 so excited to be here. I was telling someone earlier, I don't make it out much, you know, I just stay at home mom, I do pasta, I eat the dinner, I make life happen. So for me to be here, it's really great, especially here in Steubenville, it's a place that's near and dear to my heart. We want to welcome all of you, whether you are single and you're hoping to be married someday, maybe you're engaged like our friends back there, maybe you're newly married like Tyler, who's filming in the back, or maybe you've been married for five, 10, 20, 50 years, wherever you're at, we hope that you have something to believe from today's presentation. And thanks for being here. This is a special time for us, as Beth said, she doesn't normally get to come out with me, is often that Steubenville's dear to us, because I don't even know this, you all, how many of you are familiar with focus, the fellowship at the Catholic University students in the chamber, can watch campuses all around the country and overseas? The first summer training was here in Steubenville, in my living room. And so there were just that handful of missionaries with Curtis and I there. And it was that summer, and we think it might be this very day that I asked Beth out on our first date. So this is kind of an anniversary for us. We'll talk to Beth again and then talk about, we'll be able to talk about our, are you both on marriage? All of the good, the messy, and the beautiful, the joys and struggles of the old married life. And that's what we're going to talk about today, that I often teach classes on marriage and family and scripture and theology and the body. That's not so much what we're doing today. Today we're going to talk about the realities of marriage. We're going to look at some biblical principles that help us in the midst of the various joys, but also the many challenges that come up in all of our marriages. And that's actually part of the process of that journey. God wants to take us on in married life. But why don't we start off with a word of prayer together? Let's ask our lady here to intercede for us with the Hail Mary together. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with me. Blessed are thou among them, and blessed is the fruit that I will use Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, great for us sinners, now with the hour of our death, Amen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And again, so exciting just with our book that literally just came out a couple weeks ago. So it's fun to be able to present on this. I don't know if anyone's seen some of it. We've done some videos with Ascension Presents. It's on marriage, like you can go, you want a little more, you can go there, we've been able to podcast together. But it's fun that we can actually get to present to a lot of clients as well here today. I want to start off with a story, a true story, a friend of mine, when he was getting married. He was back in the sacristy all by himself, just getting ready for the big ceremony to begin. And the best man goes back to check on him. Now the best man himself had been married for a number of years and a number of kids already. So he was a pro at the marriage and family life. And he walks back and he goes to the sacristy, sees my friend, the groom, looks at the groom and just starts laughing at the groom. And the groom looks back and says, why are you laughing at me? And the best man says, that's just it. You don't know. You don't know what you're really entering into when you enter into marriage. Nothing could really prepare you for that reality. No matter if you had the best marriage prep, you memorized the Catechism all, the Magistral teachings on marriage and family. It's awesome. But nothing could really prepare you for the mystery of this union between this person and you. And you have to be thrown into the midst of it to then be able to realize, oh, this is what it's really all about. And looking back, I said this last night, when we were engaged and preparing for marriage, it was easy for us to think, oh, we'll be fine. We love Jesus. We pray every day. We do the adoration. We're all about what the church teaches. We know other people struggle in marriage, but we're going to do this right. And so we're going to be totally cool. And maybe you thought that too. I know our oldest daughter is engaged and I've actually heard the same words come out of her mouth. I just kind of smile. But it's totally fine. But your marriage is hard. And you get into it and you get going. And all of a sudden, things start coming up. Things start coming out. You see how selfish you really are. And then all of a sudden it gets, it's a little wild. There's a quote that struck me right between the eyes when I read it. And I almost jumped for joy because I thought, this saint gets it. And it's a quote from St. Francis to sales. And he says this, in marriage, one takes a vow, but it is the only instance where a vow is taken without a novitiate. If it had a year of novitiate, how few would enter into it? And I just thought, wow, ain't that the truth? St. Francis to sales for the win. And it really goes to show that when we commit to marriage and we say, I take you and I respect, I honor you all the days of my life, we are committing to that one person. We're committing to build a life together. And it's that life that we build together that in turn builds us. You build a life and then your life builds you. So there's a quote from one of our heroes. I have a friend, some of you may have heard of this man. Has anyone heard of St. John Paul II? And a JPG fan? So we love JPG too. He's very dear to us, very inspirational to our lives, our marriage and family life. But there's a quote from one of his writings. It's not as well known. And I think it's really helpful that it gets to the heart of what marriage is really all about. We have to think about this idea that God brings us together in marriage. God called us to marriage. We are not only in the eye, it's all exciting. God called us to marriage. And that's all true. But we forget that God continues to call us in the midst of our daily married life. It's not a one-time calling. He's calling every day. He's calling in those fun moments. He's calling in those difficult moments, those frustrating moments, those angry moments. All of those things have, God's calling us in the midst of those difficulties and trials of ordinary daily life. It comes up in there. So I'm going to share this quote with you from JPG too. He says, the God who called the couple to marriage continues to call them in marriage, in and through the events, problems, difficulties, and circumstances of everyday life. Now I'm about to, how many people are very dear to this special hands in marriage? Okay, so in your marriage, are there a number of events and problems and difficulties and a whole bunch of circumstances that come up in our ordinary daily lives? Sometimes we give you those as problems, these are problems and difficulties. But JPG is inviting us to see those, no, these are moments where God is calling us. He's calling us to love at a deeper level. He's calling us to be patient at a deeper level. He's calling us to forgive at a deeper level. But these are just a little problems and circumstances. It's the very place that Jesus is trying to form us in our married lives. There's another wonderful image, another one of our creators, the next quote, he wants to describe how the love that a couple brings to marriage is wonderful, it's good, but it's not enough. It will not last. That initial spark of attraction, those romantic feelings and excitement and all that attraction is great, and that comes and goes in a marriage, but it's not enough for a marriage to be built on. And then what God wants to do is take that initial love and transform it. And this is what I mentioned last night, that there's a journey that God wants to take our love on. It's not just saying, oh hey, we're in love, this is great, we're together, we got the sacrament, all right, here we go. No, no, that's just the beginning of this great marathon, this great journey that God is taking us on, and he wants to transform it. So here's the wonderful biblical analogy he uses. It's the story you're all familiar with from John chapter two, verses one through 11, the wedding of Kena. And there at Kena, you know the story, there was that initial wine, and the wine was so good, everyone had it, but it ran out. It couldn't go the