Refining a Broken Marriage

God Hears Her Podcast 

Episode 214 – Refining a Broken Marriage with Justin & Trisha Davis 

Eryn Eddy Adkins & Vivian Mabuni with Justin & Trisha Davis 

[Music] 

Trisha: Why would I not pursue my husband? That is not of God. That is…and then he said, “If you really love him, you will let him go. And this is why. Until you let him go and stop controlling and let God do what only He can do, you will always be the scapegoat for his problems.” And I remember that day of all of my story of that moment, the hardest was going upstairs and packing up his clothes. And I remember like smelling them and putting them in boxes. And I tell people it was worse than death because if he had died, that would make sense. But he was alive and well. He just didn’t want to be with me.  

[music] 

Elisa: You are listening to, God Hears Her, a podcast for women, where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you. Join our community of encouraging one another and learning to lean on God through Scripture, story, and conversation at godhearsher.org. God hears her. Seek, and she will find.  

Vivian: Hey friends, before we get started, feel free to download or print our new Bible study show notes to fill out while you listen. You can find those on our website.  

Eryn: Before we get into this conversation, we want to let you know that we will be discussing some sensitive topics such as sexual abuse and porn addiction. Please listen at your discretion. 

Vivian: Well, friends we are in for a treat. One of the things I love about God Hears Her is we are not only seeking to help women feel seen and known, there’s a sense of, how do we navigate through the hard, and how do we keep faith in the midst of the challenges? And our guests today are the real deal. I…I know Trisha as a friend, and I’ve gotten to know Justin a little bit. And they live what they believe, and they live with authenticity. And I…I’m really excited for our conversation. We have Justin and Trisha Davis, and they are authors and pastors. They are the founders of RefineUs Ministry. And they have a powerful story of how their marriage nearly collapsed and how by God’s grace, and they really do consider this God’s grace, they found hope and healing and restoration. And they have made that a part of their mission to help people to live with authenticity and transparency and vulnerability. We get to hear their story and some of their journey. And they recently wrote a book, One Choice Away from Change: Break the Cycles that Hurt Your Relationships and Hold You Back. And really it’s just a story of understanding like what’s behind the thing that’s going on behind the thing. Which, when you think about it, I mean, you can spend all your days trying to hack away at the problem. And if you don’t address the root, you’re never gonna experience the real healing. So they are parents of five. They live in Indianapolis, Indiana, and they are amazing. So welcome to God Hears Her, Trisha and Justin. 

Eryn: Yes, woo. 

Trisha: You know, we’re so excited to be here.  

Justin: Yeah. Thank you so much for having us. That was…I feel really good about myself… 

Trisha: I know, like… 

Justin: …after that introduction. 

[laughter] 

Trisha: You’re a brick wall after that. Thanks, Vivian. 

Vivian: Well, Eryn and I are thrilled to have you on. 

Eryn: Yeah, truly, truly, we know that this conversation’s going to help the woman or the man listening that may just feel like they’re losing faith, or they feel hopeless maybe in their relationship right now. And so I would love, as we like dive in to learn. I don’t know y’all, so I am excited to learn what you do and how you got there. But first, would y’all share maybe how y’all met? 

Trisha: Oh wow. Yeah, we met at college… 

Justin: We did. I was in love with me. I wanted Trish to be in love with me.  

Trisha: …another lifetime ago. 

[laughter] 

Vivian: Justin. 

Trisha: It is true.  

Eryn: It’s honest.  

Trisha: I grew up in kind of inner city, south of Chicago, city called Joliet. And I was not college-bound at all. My mom got pregnant her senior year of high school, and then my dad really didn’t have an education past eighth grade. So when I say I had no idea what I was doing at college, I literally…I had…I had no idea. And so when I got there, Justin was like the man on campus.  

Justin: There was like 800 students there, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.  

Trisha: Yeah. 

Eryn: It was a very small pool to be the man. 

Justin: Exactly. 

