Latest / MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose / Episode 133: How’d I Miss That? Marriage, Meningitis, and Mike Yanof

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Episode 133: How’d I Miss That? Marriage, Meningitis, and Mike Yanof · MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose

• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Cynthia Gannock, and you are listening to the mesmerized podcast.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, guys.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: A little surprise for you.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you are listening to this on the day it's released, you may or may not have noticed that we released on a Tuesday.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we always release on a Wednesday, but you know what?
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, February 3rd is book release day.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: How'd I miss that?
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Came out today.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought, you know what?
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: the podcast this week on book release day.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so grateful.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: My favorite person in the world came on the show, Mike Yannoff, and he reluctantly has come on to talk with us.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Mike doesn't love being on the podcast.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Although he'll do it on occasion, especially if we're interviewing someone that's like in sports or someone that's very interesting to him.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I asked him to come on talk a little bit about some chapters in the book that are about him and also
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just a little bit about our family, some background, maybe some things you do or don't know about me.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm thankful he's here and so I'm not gonna wait any longer.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna say you guys, I'm so excited to kick it off today with Mike and off on book release day.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't have how do I miss that, now is the moment to do that.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would mean so much to us.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, here we go, with Mike.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, my canoff, in the person, in the real, I don't even know I'm trying to say, but here you are, on the podcast.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm here, I'm here and I'm ready and excited about this.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's his fake, I'm excited about this, by the way.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell the people, do you enjoy being on the podcast?
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what?
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I enjoyed it years ago when I got to podcast Daryl Strawberry, otherwise I don't feel like it's really my forte, but I'm happy to do it.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who's Daryl Strawberry, somebody's listening and they're like, who's that?
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Daryl Strawberry is one of my baseball heroes and he had kind of a, uh,
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: a drug history that drove him out of baseball and then a kind of come to faith, Paul Tech, conversion experience, and now he's just to do the preaches of the gospel everywhere and how to book that came out that kind of talked about his newfound ministry and you podcast a few years ago, and I wanted to ask baseball questions, but we also talked a lot about the gospel, and so I did that podcast.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's I think one of the only times that you're like let me on the podcast the rest of the time in your life now.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll pass.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Well, thank you for coming out
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: and coming out and by coming out, I mean literally you're down the hall for me right now.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're just on two different commuters.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's the end.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think coming out's been canceled.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, I'm sorry.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't feel good about that either.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I apologize.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is not your moment of coming out.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: What this is is you coming on the podcast because we have been as you know, and I say as you know, I don't know.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you know or not, Mike and off have you been listening, but
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have the last few weeks on mesmerize.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have been doing a little bit of a book tour, if you will, where we're bringing on people that are talking on the book, people from my past, the people that made me laugh, all the things.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it made sense that, oh, even dot was on my mom.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it made sense that on book release day, that you come on the show.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I appreciate that I'm honored.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let me be the first to say happy book launch day.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you very, very much.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so, so much we could talk about.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, do you listen to my podcast, by the way?
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course I do.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I start by saying what has me side-track?
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wrong show.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: This other not coming on.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's not coming on wrong show.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I thought we were waiting on Heather.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are you waiting on Ken Wilkins next?
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like not that show either.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But perhaps.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I didn't know this was a one on one podcast.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is, um, okay.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, so we're going to, we're going to talk a little bit about some different things a little bit from the book, but just in general life.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, but speaking of sidetracked, I reference you all the time on that podcast or things in our family or.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: things you've said.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've talked about your dairy queen theory, which we will not go into here.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Listen to sidetracked if you want to know Mike's dairy queen theory.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's borderline canceled too.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And people ask for you to come on sidetracked all the time.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like give the people what they want, come on the show.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we haven't put you on that one.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't trust you with Heather.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I do have you here.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I thought while you're here, we could talk a little bit about just things in the book, but just our family and marriage and just you have a lot of wise counsel.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's start with this.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've edited both of my books before they've gone to the publisher and which is just like a labor of love.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Never mind, you have like a law degree and you practice law unlike me.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: and support the fam, and you also read all the chapters in my book.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell everybody a little bit about that, what that's like, give us some insight.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that, it ain't your stuff.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that is in my wheelhouse.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I edit a lot of stuff and read a lot of briefs and collaborate with lawyers on briefs and help them write briefs, and this isn't legal writing by any means, but I'm comfortable with that.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like doing that, and I love,
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: reading and writing and editing and the writing process.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's fun for me.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: What am I good at?
