A Relationship that Lasts: Our Story: Bryan & Stephanie Carter

You got 30 seconds. I didn't prep you for this. You have no idea what I'm gonna ask you. Okay. But a single girl comes up to you, says, I'm getting married.

I want to have the best marriage ever. Tell me what I need to do in 30 seconds. Go. I'd just say one thing. You need to... You can't say what? No. You're not allowed to say Jesus.

No, I'm gonna say that. You have to base it on the rock of Jesus or it's gonna be really hard. And even with Jesus, it can still be hard. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. We've got Brian Carter and his wife Stephanie in the studio today. Is this your first time ever on Family Life Today? Maybe 10, 15 years ago. Welcome back to Family Life Today.

Thank you so much. Which means the last time you were on was Little Rock. It was. Way back.

And, you know, you had Dennis and Bob who don't look anything as good as Ann. So much better now. But what a lot of people may not know is you are on the Family Life board. How many years? Maybe five years now. Five years?

Yeah. Man, it's been an honor to serve. But I've been connected to family life for probably 20 years.

Really? How did you get connected? I met Dennis in 2002 at a mentoring conference. Crawford LaRitz had organized it. He had invited young past, young preachers. And what happened out of the conference was every person there got a mentor.

And so it just so happened there was a lot of gentlemen there. But I was fortunate enough to get Dennis as my mentor for two years. And so it was Brian LaRitz, myself, and a couple other guys. Every month we talked on the phone.

And it was a mentoring call. And then once a year we had a gathering together. And so it was a joy to talk to Dennis once a month. Had you and Stephanie been married yet? We were... 2002, so we had just had our first baby.

Oh, so it's perfect timing for Dennis Rainey to come into the picture. New in ministry, new in marriage and family. So we've been talking on the phone for once a month for almost 20 years. You're still talking? We're still talking, 22 years. We have a call scheduled for tomorrow.

Really? That's awesome. So you've been married 25 years.

Pastor of Concord Church in Dallas. How long? Twenty years in the fall. Three kids. Is it chaos at home?

It is chaos right now. So our oldest daughter is 20. Our middle daughter is 18.

She just graduated from high school. And then we have a 15 year old, the boy. We call him our sweet surprise. He's product of a marriage retreat.

Really? Everybody got pregnant that marriage retreat. First it was in February. He showed up in November. And we tracked him back to that conference. That was a great conference.

That's the best conference you can go to. Stephanie, you head up the women's ministry at the church? I do.

I do. How long have you done that? Maybe, what, 10 years? Maybe 10 years. Yeah, maybe 10 years.

It's kind of like a blur. So do you guys meet in high school? You told us earlier that Brian was this amazing high school athlete.

Were you just following him around the court or what? No, we did not meet in high school. I went to University of Oklahoma.

He went to Oklahoma State. Were you rivals then? How did you meet?

Oh yeah, we were very rivals. So we met through some mutual friends. They kept telling me about Brian and I really was like, yeah, I don't want to meet anybody.

I just want to focus on my studies. And so we met at a big eight conference on student leadership. They introduced us there and he seemed like really not into me. So I kind of felt like, wait, I thought you were trying to meet me.

Brian, what was that? Well, I was just trying to make sure. They told me she was interested.

I was just trying to make sure. I didn't want to seem too overly aggressive, right? I just wanted to let it, let things play itself out. So I asked for her number like a week or two later. I say, can I talk? A week or two later?

Well, I didn't want to press, no pressure. But the first time we talked, we talked for like two hours, two or three. It was spring break. And we talked forever. Just, we just kind of connected. It was like a natural connection. And then I guess, sometime, maybe a month later or a few weeks later, we dated, we went on our first date together to, where did we go? Play Putt-Putt?

Was that was the first game? Okay, so I have to give this to Brian. He had great conversation. And I just don't feel like young men back then did. And I, you know, when I, when we tell this story, young women today will be like, yeah, it's still the same. I was gonna say, has it changed?

Yeah, they're like, it's still the same. So we had, we just talked on the phone and had great conversation. And then he planned this great date.