Trisha: It was a very, yeah, and I…you could tell I lived in a different community. If you’re listening and you grew up in the inner city, you remember cross-colored clothes, and I had big nineties hair and bright red lipstick. 

Eryn: Love it. 

Trisha: And Justin was just like, I did not like him.  

[laughter] 

Justin: I was a j…I was a junior, Trish was a freshman. And a friend of mine asked me, he’s like, hey, have you seen the hot chick from Chicago with the bright red lipstick? And I’m like, no, I haven’t seen her yet. He is like, you have to set me up with her. And so I ran into Trish a few days later. She did stick out pretty obviously. So after, you know, that awkward introduction, I really felt like, man, I don’t want to set her up with Kenny. I want to go out with her. But she had a boyfriend back home. Long story short, she ended up becoming a cheerleader, which meant she had to travel with the basketball team. So we got to spend a lot of time together. She broke up with her boyfriend over Christmas break. We started dating in January, and the rest is history.  

Trisha: Yeah. 

Vivian: Oh my goodness. 

Justin: So that was 31 years ago.  

Eryn: What was your first date? Like where did you take her out on your first date?  

Justin: Woo. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: I don’t know if you guys have this where you’re listening from. There’s a place called Bennigan’s, uh, that we went to.  

Vivian: Oh Bennigan’s, yes. 

Justin: Yeah, and… 

Trisha: I’m excited that Vivian’s excited.  

Justin: Well we both grew up really low income. So we didn’t…we didn’t go out to…our family didn’t go out to eat very much. And so like if you didn’t, if you don’t know what Bennigan’s is, think really nice Chilis.  

Vivian: Yeah, that’s a good description. 

Justin: And that was kind of [inaudible]. Yeah, and so we went to Bennigan’s. I did not have enough money to pay for the date. 

Eryn: Oh.  

Justin: I didn’t know how nice it was. And so we walk in, I’m like, oh my gosh, I don’t think I have enough money to pay for this date. 

Vivian: Oh, no. 

Justin: Ended up having 68 cents left over. That was the tip for the evening. And so, um, but Trish and I, we…I borrowed a car to go on this date. And we were like 30 miles from campus. 

Eryn: Oh wow. 

Justin: And my friend’s car was out of gas. And so on our very first date, we were underneath the seats digging for loose change… 

Eryn: Stop. I love it. 

Justin: …trying to get back to campus. So yeah, we should have known. That was a kind of a prequel to our marriage. 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Eryn: But you worked as a team. 

Vivian: That’s teamwork. 

Eryn: [inaudible] get there. 

Trisha: We did, yeah. 

Vivian: Teamwork, and now it’s just a fond memory. [laughter] Okay, so obviously 31 years later you’re still together. Your are operating in an entirely different place than when you began and even when your marriage disintegrated. So if you can walk us through a little bit, like what was going on, what happened, that almost broke you apart? What was going on and surrounding you at that time? So, fast forward a little bit more. 

Trisha: We were 10 years into marriage and three kids by the age of 28. We were married for four months and found out we were pregnant. So like life just came at us really quick. And we were in student ministry and had great success in students. And then we felt called to plant a church, which back then, this was 2000 and… 

Justin: Two. 

Trisha: …two. People had no idea what a church plant was. They were like, what? You know, so there was…there wasn’t books. There wasn’t a lot of like information, but we just had this white hot passion that we’re gonna love God, love each other, and we’re gonna have this incredible church. And that’s what happened. Three years in, we had, gosh, the average age was 28. We had over, I think 800 people coming.  

Eryn: Wow. 

Trisha: We raised a million dollars to buy land. It was like…it was literally living out the book of Acts. But three years in, we realized that giftedness can outweigh character. And 10 years into marriage, um, Justin had an affair with my best friend who was also on staff. And it just literally obliterated, I believe, for both of us this, you know, formula we had lived with since the day we met at college. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Trisha: Well, I thought if we loved God and we loved each other, we were protected from pain. We were protected from this being our story.  