distance, there wasn't enough. And so in the midst of this crisis, because if you know biblically, to run out of wine at a first century Jewish wedding piece isn't like, oh, I ran out of beer at my Super Bowl party. It's much more embarrassing, shocking, dramatic than that. In a culture of honor and shame, like you would have had in first century Judaism, this family would have fallen many months on the social status ladder there in Kena. Their family would have been shamed for generations. And so the first person to notice the social catastrophe unfolded is Mary. And she goes to the one person who can make a difference, and that's Jesus. And Jesus steps into the situation. What does he do? He changes the water to wine, but notice the details. He takes the six stone jars for purification, it tells us. Now those stone jars, they each contain about 20 to 25 gallons of water. And Jesus says, fill them to the rim all the way to the top. And that's what he changes into wine. So Jesus didn't just provide some wine. He provided over 120 gallons of wine. That was a party. And so this is certainly wine that's done that for sure go the distance. There's a lot of wine here, but it wasn't just the quantity. This wine was better than the first wine, right? That the store next to the head, your waiter there tasted it. He says, wow, all people serve the best wine first and after you have a few, then you serve the lesser wine, when people won't notice as much. But you did the reverse here, you know, as he says to the bride, when you serve the best wine, last. So the wine goes the distance, but it was the better wine. And Pope Benedict says, that's what God wants to do with your love. That the love you first bring to your marriage is good, but it won't last. It's not the wine, the love that will be able to have a marriage endure. Jesus has to step in to those moments of lack, those moments of poverty in your marriage, those moments of difficulty, moments when you feel like, I don't know if I can give anymore, those moments when you're exhausted with the baby, those moments when you're just really frustrated. And those moments, Jesus has to step in and provide that abundance. And as he's doing it, he's turning, he's turning that love into something even richer, deeper and greater, better than the first wine. So here's what Pope Benedict says about this. I'll give the quote here. He says, the first wine is very fine. This is falling in love, but it does not last until the end. A second wine has to come later. It has to ferment and grow to mature. The definitive love that can truly become this second wine is more wonderful still. It is better than the first wine. And this is what we must seek. So we want to share with you today. We share with a couple who will remind couples and marriage enrichment retreats and all is that the love that you have is constantly growing. And there's that next step. There's always that next step on the horizon. Whether you're just nine months married, but kind of in the back, or you're nine years married or 19, or I met someone here that was 51 years married at this conference, wherever you are, God is still inviting that love to go to the next level. Totally. As he's saying this, I'm thinking like a million different things. We'll talk later. My brain is like buzzing right now. It's great. I need to grow. Anyway, so this whole idea of the new wine, the good wine that our Lord steps in to provide within our poverty. As we were chatting about this, when we did this, it reminded me of this prayer that our parish on World Marriage Sunday, which I believe is in February, they had all the married couples stand up and say this prayer together. And when we did this, I think he was on one end of Pew and there's this whole gap of small children in between us. So we weren't even standing next to one another. But we stood up and the prayer went something like this. Lord, help us to remember when we first met and the strong love that grew between us. Help us to work that love into practical things today so that nothing can divide us. And you know it went on. And I'm praying this prayer and I'm kind of thinking, hmm, hmm. Yes, we want to remember what it was like. But there was a part he was like, no, no, I mean, I won't say this prayer, but I want more than that, more than the first love that brought us together. The gooey, gooey ally, like, oh, he touched me. Oh, I want more than that. I want the love when we've been married 50, 55, 60 years. And he's in his sweatpants at the table in the morning reading the newspaper. And I can tell where he's at and how much coffee is in his mug by happy grunts as he turns the page. Meanwhile, I'm in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, wearing like a Moomoo in my robe, because nothing might fit. I don't know. And this is me productive. But I want the love where I know where he's at and I know where he's thinking without him having to say anything. And vice versa. I want the love that's so deep that it transcends language. But we just know where the other one is at and how it's going and what's being thought of and remembered or recalled. I want that type of love. I want to look forward to that. I don't want to look back to the gooey romanticism that brought us together. That was necessary. That was important. That was needed. That was the on-brand. But I want to experience the fullness of what our Lord had in store, what he had in mind as he brought the two of us together, where we're going. I want that sort of love. But for that to happen, Jesus has to step in in a dramatic way like he did in Canaan. And he has to step in, not just like, oh, I'm going to pray, may Jesus be in our marriage. Jesus has to step in in a dramatic way. And we all have our areas of poverty, of lack. Just like in Canaan, they lack the wine. And what is your area of lack in your own heart? Your lack of patience, your lack of generosity, your lack of courage. What is the area of lack of trust, the lack of thinking of the other? What is the lack that you have in your marriage? We all have our lack. We bring that lack into our marriage. It's called original sin. And Jesus wants to step in there, and he wants to heal, he wants to provide, he wants to fill it with his love. And that's what he's doing. He's stepping in and he's going to be transforming us. This is the place that he sanctifies us. Now, how many of you have heard that expression that, you know, what is Catholic marriage all about? It's not helping your spouse get to heaven. You hear that expression? So it's beautiful, beautiful image. And I remember being married at that time. I was really inspired by that idea. That's my vision. I'm going to help Beth get to heaven. It's going to be awesome. I'm going to be the spiritual leader. I'm going to pray for her. I'm going to offer sacrifices for her. I'm going to make sure she gets time for prayer. I'm going to help Beth get to heaven. You know, and then we'll have kids and I'll be the spiritual head of the home. I'm going to help Beth get to heaven. And that's all wonderful. And there's truth in that. But I've realized over the years, the main way I help Beth get to heaven is not all the prayers and sacrifices are kind of used as that. But the main way I think I help Beth get to heaven is this. Every day of Beth's life, she has to deal with me. She has to deal with my pride, my selfishness, my quirks, her idiosyncrasy. She has to deal with my own insecurities and hurts, all those kinds of things. And I love Beth. I sincerely do. But it falls short of what I need to do to really give a good husband. I need Christ stepping in and changing me. But in the process, she has to learn to love like Jesus. And in the suffering of marriage, there is suffering that comes. She's growing and being purified and sanctified. So we'll give an analogy here. There's a fun story I'd like to tell, true story. So there's a friend of ours, we've known for many years, and she lived in Denver for a while. And then she moved away. And then she got married. And then we never got to see her husband. And then she probably came over to the house. She'd been married about a year. And she came over to the house with her new husband, and we had them over for dinner and great guy. And they're just so fun to see them together. They're so happy together. After dinner, we go to the living room and we're sitting around. And I just asked him a question. I just said, so tell me, you've been married a little over a year. What's the biggest challenge so far in your marriage? And without any hesitation, the wife just jumped right in and said, I know sucks. It's the socks. Here's the story behind that. So she is this gal has always been very type A, you know, she just makes a plan, she gets it done, she executes, you know, rinse, repeat. She's just always go gathering and all about all the things. When they were preparing it to be married, he was going to move into her house after the wedding. So before the wedding, she goes to his house and is helping him pack up and you get his things ready. Well, she's going and say unpacking the bookcase. And she's putting the books in a box and she finds a sock. She's unpacking, she finds another dirty sock. Okay, that's odd. And so she continues to unpack. She comes back to another area, let's say underneath the bathroom cabinet. She's unpacking and she finds more dirty socks and keeps going. She keeps finding random dirty socks all over his house. And she's like, mental note, this could be an issue, right? True to more sure enough, they get married, he moves in and their socks in all sorts of places. They surely talked about it. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure. He's more the free spirit in the marriage. And one day she decided I'm going to do a little experiment. She noticed one of his dirty socks was on one of the steps going upstairs and she thought normally she would just pick it up. So I'm not going to pick that one up. I'm going to see how long it takes until he notices. And so he walks up the stairs, passes it, sees the sock and is like, oh, I know she's going to see that. I got to go back down and get that next time. Comes back down the stairs, passes the sock. Oh, I got to get that next time. Next time I'm going to pick up the sock. This keeps happening. Eventually he realizes she knows that. This is a sort of test. And so then they had a good laugh about it. And he became even more determined to pick up his dirty socks. And she's telling the story. We're all laughing together. And then I jump in and I say, you know what, that sock, that sock is like a mini tabard ankle in your marriage. It's like a mini tabard ankle. Now they were surprised, my wife was surprised. Your problem turns down to sure you're going up this line. But you know how, when we go into a church and you have the tabard ankle and the right candle, you get inflated. Or we do a drink mask without a doubt. We are acknowledging the holy presence of God. His very real presence. The body, blood, soul, and divinity present in the blessed sacrament. By way of analogy, I would say that that sock is like a tabard ankle in the sense that it's a place of encounter. The place we're encountering Jesus. Where Jesus is inviting me to encounter Him in this moment, in this little frustration, in this little difficulty. He's inviting me to love my spouse right now in a way that's stretching me. So she's like, wait a second, I'm turning into these socks, but I'm going to call them socks. I need to do it in a gentle way. I need to do it in a loving way, not a calm way. So that she's being invited to change. And he's being invited to take care of the socks. And he's being invited to change and grow in virtue as well. And I highlight this because again, the number one place God wants to form us, if we're called to the sacrament of matrimony, it's right here. I mean, God's informing me in my prayer and in my vital study and going to the mass, of course, the sacraments and the masses. I explain the prayer, but that He wants to form me in those daily circumstances, difficulties, trials that JPG was talking about. These aren't just problems to be solved. These aren't just little things to be annoyed about. No, think of them as like you're approaching Jesus in this moment. What is Jesus asking of me right now? How is He inviting me to grow in love? Because so much of married life is really about conforming our life to Jesus. Think about Jesus and His love for us, seen most especially on Good Friday on the cross. Think about what happened on Good Friday. Here's Jesus, misunderstood. He was so misunderstood by the people he came to save. He was unappreciated by the people he came to save. He was falsely accused. He was let down by the ones that, his close disciples, he thought they would be there for him, and most of them weren't. So he was let down by the people he thought would be there for him. They weren't there for him that day. There were hurtful words that were spoken. There were hurtful actions that day. Does that sound like marriage? Do you have moments of your marriage where you feel unappreciated? You feel misunderstood. Your spouse assumes something about your intentions and you didn't really mean it that way. You're falsely accused. Moments when you thought your spouse would be there and they weren't. Moments when there weren't words of gratitude, there weren't kind words spoken. Harsh words are spoken. That happens in every marriage. And we have to see in those moments, will I love like Jesus? Because Jesus is inviting me right there in the messiness of married life. He's inviting me to love, to give, to surrender, to serve like He did on Good Friday. So let me switch topics here just a little bit on this friend. Do you remember that old Billy Joel song? Remember that one about, don't go changing to try to please me. I love you just the way you are. Remember that song? I think many people go into the marriage thinking that. Like, oh, I know he's this way or she's this way. She's got this little thing or he's got this, you know, but I love him just the way he is. I love her just the way she is. She doesn't have to change. You know, I love you just the way you are. You know, after about maybe three years of marriage or three babies into marriage, you're not singing Billy Joel anymore. You might be tempted to sing Bon Jovi. You did love a bad man. Just frustrating. This is what happens, right? But I think what happens in our married life is we go in with that romantic love and I, you know, oh, you don't have to change. But after a while, you treat yourself like you do with the TV, what you do with the remote control. You know, with the remote control, you're like, okay, oh, there's a commercial change. Oh, the show's getting boring change. You know, oh, my team's losing change. So if I don't like what I'm seeing, it's boring change. And we do that with our spouse. Now, I don't like the way you spend money. Change. I don't like how you treat the kids change. I don't like how you deal with the socks change. I don't like how you do this change. And I'm always looking at the other person and the things that annoy me, the things that frustrate me, the areas I feel let down and disappointed by change, change, change. That's not Catholic. It's human nature. We tend to do that because we're falling. But a Catholic vision invites us to take that remote control first and look at me. It doesn't mean my spouse doesn't need to change. If he or she's doing something wrong, doing something that's hurtful, I need to call them on that. We're going to talk about that in a moment here, but we always want to ask first, fundamentally, what can I be doing better on my own? So two ways that we found to really think about how we can change our response, because that in fact is the only thing that we have control over. And the first one is to create gratitude, like a list of running lists. You can write it down like physically, but a list of things, trace in your spouse that you're profoundly grateful for. I'm grateful he takes out the trash without me having to ask. I'm grateful that he's a great provider. I'm grateful he'll get on the floor and wrestle with our youngest. You know, all these things to have them so that they can be a sort of ticker tape. You know, Fox News or any new CNN, whatever. They have that strip at the bottom of the screen that has the sports scores or other news items to have something like that going through our brain that we can access at any time when things get testy, when they get tough, when we're exhausted, that we can recall those things at the moment that we most need them. I'm also reminded of a, I've heard Kimberly Han say this, I think it came from Alice von Hildegren, but way back in the day before digital cameras, before we took pictures with our phones, you would use film in your camera and you take the picture and send it in to be developed when you