Now, I'm not gonna lie, I think it's just my mom, it kind of scared me a little bit and had, she had watched too much Dateline. So when we're going on our date, I mean, OU is in Norman, Oklahoma. So everything pretty much, it's just a typical college town. So when he said, we're going to the Olive Garden, I was like, okay, I know where that is in Norman. And so when we drove past the Olive Garden, I was like, oh, my goodness.

You know, this is before cell phones, and you're like, you get, somebody could track you. And so then once I got past that, and I said, where, I thought we were going to the Olive Garden. He's like, yeah, we're going to the Olive Garden in Oklahoma City. I thought we could just talk more if we had 30 minutes. So we go to the Olive Garden.

That's more impressive in my mind than Putt-Putt. So we go to dinner and the waitress in the middle of dinner comes out with yellow roses to give to me. Wait, wait a minute.

Wait, are you serious? I dropped by the river before. They're fist bumping right now. So he had the yellow roses, which was really sweet. And so then he said, I remember that you said you love to ice skate or we can go putt-putting. What would you like to do? And I was like, we have something else to do? In my head I was saying this. I was like, sure, we can go miniature golfing.

That sounds great. And so- And did you think I'm going to beat you because I'm such a good athlete? And I did. You didn't beat him?

I did beat him. I had a plan. Whoever lost, right, had to pay for the next date. So I set myself up to lose. I took the fall. I took the dive so that I could get another date.

Stephanie's not buying that one. She beat you fair and square. I beat him fair and square. I have a feeling you still are. Yeah. Dating him was really, he just was super, super sweet.

Just had never seen anything like that. Just super romantic, great conversation. Now I will be honest. When I asked my friends about him, like before, like I gave them my number. So he called me.

I said, okay, so tell me something about him. And they were like, well, he goes to Oklahoma State. I was like, okay. And they're like, oh, he's in a fraternity.

Okay. And then they're like, he's the president of the Black Student Association at Oklahoma State. I was like, okay.

And yeah, he's a minister. I was like, absolutely not. You know what I mean? Absolutely not. Why?

I just- What are you asking why? You're in the same way. He said, I will never be a pastor. I said, I would never be a pastor's wife ever. I kept feeling like, no. Did you grow up in a Christian home?

I did. I grew up in a Christian home. So you're a believer.

I'm a believer. The military just, my mom had us so engaged in church just because we moved every two to four years. And so that was our way to get connected to the community and get connected to meet other kids. So youth ministry, all that, I did it. But I kept feeling like, no, I guess because I would just see that pastor's wife and she just looked like- Me too.

God help me. Yes. Brian, what was your family life? It sounds like you come from a really good family. So my dad was a pastor. I watched this kind of his transformation, right? I watched him kind of going to church off and on, really becoming really committed to ultimately saying, I want to be a minister. I want to be a pastor. I want to start a church. And so he started a church when I was like 10, but he's also a mechanic and a kind of a craftsman. So he takes these old bills and he remodels them and he turns them into churches. My middle school years are spent after school going to help him as he remodels this church into a facility.

That was part of what we did. Very involved in church, very engaged in church. So as a young man, I just felt a calling on my life to do ministry.

At that age, like super young. Like 15, 16, 17, I knew I wanted to be a pastor. Now, mind you, I expected every pastor to be bivocational. So my plan was to teach school, be a principal and be a pastor and just kind of pull. I felt like that connected me to the community. I could do all of it together. It just felt like a natural fit. So even when I went off to college, I was a science and education major because I felt like this will be the pathway where I can serve people, connect with people, help people.

It'd be principal Carter. Yeah, listen. I'm passing together, it all goes together, right? Oh yeah.

So it felt like a natural kind of move. And so watching my dad and my mom together learn how to treat a woman. So all of those things kind of collided when I met her was that I always knew I wanted to get married. We were dating sophomore year in college. I knew I needed a wife. And so I'm looking. And so when we meet, it's this connection that really... And so even when we first start meeting, we're coming to church together, I'm driving, she's driving me to church.

It just is a connection there. Cause I know what I wanted. I wanted somebody that loved the Lord, somebody that had goals and ambitions, right? Somebody that was cute. All those things were part of what I was looking for when I found her. I just said, man, God, this is really answering my prayers.

This is what I've been looking for. Wait a minute. I need to get over the hump of like, what are you doing with like, he wants to go into ministry and be a pastor. How'd you get over that? She's asking cause she's still not over it. Listen, yeah, I don't think as wives, you just never get, you're always like, so when they, okay, this is 20 years.