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: What am I not good at?
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, you know what, nobody, nobody tells a story better than you do, you got that from your dad and nobody tells a story better than you do.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The difference is, and we'll probably talk about it a little later in podcast, I assume, but the difference is your dad can spend a tale that's about half true at any given time.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you literally tell true stories that are hilarious, but you're really good at that, and you do it as well as anybody I've ever read.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you actually have spiritual application to it.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love what Melissa Radke said the other day.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do listen to your podcast sometimes, by the way, especially when she's on it.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when she was talking about how your hilarious, but you, you turn it back to Jesus and you make it a Jesus story at the end of the day.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our words to those affect is what she said.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you just thrive at that.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're great at that.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know anybody that does that better.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm, yeah, I'm biased, but I truly believe that.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: What am I bad at?
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What you do not thrive at is the use of the comma.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty finicky about the comma as a lawyer and as a legal writer and there's a lot of special rules for the comma.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you follow any of them.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you break all of them.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the majority of editing that I do for you is commas.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or taking away commas.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I ever learned that.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe as I'll pass a school district, did me in again.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like I was told that when you take a breath you put in a comma.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how that's my rule of thumb on commas.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that works for most people, but you don't take a breath when you talk.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when you write, you never put commas in, because in your mind, you're thinking, well, I never took a breath, I just spoke for 45 words and never took a breath, which is true in how your brain works.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for me, I pause at certain points and you put a comma there.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there you go.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's talk about this.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember and I kind of everyone just so you know, I gave him kind of some of basic outline of things we might talk about today.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so this isn't on that outline, but you remember my first book.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to talk a little bit about I put I laid out there.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell things that maybe you're like, oh, are you sure, but you remember I'm not asking to say what it was.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember my first book, the one thing you took out, you're like, absolutely not.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember that?
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I did it once in each book, each of these two books.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was one that I mean, I'm not, look, I legally write and I write briefs and I write legal documents all day long every day and have for many years.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't write this way and this is not my style of writing so I'm very careful not to edit it like it's one of my associates of pellet briefs.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even make sense to try to turn it into something more formalistic.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there are certain stories, only a couple of them, that I've drawn the line and said you can't do that.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's an appropriate, and I feel like that's a lot of our marriage is just waiting to see if you're going to say something that appropriate.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The first book, I'm going to tell you all this, so he doesn't have to.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I made a reference to,
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: a period and I don't mean punctuation.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean like the feminine cycle and he was like, no, that comes out the way I said it was a little too something and Mike's like absolutely not.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that got, that got pulled out of the first one.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: The second book I told a story about me doing a triathlon and I won't go into it.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it did stay in the book with someone that didn't have all of their limbs.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you were like, nope, can't keep that in there and show it off.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then you and I went back and forth and you said fine, leave it in and see what the publisher does with it and they left it.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's there much to Mike Shagrin.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, look, I grew up in locker rooms.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I played college sports and it offended me.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: The period reference, offended me.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay, well, there you go.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was too crude even by my locker room standards.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, all right, here's what I thought we'd do.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk a little bit.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marriage, and let's talk about some things related to that.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: In this new book, I wrote a chapter on Slow and Low, a barbecue theology.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And basically, I used barbecue and grilling as a metaphor for marriage because that is your love language.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think you love grilling, barbecue, smoking.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I see in there that the most hurtful words I ever said to you were, do you remember?
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that all barbecue tastes like saying it there's there's there's only about three things in this world that triggered me Right, would you say I'd almost never get triggered by things?
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not easily drawn off sides It triggers me.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: yeah it makes him mad he's like don't say that okay so i made a list of things that has been should never say and one of them's not on here but i'm speaking of triggering um you know that what's one thing that you can say that will send me reeling like what what i hate do you and this is putting on the spot but is there one particular word that i hate that you can think of
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I learned long ago to tell you not to tell you to put your big girl panties on.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: What about wave?
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hate whatever.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And another one is you do speak quickly and I don't think you deny that you speak quickly.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if I ever kind of interrupt you and say slow down, oh my gosh, I want to like come across the table just hearing you say like that.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I wrote in chapter 11 of this book.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote 10 things that husbands that want to stay married should never say to their wives.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to read him child real quick.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, you must have been hungry.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number two, calm down.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number three, what'd you do all day?
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number four, it's really not that hard.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number five, why are you so tired?