pick it up days later. When you know those times where you're so excited to see this picture, you know, maybe it's if you and your spouse or a child and you get together, but the picture wasn't taken at the right time. And so instead of a great, you know, pose and smile, you get up or something like that. You get the picture back and you're disappointed because the image shows the person not at their best. And so a common phrase we hear when we look at this photograph that is of our beloved but not really might say it doesn't do injustice. So when times get tough within our marriage, when there's the frustrations, when there's the ungratitude, when there's the things that make us lose our mind or the real deep hurts, we can say it doesn't do injustice. The way my spouse is behaving right now, it doesn't do injustice. The other way, number two of cultivating gratitude and how to actually change yourself is to assume positive intent. Three words. Assume positive intent has been abbreviated. API. We're giving a lot of feedback. People really love these APIs around that. Assume positive intent. So here when you do this, it's just basically thinking through, okay, I was hurt by that. That was a really rough thing you said, but I'm going to assume that you weren't doing that maliciously. I'm going to assume that there was something else going on that you came at me. You said it with that tone or you said that phrase or you know how much that bothers me. You still did it. I'm going to assume there were some other circumstances there that caused that or I'm going to assume you didn't necessarily mean it in a way that it was going to be hurtful. And then that also when we have this disposition of assuming the best of our spouse, then we're able to still approach them, whether we do need to call them on, we're approaching them with a disposition, a posture of receptivity and we're not coming at them with, you did this and how do you do this and why do you do this or it prevents nagging, you know, saying the same thing over and over and maybe a detrimental derogatory way. We can just be like, Hey, I noticed you did this. I'm sure there was something going on, but it landed in such a way that it really hurt me. And then our spouse said, Oh, right, I totally didn't mean it that way. I'm sorry. And then you can go on with what you need to be doing and continue to grow in love and have more pleasant times than just hurting one another. So ABI, assume positive intent. If we remember, it's not as if, you know, our spouse wakes up by Monday morning and just thinks, How can I really frustrate my beloved this week? We're not trying to hurt each other, right? So many of the things we do with the aren't at our best. It's not because we maliciously want to harm our spouse or frustrate our spouse or let them down in some way. And I think that's really helpful to realize that. And this is a point John Paul II makes as well in his work, Love and Responsibility. He talks about how when love is tested the most, it's not when, you know, if you want to gauge, like how does your love, you know, don't don't ask, you know, Oh, how many demons do you have? Like that's not what love is. Love is so much more than feelings. Love is the catechism quotes, the great saint Thomas Aquinas is to will the good of the other. And so JPG says, like, if you want to measure your real love to your spouse, ask, how do you respond when your beloved falls and stumbles when their weaknesses come out? Maybe even their sins? Especially when they hurt you, how do you respond in that moment? That's the true measure of love right there. It's not on date night while I'm dressed up or going out. Oh, Jesus, I mean, those are great moments that you said, but that's not the real measure of love is when you learn to love like Jesus. And Jesus, it's the same happiness, and then he says, bring this up. He loves us gratuitously on Good Friday, expecting nothing match. Now we want something back and we're talking about that and all that, but in the end, there's moments where maybe my spouse isn't able to give right now or they're having one of those bad picture moments. You know, and how do I respond then? So I want you to listen to GP2 on this point here. The strength of love emerges most clearly when the beloved person stumbles, when his or her weaknesses or even sins come into the open. One who truly loves does not withdraw his love, but loves all the more, loves in full consciousness of the other shortcomings and weaknesses and without in the least approving of them. I want to be clear on a couple of the things that he's saying. First of all, he says, love at this moment doesn't withdraw. So if I feel hurt, my tendency is going to be to withdraw in some way. You're going to build up some wall to go into my little corner to go, you know, kind of pull back or to fight back or something like that. So I withdraw my love. That's a sign that my love is not as pure as it needs to be for my wife. I'm not loving her like Jesus loves. So, but at the same time, I want to be clear. Notice he's also not just saying, oh, just let your spouse do bad things all the time. And he says, love's in full consciousness of the other shortcomings and without at least approving of them. So we still may need to like bring this up here when you do this. This is how I feel this, you know, if this isn't helpful, you know, it might need to talk about these things, have crucial conversations about them. But I'm doing it in a way that doesn't judge their heart, that doesn't assume negative intent. Now, there's a story that I love to tell. My wife always, it's a very swangelist story. It's right here in the outline. So we've got a group. There we go. Oh, let me highlight one thing about this. When we're talking about this here today, I'm not, I'm talking about the normal kind of hurts that come up in ordinary very life. I'm not talking about extreme situations of abuse, whether it's psychological abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse. I'm talking about those things. I'm not talking about really a very disorder, dysfunctional situations. Those you need to stay healthy from, you might need to have clear boundaries. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about normal hurts that every married couple goes through. You guys can hear the speakers here that are married? They're all going to tell you all about, yep, we've been there. So this is early on in our marriage. I remember we were, I don't know if this ever happens with all of you, but I just asked the people that are married, you're all really committed about Catholics. You came out here to this big conference, took a whole few days off of your life to be with the Word of God, to follow more deeply Jesus in your Catholic faith. So maybe this doesn't happen, but in your married life, do you remember those tense moments? Did that ever come up in your marriage relationship? I don't know if that happens in you, but it happens in ours. And I remember it was one of these days, I came home from work and we had to go to the grocery store quickly together. There was a little stress, a little pressure and we're just not clicking. It's just not, the chemistry just isn't, they're like normal. And I said something and she was hurt by it. I'm like, why didn't we do it that way? And then she got mad at that thing. Why didn't we do it so defensively? Because it was kind of like this tension, you know, this is the counter thing. Yeah, the counter came ready to go. And I'm thinking, yep, this is going to end in a little up. I can see it now. Oh no. And we got back from the grocery store and I'm over here unloading the groceries and she's over here putting cans up into this cabinet like this. And have you ever said something in your marriage, said something to your spouse that as soon as you say it, you wish you didn't say it that way? You want to talk about that's what happened that day. I said something, I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't really bad. But I had that edge and had that tone of voice. And as soon as I said I knew she'd be hurt and were frustrated or angry, I was like, the words came out and I'm like, where's that? But then they are floating out in outer space toward her. So what should a good Catholic husband do in a moment like that? As soon as he realizes he says something that he shouldn't say to his wife, what should a good Catholic husband do? I'll tell you what I did. I just kept