Tim Bush: But I want you to consider something. Would you consider reading the Bible? I said, “Bob, I went and bought one. I’m reading 70 pages a night, whiskey in one hand, Bible in the other, I’m not getting a thing from this thing.” I, it’s, I, I, it’s just, I’m not getting anything.
John Fuller: That’s Tim Bush, and he and his wife, Kathy, are with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, sharing their incredible marriage story. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: John, occasionally, we hear some marriage stories that are amazing. I’d say miraculous.
John: Hmm.
Jim: And today, we’re gonna hear that, uh, from this couple that will share a lot of the trench warfare spiritually that they were in, the generational curses that plague them. And I am, my jaw’s open. I’m just kinda shocked they made it.
John: Mm.
Jim: And so this is the kind of show you wanna kick back, get that cup of coffee or a hot cup of tea and just listen to this story. I think you’re gonna be amazed that, uh, God actually was able to work through their hearts and create a miracle in their relationship.
John: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Tim and Kathy have been married for over 40 years. They have three grown children and eight grandchildren, and, uh, they’re speakers and serve with the Family Life team. They’ve got a powerful book. As you said, Jim, it’s a, a, an incredible story. Uh. The book is called Sex on the First Date: A Story Of A Broken Beginning To A Radically Transformed Marriage. And, uh, we’ve got details about our guests and this, uh, terrific resource, this book, online at FocusontheFamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Tim and Kathy, welcome to Focus on the Family. Nothing like being headlined with, “This is a crazy marriage story that God reached down and, and found a way in his sovereignty to save.” Kathy, let’s start with you. Going back, I mean, uh, you do have this powerful story, what were some of the unhealthy habits that were going on early in your marriage?
Kathy Bush: Well, yes, it was a crazy marriage. (laughs) So going back, the unhealthy … Well, starting at the very beginning, you know, Tim and I got married because I was pregnant.
Jim: Okay.
Kathy: And, uh-
Jim: Thus, the title of the book?
Kathy: Uh-
Jim: Sex on the first date?
Kathy: Didn’t get pregnant on the first date.
Jim: Okay.
Kathy: (Laughs) Got pregnant shortly after that.
Jim: Right.
Kathy: And Tim and I had actually talked about getting married, um, but once I got pregnant, my parents were like, “It looks like we’re gonna move the date up.” And we’re, you know, I was actually a senior in high school, but I really felt like, for me, I was, I was looking for a husband at this point. I wasn’t my, my future was going to be, I was gonna get married. So when I got pregnant and I could drop out of school, it, it gave me a good excuse because I did not like school at all.
Jim: Uh-huh.
Kathy: So we moved into the marriage really fast and we didn’t know each other. We didn’t do any kind of pre-marriage. Um. The marriage was pretty much based off of how I thought Tim was gonna make me feel. I, I was marrying him because I knew he could provide for me and I felt like he was gonna take care of me. So I basically just went from being in my home with my parents to moving to being with Tim, into another situation of a, of a man taking care of me.
Jim: Tim, let me turn your direction. Uh. One of the major turning points in your marriage was when you came to a breaking point. Describe the breaking point, what was happening and, and what year of marriage did this breaking point occur?
Tim: Well, the breaking point in our marriage was, uh, I’m gonna, there’s a between, between 25 and 27 years. It was a long breaking point. Uh. But in, in 2005 my pop passed away and there were, and I never really grieved over it. I was a tough guy and he told me to be tough. You know, “Don’t grieve. People need to depend on you, and you need to be a rock for everybody.”
Jim: And your pop was your grandfather.
Tim: Grandpa, yeah.
Jim: Yeah. He’s the one who raised you.
Tim: He’s the one that gave me his last name. They adopted me and raised me as their own from the time I was 12, and really even before that, uh, but mostly in the, in those, in those teen years, taught me how to work and taught me that’s what women were attracted to, success. And, uh, so I worked towards that. But I can tell you the breaking point for me, uh, when Pop died and then a couple years later, uh, my brother got brain cancer, stage four glioblastinoma in 2008 was when he was diagnosed. And then that fall, uh, our nephew, uh, passed away, and it was really hard in our family, he was only 22. And also, that fall, business was getting bad because the economy changed. And I was building at that point what I would call my own kingdom here on earth and building … And my goal was 100 buildings in 10 years, and I was going to do this no matter what and carry it all on my shoulders without even talking to God about it. I didn’t know God.
And, uh, things started to crash down that fall. So I was, uh, I was depressed. I was, uh, filled with anxiety, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think right. And, uh, ultimately then my brother passed away in February of 2009 at 43 years old, and I, everything I could do to try to save him, but I couldn’t do it. And, and, uh, I tried though. But I started to fall apart, and even talked about suicide.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: I was to the point where I was at the end of myself and, and didn’t know what to do. And at this point, um, I’m drinking a fifth of alcohol a day-
Jim: Hmm. Just to cope.
Tim: Just to cope with it.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: And taking Xanax and other drugs too. Uh. Just, just everything, just to get through the day. I couldn’t work. At this point, I’m not working at all.
Jim: Hmm.
Tim: And we have lots of employees, lots of things going on and, uh, uh, I literally thought that I was going to die. And so that was, uh, but the breaking point didn’t quite happen just then, but it was pretty close. And, uh, and I was going to a counselor then too. Uh. Jake was really trying to help me through all this and he thought it was from abuse from, uh, my brother’s dad, that he abused me when I was younger and beat me, put me in the hospital a couple times.
Jim: Hmm.
Tim: And, uh, and he thought it was that. So I, he told me that I should get, go to Costco and get one of those big boxes for toilet paper that they used to make, not the plastic, and tape it all up with duct tape, and then write his name on it, get a baseball bat, and beat that box until I felt better. And I did. I did that.
Jim: Hmm.
John: Huh.
Tim: And it, and it did make me feel better about, about-
Jim: Interesting.
Tim: … about my brother’s dad.
Jim: Yeah.
Tim: And ultimately, I did end up forgiving him on my, the day my brother died, right in front of my brother.
Jim: Wow.
Tim: But I wasn’t a Christian yet.
Jim: Yeah, I was gonna ask where is the Lord in all that.
Tim: I just felt like I needed to do it while my brother was still alive and he died about an hour later, my brother did.
John: Oh, wow.
Tim: And his dad was on the other side of me when this happened. Um. But I can tell you, um, my counselor said, “You’re not telling me everything.”
Jim: Hmm.
Tim: And I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He says, “Well, if you’re still having anxiety, all these things are going on, there’s things that you’re not telling me.” And, and then I told him about my serial infidelity over the years and the things I’d not told Kath. And, uh, he said, “Well, you’re gonna need to tell her.” And I said, “Well, if I tell her, I’m gonna lose her.” He goes, “Well, if you don’t tell her, you’re gonna lose yourself.”