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number six, I'm not a mind reader.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number seven, is that supposed to be form fitting?
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number eight, they, meaning the kids.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Never do that when I'm at home.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number nine, is that a gray hair?
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number 10, you're acting like my mom.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's my list of 10 things that men who want to stay married should never say.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I thought I would ask you, do you have a list of anything that wives should never say?
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a few?
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are these hypothetical or like real or examples?
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're getting ready to find out, aren't we?
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll just give you a couple.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lighthearted ones.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is are you wearing that?
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I might get that on about once a month.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or it's companion is the statement to that.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not wearing that.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was just that one too.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, probably.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was probably Friday night when we went on date, I think.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: What about must be nice being that nice office all day,
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which I had a quiet office to sit in all day, that one, yeah, we've given you that one, yeah, yeah, that's a good one, that's a good one too.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the only two I have.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't, you don't, you don't.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't, well you do those too, but.
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: OK, well, now we know.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that's OK. And you remember that I talked up to the book.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember the day that you left church because the brisket was in a stall?
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you had that little whammy jammy little machine you keep with you.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we had gone to church.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then you realized your brisket was in a stall.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so two things about that story, one that's not the newer technology where you can actually run it by your phone, so I could not run it from church, so people need to know that when they read this chapter, I think.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is, you know how when we, when we watch shows or movies and it says based on true events, which means there's a little truth to it, but it's like way editorialized and not near that way.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this, I'm not going where you think I'm going to go with this.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I would tell you readers and your listers is,
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: None of the things that the ride's about are just based on true events.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: They literally happened.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every single one of them literally happened.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, do you tell them in a funnier way and embellish in terms of how you tell the story for sure?
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's one of your gifts as a rider.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But every single one of these things literally happened.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I literally left church that day.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did y'all get home that day?
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I literally have no idea.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: You left me in the kids at church.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you came back, maybe Uber?
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: because we were at a church we didn't usually go to at watermark for those beyond Dallas which is 30 minutes from us.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not around the corner.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I certainly all had a ride home, didn't you?
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, now it's goal too late to be worried about that.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I appreciate you saying that because people ask me all the time.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like it's you make some of these stories up.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, no, I don't have to.
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, did my husband, did you get caught in a tree during COVID?
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not to call the fire department, yes.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not 100%.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did as I walking around in my pajamas, stealing packages off of porches that were really mine, but I didn't tell anybody because it was COVID.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It happened.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: yeah that's that's all book number one so i talking about marriage chapter though about how spark is overrated when you read that chapter did you agree with me i actually didn't run into that by you but just talking about how spark and we're talking through a brisket theology but i was talking a little bit about how in brisket when when you're smoking you want slow and low and that's kind of how marriage works and that spark is overrated thoughts on that
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what, I don't remember exactly how you ordered it.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I reread it last night, but if spark is overrated means like going through the course of the marriage over the years that continuing with the same spark you had when you first met is overrated 100% agree with that.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I do think Spark is important like you want to be attracted to the other person initially and just being compatible or enjoying spending time together probably isn't enough
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: lead someone to want to marry somebody else in and of itself.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do think you need some spark initially, but over time, I feel like what makes it overrated is, it's just not going to be the same sustainability as it was in month one of dating or six months of dating or a year into the marriage.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: it's just not going to be the same.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're expecting it to be the same, and if that's highest on your priority list of what matters in marriage, yeah, you're probably in for a some kind of rough waters along the way.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I grew with that.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I do remember when we first were dating, well, let's go back at the very first time that I remember like being aware of you, can you tell everybody about that real quick and the parking
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think I can't call it the little view.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was one of the things I can't do it, but the shhh.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: That one, and I was like, what's happening?
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was trying to be a serious law student and you're cat calling across the parking lot.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what are we doing?
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that was too bad.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But apparently it worked as you always say.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, oh no, I mean, we've been married 25 years now.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But speaking of that, we just did celebrate our 25-year anniversary.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm wondering though what she would say to people, like, what would you tell?
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, your younger self, like early married Mike Yannoff, like, what's something you think might have panicked you earlier on a marriage that now 25 years in, and we dated seven by the way, you guys, like, the buttons for punishment over here.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what would you say to your younger married self, maybe some advice, some thoughts, something not to panic over?