unloading and hope she didn't catch the nuance. Well, I knew she caught the nuance, but there was a can ready to go in that top cabinet and all of a sudden it just stopped in the air. It came back down to the counter and she puts her hands on the counter like this. She takes a deep breath. And I'm over here thinking, oh no, I'm dead. I'm in so much trouble tonight. And then my wife said her famous way. You didn't really mean that, did you? So she looks over at me and it wasn't with that as much of a smile. You didn't really mean that, did you? And I share the story because it really exemplifies what John Paul The Sight is talking about. It is a principle of total acceptance that even when my beloved stumbles, even when they may sin, even when they may hurt me, I still accept they are my spouse. I don't accept what they did, but I accept them. I still committed them. I don't withdraw my love. And in saying those words, she could have said, responded in many other ways, right? What are some things she could have done? She could have hit you in the head for the camp. Yeah, she could have thrown the camp. She could have thrown the camp. That's right. She could have yelled at me. Don't you mean that way? What's the worst thing she could have done? Silence. That's what she could have just kept like putting those cans up there. And I'd say, and you. And that happens in marriage, right? It's not the worst. When there's those silent moments, silent hours, silent evenings. I've done a lot of marriage stuff over the years. I remember meeting a couple and them telling me when I shared the story afterwards, they said, yeah, sometimes we'll go a couple days without talking. We might say, what time are you picking up the kid? We're just so bad. And then after a couple of days, we're like, we just miss each other. Why didn't we just say sorry sooner? You know, but I'll say part of this, what Beth did in that moment is she didn't judge my heart. She assumed positive intent. She knew that I was already probably realizing that shouldn't have said it that way. She was probably already feeling a little badly about it. And so she she called me on it. That's the other thing. She didn't just say, oh, could you please say more dumb things? She called me on it, right? So I knew who I should have said it, right? But she did it in a way that assumed positive intent, didn't judge my heart and gave me the freedom to say I'm sorry. They know when we fight back, we elevate the voice, you know, and we yell or we get really frustrated when we go silent mode, things escalate. It actually makes the other person probably more defensive. But when she said, you didn't really need that, did you? It just gave me the freedom, the space we all say, you're right. I'm sorry. As soon as I said it, I wish I had said it that way. I'm sorry. And that's what we want to get to. We want to get to those six crucial words that we have to use over and over and over and in marriage. And those six words are, I am sorry. I forgive you. But we want to get there quickly. Now, sometimes you might need to take a break, right? It might be late at night. You're keep talking and the more you talk late at night, you're exhausted. You got to get up early, you're stressed about the day. It might not be fruitful to keep the conversation going. I say, you know what? Let's talk tomorrow. Or if somebody might need to say, listen, I want to continue this conversation. I just need time to think about this. I need time to cool down. But we're acknowledging it. We're not letting it drag on. But in general, we want to get to, I'm sorry, as quick as possible. And usually, the main person needs to be the one, oftentimes, and old people need to say, I'm sorry, we want to get there quickly. I like to call this the marriage confessional. So I want to get to the confessional as quick as possible. And there's a little exchange like that to be able to say, I am sorry to own it. Because sometimes when we don't say, I'm sorry, what we do is we're kind of always wondering, is everything good? Deep down, I'd be wondering that night, she's still hurt by that or is everything okay? I'm like, can I joke around with it? Oh, no, I can't joke around with it. Because I took telling around the situation. It's a little sensitive. You just want to be free to get it just on it to say, you know what, I think maybe when I did that, I shouldn't have done it that way. Or honey, I'm wondering, when I said that, did that hurt? Bring it up. Get out into the open. I am sorry. So the marriage confessional, so I go to that and I say, I am sorry I did this. Not like, I'm sorry to feel that way. That's about, you know, that's not really owning it. That's actually pretty worth playing on her. No, I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry I said this. I'm sorry I didn't do this. And then as soon as I say, I'm sorry, Beth puts her hands on me kind of like this. And she said, no, just kidding. But we do want to get to I forgive. Right. And it's so important to say the words, I forgive you and not just like, oh, it's fine. Oh, whatever, you know, you're good. You know, there's a lot of ways that we could say to discount the freely offered apology. But instead to say, I forgive you. And here's a pro tip that I've heard for many, many hard times is to not this really hard. Everything he's saying, I just need to be disclaimer, like vice versa. I work so hard there. And I'm not, I'm not on the pedestal. There's no halo, you know, so it's definitely both sides of the coin. But to say I forgive you is an act of the will. It's something that needs to be said before you feel like forgiving your spouse. I know there are so many times you're like, I do not want to let this go. This was a big deal. I was very hurt. But I know that when I say, I forgive you, there is power in those words. And there is a release. And at that moment, the feelings follow. But it's never the other way around. And so getting to I'm sorry, I forgive you is a way to keep a short account that we can move on and our marriage and our friendship and our parenting of our children and just to create peace within our home. But to realize these arguments, these times when things come up, they're, they're a little blips instead of these major mountains of conflict and major mountains of divide that they're just things where we can go into it, we can be heated, but we can also come out of it and be like, okay, I'm sorry, I forgive you. I see your point noted. I will not do that or I will do this next time. And then we can continue on to the things that our Lord has for us. So we talked about that trick or tape of gratitude is important. We talked about assuming positive intent. We're talking here about the city of that total acceptance, even when you're aware of its troubles or you even hurts you, maybe to tie this all together. It's again, reminding us that we're called to love like Jesus loved. That's what that's what marriage is all about. That's what any vocation is all about is conforming us to Jesus, to become more like him, the love like he loves. And think again, on Good Friday, on Good Friday, what did Jesus say on the cross when he was, when he was mocked, he was betrayed, he was crucified, rejected by the people he was saved. He said, he doesn't say, Oh, Father, it's not a big deal. No, he calls them on it. Something really bad happened. The worst thing that ever happened in history, the murder of the son of God is happening. It's really bad. But he doesn't say, Father, come down and strike down these wicked people that they're doing. He remains committed to them. He's the bridegroom and he's dying for his people to zero the bride. He's totally faithful to them. What does he say? Father, forgive them. Why? They know not what they do. It isn't that what happens in marriage. So many of the hurts in marriage, we don't know what we're doing. We don't realize we're not trying to hurt our spouse. It's important to remember that, that I just as I go, it isn't trying to hurt me. It doesn't excuse what they're doing, but it puts it in proper perspective. So I was like to say, every day, Beth has to look up to him and say, Father, forgive 10. He never knows what he's doing. You know, so we're talking here, I hope you're getting a sense. We're talking about the reality of marriage. This is a concrete, real stuff of married life, the real messiness of married life. And we feel so passionate about this that a lot of people don't talk