Justin: Looking back on it now, 20 years later, it’s easy to diagnose and…and do kind of an autopsy of that event. But there was no indication, you know, when we said I do that that was gonna be our trajectory, right? 

Eryn: Right. 

Vivian: Right. 

Justin: And we were…we never had any inclination that our marriage and…and life and family would blow up. And I wish, you know, when I confessed the affair, I wish it was a confession of remorse or repentance. It was really a confession of resignation. And I was really done with Trish. I was done with the church. I was pretty much done with my relationship with God. I was just in a really broken and dark place. 

Vivian: Hmm. 

Justin: And I think when you get to a place in your relationship, it doesn’t matter what relationship it is, where you feel like you give, and you give and you give. And what you think you deserve in return isn’t reciprocated, a sense of entitlement begins to live in your heart. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: And that person can never repay you all that you think they owe. 

Vivian: Mm-hmm. 

Justin: And that’s really where I got to 10 years into marriage and ministry. I felt like God owed me and Trisha owed me. 

Vivian: Wow. 

Justin: And neither of them were paying what I felt like I deserved. And so I was just done. 

Eryn: That’s so honest. What would you say? Like, you know, nothing suddenly happens, and I know that now you can look back and see like maybe some feelings that you were having inside, or choices that you were making that, you know, outside may not be so bad. Right? They don’t…they’re kind of innocent. But it really is starting a slow drip into something bigger that leads to the quote unquote sudden thing that can happen. What are some behaviors or things that you can see that you can reflect on, um, that might be helpful for somebody listening that may not see right now, those things? 

Justin: You know, I think so often in…in the church world, especially and as a pastor, we’re conditioned that, if you do these spiritual disciplines, then that is going to maintain your relationship with Christ. And I think while there is an element of truth to that, sometimes we can create a formula that becomes a broken place to live. It creates religiosity, it creates a sense of pretending that we’re better than we really are, because we don’t want to disappoint God or don’t want to disappoint others. And I had lived with this performance-based Christianity really my whole life where I felt like, okay, if I do this, then God is gonna be proud of me, and I’m going to achieve the things that I should achieve, not just in my marriage, but in my relationship with God and in ministry. 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin: And I never took time to understand the brokenness that I brought into our marriage, the brokenness that Trish brought into our marriage. We were carrying wounds that were unidentified and unattended. 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin: And so, you know, as we began to pursue reconciliation, you know, it wasn’t an overnight process. We were separated for two and a half months. We didn’t talk for the first 10 days of our separation. But God used that silence to really break my heart for my marriage and my relationship with Him. And I remember going to a counseling session by myself. And I’m sitting there in the counselor’s office, and she said, “Can I just ask you what…why are you here? What do you hope to get out of this counseling session?” And I said, “I want you to help me figure out how God’s gonna bless my life, no matter who I choose.” 

Eryn: Hmm. 

Justin: And she said, “I can help broken people. I can’t help hardhearted people.” 

Vivian: Wow. 

Justin: And that statement really helped me begin to identify, you know. I was sexually abused when I was a kid and never talked about it, never told anyone about it, never did anything to find healing from it. 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin: I carried a pornography addiction for the first 10 years of our…our marriage and denied it and preached against it, counseled people through it, lied to Trish about it. So recognizing some of those patterns of behavior and also preconceived ideas that we had about what marriage should be. Our…our counselor said, you…you can’t heal a wound you don’t give a name to. Really the first two years of our restoration journey was just identifying the wounds that we each carried and that we inflicted on each other.  

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin:  That became a starting place for healing. 

[music] 

Jade: Hey friends, I’m just popping in to tell you about a new God Hears Her reading plan called “Cast Your Cares.” This 10-day reading plan is available in our show notes, so be sure to check it out. 

Vivian: Wow, that’s so powerful. Now being a part of marriage ministry as well similarly, I often have conversations with women where their husbands have been unfaithful. So, Trisha, could you speak to the woman listening who may have just recently found out that her husband has a pornography addiction or was unfaithful, the kind of the range of the journey you had to walk through the embracing of the…the emotions, the betrayal, the anger, the…the bewilderment. Like what was that like for you? How were you able to even think about trying to restore a marriage when you were hurt so deeply? 