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think one thing I'd say is,
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Early in marriage, I think I'd say probably the first eight years of marriage may be right.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those seasons of not firing on all cylinders, which you're inevitable, I mean those times when your first kid is six weeks old.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe one of the spouses is traveling and maybe resentful that someone's not getting back quickly enough and I'm not saying me versus you because you travel as much as I did back in those days.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But some of that, um,
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's panicky in those early years because you think is this the new normal.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this how it's going to be from now on?
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of this is a season and it's not always going to feel great, it's not always going to feel perfect.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: it really never feels perfect once you start having kids and in terms of being able to control the situation, right, and travel wherever you want, do whatever you want, and control your schedule and all of those things, it just stops.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's much more beautiful and complete and purposeful than it's ever been in our family, right?
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's far less controllable and I would I would say early on in the marriage.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those things you naturally have those thoughts I think Of it is this what it's going to be going forward and what does that mean for us?
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: In terms of our happiness and just kind of our marriage and then you get down the road and you just think gosh There's just seasons and there's cycles and sometimes you got to weather the storm And I hate to use coach speak, but you got to trust the process I mean you got to put one foot in front of the other and put the work in today And sometimes it's just about putting the work in And sometimes it's work
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I think that's one of those things that you don't think about when you're young married.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess it's never going to be work.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is just the easiest thing, and the easiest thing, and anyone who's been married longer than about two weeks is like, oh, yeah, there's some work involved, and I like that you're saying there's seasons of it because I can look through, or I can look back on our marriage in so many seasons of you traveling, me traveling.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: legal careers.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I remember us being broke.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I remember us having more money.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I remember us struggling with parenting.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I remember us struggling with parents, like aging parents, like that's now.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just all the different things that are seasons of marriage and
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think if you're waiting for it to somehow just be seamless and easy and it's all going to, you know, look how you thought it was going to look based on what you've been watching on TV or what, I mean, just not how it works.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we all know that, but we just need to be reminded because I don't know.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I look around and I don't think people are super vulnerable about wedding and marriage stuff.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like I feel like people
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like people can be vulnerable about a lot of things, but sometimes marriage is not one of those things.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I love that you're saying there's just different seasons and different hard in every season that's difficult.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I said recently, and I don't know if I said on this podcast or another, because I've been doing so many recently for interviews, but when we were talking about marriage, I said I think my advice would be that you'll find what you're looking for in marriage.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: if you're looking for the negative.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've heard you say that, that was good.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if you're looking for the negative, if you're looking for what you're going to find that, but if you're trying to look for the positive and you're trying to look for grace in ways to assume the best in someone, you can find that too.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, there's definitely been some hard seasons.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think of one of particular that with us, when you, I guess our daughter Kate, our oldest, everyone.
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was maybe two or three.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you got sick, and this is such a long story that we're not going to tell the whole story, but basically Mike was sick, and I write about it in the book, I don't know if it's in this, but yeah, it's in this book.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I write about Mike came home, and we had had company as parents were in town, and he kept complaining about headache.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, ladies, like when your husband gets sick,
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's ridiculous sometimes you're like oh my gosh like i just had the same thing you had and we're okay and you need to man up a little i had kind of those moments and understandably i'm a horrible caretaker would you like to weigh in on that before i go any further
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what you thrive at the first, you call 13 hours, I think it's more like about seven, but you take real good, I mean, you're a good nurse for seven hours.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, in the book, I refer to as my 13 hours of compassion.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you 13 hours, then I'm like, get over it.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I guess the 13 hours were up and you had the worst headache and I ended up telling you to take a benedrial and get over it, basically, was that what I said?
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: work for work.
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's all me, everyone, because no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was suck it up and take a better girl.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I see that seems that seems like a painful.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now that I hear it out loud.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: But maybe maybe maybe one suck it out.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: it wasn't good.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't good.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so fast forward, we find out Mike has meningitis and and cephalitis.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And meningitis most you know what it is.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And cephalitis is swelling at the brain.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mike got to the point where he didn't know who we were.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know dates, years, many hospitals, many ER visits.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I see you for a long quite a while in and out of I see you, all the things as I'm hanging on my ridiculous words of take a benadrill.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: and suck it up or get over yourself or whatever I said, I think through that whole season and the moment of realizing like our wedding vows are like real life now.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so just tell everybody quickly if you don't mind about how you had just taught what you were teaching in Sunday school and how that played out.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I forgot about that to you just mentioned it, but I remember right when you say it, we were actually going through the wedding bowels and the wedding bow I never got to teach that I stopped with at right before was in sickness and in health, never never got to teach it.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so you're teaching this large, back when we called it Sunday School Everybody, this large Sunday School class and you're going through the wedding vows and just reminding us all, the truth is behind the wedding vows and then we get to in sickness and health and you literally are so sick and, and, and, and.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would say near death at any given time.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was very serious and very hard.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm wondering, like, having walked through that season as we're talking through seasons of marriage, it really changed our outlook on life.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 24:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what changed on the other side of being that sick and the Lord's bearing you?
