The Grace Marriage: Brad & Marilyn Rhoads

We don't have a great marriage because I'm great or Marilyn's great. We have a great marriage because Jesus Christ is perfect, not because of us. It's not we've mastered the marriage thing.

It's just like we've realized more and more our only hope is in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. 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. This is Family Life Today. The book we're going to talk about today with this couple, it's one of the only marriage books I've ever read where I'm like, wow, their marriage is as bad as ours was. I'm not kidding.

They started out rough like we did. Yeah, we've got Brad and Marilyn Rhodes in the studio with us, and I'm not kidding, guys. I never met you, but when I started reading your book, I'm like, nobody's this honest in chapter one, and you are that honest, and I don't know about everybody else, but it drew me right in. Well, we just were thinking, we need to be friends with this couple. They have totally been through it, and God has done a lot in your marriages. So it's a privilege to say welcome to Family Life Today. Oh, we appreciate you having us. So again, it's called The Grace Marriage, How the Gospel and Intentionality Can Transform Your Relationship, and we love Julie Slattery, by the way. Yeah, she's a good friend. She's such a good friend, and she wrote the foreword, but your first chapter's like how ugly love can be.

That's your title or something like that, right? Tell us a little bit about your story. I mean, first of all, what do you do? How many kids? Where do you live?

Tell us a little background first. Well, we live in Owensboro, Kentucky. We have five children, 24 down to 13, four girls and one boy, so our lives are pretty full. So most of them are still in the home? Two are still in the home, two in college, and our oldest is married, so slowly emptying.

Ernest is slowly emptying. Yeah, do you want to start with your story? I mean, chapter one, tell us. Well, I'll let Marilyn lead because she hated it a lot more than I did. You said you appreciate how honest it was. Well, it was worse. Like, there were things I wanted to put in there, and I was like, you can't put that in there.

Oh, really? So you cleaned it up a little bit? Yeah, we did. All right, paint the picture for us, Marilyn. Okay, well, I'm idealistic by nature, so I had this view that he was going to be my Prince Charming, and we were going to live happily ever after, and he was so much fun in dating.

And I told him in the book, you were great at dating, but you're horrible at being married. So it was- What did you think it would be like? I really do naturally have unrealistic expectations.

I kind of would like it to be heaven on earth, and we're in a broken place. So that was really just set us off. I was thinking about myself, and we watch all these movies, and he's going to complete me, and he's going to make me happy. And he was building a law practice and was paying no attention to me. I was in grad school, and he was working all day, and he would come in, and he's a huge sports fan. I did not grow up with sports, and he would turn on the TV, and my goal was to keep him off the couch if we could just do something before he hits the couch. Because if there's a winner and a loser, he's going to watch whatever it is, and it was crazy to see how much sports were fun. And you had no idea he would be like that. I did not. I knew he liked sports, and I had fun going to games with him, but I wasn't living with him yet. And you weren't competing with them, with the sports yet, and the TV and ESPN.

Yes, that's exactly right. So that was part of it. I'm also very sensitive by nature, and he's not. He's really funny, so I cried a lot. He'd make me laugh even while I was crying. I'd be like, I'm still mad at you. I may be laughing, but I'm really sad. Were you trying to get her to laugh? I was trying to build a law practice and really didn't try much in the marriage piece of things.

I have a natural, would she say a natural wit, and if it's not intentionally controlled, it's not overly helpful. And I would say my first year, there was not a whole lot of filter, and it was like, I was just not nice. I was rude. It was funny, and she would laugh, but it was more heartful. And I didn't really understand.

I mean, I didn't know why. I just thought I had a hypersensitive, needy wife. Wow. Did you hear those two words? Hypersensitive, needy wife.

I thought, we're going to get to a point where she's going to settle in, and we're going to be fine. See what he's doing with his hands? Yeah, calm down. He would literally look at me and tell me to calm down with his hands.

Oh, and what does that do? David's done that to me, too. And calm down. Like, you want to see calm?

It just fired her up. Because I would say, just relax. I can't even say that word ever in our house ever again. I'd hold my hands up high, and I'd say, man, calm down.

It feels so unique. Chill pills. You know what I'm saying?

There's some chill pills in the bathroom. We're going to go get one. I will say, I had this woman write me a letter once, and she said, I feel like my husband totally duped me. She said, when we were dating, he would listen, we'd laugh together, we'd play together.