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: So that’s where you’re at right now. God’s having His way with you.
Jim: Yeah.
Tim: He’s brought you to your knees. And he told me a scripture and he basically said, “If you don’t let this out, you’re gonna die.”
Jim: Yeah.
Tim: And-
Jim: And you’re in that spot. I mean, this is painting a really amazing picture. Kathy, I wanna come back to you. You described the desire to find yourself in the midst of all this and you, you’ve got all this difficulty going on with your marriage. I guess it’s a two-part question. First, what kept you in at, at this point? I mean, maybe then you can describe when Tim shared that infidelity with you and your response to that, but what kept you, your head in the game? I mean, you’re not committed to the Lord in a deeper way. It sounded like kind of a superficial understanding of scripture and stuff.
Kathy: Right.
Jim: So what-
Kathy: Yeah, I, I definitely didn’t really have any understanding of scripture. I was not in God’s word and only heard it from what I heard in church. But really what kept me in, it was kind of an on and off thing and we tell people, when they ask us that question, “Why did you not get a divorce?” And, and my answer to that is there wasn’t one day in those 27 years that we both wanted a divorce.
John: Mm.
Jim: Yeah, you said that very carefully.
Kathy: Yeah.
Jim: So people need to understand, it wasn’t that you never said…
Kathy: Right.
Jim: … what about divorce.
Kathy: Yeah.
Jim: You just never said it on the same day.
Kathy: We never said it on the same day.
Jim: Hmm.
Kathy: And so there was always one of us that was willing to fight for the marriage.
Jim: Huh.
Kathy: And I, I look back at that and I hear people say, “Well, if you’re not both gonna commit, you’re not gonna both fight, it’s not gonna work.” And I don’t believe that. I believe if there’s one of you, I believe eventually, yes, it, you can’t make it work if you’re never both gonna commit, and God did that for us. But I believe that Tim wanted marriage so bad because he had experienced divorce so many times.
Tim: My mom married nine times, my dad, five, so-
Kathy: Yeah.
Jim: That is, that was an incredible thing to read.
Tim: Well, then my grandparents too, at age 18, they got a divorce after 37 years of marriage. So I didn’t really see any, what I would call stable marriages.
Jim: Yeah.
Kathy: So he continually said to me, “I’m not gonna do that to our kids. I’m not gonna drag them through a divorce. I don’t, I,” you know, he knew what that felt like.” I had no idea; my parents were long time married. My thought was this isn’t a good situation for our kids to be seeing. That’s, I was kind of looking at it at that way and I didn’t know what divorce was. So I was, I was the one that was throwing divorce out there a lot more and I was told from people, “You need to find yourself.” And what, what does that even mean? Because we’re really supposed to lose ourself and find Christ. It’s not about-
Tim: Well, we so searched. We searched.
Jim: (laughs).
Kathy: The search was on-
Jim: Well, and that’s real.
Kathy: Yeah.
Jim: I mean, and I appreciate that.
Kathy: Yeah.
Jim: And there’s people listening that don’t have a deep commitment with the Lord and they’re trying to find themselves-
Kathy: Yep.
Jim: … because friends of theirs have said, “Try to find yourself.”
Kathy: Find yourself. Yeah.
Jim: So this is part of your testimony.
Kathy: Yes.
Jim: And how long did that journey of finding yourself last?
Kathy: That was-
Jim: And in the end you went to a cul-de-sac called Jesus Christ Lane.
Kathy: Right. (laughs).
Jim: And there was no way out.
Kathy: Right.
Jim: So what happened there?
Kathy: Well, it, that lasted the 27 years before we found Christ. And it wasn’t only, you know, we filled that hole with drugs, and alcohol, and infidelity, but also, I was filling it. I would go to college and take college classes. I would go to self-help seminars. You know, it was just that constant search.
John: Hmm.
Kathy: And then after Christ took us to our knees, which He basically did, Tim, which brought me, um, it was, it’s like the search was over. We found our purpose.
Jim: Yeah, that’s good. And I’m gonna come out of the break and we’ll get more about that, uh, finding of Christ.
John: Yeah, this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and our guests are Tim and Kathy Bush sharing a little bit of their story, which is captured in, uh, more detail in the book, Sex on the First Date: A Story Of A Broken Beginning To A Radically Transformed Marriage. Uh. Incredible read, get a copy from us here at the ministry when you’re at FocusontheFamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: You know, the, the thing that’s fascinating is the way the Lord’s working in both of your hearts prior to your commitment to Him. There’s obviously a stirring going on. The Lord is like reeling you in, which is what He does, you know?
Kathy: Mm-hmm.
Jim: The best thing you can do if you don’t have a relationship with Christ is say, “Lord, just show me yourself.” And God will do that. It sounds like you guys are in that spot. Just to kind of give it some framework again, I mean, you’re drinking heavily, your business is crumbling, you’re concerned about the kids and the marriage, which is super broken, but you’re willing to stick with it and find answers. Where does God show up more prominently for both of you and how did that happen and when did it happen?
Tim: Well, that was a process. Um. When we were, uh, in Mexico, I served on a board and there’s a bunch of people on that board and, and a friend of mine who I was trying to get more drugs because my, my doctor wasn’t gonna get, gonna give me any more Xanax. I said, “I need Xanax.” And he even talks about this. There’s videos in our book and he even talks about this when I came to him, and he said, “You know, Tim,” he said, um, “I’ll get you the drugs, no problem, but I want you to consider something. Would you consider reading the Bible?” I said, “Bob, I went and bought one. I’m reading 70 pages a night, whiskey in one hand, Bible in the other. I’m not getting a thing from this thing.”
Kathy: Mm-hmm.
Tim: I, it’s, I, I, it’s just, I’m not getting anything.
Jim: Well, he was your drug dealer, so-
Tim: (laughs).
Jim: This is all kind of odd.
Tim: Well, and, well, he was doing that as a friend because he could get it in Mexico over the, you could literally get it over the counter in Mexico.
Jim: Okay.
Tim: So, so he said, uh, he said, “You know, when I got really down and out, I started reading the Proverbs, and I, and there, and I tried, I read one every day. And I didn’t know if the Proverbs was in the Bible, what he was even talking about.
John: Mm.
Tim: And he said, uh, “Just you know, there’s 31 of them, and I would consider reading, doing that, and, uh, and seeing if that would work.” And so, you know what, I’ll think about it, because no one’s gonna tell me what to do.
Jim: (Laughs).
Tim: And so, uh, we’d leave Mexico, which I was a mess … at this, in Mexico.
Jim: And what year is this now?
Tim: This was be- … Early 2009.
Jim: Okay.
Tim: Right after my brother died because I thought things would be better once he died and they, they didn’t. I mean, the pressure was so-
Jim: Kept spiraling down.