So how much more? But you know, I think Brian's heart is what won me over. And I can look past the ministry part because I was an education major. I was an elementary education major. He was, you know, middle school. So we had these desires just to teach. And like he said, we had never seen a full service staffed pastor.

It was, this is what I do. I teach and we had aspirations to be a principal. He was going to be a superintendent and that was going to be our life and that was going to be our role. So I really wasn't thinking pastor's wife. And I think it was the only time I would get really nervous about it is when his dad would talk about it.

Yeah, so that would take me down. Cause I remember like his mom, his mom was very traditional, very traditional house. Mine was the complete opposite, yeah. My home church is a very small church, small family church. And that's the church that we're, that I grew up in. That's where we met. That's where we're dating.

So part of the transition is she's thinking, right, this is where, like, I thought I was going to succeed my dad. So you're talking about 20 to 30 people, small Oklahoma city. That's on a good day, y'all.

Hey, hey, hey, you know, pastors, they count by three. That's all. It's about 15. It's like a small group. It's a small group. It's a small group. It's a small group.

There's three more people. Yeah. It's a small intimate family church.

But he has a lot of outreach, but that's in those kinds of settings, right? It would have been hard for her to kind of fit into this space, right? I didn't fit. It didn't fit. And we, it was going to be a struggle.

It really would have been. It already was a struggle. It already was a struggle. Because you're strong. Is that what you mean?

I was strong and his dad would say things like, so would you be up to taking piano lessons? No. There you go. No. Brian, don't do this.

Don't do this. Then, y'all, my friends, my friends, I love my friends. I would plea with them. Like they could like go out and kick it all night long. And then they'd get up and go to whatever the hot church was in Oklahoma City. And so I'd be like, hey, you guys want to go to church with me? They're like, no. I was like, please, go to church with me. So they were like, okay, okay, okay. We'll go to church with you. So they go and they, one of my friends was like, if anybody ever says that you don't love Brian, I'm going to be like, she loves him a lot.

She loves him a lot. Dave and I made this pact when we got married. I was only 19.

Dave was 22. But we came on staff with Athletes in Action with crew. And then a couple of years later, we're like, let's go to seminary. We're going to do this the rest of our lives. And so I made a pact with him like, all right, we're going to go to seminary, but you are not going to become a pastor, right?

Like this is our deal. This is our deal because if you're going for that, like I don't think I'm into that. I literally said, I'm not doing that.

I'll do ministry, but not that kind of ministry. Because I had expectations. I had a vision of what I thought a pastor's wife was. So anyway, you saw. Yeah, and I wasn't that. I'm like, they are going to hate me.

So I can't do that. So you kind of, you get that. I so get it, yeah. So what, look, Brian is so plain right now because you were the time, like Brian had to preach. I had to preach and you know. In your dad's church? No, at another church. In the African-American context, sometimes the pastor's wife will sing before the preacher gets up to preach.

And it's the pastor's wife? Yes. Or playing the piano? Right, right, right.

Or sometimes both, right? And so they call her up to sing and. I cannot sing.

That's not her gift. They called you us to sing just because you're. Out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. And she tried though, she tried. And then in this small church hall, they even had the nerve to shade me or like kind of tease me. Yes, they did, Brian. Because they were like, that's not, whatever.

That's a worship song. I was like, you know what? But we made it, needless to say, we made it through some seasons of testing trying to find our roles.

Oh my goodness. I was trying to find myself. She was trying to find hers. And the box really didn't fit. So ultimately what happens is we relocate to Texas.

We move to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It would have been hard trying to navigate through all the dynamics, family, ministry, family, church. It would have been challenging.

Not to say that I didn't, I think in my mind I wanted to. But I think we went through a few challenges there. And it felt like this is not going to work.

We had a church meeting one Sunday that we had. And it just, it went really sour between me and my dad. And it really was a moment where I said, this is not going to work. And I really wanted it to. Like, I had a vision of what could happen.

I saw some things. But that conflict that we had, I don't think I would have made it in ministry. I think it would have been hard in ministry. I think it would have been hard on our marriage. And so those tensions ultimately led to us relocating.