Trisha: It’s such a great question. I think the first thing I would say is I’m just really sorry that this has become your story. And the…the ache is, it’s physical more than even just emotional. You…you just feel it in your whole body. And you go to bed, and you wake up just hoping that was a really bad nightmare. And then you’re hit with it all over again. And I was…I was, you know, the best way I could describe is like a wild animal. I…I…I didn’t have framework. We didn’t openly talk about this stuff back in 2005. There weren’t really books, especially when it pertained to people in ministry. Um, social media wasn’t what it is today. And so I…I couldn’t find blogs or really help anywhere. So it was just kind of what I was feeling is what I was going with. And I remember, a couple of days in, my mom handing me the phone with a counselor, that I believe was with Focus on the Family. And I…the counselor probably quit after this conversation, but he just was like telling me these things, and I was like, yeah. And then he said something that like made me go all fight club. And he’s like, “If you really love Justin, you’ll let him go.”  

Eryn: Hmm. 

Trisha: And I thought that is the stupidest, like I won’t tell. I will not share what I said. It was highly inappropriate. But I was like, again, like I…I could not understand. I’m…I actually told him he was an awful counselor. And I said, “Why would I not pursue my husband? That is not of God.” That is…and then he said, “If you really love him, you will let him go. And this is why. Until you let him go and stop controlling and let God do what only He can do, you will always be the scapegoat for his problems.” And I remember that day, of all of my story of that moment, the hardest was going upstairs and packing up his clothes. And I remember like smelling them and putting them in boxes. And I tell people it was worse than death because if he had died, that would make sense.  

Vivian: Yeah. 

Trisha: But he was alive and well. He just didn’t want to be with me. And I’ll…I’ll tell you, Vivian and Eryn, like that moment for me was a series of events that led me to rock bottom. I remember grabbing my Bible and just giving God an ultimatum like this is it. Uh, like I have given my life for You. I went on like public aid to be able to start this church when I was pregnant with our third child. Like I had given everything. So if You are who You say You are, You need to show up.  

Vivian: Yeah. 

Trisha: And I remember opening my Bible to Hebrews, which people think I’m nutty that that is literally my favorite book in the Bible. Because it takes Old Testament principles and marries it with the new covenant of Jesus Christ. And I remember opening it, and if I wasn’t already angry, this passage said that no discipline is enjoyable while it’s happening. 

Eryn: Hmm. 

Trisha: And I’m like, I know. And I was like, why of all Scripture, I don’t need to be disciplined. But then it says that God sees us, that no discipline is easy. But if we will lean in, if we will trust God, there will be a harvest of right living. So stand firm on those shaky legs and work out a straight path for your feet. Then those who follow you, even though they’re weak and lame will become strong. And I recognized in that Scripture, that rock bottom is still solid surface to stand. 

Vivian: Ooh, ooh. 

Trisha: God is unshakable. He is our solid foundation even when the world wipes us out, when relationships wipe us out. God is always a firm foundation, which I know sounds “Christianese.” But if I could paint a picture of you of sitting on the couch, which my babies who were like nine, seven, and three at the time, sitting at my feet as I’m sobbing reading the Scripture. When I say God was my firm foundation, it takes it to a whole other meaning. 

Vivian: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. It moves me to tears, cause it’s…you’re helping us to enter in to what it was like in the moment. And I imagine there are listeners who can identify or have friends who have been walking that. And to hear you share that, it just is so validating to understand what’s going on. Well, what was this restoration process like? 

Justin: I wish I could say that the restoration process is A plus B equals C, but, you know, that is just obviously a false narrative. And you know, for us, I mentioned, you know, Trisha and I were separated. It’s been 10 days. The counselor has told me she does not want to have any contact with you. Honor those boundaries. And so I started going to counseling by myself. And I, you know, tell people all the time, Trisha called me like 10 days into our separation. Trisha, she called me on my cell phone. She just said, “I hear you’ve been going to counseling.” 