Tim: Oh, yeah. It was just bad. We got on the airplane, for example, and I wanna kind of seize this moment. We had a first-class seat, and as soon as they closed the door, I started sweating, shaking, completely freaking out to where I was so claustrophobic where even my socks on my feet made me feel claustrophobic.
Jim: Wow.
Tim: Think about that. I couldn’t tie shoes. I couldn’t have my shoes tied because I would itch or whatever. It just really messed me up. And so I’d start drinking right away and they would, they, the flight attendants would give it to me because I was a mess.
John: Yeah.
Tim: But we got off that plane and then I went, when we went to Bob and our kids were with us too. And, um, I mean, I was so OCD, or whatever you want to call it, where I needed some lip stuff for my lips. We went to five stores to find lip stuff.
Jim: Lip balm?
Tim: Yeah, lip balm, just because my lips were chopped. And I, and I wasn’t gonna stop until I found the kind I wanted. And so I just kept, that’s how bad I was.
John: Kind of manic.
Tim: And so when we left, when … Yeah, exactly. So when we left Mexico, got home and I said to Kath, I said, “You know, uh, Bob mentioned that, you know, maybe I should read the Bible and read a Proverb every day. Would you read it with me?”
Jim: Huh.
Tim: And it was a moment that Kath … I, I don’t wanna take this away from Kath because-
Kathy: Then don’t.
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: Let me say it.
Tim: Okay, you said that.
Kathy: (Laughs).
John: This is good.
Kathy: Because I remember this moment when he asked me to read the Bible with him and I, there was just something in the, in me that was like, I, I, when I, when I think back to it, that was like the sexiest thing Tim had ever done.
John: Huh.
Kathy: Like I felt like, for the first time in our marriage, he was doing something that was right, leading me in the right way.
John: Huh.
Kathy: And I think I was just craving that because, you know, I think because of my upbringing, there would be times when I would, I would get a Bible and I would say, “I’m gonna start reading the Bible.” And I would start, I, I’d usually do this in January. I’d start reading the Bible in Genesis and got about halfway through and never went any further. And I even have a Bible that my mom gave me, and I opened it years later, and she wrote in there, ‘To my spiritual daughter,” and she saw something in me. But when he asked me, it was just, I was craving that. I was craving for my husband to, to do something Godly with me, and I didn’t even know that. So it was a, it was an amazing time for us. And we started that day. We started with chapter one of Proverbs and-
Tim: And we found out that, we found out who wrote them and all that stuff because, you know-
Kathy: We, we were blown away.
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: By Proverbs.
Tim: Right.
Kathy: And it made so much sense. We would look at each other like, “Wow, that like-”
Tim: That’s in the Bible.
Kathy: That ma- that makes sense, like we’ve never read this before and-
Tim: And, And when I was a kid growing up, I remember my Gram, she had this family Bible, it was a big one. It’s 1936, we still have it now. It was called the Family Bible.
Jim: (Laughs).
Tim: And I would, I went to grab it one time, she goes, “Oh no, we don’t touch that.”
Kathy: (Laughs).
Tim: I only use, I only opened it up to write marriages and deaths and stuff like that. So I never… Bibles were just something you didn’t touch, is what I thought. And so we’re actually reading God’s word and, uh, I went through a thing where I was, I was trying to lose weight and, and the thing I was doing was called Advocare and we, uh, it was a 30-day cleanse, so no drinking during those 30 days. So all of a sudden I’m not drinking at all for 30 days, we’re reading the Bible, and I’m starting to get better. And then, then things started to spin a little different. I had a, a good friend, which I think that’s where we’re gonna go anyway. I think, uh, I remember his name was Bill Voris. He was a pastor that walked my brother through his death in hospice.
John: Hmm.
Tim: He was there every day. And so I really liked this guy. And he reminded me of my Pop, same, he was 140 pounds, five-foot-seven, they looked alike, there were a lot of similarities there, only this guy had a relationship with the Lord and my Pop didn’t. And so Bill asked me, he said, “Hey, Tim, I want you to go to grief counseling. You need to do this.” And I said, “Well, tell me about that.” And he says, “Well, I have a group starting.” You lost me at group. I’m not gonna do any group thing. And he said, “Well, what if we did it one-on-one?” So I said, “Sure, I’ll do that.”
And so we started, and after a few times, Bill said to me, “I’m gonna close the door this time. Your, your claustrophobia and anxiety seems better. I need you to really hear me.” And so he closes the door and he said, “Tim, I could lose my job. I’ve been a pastor for 40 years. I’ve never had this conversation with another man and it’s really important and I want you to hear it.” He said, “Tim, the Lord’s got a calling on your life and it’s a big calling, and it’s not here. You need to go find yourself a Jesus loving Bible teaching church and figure out what that calling is.”
Jim: Wow. And he was working at the church you guys were going to.
Tim: He was the associate pastor on an interim-
Jim: And he was saying you gotta get to a different church.
Tim: Yeah.
John: Oh.
Kathy: He was at this Lutheran church.
Tim: Yeah.
John: Wow.
Tim: He was a, he was an interim pastor at this church and, and then I … now I didn’t, I had too much pride to say I knew what a c- didn’t know what a calling was.
Kathy: Mm-hmm.
Tim: So I went home to the girl that was raised in the church. I went home to Kath, I said, “Hey, Bill said this, and what do you think? What do you … What’s a calling by the way?” She goes, “Well, I don’t know either.”
Kathy: (Laughs).
Tim: “We’ll find out.”
John: (Laughs) Right. No, I mean, I love the-
Kathy: I said, “It sounds good.”
Jim: The freshness of it, like you-
Kathy: And I, and I even said, “I thought every church was a Jesus-loving Bible-teaching church.” I just thought that.
John: Right.
Kathy: I assumed when we went to church and we sat down in that church, everybody was gonna be in heaven with us, that when we all died, we were all going to heaven. I didn’t, we just didn’t understand. Yeah. We didn’t understand. So, but it was exciting. It was like, “Let’s go find a calling.”
Tim: (Laughs).
Kathy: Let’s go find our calling. ‘.
Tim: Yeah.
Jim: Well, we need to tie that in a bow. I’m assuming you found a good church then.
Tim: Well, we, we started searching and, uh, and then ultimately we did find a church, uh, but … and it was kind of funny how we found it. Uh. Uh. Our niece had been going there and she said, “Why don’t you go?” So we decided to go there, and it was actually in a casino.
John: (Laughs).
Tim: Well, it used to be a casino.
Kathy: (Laughs).
Tim: And, but that’s where the church was. So it didn’t matter that it wasn’t in a big building.
John: Right.
Tim: We go in this deal and, and, uh, so we’re going and they start talking about this Christmas concert they’re gonna have. And you guys, this is just phenomenal how God works in this because I look back at that, the Christmas concert, they wanted people to set up and tear down, and serve and I said, “Well, I’m not gonna do that, but we’ll pay extra money for the tickets.”
