 Oh, this is gonna be a great sister to sister. There is a question that goes like this. Does God care about our sexuality? Wow, Kathy, what a question. I know. How about this simple one? Can we cuss, swear, and go to heaven? Oh, this is gonna be one heck of a show. Dear sister sister, so glad that you joined us today. We are five opinionated women of God and you send us questions and we answer questions from our hearts and from the Bible too. And I'm so happy today. I have Tiffany Gilbert sitting in for a flow today. Welcome, Ted. Yes, thank you. And I know that you'll get lots of words in today. Yes, I think so. We need your wisdom. Okay. All right, good, okay, good. Well, this very first question, I'm gonna go to you. Okay. All right, here it is. And you send these to us. Thank you. And you said... Really. What is this one? What is one aspect of marriage that no one prepared you for? Everything. Everything. But specifically, because it's like, you know, you know, when you have kids, you know, you're reading all these books beforehand and it's really, I mean, it's great to have that little bit of knowledge but until you actually get in it. Right. Okay, so. But specifically, really how to fight for your marriage. That was, no one really shared that with me in the hard times. It's easy when you like each other, when everything is going good, you're saying the right things to one another. But what happens when you don't like one another? What happens when there is a fence that tries to creep in there? You know, there's been times for me that I had to kind of check myself because, you know, when Pastor Jay doesn't say the right things. No. And I'm just gonna leave it at that. No. I'm just gonna leave it at that. Listen, you gotta tell your sisters. You know what? Listen to you. You don't want to say it. We won't tell. No one's listening. Since you said that and he's not here. But yeah, you know, I would kind of just go my own way. You know, I really want to, I'm not dealing with that. I'm not gonna take that. I'm gonna, you know, and I'm sure he's done the same thing as well, you know, with different things that we didn't like about one another, what we did. But, you know, you have to remember, for your marriage, you have to stay in there. And then what happens though is, if you don't stay in there, strife creeps in. You mentioned that before. Strife creeps in, and strife doesn't, just especially when you have kids, strife doesn't just affect you and him, but it affects the atmosphere of the home which eventually affects the kids. Right, right, right. Who has something for me? That is good. While she says fight, I am gonna use the scripture. I'm misusing it. Really? You know, Matthew 3 says the axe is laid to the root. And what it really means, Jesus came and he's taken care of sin. But in the marriage, sometimes we fight about so many little things, and we don't reveal what. The true thing is, as Tiffany says, the axe is laid to the root. Get to the heart of the matter. Get a tooth base. Get your own tube. Come on. Don't worry about the sock. Shove him aside so he doesn't have anymore to wear, whatever. Those sorts of things. Get to the real problem. What is it? Is it something you're doing? Is it something he's saying? Be honest. I did go through financial, our pastor did all that to cause children. All that. But like Tiffany said, it's not just the knowledge, it's the experience. You can't just have it in here. You've got to apply it out there. So dig down to the real problem, the issue. And then understand how to fight. My husband, he's calm, placid. I'm intense. I want to get to the issue. I've got to wait a couple hours. Maybe sometimes days. When he is ready to process it all. Because I'm intense. Yeah, really. Something I wasn't prepared for was how I was going to have to die a thousand deaths. Wow, that's a great picture of marriage. Like you're dying to yourself. You're dying to your flesh. You're dying to your own desires. You're dying to your singleness. And all of a sudden you're merging together to become one flesh. But also, I didn't realize and understand that I would have somebody in my corner 24 set. He's my partner. He's my BFF. He's with me. Good times, bad times, sickness and health. So it's a good thing too. That's good. Do you have an answer for me? The concept of leaving and cleaving. I really don't think that's talked about enough. Because I think you think about it just like, oh, I'm adding this person to my life. That is not marriage. It is not an addition of somebody to my life. It is literally to becoming one. This is a completely new life, a new creation. You are not like, okay, here's me and here's my family and you come on in to this. No, you're creating new traditions, new holidays, this is all new thing. It's like, you know, the thousand deaths thing. Okay, let's put it in a little bit of a pose. Because, and it's not easy. I think people think, oh, if we live together first, we're going to work all that out and figure it all out. No. This is a covenant relationship. You don't need to figure that out beforehand, because all that stuff is just like surface dust, like the socks and the toothpaste. This is, you got to get to the relationship stuff