about this. It all ends up being on the heavy or it's superficial. Here's five ways to fight right. There's real superficial little skills. We're trying to bring you into the spirituality of this afternoon, that the little daily hurts and frustrations and miscommunications and misunderstanding, that's all God uses that all the part of our sanctification. So we want to go to another level. I'm going to take you to a whole other level of what God wants to do. I'll say this, the points we're going to get into now, there's something to be the most feedback on people saying, I needed to hear that. So I'm going to give you the background. So about that, I were driving to downtown Denver a little over a year ago. We're giving a talk like this to a whole bunch of single people, young adults, theology on tap in downtown Denver. And there's this point we're wanting to make. And I was saying to her in the car, you know, I think we need some kind of knowledge. We need a metaphor to make this really stick. We need a great foreign picture. And then while the wife comes up with this amazing idea, it's bone broth. Yeah, I wish I could use your faces. Okay, so we get a cow from these lovely Benedictine sisters. I have a side beef, they're your of us and near whining. And when I talk to the butcher about how to process the meat, it's always a question, do you really want the soup bones? And I'm like, heck yes, I want those soup bones because I'm going to make bone broth. I don't know if you're familiar with bone broth. It's kind of the new, it's super food or one of them. It's like a hundred dollars a pound of the whole foods. It's really expensive to buy, but it's awesome because it's full of vitamins and minerals and gelatin and all the good stuff that your body needs to function well. So when I get it, I stick it in this massive stock pot I have at home and cover with a little bit of vinegar to start breaking down the bones. Then you fill the pot up almost to the brim, add your onions and seasoning, whatever you want, and you skip it simmering. You start it boiling and you let it simmer for a very long time, even overnight. But you can't just let it go. You can't just let it sit on the stove. You have to kind of babysit it. And what you have to do is to continue to come to see what comes up to the surface and take it off. I'd love to read my cookbook if you'll end up being here because the way it talks about this process I think is perfection. Heat the bone broth slowly and once the boil begins reduce heat to its lowest point so the broth just barely simmers. Scum will rise to the surface. One of the basic principles of the culinary art is that this effluvium should be carefully removed with a spoon, otherwise the broth will be ruined by strange flavors. Besides the stuff looks terrible. Always skim is the first commandment of good cooks. So that when he said we need an analogy, this hit me like a ton of bricks because marriage is making bonka. You put the bones of you and your spouse together, you fill it up to the brim, and it's the slow simmer that pulls all the good things out but also all the not-so-good things out. And so marriage is the time when we take a look at those not-so-good things that rise to the surface and we skim them off, we set them aside. That's what God wants us to do in our marriages. He's bringing those things to the surface. You know, it's interesting. You know how you can go to the office and people you see every day in the workplace, but they don't really know all the depths of what's really going on inside you. You know, you could show up at parish. You know, I go to Mass every Sunday. I go to donuts. I go to this little activity. And the people might perish. They might not really know what's going on. In other words, I can kind of manage people's perceptions that we have here. They don't have to really know what's happening here. In marriage there's nowhere to hide. In marriage it's all going to come out. The good and I love that line of fluvium as a- Scum. Scum. Scum. Scum. Yeah, but all that scum is going to start to rise to the surface. And sometimes when we see this specialty of young couples is like they get out of the community like Jesus, they go to adoration, they're all committed Catholics. And then a few years in their marriage they're noticing all this scum coming up in their own lives and their very life, their panicking. They're like, oh my goodness, our marriage is finally a part of our soul. And we're just here to tell them that's normal. It's okay, no press of medical. That just means the sacrament's working. And this is what this is normal. And so the hurts, the frustrations, those we call it the dark night of marriage that when those moments happen, those low points happen, and they will happen in every marriage. That's God working on you and he's bringing to your attention the things he wants to work on. Your weaknesses, your bad habits, your sins. Jesus wants to heal us. He doesn't just want us to be obedient Catholics that believe the right things, orthodoxy, and do the right things, orthopraxies. Oh that's good, but he wants to heal us. I want to be clear, just for the video especially, you must be orthodox. We have that right practice. All that, that's essential. But that's just the starting point. What God wants to do is he wants to conform me to Jesus, but he wants to heal me. He wants to heal me of all of those sins that I have, those fears that I have. He wants to heal me of my various vices. He wants to make me more like him. So he's to bring all this to the surface because he loves me so much and he's going to use my marriage to draw to my attention so I can bring it to confession more. I can begin to work on his spiritual direction, but he wants to bring that healing in my life. But the things he brings to the surface isn't just our sins and our weaknesses. It's also the hurts from our past. It's our wounds. It's the false stories we tell about ourselves. There's a whole way of how God wants to get into the depths of the wounds in our lives, also to heal us and build his marriage to bring that out. Sometimes that could be scary, but this is all a part of our sanctification. So a story, a personal story, that really illustrates this is about six years ago. We found out we were expecting our eighth child. It was a very happy day and my husband, being the real, let's go after it, said, okay now we need to do the kitchen. We're going to renovate the kitchen. And so we renovated the kitchen. I'm exhausted. I'm trying to home school in the midst of it. And then he said, honey, I think we need to add on to the house too. We're already in this zone of renovations. Let's just push back the house two stories before the baby comes. And I'm like, can I just say, you know, after you have a baby, you'll never do an addition or a renovation. These are two things we really need to do. Very true. Very true. So we had to get a done before the baby came. And we, I think we got a done before the baby, right? Fairly. The inspector was in our new bedroom, giving the inspection that she's having contractions. And he failed us. Probably part of later, so it was like, um, but a friend, some friends of mine call this, this time when you're pregnant and doing a renovation of Prego Renault. Thanks for not recommending Prego Renault. So anyway, that was a very special pregnancy. Having the baby itself was a stressful labor. And then five weeks afterwards, I had a traumatic health event. So you can imagine these boom, boom, boom, things happening. Like I could not jump back. It was a very hard time for me. And I just found all the things I could normally do, no problem, the schedules, the carpools, the lunches, the meal planning, the preparations, being with the kids, managing the kids, not sleeping. Normally, I'm okay and I will manage and it will be fine. But I could not this time. I felt like there was little joy of any and anything that normally brought me that spark. Normal, all the things that filled my cup that helped me going, they just weren't there anymore. I felt like a sort of empty shell of who I used to be and I just kept dragging. I just kept going and trying to do the next thing and the next thing. But really just feeling like a failure. A vignette that really exemplifies this is we decided to send a couple kids to a charter school in their home. And I really despise school supply shopping. I know we're at that season again and I'm like, oh, my kids in it. So