John: (Laughs).
Tim: We’ll help that way.
John: We’ll pay for the service.
Tim: And, and we’ll go. Yeah. And so we go, so on December 21st of 2009, we go through this whole concert. And I’m listening to the music and they’re playing, and it’s just a really cool concert. Well, then all of a sudden, uh, at the very end they play this song called The Lighthouse that I’ve never heard before. And I literally feel something happen inside me, like something came inside me, and I know now it was the Holy Spirit. And I reached down to Kath with tears in my eyes, I said, “Babe, our lives are gonna change forever and we’re gonna go to this church and we’re gonna serve here, and this, and things are gonna change. I want you to know that.”
Jim: Wow. Wow.
Tim: This is on December 21st of 2009. Still makes me emotional to talk about it.
Jim: Yeah. No, I can see that and the power of that.
Tim: Yeah.
Jim: That, that is a changed life.
Tim: Yeah.
Jim: You know, so many people wonder, “Am I a Christian? I made a commitment, I got baptized.” And somebody once, uh, gave me great insight. It was a pastor in San Diego. I used to go to their church before I was married. And he said, “Evidence of the Holy Spirit is a changed life.”
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Is a changed heart.
John: Yeah.
Jim: If you’re wondering, “Am I a believer,” are you moving in a positive direction toward the Lord and his character?
John: Hmm.
Jim: That’s a changed heart, um, where you’re not lost in the fog-
Kathy: Right.
Jim: … and you’re making, uh, you know, um, steps toward Him. And that, that’s a beautiful expression of that.
Tim: Well, a cool backstory to that, and this is probably pretty cool because we didn’t know this when we were writing the book, but when we did the videos for the book, Mel is in one of the videos, one of the QR code videos, and Mel was doing the video and he said, “Tim, I want you to know that song was not even one of the charts we were gonna do that night.”
Jim: (Laughs) Oh, man. That’s crazy.
Tim: And, and he said, “In fact, um, we had people chanting, Lighthouse, Lighthouse, Lighthouse.” And he went back to the music director, Mark Levan, and said, “Hey, can you do this song, The Lighthouse?” He goes, “Sure.” ‘Cause it, it was not planned. So that’s the last song they did.
Jim: Yeah.
Tim: And, and that’s, and I’ve, I’d never heard it before. So it’s kind of interesting how God can work that way too.
Jim: Absolutely. He, He does. He’s creating a tapestry in everybody’s life. We don’t know how that works and how he manages all that, but this is what He does. And a person who may not be perfect, nobody’s perfect.
Kathy: Right.
Jim: We’re all sinners saved by grace, but somehow He steers us, uh, toward Him and it’s a beautiful thing.
Tim: Well, I was never even attracted to worship music at all of any kind.
Kathy: (Laughs).
Tim: I mean, my kind of music was definitely not worship music.
John: Right.
Kathy: Earth, Wind & Fire.
Tim: Earth, Wind & Fire.
Kathy: Tower of Power.
Tim: Tower of Power. You know, big band music. And right, so I actually thought worship music was kind of weak. I love it now, but that’s, that’s why that song, how could that song even be something that would grab me like it did? But the Lord just reached right into me.
Jim: Used it.
Tim: Yeah.
Jim: You talk about, uh, stakes in the ground in your marriage. Describe stakes in the ground. What does it mean? Uh-
Tim: Well, we did that later in the book after we had, uh, come to the Lord and started to do things different. We realized we needed to do some radically transformed things in our marriage, not just for us, but for next generation and people to see that there was a change. And so we had to make some what I would call non-negotiables in our marriage, and we had to agree on it too. And so we made eight stakes in the ground, there’s a ninth one now that’s not in the book, uh, regarding the Sabbath, but, uh, we, we did these things realizing that, um, we have to frame it up to where it’s easy. And people can make their own stakes or they can use ours, but no stakes in the ground for your marriage and your life, I don’t know who you’re modeling to, but that’s not good. You gotta have some kind of something going on.
Jim: Kathy, let me ask you, because one of those stakes, uh, I think was about the boundaries you need to put in your life. We talked a bit about Tim’s, uh, infidelity, but it, you were also in that same space, and that became one of the stakes for you, correct?
Kathy: Right, right. Boundaries are so important. And I think even if you haven’t dealt with infidelity in your marriage, boundaries are important. God puts boundaries for us. We, we, you have to have healthy boun- boundaries in your marriage. And for Tim and I, um, we don’t meet with the opposite sex. We don’t, we don’t do coffee or lunches with the opposite sex, alone. Um. You know, we, our computers, our phones are completely open. We, we have, you know, the things that we did to each other, it’s amazing to think about the power of God, because the things that we went through and that we did to each other, when I think about the person I trust the most is Tim, is my husband. And that’s only because-
Tim: And I agree with that. Me too.
Kathy: Yeah. It’s that, and that’s only because of what Christ did in our marriage.
Jim: Well, and there’s more to the story. I mean, we haven’t delved in. We’re kind of giving it in pieces and I wanna continue next time. But that, that right there, I, I wanna punch that a little bit because what we’ve seen with Hope Restored, which is a four day intensive that we do, probably the number one issue that, uh, couples come into Hope Restored with is infidelity. It’s certainly at, near the top. And in that context, if a couple can actually survive that and get to the root sources of all of that, they seem to have a, a beautifully transparent marriage and trust that is built. It, it, it’s almost as if it goes either way. It’s either ruined by that or it’s incredibly deeper because you know one another kind of to the core.
Kathy: Right.
Jim: And you still trust and love each other. Um. That’s what’s so good. Uh. For our listeners who feel stuck and alone in your marriage, um, please let us be there for you. Don’t be embarrassed. It happens, and it happens often, so it’s not gonna be a surprise to us. Our Hope Restored program is built to help people in that circumstance, just like you may be in right now. Couples who participate in that intensive, that marriage intensive have an 80% success rate of remaining married two years later when we go back and assess everybody and how they’re doing. Uh. We had one couple tell us this, “We’re forever changed and tremendously grateful for the tools given to us to change our stormy relationship into a peaceful calm. What a gift God gave us here in a safe environment with counselors and staff that are totally walking in a close relationship with Christ. Miracles happen.” And, uh, what a testimony. If you have a desire to see your marriage transformed, I wanna encourage you to check out our Hope Restored Marriage Intensive.
John: You’ll find all about Hope Restored when you call us at 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY. That’s 800-232-6459 or look for details at FocusontheFamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: And if you were inspired by the conversation today, you can read more about Tim and Kathy’s radical marriage journey in their book, Sex on the First Date. Uh. When you make a gift of any amount to the ministry of Focus on the Family, we’ll send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for supporting us. We are a nonprofit ministry, so your donations are what fund our programs like Hope Restored and so much more. So if you want to help more couples find healing and have a generational impact, just like, uh, Tim and Kathy, become a ministry partner today. Every dollar you give will go right back into saving marriages, protecting preborn children, helping parents navigate raising, uh, Christlike children in the chaos of this culture.