He would look me straight in the eyes and want to know my heart and share his heart. She said, then we got married. She said, it felt like before we were married, he was hunting me. He saw me. He shot me. He begged me.

He went to his house. He put me on the mantle, and now he's off on his next adventure in his hunt. Wow.

That's a good literal picture. That is it. So many of us wives feel like, whoa, wait, wait, wait. What happened to the guy who was dating? Because now he's off on this next adventure. Is that what you did, Brad?

It was exactly. I like entrepreneurship, so I'd left my law firm in Nashville. I was building a new law practice. So exciting.

I had one staff, no clients. I mean, how exciting is that? So I was like, I'm doing everything I can to creatively build a client base, and it's working. So I'm like, I'm having a blast.

She's not having a blast. I actually put her in a bowling league to help me meet new people to get new clients. No, you did not. She was in a bowling league for 42 weeks every week, so it was like a free legal clinic, because I was the only lawyer in the bowling league.

I got referrals for 18 years off that league. People needed a problem. Oh, my friend was in a car wreck. My friend's like, oh, there's cards.

But I was like, it was brilliant. But she hated every minute of it. So you're bowling. I'm on a bowling league with Brad, and I'm the only girl on our team, and I'm in this horrible bowling shirt.

And it's most when the smoke-filled alleys were still a thing, so you had to shower when you got home. But you're a good wife. Yes, that was a little piece of it, so I joined the bowling league. She was a good, she wasn't a good bowler. I'm not that good a wife that ever did anything.

Katie on our team actually brought bowling videos and brought things for her to work on her grip strength, because she would bowl a bad ball, and she'd turn to walk back and say that none of our team would make eye contact with her. What? It was terrible.

It was great. And then I was in graduate school getting a counseling degree, so I'm studying all of this and thinking, we don't need to get in bad habits if I don't tell him now. You know, we're going to get in these bad habits. And so I was literally telling him everything he was doing wrong, that he's doing wrong, because we don't want to get started on the wrong foot.

So that's a horrible approach as well. I said, is that your class project? Are you like doing this on purpose so you can like take notes and report back tomorrow?

Because this seems like it misses a little over the top. Dave's words to me were, I'm not your fixer-upper project. I'm like, but you need it. Like, I'm helping you, right? That's right. Yeah. I mean, how long did this go on? About a year. About a year. You did this for a year.

We did. It was really ugly. And we're in a new town, and we didn't know anyone, and I didn't want to tell any of my family about it, because they'd want to kill them.

You know, for their daughter being miserable. And where were you spiritually? You know, I was extremely complacent. So when I met Marilyn, I dropped a lot of bad habits immediately, because I know she would break up with me instantly.

So I'm like, I'm not going to keep doing what I know is wrong and lose the best thing. Because Marilyn, she's an angel. I mean, she wouldn't tell you, but I've never met a human like her in my life.

I mean, just people that know her feel the same way, and she hates when I compliment her in front of other people. But I started going to church with her, got rid of the bad habits, but I wasn't at all leading spiritually. When we were looking at churches, Marilyn actually met with the pastor, not me, and came back and said, I don't think we can go, so go pick another church. I don't care.

Just find a place you're comfortable, and I'll go with you. So I was very complacent. And I think God actually may have used our marriage to save me. Looking back, God used our marriage to show me my sin for the first time in just 4K.

And that's when I really think God used Marilyn to bring me into His kingdom. It was about a year in that God really showed me my selfishness. Because marriage is His institution. It's not about me.

And it's about it being held in honor and it being a picture of the gospel. And all I was looking at is what I wanted Him to do, how I could change Him, how we can have this great marriage rather than, OK, God, what are you calling me to do in marriage? How are you calling me to love Him? I wasn't doing any of that.

Oh, me neither. I'm a pretty steady personality type. I was until I got married.

And all of a sudden, I was a mess all the time, and I was miserable. And the Lord showed me, you've taken your eyes off me. I'm your hope, not Brad. And you've put him in my place. So I did. A year in, I went to Brad, and I just asked for his forgiveness for putting him in the place of God. Christ is where my hope is, and my joy is.

Putting that on Brad, he can't meet that. So I apologized and said, I'm going to start loving you the way the Lord's calling me to love you. How did you get to that point?

How did you see that? I was so miserable. I asked the Lord, am I sentenced to a life of this?

Is this it? I was just crying out in my prayer journal. And it was not an audible voice, but I felt just pierced to the heart how selfish I was being. That was the beginning of a change of perspective for me.