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what?
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love C.S.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lewis, you know that, and he has a quote along the lines of God will speak to us as quietly as he can or as loud as he must.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't feel like God brought meningitis on me.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I do feel like Romans 828 was proven so true through that sickness that I got randomly.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in all things, God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose and God working that for good.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: What one he miraculously healed me, right?
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yet as you say in the book,
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: The infectious disease doctor said he's never seen anybody with meningitis and and cephalitis together that didn't walk away with any type of neurological deficits.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It took months of recovery, but I did not walk away with a single deficit.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Short-term or long-term, completely miraculous.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But God got my attention by reprioritizing my entire life.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had been working at a pace that was unbelievable.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was prideful.
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I enjoyed traveling.
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't bother me to be away from the family at near as much as it should have.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it was relaxing and it was empowering and all of those things and it almost makes me sick to even say it But that was true.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was so prideful and God just woke me up to that's not the way to live and that's not what matters
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: and you know you fast forward and I made a decision from then on that the reason to put in long hours at the office and go in early was in order to leave early and to get home with family.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's never changed.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Going in at six in the morning and coming home at
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: three or four in the afternoon, eventually coaching Kate all through high school softball, coaching Brett, in baseball, now coaching JB, continuing to coach softball, and reprioritizing a higher purpose than just work for the sake of work and the sake of making money.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Completely changed everything.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we walked through that.
• 27:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is the same time with this precious son at school class we had.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you'll remember a couple of floors up stairs.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you were an ICU in our friends, some of our dearest friends, the Dodgers.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were pregnant and had their little girl Abby.
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Abby was perfectly fine from all accounts so that it could tell when she was born but then it became clear she had a congenital heart defect and eventually she passed away just didn't live weeks I believe it was.
• 27:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was just so interesting and sad and enlightening and everything because people would come to the hospital to visit this new baby at that point every thought was healthy just someone had had a baby it was excited and then they would come down to ICU and CS.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: and you were not well at all, and just that dichotomy of seeing these friends and people of faith walking through the highs and lows with us, and then, and then of all things that you survived and sweet Abby didn't make it, and that the Lord gave you the miracle, and we, once we knew that Abby was sick, I mean, we prayed and beg God for miracle without little girl, and this side of heaven, we didn't get the miracle we are asking for, and
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just thought on that, just having watched, I don't know, what you've lived America, but she's also watched our good friends, not get the miracle, yet still stay true to their faith.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: It just thoughts on that when we're, it's hard to understand what God's doing, it's hard to appreciate it, yet how do we walk that well?
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's probably a better question for them than us, right?
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because we got the miracle and it's so easy for us to say, God can do the impossible and God performs miracles easy to say.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you just see the example they set for those health care providers that talked about the impact that had on them and just the dodgen's quiet strength and And I mean quiet strength before this happened quiet strength that since this has happened how their marriage
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: just continue to thrive and they continue to have kids and continue to live their lives devoted to God.
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what you know what the truth in all that is some day and all the I mean God's all powerful I know that God's all knowing I know that
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that that provides comfort in the moment for somebody that's lost a child, for sure.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know that the dodgians would say,
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: that secular hope and biblical hope are very different concepts.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the secular hope says, I hope we get better.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope might get better.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope Abby gets better.
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope things turn out okay.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Knowing full wealth outside of our control.
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And biblical hope is not that way at all.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: hoping in something that Jesus has already done and hoping and knowing what's going to happen in the end, knowing that Abby is already with God in heaven, knowing that all of us will one day just be with her and be with all other loved ones that we have who placed their faith
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I just think it's it's it's it's important to talk about those miracles that we've seen in life because
• 31:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we questioned, don't we?
• 31:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You read stuff, I do.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I read the Old Testament.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I see these miracles.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: You and I were just talking with a group.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have an eye to about, um, about Gideon.
• 31:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, how, how he put out the fleece.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, um, he was going to, um, they were going to battle.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's too many people.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And basically, the Lord, God was like, you know what?