John: Hmm. Yeah. Donate today and get your copy of Tim and Kathy’s book, Sex on the First Date: A Story Of A Broken Beginning To A Radically Transformed Marriage when you call 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY, again, 800-232-6459, or online at FocusontheFamily.com/broadcast. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller inviting you back as we continue the conversation with Tim and Kathy Bush, and once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Day Two:
Kathy Bush: What I felt like was for us, everything was finally out there, now, we could start healing.
Jim Daly: Yeah.
Kathy: And that’s the thing with secrets-
Jim: Yeah.
Kathy: … you can’t heal a marriage if you have secrets.
John Fuller: Yeah.
Kathy: And that’s why we couldn’t ever heal.
John: That’s Kathy Bush, reflecting on a time when they really had to look at, uh, how things were going in their marriage. Kathy and her husband, Tim, are back today with us on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. They’re gonna share more about how God helped restore their marriage. Thanks for joining us, I’m John Fuller.
Jim: Tim and Kathy, and they’re so honest about what they went through, their Christian conversion, and what that meant to them. Uh, it was refreshing to just hear honest and open dialogue about brokenness in life. I think so often, we try to sugarcoat that or we don’t deal with what is true-
John: Mm.
Jim: … and therefore, you don’t get to whole healing with the Lord, you hide portions of it, right?
John: Yeah.
Jim: People describe that as the closet that we don’t let him go into, right-
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … we put all the bad stuff in that closet. But how refreshing this couple last time talking about the things they experienced, the things from childhood that kind of tilted them in that direction. We’re gonna continue that discussion today. Really, why. Why should this couple share their darkest moments with you and write this book, Sex on the First Date, a Story of a Broken Beginning to a Radically Transformed Marriage? It’s simple, to help you.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: If you’re in that spot, if there’s darkness that you’re going through, hey, take it from a broken couple, how to get back to health.
John: Yeah. This is a great example of how God can take pain and, uh, dysfunction, and he can turn it into something really beautiful. And Tim and Kathy Bush have been married over 40 years, they, uh, have three grown children, eight grandchildren, uh, they’ve really recreated a legacy that they’ve given, uh, their family. They’re speakers and founders of War Room Ministries, and as you said, Jim, they’ve written a book called Sex on the First Date. Learn more about our guests and this resource and other marriage helps that we have for you, we’ve got links for you at FocusontheFamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Tim and Kathy, welcome back. (laughs) It’s good to see you. Boy, we really did get into it last time. And Kathy, I wanna kinda pick up where we touched on last time right at the end. Uh, we talked about Tim’s infidelity, and the space he was living in without the Lord, and drinking heavily, and the marriage falling apart, but I think, uh, Tim overheard a phone call that you had that really caused a turning point, another turn- you got a few turning points, but another turning point in your marriage. What was going on with that call, and what did he overhear?
Kathy: Yeah, this was pretty much my rock bottom when I got caught on this call. And I had just recently gotten back from aesthetic school, and I’d gone away to school for seven months, and I wasn’t even sure I was gonna come back to the marriage. Our kids are… were all out of the house at this point, our last one had graduated. And there was just something in me that, once again, I felt like I, I wanted to fight for this marriage, but I got back and I remember thinking, you know, maybe our marriage is just gonna be… we’re gonna stay married. We’d been married for 20-
Tim Bush: 25 years ago.
Kathy: … 25 years at this time, and we’re gonna stay married, and I’m gonna have an occasional affair. That’s really, that’s where my heart was. And I had a phone card that I had, had in school with some… which I had called some old boyfriends on, because I didn’t want Tim to track my calls. And so I was just home, and I was bored, and I just thought of this guy and just wanted someone to talk to, our marriage was just kinda ho-hum, I thought. And, and so I just picked up the phone and called this guy. And, uh, Tim had, he, I thought he had left the house, he hadn’t left the house. He, and he walked into my office and pretty much caught me. And he saw the phone card and I thought he’s gonna find out every phone call on there, and this is gonna be the end.
And really, every point of our marriage where I had said I wanted a divorce, I fi- for some reason, I mean, I’m making… it’s, this is how twisted my head was, I’m making this phone call to this guy, yet I’m still thinking I wanna be married. So I was just confused, I’m just like, “I, I don’t even really know what I want.” But yet, now, I’m in a corner, Tim’s caught me on the phone, and Tim finally says, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t…” I, I really felt like this was the first time he said, “I can’t be married to you.” And so at this point, I begged him because, like I said, there’s something in me that wants to be married to him.
And I beg him, I’m like, “Okay, I know that there’s something wrong with our marriage, it’s broken, we can’t…” I knew of some- some of the infidelity, Tim hadn’t shared all of it yet, but I knew that we either needed to figure out how to be married and be faithful or just get a divorce. And I said, “Let’s, let’s get some counseling.” And we had been in and out of counselors, but not, not really dedicated to that. And so at this point, um, Tim agreed to it, and we found a husband and wife team, and we started at this point a two-year counseling-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Kathy: … process where I went to the wife and Tim went to the husband.
Jim: Yeah. Before we get into the learnings of that, Tim, that day that you caught, uh, Kathy, w- w- I mean, you’re coming out of that too, it wasn’t like it’s all her fault, it was your fault too. And it’s not even the issue of fault, it’s brokenness, as you said, Kathy, you’re operating out of your past insecurities, your current insecurities, all those things that a counselor’s gonna unpack with you-
Kathy: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … as to what motivates you to do the things that you did. But in that moment, you were trying to think through, “How do I fix Kathy,” right?
Tim: Well, it was always fixed Kathy. When we went to the counseling… counselors before, it was always going to fix her, because I just thought most guys did at least some of the things that I did, it was a, it was a normal thing-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: … and, uh, you know, I, I really thought that, uh, this was a time where something had to happen different, and I, when I caught Kathy on the phone, I thought to myself, “You know what? I thought I was making deals with God, and I was gonna, it was gonna be better, but I was realizing, you know, maybe God just doesn’t want us to be married,” and I’m not gonna tell her everything, because that was, if I told her everything, then that would make me bad. So I, I thought, you know, I think the only way out of this is probably a divorce now and I could just start my life with somebody else, I could figure that out.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: And so at that point, I was, that’s the first time really, I can say I was really done because there was no way I was gonna tell Kath everything. No way.
Jim: How, how did you move from all of that to keeping in, you know, staying in the process of improving your marriage? So you go from, “I gotta fix her.” What was that transition to say, “Well, maybe, maybe it’s not about fixing her, it’s about fixing me”?