I decided to push the easy button. There's these companies that will fill up everything that your child needs on their list and they put it together for you for a pretty penny and then it arrives at your front door. And so I thought I'm going to do that for myself, a little treat for myself. And it came with as beautiful as glorious and we were having guests over. So I promptly had a child take it to the garage until we needed it for the school's meet and greet. Fast forward, we're getting ready to leave for that meet and greet where we take our school supplies. And I asked my oldest son, hey, go get that box from the garage. He comes back and mom is not there. Of course it's there. You just need to look. It's right there. I just saw it last week when I was getting something. Go look again. It comes back. Mom, it's not there. So I go out with him and I'm like, it's right here. Where's that box? And my sweet boy says, oh, dad told us to put all the boxes in the garage out for recycling yesterday. So I walked up to my bedroom. I closed the door and I wept. This wasn't like a, this was like, what? Because not only did I think I had it together, I really did not. We have to go get these to the teacher. I mom failed with a big sign on my head and I have to go to Walmart later. And it's going to be all picked up, which means I have to go to four different stores to fulfill these lists. Like, to me, it was the end of the world and my phone rang while I'm heaving and I see it's Ted and he said, the kids are scared. They called me, you need to go out down there. I'm like, look at this. You don't understand. What the squeeze I've got. He said, no, I don't understand. The kids need you down there. So that just shows, like, I was not in a good spot in that time. The thing is that normally I could handle, okay, this is a hiccup, this is going to be hard, but I'm going to push through. It was not happening. And this went on for months. Finally, we got together with some good friends who lived out of state and I was telling her again, I can't do this. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just don't feel like myself. Everything's heavy and everything's hard. And she looked straight at me. She's one of those spicy friends that everybody needs. And she said, I think you need to go back to counseling. I think there's things from the way you grew up having diverse parents that you haven't dealt with yet. And I just, I knew she was right. I didn't want to do that. I thought I had dealt with all that stuff before in my passive counseling, my passive forgiving my parents. But I knew that there was something to what she said. And so I planted the flag. I committed to going to therapy twice a week, even sometimes, but at least once a week, always followed immediately by affirmation because my counselor would rip off the bandaid and then I would take it to Jesus the healer. I read everything I could read on the problems of adult children of course. I journaled like a crazy person. I up to my game with sacraments, confessions, spiritual direction and just really made time to meet Jesus in these dark places that I pushed down for so long. And in this time, I really began to see that the coping mechanisms that I developed as a child, which were necessary in order for me to survive, which I'm grateful for because they enabled me to function and to thrive and to grow. But I realized those same coping mechanisms were not necessary now. They were the lenses that I saw the world through, but they no longer served me anymore. And so I saw that I had this great anxiety, this perfectionism. I was a big people pleaser for sure, a fear of abandonment and this deep shame that really permeated everything, my friendships, my marriage, my motherhood, how I existed in the world, how I interacted with people. And so I wanted freedom and so I just kept on, kept on seeking healing, each little layer of the womb coming undone, crying, being angry and just taking it to Jesus and saying, what do you want here? It was a little bit like Marie Kondo, she has the whole magic of tidying up, she has a Netflix series, but I felt like I was Marie Kondoing my soul with Jesus. And I would pick up a memory, I would pick up a motive being and say, okay, Jesus, what do you think about this? Do you want me to keep this or do you want me to let it go? And so it was this masterful reorganization of my interior life of my soul and I found more freedom than I've ever had. I'm still on this journey, I don't want to stand up here and be like, I am healed because I'm still in therapy, thanks to be the God, I hope to be my entire life because I think there's still more things to plumb from the depths of what's down there. But I had to hit this major reset in all my relationships, a reset in how I approached God, how I saw God, a reset in how I approached mothering, how I interacted with my children. Instead of mothering from a place of fear, I was mothering with freedom and I had to have a reset within our marriage. And all of a sudden the things that were okay that I was totally cool with before all of a sudden I'm like, actually, I don't think I want to interact in that way anymore. And my poor husband had a lot to deal with in that moment. Yeah, it was hard. I was very supportive and I wanted best to go through this process of healing and counseling and all that. But as she's going through all this, it was really hard, it was dark and I'm seeing my go-getter, the energetic positive wipe all of a sudden not able to shoulder as much in those periods. And then I'm seeing her responding to me in strong ways and, as she said, kind of like reprogramming some things. There's things that we all have that's interacting that I just thought at the moment. So I interact all the time and all of a sudden she's like, no, no, this this triggers me in this way. It's not, you know, not because with you it's just this is just my background. And there's just things that were kept coming up and I'm like, why did she do that? Why? What's going on here? I wanted to help Beth. I really wanted to but I didn't know how. That's one of the biggest things. Most of the time she couldn't even explain as she was, she could now, but in the midst of it, she couldn't explain why this would bother her or upset her or send her in a document spiral. And so I just needed help. And so she finally suggested, would you come with me to the counselor? And that was so, I'm so thankful. She had a wonderful counselor and like the therapist was like a great marriage coach for me. Because I love that. I want to help her through this time, but I didn't go out. And that's what was most, I felt most helpless by it. And the things I would try to do seemed to make things worse. Here's an analogy. You know, so after dinner, now that our kids are older, we have great wonderful teenagers, we actually, it's interesting, like those of you that you remember back when you had little kids, like you actually, you get married, you're all excited, and you have like three or four kids, and you actually get less time with your spouse than when you were dating. It's like, I don't know. So we're just busy with family life. But as they get older now, we actually get more time together. Because after dinner, older kids take care of the little kids, they take care of the dishes and all the chores, and we go for like a 20 minute walk after dinner in the last couple years. So I remember one time we were going for a walk, and I wanted to hold her best hand. So I pulled her hand, and then for about 20 seconds, then she lets go. And then we walk a little more, and then I pulled her hand a second time, and then she lets go again. And then I pulled the third time, and then she just lets go. And I'm like, I'm like, why don't you want to hold my hand? And then she's like, oh, I hurt my wrist earlier today, so it just starts when you touch it. I'm like, oh, okay. I didn't want to hurt her hand. I don't want to touch it, but I didn't realize that there was a wound there. And I think that's how so many interactions in our married life that we're not even conscious of, that our spouse might do something that's simple like this, but it's poking at a wound. And that's what I had been doing for 15 years in our marriage is not realizing. And the counselor was able to help me to understand how that was affecting her. And so again, I could just be like, we're holding hands as normal. Just change. Or when I say this to you, that's