We re-graduated together in May. And we moved to Texas the next month, which is great. Sounds like this is God's plan. It definitely was God's plan. But I learned a valuable lesson during that season.

My mom, she taught me how to pray. And so I'll never forget the year before we got married. It was a true testing season.

Just things were getting, just thrown at us left and right. And I'll never forget, my mom was like, do you pray for Brian? I was like, I do. And she was like, how do you pray for him? I was like, help him to realize that he, duh. And she was like, Stephanie, that's not how you pray for him. She's like, you need to pray for the future husband he's going to be, the future father, the future leader he's going to be. What did that sound like?

And so I said, it definitely didn't sound like what I was doing before. And so I would be like, God, just whatever the plans you have for Brian, I pray that you will just surround him with people that can pour into him. I pray for the future husband he's going to be, how he will lead our family, and so on.

And I pray for the father he will be. And just doing that prayer. And then my mom was like, have you told Brian, because our biggest issue was we did not want to live. Where were you going to live? We're going to stay in Oklahoma City, or we're going to move, right? And so that was huge.

That was our biggest thing. So my mom was like, does he know that you don't want to live here? And I said, yes. And she was like, oh, what am I asking? Of course he knows you don't want to live here. I know you told him. And so she's like, have you prayed to God and asked him about where he would have you to be? And I said, no.

And she was like, Stephanie, I don't want you to tell Brian anymore about what you don't want to do, or this, that, this, that. I need you to take that to God, and I need you to have faith in what God will have, the plan that he has for y'all. I kept feeling like, no, but see, God doesn't. It's just like, God knows everything, and God is going to hear your prayer. But he doesn't know his prayers or doesn't.

She's like, God knows, and I need you to leave it there with him. And I said, all right. And so I'm praying.

This is probably like in August. The church meeting that he talked about earlier, that happens in January. So y'all, I haven't said anything. I haven't said anything else about it. I just, I took it to God.

I left it there. And so when the church meeting happens, I'm kind of like, in my head, the sassiness in me wanted to be like, no, this is what you want. This is why you want to stay here. I was ready. Because I'm so accustomed to some of the dynamics at work. You know, you can manage them, right?

That's what, oftentimes when you bring in someone that's outside, it's all like, wait a minute, right? How do we, what's this? And so we were trying to, but it's just the conflict and the differences. And a lot of it was just differences. You have one generation collide with another generation.

It's just a total opposite ways of view. And then I'm young and I'm probably a little bit arrogant, right? Like, and so I'm thinking my way, my way, my way.

I'm trying to change things at the church probably a bit too fast, a bit too quickly, which is meeting with resistance. And it just, it just was a recipe for disaster. And probably creating tension between the relationship you had with your parents. My parents, relationship with my wife. So it's one of those things where most young couples, we're not even married yet, but managing through your parents, your spouse, your fiance, trying to navigate, that can be hard sometimes, right? And so I'm like, I'm caught in the middle trying to make everybody happy.

And so it was a bit rocky. Now, as you look back, I mean, here you are 25 years later and you know, we haven't even mentioned your book, Made to Last. Made to Last, right, right, right. We'll get to that.

We'll get to that tomorrow. I mean, but it's all about long lasting relationships. Do you think that start, prayer, I'm hearing leaving and cleaving, how important would you say now 25 years in that is to build a relationship that's made to last? Oh, I would say it's crucial, it's essential. I learned a valuable lesson. There was an issue where his dad did a sermon and he talked about women and what they're supposed to like wear. And at that time as a college student, you had your stuff on a rotation. And so he had an issue with pants. Never knew it was an issue with pants. I had my little pants suit on that he had bought me. And the day is like he knew. His son had bought you the pants suit and his dad's talking about it.

I didn't know the rules, nobody knew the rules. So his dad does a sermon about pants. And I'm like, again, the church is small. On this day, I may have been eight people.

I'm the only one with pants. And I just kept feeling like, yeah, no, this is not gonna work. So make a long story short, I leave the church. And I basically, we almost end our engagement because I just saw my life and I kept feeling like I cannot do this.