and you need that in a covenant relationship and that comes with leaving and cleaving and to becoming one under the Lord. I like that. I love that and I have another question for you that is nothing to do with marriage because that marriage one was good. Listen to this one. This is so good too. Someone wrote, the busyness of my life has caught up with me. Hello. And I realize I'm living my life alone again. It scares me. I don't want to look back on a life full of regrets, but I don't enjoy life. Yet I don't know how to change. I'm so sorry for you. What do I do? Oh, Amy. All right. I've been here. I've gotten the signposts. I've gotten the tag, the license plate, whatever, the sticker and I don't want to go back to that ever again. In a hot second you can go from living your life to really regretting things and just getting caught in motion. So one thing I had to do to break the pattern because I would be I mean, I'm pretty busy. I hate that word busy by the way, but just a full life with church, staff, leadership, husband, teenage boys, daughter calling all the time, TV stuff, hope today as well as sister to sister, friendships, family. I mean it's a lot, right? And you can just be like, it's a blur, but I just decided wherever I'm at and whatever I'm doing I'm going to be present. So when you're present you're not at school volunteering and helping the kids and thinking about TV or church or I can't be home with my husband and we're trying to enjoy life and we're talking about all the crap at church. You know, it's like we've got to stop and be present with the people that we're with and stop the cycle and live your life. I like it, be present, be present. What do you have? Do you have a scripture on this? Oh man, I got a bunch. All right, well just give me one. Well the one that came to mind before I looked a couple up with Psalm 90 teach us to number our days that we may give to the heart of wisdom and that's what Amy's saying, be present. Have the Lord decide what you do before you decide everything you're going to do and if you're a yes person it's okay sometimes to say no. Absolutely. It's okay sometimes to take something off your plate. It's okay as I did work part-time when your children are little if you can afford it. It's okay to go full-time when the time comes. So don't feel like you have to be a superwoman and do everything because we have been there. We think it's our pride. It is, yeah. God accomplishes his purposes on the earth. He'd like to use you but maybe you're too busy. Maybe I'm too busy to be able to understand that. So Mary and Martha Mary was like, don't you care Lord I'm so busy, help me. That's a good one. And Jesus says Martha's chosen Mary's chosen the better part. He understood her calling as a servant but Martha had no joy in her calling. She's saying be present. Martha wasn't present. She was thinking about what everybody else wasn't doing to help her in her calling. I like that. Very good. Don't say the Lord, you could say it. Don't you care because he will answer you. And then sit at his feet, see what he wants you to do. Decide there. We've made mistakes. We've come back, turned around. It's okay to turn around. We grow in our mistakes. I also think though that there are times that it is good to be busy. I just came out of a very extremely busy season of my life and it was because I was volunteering for something my youngest daughter was involved in. And I look back and I'm like she's only going to be in high school for four years. Am I going to look back in my life and wish I had more free time or am I going to wish that I was involved in the things that she was involved in? You know, you have to kind of weigh that out and say no, I'm not going to be like oh man, I really wish I had sat around more. No. You have to kind of look at that and there's also personality types and there's just I thrive on busyness. Now if I'm going to be complaining about it all the time then it's not right. I do think there are some people that are just like constantly use oh I'm too busy, oh I can't. They just never get involved in serving or ministry or anything. We are called to serve. I do think that there's a balance here Flows word, she's not here but finding that balance. That reminds me of what Amy said be present and you were present for your daughter. But I'm going to go to this last question because it's really good. Roxanne, I'm going to ask you. Can a believer swear or cuss? What do you say? I don't know. We'll have to find out when we get there, I think. You mean if we're going to go to heaven because we swore? I don't know that we're not going to go to heaven. I do have to say this. This is true confession. The person could shut it off. This is good. I don't usually swear out loud. My staff knows that and we're all careful about our language. But I swear in my head. The light screen and the person doesn't move. Something happened. Our thoughts and everything the Lord already knows. When we got this question I was like oh my goodness it was like the Holy Spirit saying stop it in your head. The thing that I'm concerned about is called the cursing. Do we want to curse somebody? Do we want to curse ourselves? Do we want to curse the thing we're