Justin: I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Well, I’m willing to go with you.” And so a few days later we started going to counseling together. And we tell couples all the time, we went to counseling four days a week for the next two months. 

Eryn: Wow. That’s awesome. 

Justin: And the only reason we didn’t go on Friday is cause they were closed.  

Eryn: [inaudible] 

Justin: But…but God began to use the intensity and the frequency of those counseling sessions to peel back layers of brokenness and half-truth and bitterness and resentment that we hadn’t had the courage or taken the time to talk about. We were so concerned with building the church, we forgot to actually build into each other. 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: And…and really build into who we were. 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin: And I wish it was we started going to counseling, and everything kind of fell back into place. But it was really a two-year process. 

Vivian: Hmm. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: You know, I told the counselor early on, everything kind of fell apart on October 9th, 2005. And I said, “I’m hoping to be home by October 31st for Halloween.” He said, “I’m hoping to have you home for Christmas.” 

Vivian: Hmm. 

Eryn: Hmm. 

Justin: That separation period was…was such a gift, because while Trisha was hitting rock bottom, I had put us there. And so the pain that she had to deal with was pain that I inflicted on her. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: And so there was a lot of guilt and shame and just a…a lot of pain that I knew that I had caused. And I experienced Jesus walking into that season while so many people were walking out of my life. 

Vivian: Hmm. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: He…He met me there. And so there was just this rediscovery process of my relationship with God, not based on my title, not based on what I was doing for Him, but simply just on who I was. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: So Trisha and I…we sold our house a few months later. Uh, we moved out of the community that we had started the church. We kind of started our life all over. 

Vivian: Wow. 

Justin: And I started working as a headhunter placing commercial banks and bankers in banks. I’d never done that before. 

Vivian: Wow. 

Justin: And… 

Trisha: It was awesome. He was good at it. There was a season for me that, the bride of Christ was the other mistress in the room. 

Vivian: Mm-hmm. 

Trisha: That ministry had done this to us. 

Vivian: Right. 

Trisha: And it took about two years for me to recognize that it wasn’t the bride of Christ that did this to us. It was who we became in ministry. And it…it created kind of not, this isn’t a formula, but it is a way of living, of healing when trust has been broken is, okay, what is mine to own?  

Eryn: Yeah. 

Trisha: What is [inaudible] and what is ours to own? 

Vivian: Mm-hmm. 

Trisha: Nobody wakes up and says, you know, I want to have an affair. When it comes to the affair, I don’t own any of that, right. Those are Justin’s choices to act that out. But the dysfunction in our marriage, there were areas that I needed to own. If I didn’t, we would go right back to the cycle and the cyclical dysfunction. And we joke like we never argue about anything new. It’s the same thing… 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin: Over and over. 

Trisha: …over and over again. 

Vivian: No, true. 

Trisha: And I tell people like, although I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, the person that’s like listening in…in the heat of it, like if you are like, we call it D-Day, like discovery day. If that is like fresh, this word is not for you. Because it would be unfair and unkind. 

Vivian: Wow. 

Trisha: There is a journey that we have to allow people to go on. On that journey, eventually you see your prism of pain as how God shows up so much brighter in different arrays of color that we couldn’t see with our rose-colored glasses. 

Vivian: Hmm. 

Trisha: While I don’t wish that on anybody, I…I love that I’ve got to experience God in such a dramatic way of…of just hardship, but yet such beauty and healing on the other side. And so it wasn’t about behavior modification, it was about heart transformation. Because Justin and I never want to go back to those people. I don’t want to go back to the rose-colored glasses. I want to continue to be healthy. And that’s really, you know, the book that we just released has been an overflow of, okay, beyond ordinary was like, it is raw. I share like journal entries that like, even when I read it today, I want to go hug that…that woman. But it’s like, okay, now we’re 20 years removed. How do we love each other more today than we ever have? How do we have kids who should have walked away from the Lord, love Jesus? Like what does that look like? And it’s like, this isn’t a story for the Davises, this is the story for humanity.  

