, you know, we have this ministry of pro athletes and it isn't because we like pro athletes.

They have a platform and when they have an influence. And so we try to lead them to Christ and they, you know, I went through this whole little pitch and he goes, well, how much money do you need? And I go, well, you know, could we get together? I could share our thing. He goes, just give me a number, Dave.

Just like that. And I'll never forget. I'm like, I'm afraid to give him a number because in my mind it's a million dollars.

That's the most we've ever needed to raise in our life. And it's just impossible. So I kept putting it off. Like, no, Ivan, you know, really, could we meet? Dave, give me a number. And I go, well, it's like, you know, I just like barely said, I said, well, it's significant.

It's $25,000, you know, by like next week. And he goes, all right, give me your phone number. I'll call you back.

I'm like, what? Give me your phone number. Okay, here's my phone number.

Okay. So you click. And I literally turned in. I said, okay, that was the worst phone call of my life.

How did you get me into this? And I'm not kidding, five minutes later, the phone rings. And I pick it up and he goes, Dave?

Yeah, this is Ivan. Yeah, we got you. I go, what? I called my business partner, Jim. He's going to do five.

I'm going to do 20. Come to the office tomorrow and get the check. Wow. And I mean, I'm tearing up right now, remembering that moment. Because I'm like, what? Here's my office.

It's an advertising business. Please come meet me tomorrow. You'll meet my partner too. And I drive over there and Ivan became one of our closest friends. I mean, you think back about that moment and we almost left ministry. And we would say it's one of the hardest, as you were saying. It's homeless.

It's horrible. And yet, in the midst of it, God came through this miraculous story. And provided and said, I'm right here in the craziest way. And I did his funeral. And I remember standing up there at the funeral and telling that story to the whole church.

And they all were like, yep, that's Ivan. He had such a heart for families. Because his family was broken. He was in his second marriage. Ruth was his incredible wife. And he became partners with us for the next 20 years. In fact, our church launched with him as our only supporter.

He was the only person over 40. And I say all that to say, if you're struggling, there is a God who's got an Ivan that's waiting to help you. Just get on your knees and ask and trust him like never before. Maybe a God who's going to provide not financial support, but the emotional support you need. Exactly. The relational support you need. The last ring you talk about in the book is the mentor ring. And maybe that's what you need more than anything else is somebody who can help walk you through the hard challenges. Can be the mentor you need in your marriage.

Or maybe God's calling you to be that in somebody else's life, somebody else's marriage. You guys, thank you for this time. Thank you for the book. Thanks for coaching us on all of this. I hope listeners will get a copy of this book and go through it with other couples and do some diagnostic. Where are we?

And what does God have for us in this? I hope couples will come out and see you when we're able to have more weekends to remember in that moment. Thanks for being with us. Thank you guys for having us. And by the way, if folks want information about when and where we are hosting weekends to remember, because we have a few of those that have started back up this spring, you can go to the website familylifetoday.com and find out more about the limited locations where these events are taking place.

And then, of course, in the fall, we hope to be back up to full strength. But we do want our listeners to know that we're making your book available this week to listeners who can help support the ministry with a donation. The book the Bloodsows have written is called The Seven Rings of Marriage, Your Model for a Lasting and Fulfilling Marriage. The book is our thank you gift to you when you support the ongoing work of this ministry, when you partner with us to reach hundreds of thousands of marriages and families every day with practical biblical help and hope for their relationships.

You make that possible. In fact, what you're really donating to is to strengthen those marriages and those families. It's other couples and other families that are benefiting from the donations you make. So thank you for thinking about a donation.

You can donate online at familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. And again, when you do, we will send you as a thank you gift Jackie and Stefana Bloodsows' book, The Seven Rings of Marriage, Your Model for a Lasting and Fulfilling Marriage. And I know the book is going to help a lot of couples.

So I hope our listeners will call in and make a donation and get a copy of the book. We've got the president of Family Life, David Robbins, in the studio with us today. And David, we always like having guests like the Bloodsows join us. You know, one of my favorite things that happens on Family Life Today is when some of our Weekend to Remember speakers that serve with us on weekends and pour their heart out into families on the front lines through Weekends to Remember get to be guests on Family Life Today. And that crossover and connection happens.

I love it because these are people who share our heart. You can hear their passion for marriages bleed out of them. And that's certainly what we've experienced with the Bloodsows.

And we know that time together around timeless truth transform marriages. We see it happen weekend after weekend with the Weekends to Remember getaways. And we are so glad to be able to bring them back. And even though there's not as many as there normally are and that there's less people that are going to be there than normally, we're excited to get them back up going again. Yeah, we really are. And again, there's information about when and where we are hosting Weekend to Remember events.

You can go to our website FamilyLifeToday.com to find out more. Now, tomorrow we want to talk about where God has placed you and why he has placed you where he has placed you. Dave Wilson likes to say we're to make a dent where we're sent. And we're going to talk to a couple tomorrow that are going to share with us what they've learned about the art of neighboring. So, I hope you can tune in to hear from Chris and Elizabeth McKinney tomorrow. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. Got some extra help today from Bruce Goff. 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.