And Christ came to bring life and life to the full. And all of a sudden, I had new life to give to our marriage, because it wasn't about me. It was about, okay, Lord, how are you calling me to love this man that's my spouse? That was the shifting point for us. I mean, Brad, do you remember that conversation?

Did it change you? I remember it vividly, because she actually said, she let off with, Brad, I don't need you. And when she said it, my mom went, oh, no, I didn't think it was that bad. But then she goes, and I want to ask for your forgiveness. She said, Christ is all I need.

He is completely sufficient. My beauty, my security, my joy, 100% it comes from him, not you. I remember it vividly. Now, I was still obsessed with new clients and building a law practice. I didn't become a better husband. But I remember the conversation extremely vividly, because our marriage went from a very unstable place. She specifically said, I'll be your wife, but I'm off your roller coaster. What did you mean by that, Marilyn?

Well, I was a roller coaster, because sometimes we might have a good day. He might not sit on the couch and watch ESPN for hours and also listen to a game on the radio. He would do both at the same time. I was stunned. Why are you looking at me? I don't do that. You get it on TV, but also on the iPad and the phone. Yes. So, yes, back in the day, it was just the radio.

It was crazy. So, if I could get him to go on a run or hang out with me, then we might have an okay evening. But if he was working and just watching sports, then I'd be really upset. Or if he wasn't kind.

That's the roller coaster. What he did or didn't do determined my mood. My hope is in the wrong place when that's the case, and that's still an issue.

Because, of course, we're going to mess up every day. If what he does or doesn't do can have a huge impact on my mood, I've got a wrong perspective on his place and the place of the Lord for me. I mean, is that something that changed? Because I'm guessing he didn't change the next day.

No, he did not. So, you come home and he's still on the couch or whatever, was your perspective different? It was very different.

Really? It was. I just started sitting on the couch with him, trying to seek to serve rather than be served. I was crying for attention and to be served, and it wasn't happening. But, yeah, her hope was in the Lord, not me. No longer was she up and down based on how much attention I gave her. She was steady because Jesus Christ is steady and totally consistent and totally reliable, and I'm not.

And you can see it? Oh, clearly. I mean, our marriage went from really bad to really stable instantly. It was stable. It wasn't great because I was still in the marriage, but it was stable. I mean, I was still the same. Marilyn, how did you keep that going consistently?

Because basically, Brad was your idol. You had taken him off of being the idol, putting Jesus in that place, of being first place. But that's more than one step. Right. To keep that consistent, what did you have to do?

You have to stay close to the Lord in the morning, getting with him, pouring my heart out to the Lord. And you've got five kids. You didn't probably have five kids then. No. Did you have any? This was before kids.

We had our first child three years into marriage. You're by yourself. You're with Jesus.

Yes. I was still in graduate school. He was still building a law practice, so it was lonely. I mean, I felt very lonely. But when you're on mission, it changes everything. It was the beginning of a work in me, and I've said before, I'm convinced the Lord wouldn't have begun the work in him until I had gotten to that place. I needed to have God in his proper place. And also, my approach to trying to fix him, that's a futile approach.

Talk to women that are right there, right now. Like, my husband doesn't do this. He never sees me. He doesn't notice me. He's not home.

He's not a good dad. There are so many of us that can get on that rampage and in our minds and of our hearts. What would you say to those women right now? There are some women I talk to. They've been on this journey.

It's been years, 20 years. That's hard. And when we look at Scripture, God tells us, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. So, seek your blessings from the Lord. That is the only place to be able to endure and love long-sufferingly is just by first going to the Lord and allowing him to love your spouse through you.

It's the only way. Do you think you could have found life and been happy if Brad hadn't have changed? I pray so. And when we share how God has transformed our marriage, marriage is still hard. We had a stretch just a couple of weeks ago. Brad was really struggling in his spirit. At least she told me I was. After the fact.

We were talking about it last night because he's in there. I'm like, yeah, we're good two weeks there where you aren't liking me at all. We are twins. I'm like, I'm not struggling.

I said, I'm grouchy, but I mean, I'm not struggling. What happened with that thing two weeks ago? What was that about? It was just, it was a two week stretch. Some things at work are really hard and stressful for Brad.

And he can. She said, I went and spoke somewhere and just came back to, what happened when you spoke there? Cause you like came back me. Were you mean on stage too? We've been mean on stage to each other, given a marriage message cause we're not a good class.