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to look like I did it if we have all these people.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he kind of, he kind of weeds him out.
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, hey, get rid of people, people who are scared, let them leave.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: the army and they did and people who drink water a certain way like a dog, let's let them leave and so it whittle down to so small that you couldn't miss the miracle of the fact that they succeeded because only because of God, right?
• 31:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you look at, that's just one of so many miracles in the Old Testament that you look at and it's easy today to say like, man, has God still doing that?
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think for you, you're a living miracle, right?
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: This side of heaven, and I think we'll see the miraculous once we're on heaven so many places where there is miraculous, maybe not healing that we got to see, but later on, we got to see, you know, we get to see how God doesn't on the other side that there's complete healing in heaven.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I guess I would just say this, like encouragement to people just wondering, like, are there still miracles happening?
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is God still active?
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is He still like what would you say to that?
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Man, I think they happen everywhere.
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think, I don't remember who said this, but either everything's a miracle or nothing's a miracle.
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe batters.
• 32:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's, it sounds like something batters and would say for sure.
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but yeah, there's miracles all around us.
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, watch a sunset.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I stopped in the middle of practice today and I just had the girls come over and just said turn around and look at that.
• 33:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's this orange sky as the sun's going down and that's not random.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's not chaos.
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's not something exploded and suddenly that's what we're left with.
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's not where headed towards the end.
• 33:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's beauty and that's that's a miracle and childbirth is a miracle and Redwoods are miracles.
• 33:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is a batterson, by the way, talking about visiting the redwoods and just a majesty of those that come from a little bity seed and turn into something that majestic and indestructible almost.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, that car wreck we avoided yesterday when we were driving on the highway and we'd look in the rear view mirror as I'm slamming on the brakes because traffic just inexplicably stops on 35.
• 34:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: and we stop, car behind us stops, car behind them never even hits the brakes and slams into them and we're watching it in the rear view mirror.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's a miracle.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, God is our rear guard.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I looked it up as if in Isaiah 52 where God is speaking this relates and saying that saying you can do this.
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to protect you.
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to deliver you and restore you to your nation as well.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be your rear guard.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll notice things and protect you from things you never see.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how many miracles we never get to see?
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and to your point, yes, we were driving to meet our kids yesterday, and yeah, there was a pile up right behind us and how we didn't get hit.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know at the rate of speed the cars were hitting and and we we'd prayed that morning as we're leaving town as we always do in traveling.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'd prayed for protection safety.
• 35:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so glad we prayed for that because it was a reminder that like the Lord the Lord.
• 35:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: cares like he's listening to us he hears us and there's miracles every moment and sometimes to your point You get to see him in the rear view mirror literally like we did yesterday and sometimes you don't But just those reminders when when we do Experienced miracles like obvious ones like yours meningitis just to be encouraged in that and sometimes we don't get the miracle this side of heaven And the dodges and I write about this and you can read about in the book, but just we're such a great example of how to live faithfully when the miracle doesn't happen like you prayed for
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, let's, let's, before we start wrapping up, um, let's talk a minute about adoption, foster care, all of that.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't, I'm telling you we're going to talk about this, but you and I, both obviously are passionate about that and, um, and have sweet JB and, um, people ask me this sometimes when I'm on interviews.
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think, I don't, I don't actually remember the answer to this, but did, I bring foster care to you, did, did you bring it to me?
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did we both at the same time?
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just feel like the Lord put in our heart,
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I brought up adoption first and I think we kind of both thought at that moment.
• 36:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember where I was, I was in another lawyer's office and brought it up.
• 36:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That I just felt like our family was incomplete and you were feeling the exact same thing and we planned to adopt I mean we had in our mind a plan to adopt from Russia
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: and talk about God closing a door, put and close the door to adoptions in Russia because of a bad situation that had happened when someone was adopted from Russia and was abused in the United States.
• 36:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so his
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll get all to show you, was to cut off all adoptions to the United States and that cut that off.
• 36:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I think you saw the need for foster care.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember where you saw it and you brought up what about foster care?
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which was a weird pivot because, you know, we've told people this before.
• 37:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Foster care is not the best avenue for adopting.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is much longer as we noticed.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: much more open to heart-breaking situations than private adoptions.