Tim: Well, and that’s what I tell guys now- nowadays, you always gotta look in the mirror if you wanna fix something in your marriage, it was looking back at you. But, uh, for, for me, I remember after going to counseling with Jake, and he was just transitioning that with me, kind of talking to me about it. And, and then when he finally said, you know, “The, the issue in your marriage is you’re not telling Kath everything.” And that was after two years of counseling-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: … ’cause I hadn’t told him either.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: And so when I finally told him, it was like this relief came off me, that when he told me I needed to tell her, and when I actually did tell her, and it took two hours. And she kept saying, “Is that all? Is that all? Is that all?”
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: And then finally, when I said, “Yeah, as, as best of my recollection, that’s all.”
Jim: Let me ask you, Kathy, with that kind of disclosure, and, you know, every couple’s gonna be in a different place, and you should talk to a counselor about how to go about dealing with maybe unsaid things, we don’t wanna put a blanket-
Tim: Yeah.
Jim: … here, but in that context, um, for a lot of wives particularly, that could be the dagger of death to that marriage, how did you absorb that and then say, “Okay, let’s move forward”? How did that happen?
Kathy: Well, I think with that two years of counseling, and what’s interesting is I, I thought in the counseling that Tim was being honest, I mean, I didn’t think for a minute that he wasn’t sharing, I mean, we’re paying for counseling (laughs) and we’re wanting help in our marriage. So I really thought that he was telling me everything in, in counseling. And, and actually, after the two years, I even told Tim, I said, “You know, I don’t need to do this anymore, like, I felt like we were, we had worked through all we needed to work through. I felt like we were good-
Tim: Enough.
Kathy: … I felt like it was enough.” Like you, you know-
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: … when you’re done counseling-
Tim: And I was 90% truthful.
Kathy: Yeah-
Jim: Right. No, it’s a good point, though.
Kathy: … and then that, at that turning point is when he started having anxiety, so he kept seeing the counselor. But what was interesting, I really think as Tim, when Tim started getting unhealthy with anxiety, depression, and, um, that man that was so controlling in our marriage, that shifted, and he wasn’t… he couldn’t control anything. And so our marriage started to look different to where I was always controlled by Tim, well, now I had to step up, and I had to take care of him.
John: Ah.
Kathy: And my heart for him changed. And I felt like for the first time in our marriage, I had a different kind of freedom, but I wanted to be there.
John: Yeah.
Kathy: So when he… at, at the point when he told me everything, there was not one part of me that wanted to leave him. I was hurting for him-
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: … and the burden he had been carrying. And actually, what happened with me was our marriage kind of started to make sense. Everything that I had been doing and I would tell him, I realized he had been doing the same thing. And what I felt like was for us, everything was finally out there, now, we could start healing.
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: And that’s the thing with secrets-
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: … you can’t heal a marriage if you have secrets.
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: And that’s why we couldn’t ever heal.
Tim: And Kath also talked about the anxiety starting, and actually, that’s when it became debilitating-
Kathy: Right. Right.
Tim: … I had anxiety off and on from my 20s, and it was for my lifestyle. I look back at it, I could work out, or I could have a few drinks, or do something to overcome it, but eventually, that didn’t work anymore. I mean, that, I, because I say this all the time, I didn’t become a man ’till I was 47 years old, I was a boy, because of the way I handled things. But that, that anxiety got debilitating where I could not even get up anymore.
Jim: Well, and it kind of goes to the pride of a man.
Tim: Yeah.
Jim: Right? And that’s what the Lord was after, I think-
Tim: He was after, oh yeah.
Kathy: Oh, he was. (laughs)
Jim: And He uses these circumstances or sinfulness to point us in a better way, that’s the irony, it, it… I think it’s what Paul says about how sin works in us and how God uses that to draw us to him. You know, Tim, uh, you’re very vulnerable as well, like Kathy, but, uh, we touched on it last time, but I did want to go a little deeper, your, um, stepdad who, one of several stepdads-
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … who beat you. Speak to that because this, this is also abuse, and you learn things in that environment that help you to cope but end up being unhealthy. So describe what you went through as a child in a little more detail. Did you ever have reconciliation?
Tim: Well, I did. Uh, when my brother passed away, um, at age 43, uh, in hospice, his dad was on the other side of the bed-
Jim: And he was the stepdad?
Tim: He was the stepdad. And I did tell him, “I want you to know that I forgive you for what you did to me when I was a little boy.”
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: But I wanted… I did that for my brother. I was not a Christian, somehow, something came into me to say that.
Jim: And you’re right at the bed, he… your brother’s hearing this?
Tim: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Jim: Oh, wow. And how did the stepdad respond?
Tim: Um, he just didn’t really say much, and he just kind of backed away. And, um, but he did put me in the hospital twice from beating me. But my mom, uh, married another guy that did… he also abused me physically too. Looking back at it though, I want you to know that caused a lot in my marriage because, Jake, in counseling, he said, “That’s one of the deals, you, you’re trying to survive-
Jim: Yeah.
Tim: … you’re not gonna let anybody control you, you’re gonna control everything, because if you lose control, then there’s a chance that you’re gonna get hurt-
Jim: Yeah.
Tim: … because of your childhood.”
Jim: You know what’s interesting with that? You think of those things that happened to you, and then I, I think God’s given us those abilities to protect ourselves, but then we need to hand it over to God. It’s as if He’s given us the tools as a child to get through horrific things and we create these mechanisms of coping, and then when the Lord says, “Okay, you gotta give that back to me now.”
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And how many adults never find that moment? They live in that control; they live in that victimization. You need that moment, it’s, “Okay, Lord, I got through that. Thank you.”
Tim: 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your cares on Me,” you know? So it’s a, “Yeah, I get it.”
Jim: Yeah. But it’s so hard, it’s so hard. But how many crippled, emotionally crippled adults are there out there-
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … even in the church-
Kathy: Right.
Jim: … that have not been able to make that jump to say, “God, I know you own it all,” Romans 8:28. All things work for good, seriously?
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Jim: All things? Seriously. I mean, look what you guys have gone through.
Kathy: Right.
Jim: Can you say that, that all things have worked for good?
Tim: I, I believe so because… without a doubt, because I can see how He’s using that for others to help them. We don’t know what part of our story is gonna help somebody, and we share… we wrote the book just so if we could help one couple. And that happened early on, we know that. So it was a, it was pretty cool. So I- I get it, and we, we need to share our story, out of obedience to the Lord.