We were walking yesterday and I told Dave like, we've been so mean and short to each other cause we're tired, we're stressed and there's just a shortness. And I think I said, what are you talking about? Just like that.

He did. Uh, yeah, there it is. Some of it's just fatigue when you're, but some of it's just not being kind. So you're saying that even though you guys have gotten through that and you'll tell us more about that, you still go through stretches. Absolutely. And it's, we need to be reminded of the gospel every day. And I screamed the verse at myself in those moments while I was a sinner, Christ died for me.

So what's my response now? I got to love him despite he's not easy to love right now. He has to love me when I'm not easy to love. So it's an ongoing ever changing journey. And because of grace, they're typically very short now. I mean, because it's like, we feel like God opened our eyes to grace. Like we'll have a bad night and we'll look at each other and just laugh in the morning and it's just have a great morning. We understand that sin has no dominion in us because we're under grace.

Yeah. Talk about that more, Brad, because your title, the grace marriage, what does that mean? Define it a little bit. How would you define grace? Scripture says sin will have no dominion master control over you because you're under grace, not law. We don't have a great marriage because I'm great or Marilyn's great. We have a great marriage because Jesus Christ is perfect. I've been given full forgiveness and favor and grace from him and live in that state of favor. And it says, love Marilyn like that. So Marilyn's struggles with life.

I struggle with life. We have a great relationship because the ministry of reconciliation and that's Jesus Christ. It's because I love her despite her sin. She loves me despite my sin. We have a great marriage because of Jesus. Not because of us. It's not like we've mastered the marriage thing. It's just like we've realized more and more, our only hope is in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ because we all get knocked off our horse.

We all get tired. We all say dumb things, but Jesus Christ can be put on display because two struggling people can have amazing relationships because we have a perfect savior in him. So it's helped us go from a withdrawal to pursuit.

We have the more of a rescue mentality, not an offense mentality. And it's, I watched Marilyn when I was in the middle of my struggle and she was moving toward me. Yeah. Talk about the picture in your book because you illustrate it with a picture in your book. In the book. So you have two people. When one, when one sins against the other, they move away. When she says I'm not nice to you or he's rude to you, the natural inclination is what? To take offense and move away.

That's unpleasant. You know, and you move away. Then what happens? There's a distance between you. What happens then has dominion mastery control in a grace-based marriage is different because one sends and moves away. The other says, well, I met a center Christ died for me, love others as I've been loved. And then instead it's pursuit and kindness, which moves toward, closes the gap.

Sin has no dominion. The ministry of reconciliation is put on play and grace helps. Like I was thinking this morning during my run, I said, so amazing how I watched Marilyn while I was unpleasant, pursue me. I just thought, wow, that's, and then it'll be, be careful to give the worship to Jesus, not worship to Marilyn because it's the grace of God given to me through Marilyn that allows me to have an amazing marriage despite being a little bit moody myself for a lot of moody. Yeah. I woke up today.

I got Paul David trips. I get his email and he has a devotional once a week. Here's the opening paragraph. He says, grace is a thunderous, expansive, powerful, and life altering word. Other than the word God, there is no more important word that the human mind could consider and the mouth could speak is the most transformational word in the Bible that you hold dear. In fact, your Bible is the cover to cover story of God's grace. It is the best of stories. The story of undeserved redemption of lost ones and rebels. Scripture records for us how God reached into the muck and mire of our sin broken world to rescue us.

Not because of what he saw in us, but because of what was in him. And I thought that as I read your book this week preparing for this, Mike, that's what your book's all about. It is. It's about God and how that works out in a marriage.

And even that little figure, you know, it's not a cartoon, but you know, the husband and wife, that's just such a great picture. That's what God does when we walk away and that's what you're saying. That's how you model God to the world is doing that in your marriage.

Well, we were at this conference this last weekend in Minnesota and a woman came up to me. She said, my husband and I are really struggling. We had a big fight this morning because I tend to be early. He's running late. She said, I want to be on time and I want to get a good seat. And so he yells at me, then go without me.

I'll come later. And so she said, I did. And now he's here and I'm here and we're not even sitting together. And she's starting to cry. And I said, well, that's okay.

You're both here. That's a win. I said, now go sit with him. I could tell in her heart she didn't want to, but it's the illustration you're talking about. He said, I know you don't want to, but that's the move Jesus would make. He would just go sit by him and be together.

It doesn't matter who's right or wrong. You're probably both have some right and wrong, but just go sit with him. How do you do that though when you don't want to? Love is doing things you don't want to do. And Marilyn asked me to make a phone call the other day that was awkward. And she said, I'd really like you to make that phone call and call and say this. I'm like, you make the call.