Eryn: Yeah. 

Trisha: And it often starts with making one choice. And all those years ago, my one choice was to berate that poor counselor on the phone, but I did choose to talk to him. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Trisha: And one choice leads to another healthy choice. And then before you know it, you are in right living, not because life is going up into the right… 

Eryn: Right. 

Trisha: …but because you’re so tethered to who you are in Christ, that we’re not trying to achieve church ministry or whatever we’re doing. We’re trying to achieve what Christ has been in us so that our ministry becomes an overflow of…of that love. 

Eryn: Yeah. That’s so good. So you touched on a few things, and I’d love to just get your perspective, advice, for somebody listening, for me, for Vivian. You said something about how you both were working towards building the church. And so there’s this common interest of sharing passion and vision and excitement and purpose and belonging in some ways where that can almost like temporarily put a Band-Aid on connection and missing connection. And I just can’t help but think about the person that is building a family or they’re building separate businesses, and they still have these passions and connection. Like they…they mistake it maybe for connection. 

Trisha: Yeah. 

Eryn: And then the behaviors start to slip in and out and it’s around them and…but you don’t notice it. What would you speak to that in regards to like building something with your spouse, but then also completely missing connection and intimacy.  

Justin: Yeah, that’s such a good question. I think it applies to so many people. A story that comes to mind that I think answers that. Trish and I were probably about a month into our separation, and I was staying with a family that lived about four miles from us. And so she did a great job. I wasn’t allowed to come over to the house. We had a mediator that helped get the kids back and forth. But she did a great job of allowing me to…to hang with the…the boys—nine, six, and three at the time. I’ll never forget, we were sitting out on this family’s front porch. They had a porch swing, and we’re swinging on the porch swing. And our son Micah, who’s 29 now, he was nine at the time, and he is an evangelist. He, um, is a pastor of a church now. So he was kind of using those skills. He was in fourth grade, I think, at the time. And about half of his fourth grade class were coming to the church because of his personal invitations.  

Vivian: Wow. 

Justin: He…every time we would do a new series, he would take new series cards to [church] and put on everybody’s desk. 

Eryn: I love it. 

Justin: And so he was highly invested. And so we’re sitting there and…and he said, “Dad, can I ask you a question?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Are you and mom gonna get divorced?” And I said, “I don’t know, buddy. I…I don’t know if we are. We’re…we’re trying not to. But I don’t know if we’re gonna make it.” I said, “I can tell you something though.” And he said, “What?” And I said, “I’m not gonna be the pastor of Genesis Church anymore.” And he lost it. He’s like, “What? What? You have to be the pastor. I’m the pastor’s son. You have to be the pastor.” 

Vivian: Wow. 

Justin: And it was just this epiphany for me that he was speaking out what Trisha and I had built out, right? Like we had built our entire family identity, not around Christ, but around all of our roles at the church. 

Vivian: Wow, wow. 

Justin: And it was just this, I’m getting emotional just thinking about it. But it was just this reminder that it doesn’t matter if you are building a business, it doesn’t matter if you are building your kids’ travel basketball or baseball resume.  

Vivian: Yeah, yeah. 

Justin: It doesn’t matter if you are building your reputation online. If you’re not building it around the person of Jesus Christ, there’s going to be a moment where, whether it’s in the silence of your bedroom at night or in the conversation with your spouse, you’re gonna realize, man, my identity is not really built on things that bring me life and joy and sustainability. 

Vivian: Wow. 

Justin: And we don’t necessarily drift in our relationships all at once. It’s this incremental, Trisha calls it like the three-degree principle. You know, if you get three degrees off on a flight from Indianapolis to Chicago, it’s not that big of a deal. You may end up in Valparaiso. If you end up…if you get on, you know, three degrees off on a flight from New York to LA, you may end up in Japan. Right? Like that…that three degrees is the longer you go without… 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin: …a course correction… 

Vivian: Yeah. 