So to have a marriage to make made to last or a relationship with made to last, you also have to compromise, but then you also have to, you have to let go of yourself. Like I was a very, my parents had raised me to be very strong and very independent. And I remember crying, calling my parents to tell them about what happened. And my dad was like, he's like, Stephanie, you're gonna take that? And then my mom was like, Stephanie, this is something you have to pray about. This is y'all's first sign because we had not had any major things in our relationship while we were dating in our engagement. And so this was the first true test.

And I'll never forget. So I go to another church, y'all. I'm in the church that everybody goes to in Oklahoma City and I'm sitting there and there's an older woman sitting next to me and she sees my engagement ring and she goes, oh, where's your husband? And I was like, oh, I'm not married. She was like, oh, where's your fiance? And I was like, oh, he goes to another church. And she was like, well, baby, if you wear his ring, you need to be by his side. And I was like, well, see, you don't understand.

I don't care. If you wear his ring, you need to be by his side. And that was so convicting to me. And I remember going back to the church and going back. With a dress on.

Yeah, good for you with a dress on. I went back and it was very humbling because I'm very competitive. I've always played competitive sports. And so I felt like I was losing and that his dad had won. It was a battle.

It was a battle. I think when you talk about made to last couples and relationships, one of the last chapter in the book talks about resilience. Suffering and trials.

Suffering and the trial. And I think her commitment to me, her commitment to our relationship and willing to face those challenges and obstacles. And us willing to face those challenges and obstacles together, I think are essential for any relationship. I think when things get hard, if people quit, or someone says, I don't want to dive in or I'm not going to deal with that. I think that's when we lose the strength of our relationships. It's the challenges and the obstacles that we go through together, that we face side by side, that we fight back to back together with those instead of fighting each other.

That then allows us to build something that's healthy, that's strong, that's reliable. I mean, now looking back 25 years later, I mean those moments and challenges and tensions and conflicts that could have really driven us apart. They both were painful.

They were hard. I hate some of the things she had to go through. As a man, I had to figure out how to love her, protect her, support her. And I probably didn't always do the best job. Well, I didn't do the best job early on in marriage. But I had to learn through those lessons.

She had to coach me and I had to manage through them. But it's that resilience, right? It's that persevering.

It's that relying on our faith, watching God work on our hearts and our soul, watching God mature us. Because sometimes in our own immaturity, we become selfish and self-centered and we don't think about others. But now looking back, I just can see God faithfully working through those moments, faithfully working through those challenges, growing her, growing me, and really giving us a peace about some of those things. Sometimes you can't change other people, right? Most of the time. Most of the time.

Most of the time you can't. But you learn to have a peace and you learn how to navigate through some things in a way that honors God, but also protects your relationship. As I've been listening to this conversation, I thought to myself, learning through failure is always something that hurts as we travel through it. But that hurt is what's necessary in order to develop maturity in us and cultivate wisdom. The times I've grown the most is when I've hurt the most, specifically through my chronic back pain. That's in the times when it's hurt the most, but it's also when God has used the most to shape me into who He wants me to be. It's been hard, yes, it's been hard, but it's been wonderful at the same time. Those difficult moments and those glorious moments are one in the same at times in our lives. What a mystery it is to be a Christian, you know?

Sometimes it's just crazy. I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to David Ann Wilson with Brian and Stephanie Carter on Family Life Today. Brian has written a book called Made to Last, Eight Principles to Build Long-Lasting Relationships. Brian gives us clear insights in that book, ways to tap into the love and power of God and practical, effective steps to improve our most important relationships. You can head over to familylifetoday.com to pick up a copy, or you can give us a call at 800-358-6329.

That's 800 F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. You know, obviously you hear us talk often about marriages and how that foundation can affect really everything else in our lives. Well, one thing we think we all would agree on is that great marriages don't just happen. They're built with intentionality and whether we see it or not, we're either drifting in marriage or intentionally moving together toward each other and toward God.

So here's the great news for your relationship. Family Life's Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway has events all over the country this coming fall. And even better right now, through Monday, September 18th, all registrations are 50% off.

So you can jump on this chance to intentionally pull closer to each other and to God and get two registrations for the price of one. Again, now through September 18th. To find out more, you can head over to weekendtoremember.com. Now coming up tomorrow, David and Wilson are joined again by Brian and Stephanie Carter. Brian's gonna talk about his realization of feeling empty and finding something missing despite his success as a pastor and his involvement in a big building project. That whole story and much more is coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.