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Private adoptions many times are very clean and it's just a matter of paying the money and having the baby be born and signing the paperwork.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not at all what foster care was.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was a strange pivot.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we saw the need and we've been in South Texas and saw so many unwanted pregnancies and kids sitting on the side of roads and strollers in 110 degree heat and we immediately thought, yeah, of course.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I always say this when I talk about foster care, because I know not everybody's called a foster care, but I think we're all called to care about the foster kiddos, but I also think we're all called to something that's hard.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that sounds negative the way I say it, but I do believe the Lord has calling in our lives, most of our lives, if not all of our lives, that are outside of our comfort zone.
• 38:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's just how it is.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like if I'm too comfortable, then I may be missing something, because I feel like the Lord's calling is into the uncomfortable, into the heart, into the unknown sometimes,
• 38:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And people have heard me talk about this plenty, so I'm not going to.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I would just be curious, how do you know God differently?
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or what, on the other side of foster care, what's different in your faith walk, what's different in your view of God, what's different, having adopted a little one from foster care and gone through the process that we went through, and the hard that we went through with our bio kids, just walking this road that was so unknown.
• 38:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think there's two things.
• 38:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, you've talked about a lot, and I'll get the quote wrong, but you started off wondering, yeah, tell me that quote.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, scared of what it would do to our family, and I came out of it scared of who our family would be if we hadn't done it.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I think there's that, our family is different.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have a daughter who took a gap year before law school and is working for a foster care agency in Texas.
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: She texts us and calls us every other day with two little kids in her backseat.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: from her young lives, moms, that she's watching while the other one is in the hospital, the baby, or taking care of the baby, or doing something with a newborn, Kate is different as a result of that.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Brett is different as a result of that.
• 39:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our entire family is different.
• 39:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It completely changed the trajectory of us, and me and you would be empty nesters,
• 40:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: didn't have JB in our house and, you know, some people might say, yeah, too bad for y'all, I'm like, gosh, I can't imagine.
• 40:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love you.
• 40:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know that, but we have a blast with JB.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: it's being a grandparent and a parent all at once.
• 40:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's that.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it completely changed its trajectory of our family and that's pretty amazing.
• 40:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is you just, I'm not sure you, any of us, have truly gotten down our, on our knees and poured out our heart
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: that you just can't figure out on your own, and certainly cancer and sickness and age, you know, sick parents and lots of things can be that.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when you have a kid in your house that you've fallen in love with and that you desperately want to adopt and have zero control over the process of adoption and foster care and when or whether that child will leave your home or stay in your home.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: you've prayed like you've never prayed before, and even on the other side of adopting him or any foster kid, every single foster kid that's adopted, you know, has struggles.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They may be emotional struggles, they may be abandonment issues, they may be learning differences, they may be lots of things, and it
• 41:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know the whole notion that we had of baby-wise and all the things we had with with when Kate was a baby and Sleep schedules and all of these things you just have to laugh at them one because it's third kit But more but more than that because Foster Karen adoption is just a different normal.
• 42:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, completely different.
• 42:07
  [UNKNOWN]: Yeah
• 42:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a good way to say it, it is a totally different normal and so grateful for the journey and so grateful for the Lord spared him of what it could have been if he went back to where we thought he was going and so yeah, what a blessing.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this encouragement too, you know, that you're like, I don't know, all the best parenting in the world.
• 42:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter what we did ride a wrong really.
• 42:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: They are kids are most impacted by us doing the thing that God called us to do.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And really, that's not a tribute to our parent dance, a tribute to just saying, OK, if we want you to follow God, we've got to do it in our own lives and deciding to do it.
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And man, we're better on the other side of that.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: OK, let's end with this.
• 42:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our family is very sarcastic.
• 42:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's mostly because of you, true or false.
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's hard because I am incredibly sarcastic.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: a more of a dry sense of humor sarcastic, you're more outwardly sarcastic and I think what's different is you don't take yourself seriously ever and you expect others to also not take themselves seriously and that breeds sarcasm too.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 43:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so close.
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: We either kids would
• 43:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think our kids would say is who's more sarcastic?
• 43:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Probably you, but we argue in a family all the time.
• 43:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like all the time, we're like who's the funniest in the family?
• 43:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then we have to go around and... That's not close.
• 43:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, in my story's sweet, well, well, I guess I should ask, who's the funniest in our family?
• 43:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're the buddies.
• 43:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's that's not close.
• 43:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: For sure, but my kids are like frets like oh, I am and then Kate's like I don't know.
• 43:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think and I'm like what's wrong with you people?
• 43:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so we really did be the funniest place.
• 43:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was pretty funny.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in a different way.