doing by saying the D word, the other words? Because what are we putting out there in the atmosphere? Are our words life? Or are our words death? Now I just want to know that if somebody is cursing you just knowing proverbs it says a curse without a cause goes to flight. So you're not really cursed. I think oh yes. Roxy your mom's here and she wants to give you a spanking. You're cussing in your head. She never gave me a spanking. I think about people like my papa who his like default word was a damn and he'd be like damn and it was kind of like his wow you know and he was a believer but he had an unrenewed mind you know he wasn't so I'm just thinking I just think God loves people and I would rather someone be real and cuss than be fake and you know deceptive so I don't know to me sometimes it's refreshing to hear somebody just be themselves. But I think there are certain swear words and we know what they are that when it comes out of someone's mouth you cringe and if it would be a believer I would doubly cringe so I have kind of strong feelings on that. What do you think too? So alright I'm ready. Ready to stare? No you know first of all I'm going to mention this scripture wise really quickly and there's many of them in the scripture 1 Peter 3 10 in there it's not the whole scripture but God commands us to keep our tongue from all obscene words filthy and corrupt communication lying swearing so on and so forth. Okay salvation is not what you can and can't do it's who you are you know and usually I think we really need to make sure careful of what we say what comes out of our mouth I feel like you know if you are a believer you it's a command you know what I mean there should be something inside that should check you that should say okay wait a second just really quick there was a woman a young woman I was in college I was doing things I was saying things and I was professing to be a Christian she came to me and she said you're doing the same thing I'm doing what makes you different that's stuck with me the whole I mean all those years that's stuck with me so I would challenge back to the question though do I think I agree with you I probably I don't think so but you know you don't think so but I'm going to err on the side I don't think I don't think you're going to go I think you can still go because I think like you said he had an unrenew there are people on different parts of their journey with God you know what I mean so I can't say that but I'm going to err if the Lord commands me to do it that's what I'm going to do we don't become Christians we become perfect we still sin I just think it's like I mean I personally don't swear it's just not something I grew up with hearing and it's just something I choose not to do it's not something I struggle with but do I struggle with other sins yes I'm still a Christian so I just think it's like I don't know why we're questioning whether we're going to go to heaven or not because we swear I just think that the people write these questions to us and we try to answer them the best we can so darn you we'll be right back right after that hello welcome back we have a lively conversation and it doesn't stop because you sent this question in too you asked does God care about my sexuality hot button hot topic Cory well God cares about everything that's true yes but he cares most about your heart that's true and that's it that's how you got on the sexuality well Amy I hope you have more too yeah this is probably like the number one topic right now that is hitting us in the face in our culture through music programs corporations churches the government's talking about it and you know does God care about my sexuality 100% he created you he created you in his image and in his likeness he created you male and female it's very simple it's not it's not complicated right now it is so like everything is upside down turned inside out and what is it and I feel like this today and so therefore I am and it's like people are going against biology psychology physiology Bible against the word of God and so I would say that we've said what's wrong is right and what's right is wrong so you have to get back to the absolute truth so for me the Bible the word of God is the absolute truth so I believe 100% that God created sexuality it's a beautiful thing it's a wonderful thing and it's a God given and that's not against what you said to Corey said God cares about everything which he does Tiffany what do you say on this I agree with both of my sisters what they shared yes of course but I think the sexuality piece you know talking about transgender does he care that I want to be a man does he care that I want to be a woman these are real issues but I have to go back to what you shared as far as what does the word of God say and honestly I think that's just the bottom line I don't think there's any way of getting around that that is the bottom line is what the word of God says and Corey brought to the table is perfect that he cares about our hearts but I think that all of us we all know somebody I do my cousin is transgendered and I remember she wrote to me he wrote to me and said thank you for not judging me well it's not my place to judge so I really appreciate