John: Hmm. And that makes me think of, uh, 2 Corinthians 1 where Paul talks about, uh, “Our comfort that we receive as being, uh, used by God to pass comfort onto others.” And, uh, this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and today, we’re talking about how God can heal your marriage, no matter how hopeless it seems. Uh, Tim and Kathy Bush have a terrific book, it’s called Sex on the First Date, a Story of a Broken Beginning to a Radically Transformed Marriage. Get a copy of the book from us here at the ministry when you stop by FocusontheFamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: You know, yesterday, you mentioned Pastor Bill who counseled you even to leave the, the same church, (laughs) go to a different church, right?
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Um, speak to the importance of the people in your lives that were those mentors… they may not have carried the label, but in some cases, they did. But speak to just the importance of where you’re at today, you must go into a church, and you look around and you could probably have a sixth sense of a couple that’s in trouble. You could probably interact with a couple for 10 minutes and your spiritual noses can sniff that.
Tim: It definitely happens. (laughs) It definitely happens-
Jim: Yeah, in that context, how, how do you become that mentor? How do others like us, how do we become that mentor alert?
Kathy: Let, let me say something to that, that when you say that, I think about Tim and I and not having that, those mentors.
Jim: Yeah.
Kathy: You know, and not, and, and that’s why it’s so important when we are talking to couples, or we’ll have a group of couples over and we’re like, “You guys need to be sharing this with other people because people just don’t know.” I remember when I was handed that book Experiencing God and just knew, new Christian and-
Tim: But you wanted me to read it. We did.
Kathy: … I read it and I thought, “Why did nobody… why hasn’t nobody told me these things? And I just realized it’s so important, like when Pastor Mel told Tim, “You need to be praying with Kathy-
Tim: This is a great story.
Kathy: … he comes home, we had been reading the Bible, he comes home and he says, “Mel says I need to be praying with you.” So I was like, “Okay.” So Tim starts praying.
Tim: (Laughs).
Kathy: So every day, Tim’s praying-
Tim: This is about 15 years ago.
Kathy: … Tim’s praying, he’s saying a prayer, we’re reading the Bible, he’s praying. 10 months later, I finally looked at him and I said, “Do you think when you get done praying, you could not say, ‘In Jesus’ name,’ in case I have something to say?”
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Kathy: So we could pray together. But Mel said, “You need to be praying with Kathy.” So he took it as he needs to be praying.
Jim: Yeah.
Kathy: So now our b- you know, when you said that about couples praying together-
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: … the divorce rate goes way down. Well, that, we do not miss a day, we pray together every single day-
Tim: And we, and we model that to other couples. Every one of our marriage classes, any kind of a Sunday night deal, no matter what it is, we model it… in fact, we have the couples do it, reach across to each other. You’d be surprised how many couples that have been going to the Christian church, believers, 25, 30 years, never prayed together. Mm-hmm.
Jim: Well, and I think that… and maybe not reading the word together too-
Kathy: Oh, that’s, that’s a huge one.
Jim: … those, that combination is so big and we’re seeing it in all the research on the strength of marriage, strength of family. But, but I, I was really curious about your kids, because they’re watching this marriage that’s disastrous, and I don’t know how much you shielded the kids when they were younger, but how, how did… just speak to that process of them watching this, your three children, at what age did they ever say to you, “Mommy, why do you and daddy…” fill in the blank, and then what did they see now at the end? And they’ve all become believers, which is awesome.
Kathy: Well, for one thing, in our book, in the QR videos, all of our kids are in there. And so it’s fun to watch those videos because they’re, they’re all taped at different times-
Tim: Yeah.
Kathy: … but yet they’re telling the same story.
Tim: And this is our married kids too. So all s-
Kathy: Yeah.
Tim: … three, three biological, three married-
Kathy: Three married.
Tim: … so all of our kids, they all-
Kathy: Yeah.
Tim: … all talk.
Jim: The in-laws too?
Tim: Yeah. Yeah.
Kathy: And the big- the biggest thing with the kids, you know, when they were little, I mean, they, they say… you know, I was there when they were little, I was the, the on hands mom and Tim was working, and, you know, I, they would say, you know, I did a good job, and we shielded them, you know, during those years. Tim just wasn’t around a lot; he was working a lot. And, and then, um, but as they got older and they heard the fights, and, and TJ says in one of the videos, they, he’d hear us yelling late at night and wondered when we were gonna get a divorce.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Kathy: And so, but when things changed for us, when we gave our life to the Lord, you know, they’re, they were watching like-
Tim: They were suspect of it too a little bit-
Kathy: Yeah, they wanted-
Tim: … because it was another self-help thing they thought.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Kathy: … they wondered how long it was gonna last.
Tim: Right.
Kathy: And a lot of our family did wondered how long it was gonna last, and thought we were just, you know, it was, it was just another thing that mom and dad were doing.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Kathy: But now it’s been 16?
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Kathy: 16- will be 16 years-
Tim: 16 years, yeah.
Kathy: Yeah.
Tim: Well, TJ said, would say, you know, it wasn’t different that we were even going to church, but he said it was a little weird how we went about it, because all of a sudden, we were all in like a fire hose, even our business, we, we were a BMW dealer, we changed everything. We closed on Sundays, we took all the car pictures off the walls, we put, uh, Fruit of the Spirit paintings on the wall, scriptures on the TVs instead of ESPN. I mean, it was, I mean, everything changed. The music-
John: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that-
Kathy: (laughs).
John: … Tim, because you had your boys working with you-
Tim: They’re my partners.
John: … and they saw these changes and it was kind of distressing to them; you were kind of a Jesus freak.
Tim: Well, they didn’t, they didn’t like it.
Kathy: (laughs) Not kind of!
Tim: They didn’t like it, they talked to their mom and-
Kathy: Oh, TJ called me one day and he says, he says, “Mom, you have to get dad to stop.” And I said-
Jim: (laughs).
Kathy: “What? What are you talking about?” And he goes, “Mom, we are a BMW car dealership, we are selling cars here, and dad is talking to all of our customers about Jesus and he’s praying with the customers. You gotta get him to stop.” (laughs)
Jim: That’s awesome.
Kathy: (laughs)
Tim: I was, I was a fire hose, but we know what we were selling… we were hitting all our numbers with BMW, our customer satisfaction was at top in the country. We were, we were really doing well.
Jim: Right, you probably saved a couple of marriages along the way-
Tim: We could have. We were all in with God …
Jim: But there were BMW and get your marriage saved-
Tim: … at the same time-
Jim: But there were tensions with the boys.
Tim: Yeah, especially with Blake. We had, uh, we, the music, as soon as I would leave the dealership, he would change it, and I would change it back. Well, finally, we had cameras everywhere and over the top of the sound system, it was a high, high end sound system, and in the closet, I put a sign, “Whoever changes this next does not work here anymore.”
Jim: Ooh.
Tim: And I signed my name. So I get called to the sales office, Tim Bush sales office, and so I go to the sales office and said, “Dad, I’m gonna close the door and I want you to listen to me. Dad, I don’t even know who you are anymore. I don’t… you know, we’re trying to run a business here and I don’t know what to do with you.”