Justin: …the more devastating the results. And we had gone 10 years in kind of building this dream of the church without really building into who we were in Christ. 

Vivian: Hmm. 

Eryn: That’s good. 

Vivian: That is so powerful. I…I think we all can relate and identify with the need for those course corrections. It kind of circles back to what you talked about Trisha, as far as just the discipline of the Lord and in His view of the bigger picture that He, in His grace and kindness, would sometimes upend everything in order to help us to recalibrate once again to true north, to true like…like Jesus is life. And I’ve had that being in ministry as well where my husband was like, “Viv, ministry is not life. Jesus is life.” And I’ve needed that reminder, because it’s so easy. And I find in my own heart that any kind of power or greed is…is just a very intoxicating kind of drug. And influence, those kinds of things, proximity to whatever, popularity, anything like that can be something that feeds that dopamine us, which leads us down a path that is not listening necessarily to the Holy Spirit anymore. And so I so appreciate that word. And it’s so applicable to all of us. Trisha, would you be willing to pray for our listeners and especially for the women who are themselves walking through a time when life has been upended. 

Trisha: I’m grateful that we get to close in prayer, not as a bookend, but as a beginning place to, you know, if you’re listening and you’re going, I just don’t even know where to start. Um, gosh, prayer. So we can pray, Holy Spirit, come. Jesus, I pray for the heart today where the betrayal is so outweighed by truth. And we know that we cannot have relationships with other people without trust. And the essence of trust is truth. And so I pray for the…the hurting heart that, if they have their moment of opening their Bible or opening their podcast app and just are like, okay, this is your moment to show up. I pray that You would just knock down the gates of hell on their behalf. That you would meet them in such a, um, like the lilies of the field type moment. Like no one could know that other than their Heavenly Father. And so we pray that You would just meet them right now, Lord, whether in the…in the car, whether they’re in their house, they’re on a walk. Wherever they find themselves, Holy Spirit, come minister to their heart. Allow them to know that they have not been duped because they are stupid, they are not less than, sin never makes sense. And so I pray in that spiritual battle that whatever word is being spoken over their heart, that in the name of Jesus that You would just bind it up. You would get rid of it, and You would replace it with a peace that doesn’t make sense in the midst of the chaos. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Justin: That you would give them the courage to sit in the mess of it and know that their identity does not change. It is not shifted because of their circumstances. You are unmovable. You are unshakeable. And so on the days or the hours or the minutes where they just lift up a, “I cannot do this,” would You help them envision just You holding out your hand and saying, “Come climb up on My lap. Let Me hold you. And just know that you are not alone.” We thank You for redemption. We thank you for third and fourth and second chances. We thank You that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, that while we were all just messed up, You chose us. And that is true yesterday and today in the midst of the mess and absolutely for tomorrow. And that is where we find hope. And for that, we thank You and we praise You. And it’s in Your name we pray. Amen. 

Eryn: Amen. 

[music] 

Vivian: I am so thankful for the authentic way Justin and Trisha share their story. If you’re struggling in your marriage, we encourage you to talk to your spouse, a mentor, or a trusted friend or family member in your life. Look to them for help and encouragement, and know that we’re praying for you too.  

Eryn: Well friends, be sure to check out our website to subscribe to our email list. Read the newest blog article or check out the God Hears Her books and devotionals. Find that and more at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org. 

Vivian: Thank you for joining us, and don’t forget. God hears you. He sees you, and He loves you because you are His.  

[music] 

Eryn: Today’s episode was engineered by Anne Stevens and produced by Jade Gustman and Mary Jo Clark. We also want to thank all of our listeners in New Zealand for all their help and support. Thanks everyone.  

Vivian: Our Daily Bread Ministries is a donor-supported, nonprofit ministry dedicated to making the life-changing wisdom and stories of the Bible come alive for all people around the world.  

[music] 

Vivian: God Hears Her is a production of our Daily Bread Ministries.