that you wrote this question to us and it's a tough one but I think you know it's the word of God and we all know it's the word of the world so go to the word of God God will give you wisdom if you want to know what God thinks about stuff ask him and he will tell you and that is the truth so I'm going to go to the next question it's good to oh my gosh this is the proverbs 31 lady we just love her I yeah yeah I yeah yeah she's perfect She dresses herself with strength and clothed herself with dignity. Amen. How do I live that out? How do I do that? What's practically, how can I do it? Tiffany. So yeah, I love, love, love this scripture. The whole thing, the whole. Yeah, yeah, the whole thing. But specifically when I look at strengths, she dresses herself with strength. When I think about strength, I think about the scripture, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So when we hit those moments in life, which we all do, those challenging moments in life, those heated times, we have to understand that, practically speaking, when you hit those, Lord praying and asking the Lord to strengthen you to get through those moments. And with regards to clothing herself with dignity, dignity is valuing yourself. That's right. Yes. So you have to know, and in order to value yourself, I feel like, or vice versa really, you have to know who you are in Christ. You know, that's essential. You know, that's number one. So I think, you know, whether it's situations that you confront in life, irregardless of what it is, those two pieces I think are important to really tackle and to really have victory in those certain areas in life. Right, go girls. Do you have more scriptures to back up this scripture? Oh man, my sisters are awesome on clothing themselves. You know, I want to hone on that word dignity, yeah. You have to respect God. Yes. And I don't even say respect yourself first. You've got to respect other people. Cause when you, God loved us when we were still sinners, but he still had a respect for us in the sense that he cared enough and valued us that he sent his son. So when we start respecting the Lord and we show respect to other people, our dignity shows. Then we begin to understand who we are. You know, I feel pretty good that I was nice to that person when they weren't nice to me. You know, I feel pretty good when I reached out and helped somebody that somebody else wasn't willing to do. That somebody else was saying to me, stand back, stand back, don't do this. But I went forward anyway to do what Jesus might have done. So respect the Lord. Respect other people. And then you will begin to cultivate respect for yourself. Right, the dignity part. I think it's important to, she didn't dress herself with Gucci and clothe herself with Valentino. These are inside virtues. This is what I would call moral leadership. So this is something that is so deep within me. This is something that I'm going to do whether someone's watching me or not watching me. I'm going to clothe myself with an inner strength and with an inner dignity that cannot be taken or removed from any other person or circumstance. But this is who I am in public. This is who I am in private. This is who I am in good times. This is who I am in bad times. It's a deep moral conviction and virtue. Right, right. Cory, what do you have? You asked for another scripture. And you know, the scripture is man looks at the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. This is not about clothing on the outside. This is about your character. The Proverbs 31 woman is strong. She's successful. She's a woman of character to go along with what you said. She is a woman that respects others. And when she does that, she, all of the things that she does, when she is building up this successful career and when she is building up this inner character, she is having this dignity, this self-respect because of all these things that she is doing and being this Proverbs 31 woman. She can have clothing herself, that inner character of dignity and respect and self-respect. I was gonna say, did anyone look up the definition for dignity? It's self-respect. Self-respect. Yes. And I love that. I love that. And I love all of the Proverbs 31 women. And I certainly don't mean to make light of her integrity. And in my Bible, I have a hippie Bible from the 70s. When I looked this up, it mentioned that she speaks with kindness in my particular version of this particular scripture. And that's why any scripture that we talk about, look it up, find it for yourself and stay right there. We're gonna wrap this up. We close with this scripture, Jeremiah 17 verses seven and eight. A special scripture to me and I'll tell you why. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. Here, Jeremiah echoes the words of David in Psalm one. Years ago, I would speak these words to my young sons. This is a photo of them then. Years later, one of my sons gave me this gift echoing back my words to him. This is a tree planted by the water with the words of King David. Can you believe it? I love it. And be encouraged to plant your life beside the living water, Jesus. And be refreshed by his words. We thank you so much for being with us here. We are sister to sister.