Jim: How old is he at this point?
Tim: He’s at this time in, I would say, mid 20s-
Jim: (Laughs) Okay. Wow.
Tim: … and I said, I said, “So Blake, let me ask you this,” and this came from the Lord because it wasn’t for me, I said, “Did you like me better before or do you like me better now?”
Jim: Mm.
Tim: And he said, “You know, now that you say that, I like you better now.” I said, “Okay, dude, let’s just get back to work and not mess with the radio anymore.”
Kathy: (Laughs).
Tim: Everything’s good, right?
Jim: It all gets back to the radio.
Tim: But the coolest thing, he talks about this in one of the QR code videos too. He said, “You know, after I talked to my dad, I kind of felt like maybe I needed to do something with my faith.” And it wasn’t very long after that, he gave his life to the Lord.
Jim: Wow.
Tim: It was ama-
Kathy: And not, and not only did he give his life to the Lord, he actually got up at the church that we were attending-
Tim: Large church.
Kathy: … the largest church in the Tri-Cities and shared his testimony.
Tim: Yeah. Oh, man.
Kathy: So, yeah.
Jim: Well, and I think, you know, when I look at that, how many parents are going, “I totally blew it spiritually, I didn’t model the right things for my kids.” That right there demonstrates that can be corrected. I mean, the result is in the hands of the Lord.
Kathy: Right.
Jim: But for you to be able to have that conversation with your son, that’s a brilliant conversation.
Tim: Well, Jim, we talked about those stakes in the ground yesterday, and I think when you really think about your stakes, when you think about how your impact goes, 100 years from now, no one’s gonna know us.
Jim: (laughs) Right.
Tim: But what we do today could impact our great, great, great grandkids that we don’t even know.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Tim: And so some, if, if we’re literally loving Jesus and accept H im, and our kids do and our grandkids do… and we see that, there’s a video… so our favorite one is the shortest one too about our grandkids, and our grandkids talk about us and-
Kathy: Marriage.
Tim: … how we are in marriage. And our littlest grandkids, she says, “When I grow up, I want to have coffee with my husband.” And the reason she says that, because she sees Kath and I drinking coffee-
Jim: Yeah.
Tim: … and reading the Bible and praying together. She’s six now, but she was four and a half when that happened. So they see everything.
Jim: Yeah. Well, again, in that modeling, you know, we don’t understand how we model things-
Tim: Mm-hmm..
Jim: … before Christ, after Christ, and if, if we’re not doing it well, the kids see it, and they understand it, and they start to repeat it. That’s the breaking of the cycles that you’ve talked about the last couple of days, and this has been terrific. I mean, that’s what’s so good. Kathy, um, and really let’s end with both of you answering this question, you know, those couples that feel stuck, uh, they’re identifying, your story has so much, so many touch points with people, whether it was childhood abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, whatever it might have been, how that distorted how you process life, and then how God reeled you in, even with all those shortcomings. I am amazed that you guys are married.
Kathy: (laughs)
Jim: I mean, it’s that kind of story, it’s like, “Oh my, if a couple can survive this, couples can survive anything,” and you guys have demonstrated that. So really, it’s that last piece of advice to the couple watching or listening going, “Man, we’re living part of that story. What do we need to do to have what they have?” What do you say to them?
Kathy: Well, first, I want to say not are we just married, but we are in a thriving marriage; because there’s a difference-
Jim: Yeah.
Kathy: … because we were just married for a lot of years. But I, I would say the biggest thing is, is hang in there, be committed, and with the power of Christ, you can have a thriving marriage. And I know for Tim and I, our, our commitment to being in God’s word every day, we’ve t- you’ve talked about that so much, and I know there’s so many Christians out there that don’t read God’s word, and if you don’t know the blueprint for your life and what God wants for your life, you, you’re not gonna know. I didn’t know what God wanted for me as a wife. I had no idea what my role was as a wife until I read it in the word. I mean, He tells us how to live our life, and how to live it so that we’re blessed. And I believe that if you’re a wife and you’re struggling in your marriage, the first thing that you need to do is get your life right with Christ. And that’s how you’re gonna have a great marriage, you’re gonna be a great wife, and, but it’s just getting lined up with Christ.
Jim: And it’s not just the head knowledge of that-
Kathy: No.
Jim: … it’s gotta be the heart, the head-
Kathy: It’s gotta-
Jim: … it’s reading it, it’s living it-
Kathy: Right.
Jim: … and when you make mistakes, apologize, and keep moving-
Kathy: Right.
Jim: … I think those are the paybacks. Tim, any,
Tim: That’s pretty good, I know it’s pretty good.
Jim: You can add to it.
Kathy: (laughs)
Tim: Well, I, I really do have just a couple, I agree with Kathy and everything she said. I can tell you that when you realize that your wife… and guys, I’m talking to you whether you’re not a Christian, or you’re thinking about it, or you’re a, a long-term believer, your wife’s a gift from God, she’s the daughter of the King, and I want her to feel that way. And grabbing her hand and praying with her, and then when I say, “Every day, I thank God for the gift of my wife,” and she hears that, I think there’s something powerful in that. Every wife wants to feel like she’s a gift, and other than my salvation, Kath is my greatest gift on this earth. And I couldn’t always say that, because I used to think I was my greatest gift.
Kathy: (Laughs).
Tim: And so, and that’s a complete transformation because she is so amazing, but seeing our sons see that and their wives, and seeing our grandkids see us, and how they interact with Kath and their girlfriends, I, I love it. And I, I think, uh, long-term believers could catch something from that too because-
Jim: Without a doubt.
Tim: Yeah.
Jim: Without a doubt. Tim and Kathy, your honesty has been so refreshing. And to those of you listening, I hope you feel a renewed energy to be intentional in building your family on a foundation of faith, whatever stage of life you’re in. We have so many great resources to help you do that. Uh, one of those resources is Hope Restored. If you’re facing a crisis in your marriage, or even if you just feel stuck in a rut, which many of us married couples do from time to time, I hope you’ll consider attending. And, uh, you know, divorce statistics are still devastating, too many marriages are breaking up, but particularly Christian marriages, and we can help, uh, reduce that number significantly. Hope Restored has an 80% post-two-year success rate, that means 80% of the couples that have gone through the program two years later are still married and doing better. Uh, that is worth investigating.
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Uh, one of the ways you can participate in ministry with us is by donating. When you make a donation of any amount, you can get a copy of Tim and Kathy’s book, Sex on the First Date, as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry and helping other couples.
John: Yeah, find information about Hope Restored, donate, and get your copy of Tim and Kathy’s book, Sex on the First Date, when you call 800, the letter A, and the word family, 800-232-6459. Or we’ve got details for you at FocusontheFamily.com/broadcast. And thanks for listening today to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