normal, change. Or when I do this, I don't need it that way, you need to change because I don't need it that way. You're the one that needs to change. And I was listening to the counselor, realizing, oh, I need to change. Not that holding hands is bad, or not that I was saying that a certain something is a certain way is necessarily bad, that it's bad for her. It's not helpful right now. And I need to be willing to change in their process. Analogy that I love about this whole journey, because it was very scary to enter into this, to realize that what my friend said was true and that I needed to run after this, because I'm going to see all my kids who has time for all that, right? And how do I know that if I do this deep dive into the dark places and the hurts and the wounds of my past, that I'm going to come up? I still have to function and all this stuff. It was very scary. But I will say, going down into the depths and being there with our Lord, I came out a new person. And an analogy that I love is, I love the dishwasher quite a few times in the course of the day. And you can imagine, you know, you're putting things up in the cabinet. And let's say you have a wine glass, and you're putting it up in the cabinet, but it slips from your fingers. And you have tidal floors. What happens to the wine glass? Snashes into a million pieces, right? I felt like that wine glass in the midst of this. I'm like, Jesus, I'm coming apart here. I don't know how I'm going to come back together. I don't know how to function. I don't know what you want, but I know you are in this with me, and I'm not leaving because you have things for me. And you know what he did? He took that wine glass in a million pieces, and he put me back together new. Like it says in Revelations, behold, I make all things new. He made me knew what he made me better, because instead of being that same solitary wine glass, all of a sudden I have greater capacity. I have more ways that I can hold all that he wants to give me of himself. I have more ways that I can hold whatever my kids want to bring me, whatever my husband is bringing, whatever my friends are coming up, the things that they're dealing with. I have a greater capacity to hold what our Lord wants and to pass it on to others. And instead of loving others from a place of fear or anxiety, from a place of wanting to manage them and control them, especially my children, now I'm free to love them from a place of peace, from a place of trust, from a place of joy and delight, and I have more to actually give them. And I just want to add on the side, if you or someone you love is an adult child of yours, there's a new ministry, a new Catholic ministry called Life-Giving Moons, the website's lifegivingmoons.org. And we offer a space for adult children of divorce to give voice to the pain that they've experienced and to find deep healing within Jesus Christ and his church. So I encourage you to check that out. So, but this is all the bone broth, right? This is all the stuff. You know, we all bring our own scum to Mary. We all have it. Some of you may have things that are very similar to what Beth went through. Some of you may have things that are not nearly as bad, but we all have our stuff. Some of you may have things that are awkward. We all have that. And marriage has a way of bringing that out. But it's doing it because God loves you so much. He wants to bring healing. He wants to, He wants to enter in, like at the wedding I came in, fuel all those lacks, fill those holes in our hearts with His love. That's what marriage does. And we all have that. So many other things we'd love to get into. We'll close with this one point, is that marriage is a vocation. And we see today that so many, especially there's all these young people that love Jesus and they're getting the theology in the body. They see the problems of marriage out there in the world. And so they really want to do things the right way. And it's awesome. But we also see in the younger generation, many of them, they may talk about marriage as vocation, but they almost talk, but I think what they need many times is more, I'm looking for someone who will fulfill me. I'm looking for someone that will make me feel good about myself and will make me happy. And I won't be alone anymore. Now God does that in marriage. It's a benefit. That's not the heart of marriage. It's not about this person fulfilling me. It's about giving myself away. And so one of the things we advise many young people, but also it's important for those of us who've been married by 15, 25, 35 years to always remember, he's aligned my way of life for me all the time. Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. He's enough to fulfill all your desires, all your needs. He's enough to meet in those dark places that you'd rather not think about. He's enough to be the one that you turn to. I mean, we all know with marriage, sometimes our spouse just doesn't get it. Sometimes our spouse isn't physically there, you know, in the moment, or maybe our spouse doesn't have the capacity to really understand. But Jesus does. And Jesus is the one that we hope to be with forever. We of course want to be with our spouse forever, but marriage is an institution we'll end for us on earth. One of us will pass away before the other. And if and when that happens, Jesus has to be enough. He has to be enough for us before we get married when we're in the trenches of marriage and when we're moving into our golden years. He is the one that gives us animation, that gives us spark, that gives us everything that we need. He's the true source. You may marry the most amazing person as I have, but she's not, she's not. I'm not about that. Only Jesus will satisfy the needs and desires of my heart. And that's why we always talk about how important it is. I wish me more time on this, but I'm going to emphasize this last thing. If you want your marriage to be transformed into the good wine, you want your marriage to go to that next step in conforming to Christ. You want that deeper healing in your own soul and marriage. You have to have time for prayer in your own life. There's all this talk about couples praying together today, which is awesome. Thankful for that. We do take time to pray together, but that is not as important as individual time for prayer. Great for us to pray together that some couples, we've met many young couples who say, okay, once we got married, we just started praying together. And then I don't go to the congregation chat with us much, right? Don't pray at my own as much. I don't do my duty to be enough, as I did. If I don't have a daily prayer life, I will not be able to give back what I need to give her and my kids. I'll give back and my kids, myself, and they need a lot more than Edwards Street's love. They need Christ's great healing through me, but that can only happen if I'm committed to 20, 30 minutes of personal prayer time, talking to God, listening to Him, allowing Him to write His love on my heart more. And so the absolute biggest thing that we can do to heal our marriages, to take our marriages to the next level, is to make sure each individual spouse has time for personal prayer. Pray together, too, but make sure each individual spouse has that time for individual personal prayer. All right, we only have five minutes for Q and A. So sorry, we love talking about all this. But before I take the questions, I just want to make sure everybody knows all the things we looked at here, three ways you can find it. First of all, the book. They have come from the bookstore that did the best thing in the beautiful, from Ascension Press. You read the circles of real married life. You can check out the Ascension Presents videos that we did. They were released last May. The Ascension Presents, and we've got that very best street. But also, you all listen to podcasts? You listen to podcasts? Check out my podcast. I'm going to tell you about my podcast. It's called All Things Catholic with Edwards Street. My advice is if you pulled out your phone and went to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to get a platform to use, don't simply put in Street SRI. You have to put Edwards SRI. If you'll be through Street, you'll find an Indian Hindu group, and that's not me. You've got to find Edwards SRI. You can subscribe there. But about that, I did a series in June on these topics, and we're going to do another series in the fall so you can get more of them.