I knew she didn't want to make the call because Marilyn doesn't like conflict or to ask anything of anybody ever. So when she walked away, I made the call, I did it and I just thought, Brad, you need to do things you wouldn't otherwise do because you love Marilyn and you need to do it on a daily basis if you want to have a marriage that has any life to it. Have you ever moved toward each other?

I'm guessing the answer is yes, but I'd love to hear you say it. When you are really mad at him, like making a phone call is one thing, but I'm mad at her and I don't agree with her or him, but I'm still, yeah. We've actually come together intimately while we're mad at each other.

You know, then Marilyn approached me and she was, I love you and our marriage too much to allow this to be any distance between us. And I'm like, what are you doing? What do you do? You don't like me.

I like you. What are you doing? And she told me, she said, look, I love you and our marriage too much to let there be a distance. And that makes you tear up because that's grace. It is grace. And it's like the word pursued, you know, spend a life pursuing one another, doing small things for one another, over, you know, to overlook an offense promotes love it's, and that's what puts Jesus Christ on display because husband, wife, Christ, the church. So we want people to be married in a way that when they watch it, they see the beauty of the gospel and they want to know the source of that and the source of that isn't two uniquely talented human beings, the source of that is a savior that loves us. It's out of obedience to the Lord because this is what we're called to. I mean, our marriages are to be a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So whether we want to or not, we're commanded to.

And so if we're going to him, it's going to fuel us to do this. It's just so natural when we're mad not to come together physically and then there's a bigger distance and you'll go longer not liking each other. Like Brad said, when you get gracious, you do get over things so much quicker. It's not that you don't struggle, but you can laugh about it the next day. Like you're all saying yesterday was a little hard.

You can laugh today and be close because of grace. And then the cool things about it is like, I'm pretty ADD, I'm over committed. I love everything.

Everything's just big fun. I make our lives a pretty chaotic mess at times and nobody knows what a mess I am more than her, but nobody thinks more highly of me than her. Nobody's more impressed with me. Nobody looks at me like she looks at me when I finished speaking somewhere. Nobody comes to me and it's more affirming and encouraging to me. The reason I feel very confident in what I do is because how she looks at me.

So it's kind of cool when somebody knows you're worst and is your biggest fan in the world. And that's just a picture of grace as well. It's a picture of the gospel. It also helps to have people around you that are going to point you this way.

Yeah. I have a good friend who when I start to struggle will remind me, you're a finied prayer and encourage me in that way because we need those people in our lives to point us in the right direction when we start feeling fleshy, is a good word. And that amazing grace is that Jesus, God, our Father is always moving toward us.

We might not feel like he is or deserve that grace, but he's always moving toward us. My mentor was dying of brain cancer. This Doug? Yeah, Doug. When he was dying of brain cancer, he called me and he said, Brad, I can't pray.

My brain, you know, I can't focus and think. He said, I can't read the Bible. He said, but I've never felt the love of Jesus like that before. And I've learned it's all him.

It's all him. And he said, I've never been happier in Jesus than I am this minute and I can't do anything. He said, so be encouraged of his love.

That's a good thing. Yeah, and I want to hear a little bit more about Doug tomorrow because I heard your story about his impact in your life and it's transformational. Absolutely. Wow.

Yeah. I can't wait to hear more about Doug and his impact on Brad tomorrow because if that was his perspective at the end of his life, I want to hear anything that man said. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Brad and Marilyn Rhodes on Family Life Today. Brad and Marilyn have written a book called The Grace Marriage, how the gospel and intentionality transform your relationship. You can get your copy right now by going online to familylifetoday.com or you can click on the link in the show notes.

Or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329 to request your copy. Again that number is 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Are you looking for the perfect gift for your spouse or maybe even for another couple? Well we can to remember gift cards are now 50% off and that gives you the opportunity to invest in your relationship now and choose your getaway later on, like the location where you want to go later on. So don't miss this chance to strengthen your marriage at half the cost until September 16th. You can go to familylifetoday.com and click on the Weekend to Remember banner to get more information. Again, that's familylifetoday.com. Now coming up tomorrow, Brad and Marilyn Rhodes are back with the Wilsons to talk about practical tips for navigating challenges and fostering closeness in your marriage. I think all of us could use help with that, so they'll be here tomorrow to talk about it. 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.