• 44:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes Um, yeah, but when people are like scarcasm it's tears you apart.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like I don't know you.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're not my people in Christ because I'm I'm just gonna tell you like we live Scarcasm has worked really well in our house for us pretty much
• 44:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, once a while you have to lay down the hammer and tell our kids, they've taken it too far, which I think you're actually saying it to me, but you pretend you're saying it to the kids, and I always appreciate that.
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, there's that.
• 44:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anything that you would tell, before I let you go, anybody, anything you would tell, anything you'd like to say, what you tell people about us, our family, maybe something they don't know about me, you, us.
• 44:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, this is your overnight to clarify anything that you feel like, um, may or may not have been misrepresented.
• 44:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't want to air grievances.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to save that for a side track at some point in the future.
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I've got grievances with you and Heather probably.
• 44:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 44:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: two questions for you.
• 44:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, what was most rewarding about this book process?
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Either in comparison to your first or just in general.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most rewarding.
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's a good question.
• 45:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think most rewarding was just finishing it because I feel like it was such a hard journey.
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know this.
• 45:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean,
• 45:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Writing books, boy, talking out strained in the marriage over here.
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's hard, this is hard business for an extrovert.
• 45:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think really, someone asked me to day on interview, what is your favorite part of the writing process?
• 45:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I said turning it in, because I literally struggled from the beginning, you know, that's from the beginning to the end, every chapter.
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd come home and I'd be like, well, I wrote a chapter as horrible, and you were like, oh my gosh, let me read it.
• 45:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then you would make suggestions, and then we'd get it red like it.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I would say that just though,
• 45:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: start to finish.
• 45:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: This one was harder, but yet at the same time again, what we just said makes you so reliant on the Lord when you don't think you've got it, when you know you don't got it, when you know that nothing turns out well without him, that's as a different level of praying over this book.
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what's the best book advice you got that helped you with this book?
• 46:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: mmm from someone else the best book advice from someone else i don't know i think i got a lot of a lot of strong advice but i think like reading and limont talk about it and maybe mark batterson he the max luketo people that basically john akhaf all them john akha yeah
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You get the get to and that's true.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: He always says John Akev says it's a get to not a half to.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you get, you get, you get to do things other people don't if you're willing to do things other people don't.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, you may be miserable and sit down every day and spend seven hours running a book in your miserable.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: One day, you will see.
• 46:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: a box show up at your door and you will open it and there will be a book cover and a book with your name on it and you know just kind of thinking for it on that and so I think that's good advice for really anything like you got to think forward to what the end result is the goal the dream whatever it is and then you just have to plug away day in a day out and you know I have great people around you I doubted myself every step of the way on both books I feel like but really the second one and just having people around me that were like
• 47:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: praying over you, the Lord has this, and the reading it, being like, that's good.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or reading it and saying, that's not good, and that's starting over.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, but thank you for being a part of the process.
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate it.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, we're going to wrap it up here.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's officially book launch day today.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do I miss that?
• 47:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It comes out today if you're listening it on the day, this comes out, which is February 3rd.
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening to it later, it is not too late.
• 47:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would be so grateful if you would order a copy.
• 47:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You will read all about marriage.
• 47:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've heard it from me in Mike, but we talk a little bit about marriage.
• 47:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talk a little bit about miracles.
• 47:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talk a little bit about foster care.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Family stuff, all kinds of stories, all the things, but really, hopefully,
• 47:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: funny and biblical truth.
• 47:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's our hope.
• 47:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's my hope in the book and Mike's too since he edited the whole thing.
• 47:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a great book.
• 47:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll love it.
• 47:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for coming on.
• 48:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know you don't love it.
• 48:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for doing this.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: We will get you on side track since that's the podcast you want to be on apparently.
• 48:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: We will work on that.
• 48:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But thanks for coming on.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Great fall.
• 48:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Love you.
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love you too.
• 48:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, a big thanks to my husband for coming on the podcast when he does not enjoy coming on the podcast, but he should.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It does a great job and you got a little peek behind the curtain and the get off household and today's book really stay and thank you guys for all the support, the love, the pre-orders.
• 48:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: The orders now, if you haven't, now's the time, if you love the book.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would love for you to buy a coffee for a friend and definitely leave a review.
• 48:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll do talking about that later on in the month.
• 48:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you guys, thanks for coming on this journey with me.
• 48:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful and nostalgic and all the things.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And really, thanks for being a part of the mesmerized family.
• 48:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're the very best.