Preview:
Erin Smalley: The difference between happy couples and unhappy couples is that happy couples, they have the same amount of fights and disagreements, conflict as the other couples, unhappy couples. Happy couples repair. They come back to it. They talk about it.
End of Preview
John Fuller: Mm. Well, today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we’ll have some really helpful ideas for your marriage so you can be a happier couple. Uh, thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: Uh, today, we have good news for couples who feel like they’re always fighting about the same thing. Uh, that seems normal. Uh, the key is what you do after the conflict. Do you sit and stew, or do you try to soften your heart and reach out to the heart of your spouse? Today, we’re sharing an upbeat workshop on this very topic featuring our own, Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife, Erin, who head up our marriage ministry here at Focus. Uh, Greg and Erin are the authors of several books and you’re about to hear, they are very engaging speakers.
John: And they really are. And, uh, here now are Greg and Erin Smalley speaking at a couple’s conference sponsored by Focus on the Family.
Greg Smalley: We all deal with hard times-
Erin: Mm.
Greg: … even with simple things like conflict and that’s really, I think, what God’s been working in our own marriage is just really learning how to repair that. Because when we think about conflict, I think that most of us were taught when it comes to conflict that we need to learn how to resolve that, right? I mean, do a simple Google search of conflict resolution and millions, billions of information is gonna pop up, ’cause that’s what we imagine when there’s something going here, how do we resolve this?
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And the unfortunate part is that we’ve been taught something that actually is not even true. We hate the term, within marriage, conflict resolution, because it sets us up, we think to fail in a lot of ways because there’s some amazing research that really explains why that often doesn’t work within our marriage.
Erin: Mm-hmm. So, probably the foremost expert in our country on marriage research is a guy named Dr. John Gottman. What he found is that 70% of relationship conflict is about perpetual problems. So, they’re arguments that never go away and they’re not fully resolved. They happen over and over and over again. So 70% of the time, we’re gonna argue about something probably pretty similar to what we argued about last time.
Greg: Yeah.
Erin: And so, we’re gonna run through just some examples of, “What does this look like? What are those perpetual problems?” They’re things that don’t change.
Greg: Yeah.
Erin: It’s very consistent.
Greg: Yeah. In kind of two big buckets of this idea of perpetual things that just…that they don’t ever go away. We just keep dealing with them over and over-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … and over again. So one would just be personality differences.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: Right? Erin’s an extrovert. So Erin, it’s beautiful to watch Erin. She’s- the way she loves on people and the sheer volume of relationships that she has. For me as an introvert, I always tell people, “I only have friends because my extroverted wife has set me up on play dates with other men.”
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: (laughs) So, seriously. She came home one time, she said, “Hey, by the way, Wednesday, you’re gonna have lunch with Fred.” And I went, “I’m sorry, who?” “Fred. I met his wife. He’s amazing.” “How do you know? Do you meet him?” “No, but she just speaks so highly of him.”
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: “I’m not having lunch with Fred.”
Erin: And …
Greg: And now, he’s one of my very best friends. So …
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: But it’s perpetual, because it’s not like in spite of her constant prayer, it’s not like tomorrow I’m gonna wake up and be an extrovert, right? So that we can have all these people over because how many times do we argue and debate if we’re gonna have people over during the week?
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: She’s always saying, “Hey, by the way, so-and-so last night.”
Erin: Yes.
Greg: “So-and-so’s gonna be over there.”
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: I’m like, “Oh.”
Erin: We had three people over last night.
Greg: “They’re terrible people. Why would you even want them over?”
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: So that’s not gonna change. It’s perpetual. We’ve been arguing about how many nights that we do stuff with others for-
Erin: Mm.
Greg: … 31 years.
Erin: Yeah.
Greg: So …
Erin: How about the early and late? Like sometimes, one of the spouses will stay up, um, be a night owl. The other one will be an early morning person. And I know for… you are the early morning person. Greg will get up, and he is just ready to go at 5:00 AM. Ugh, I don’t even-
Greg: (laughs)
Erin: I never even roll over at 5:00 AM.
Greg: (laughs)
Erin: It is … I’m much more of like a 7:00 AM girl, but I like to stay up late and that’s not gonna change.
Greg: Yeah.
Erin: That’s consistent.
Greg: We always tell couples, “You know, if one of you is late night, one of you early, just at least start off in bed together. Just have that time.” And then Erin will get up in-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … and after I fall asleep. I remember one time I come down 5:00 in the (laughs) morning and get to the bottom of the stairs, and I ram into a massive picnic table that wasn’t there the night before.
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: And I’m like, “Do we have gnomes? Or what, what, what, what? Where did (laughs) this come from?”
Erin: You went to bed. I had got this table. I had bought it earlier in the day. It needed to be assembled, so I called a friend at like 10:00 PM and said, “Hey, you wanna come over and help me put this table together?”
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: So we did. I was in bed by one.
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: (laughs) She has a whole ‘nother life-
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: … that I don’t even know about.
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: Yeah. (laughs) “That’s my 1:00 AM friend there.”
Erin: (laughs)
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: “I’d love to introduce you.” Yeah. I mean, it can be one of you is very logical. One of you is very emotional. One of you has lots of words. The other doesn’t have hardly any words. Sense of humor can be …
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: Man.
Erin: Pace.
Greg: Yeah, exactly.
Erin: I run a much faster pace than you. And thank goodness what I will say is your pace slows me down. That’s good. It’s good.
Greg: So again, the point is that when it comes to personality, I mean, those conflicts, those disagreements that we get in around that kinda sit, it’s perpetual.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: It’s not like we’re gonna resolve that. The other big bucket too is what we’d call lifestyle differences.
Erin: Totally. And one of my favorite differences between us is I love to have lights on in the house.
Greg: Ugh.
Erin: I cannot tell you the number of times-
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: And it’s not every light. It’s just a few-
Greg: (laughs)
Erin: … lights, very strategically placed to create like a soothing mood. Today alone, I think before we left, I turned a light on and you turned it off no less than like five times.
Greg: ‘Cause we’re leaving to come down here.
Erin: I walk into a room and I turn it on. I know.
Greg: I’m like, “Why is that still on?”
Erin: And even leaving, I’m like, “Olive, the dog, needs a light on.”
Greg: (laughs) Uh, she always says that, “I’m just trying to create a mood.”
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: I’m like, “Well, if the mood is utter irritation-”
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: “… you know, then you, you’re-”
Erin: Yeah.
Greg: “… successfully-”
Erin: I always-
Greg: “… creating that mood.”
Erin: I would try to convince him that, “Actually, you’re wasting more energy by turning it off, just leave it on.” You know, kind of like if you turn a car on and off.
Greg: It’s exactly-
Erin: Right?
Greg: … like that.
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: Yes. Well, there was an electrical engineer sitting in the front row at one of our events and he came up at the break and he said, “Actually, Erin, you’re wrong. It’s better to turn it off.” So now we know.
Greg: I hugged him.
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: Yes. (laughs)
Greg: As painful as an introvert as I was-
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: … boy, I hugged him. Yeah. I mean, (laughs) rather … I mean, communication, right?
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: Uh, household responsibilities, just the differences. I mean, if you’re cooking, man, everything’s out and there’s mess everywhere.
Erin: Cupboard doors are open everywhere.
Greg: Now, when, when I cook, I just love to clean along the way so that when we sit down to eat, you know, it’s mainly 90% cleaned up. And-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And so this one time… so we were frying up some chicken or something. I don’t remember what we were doing, but we were using her grandmother- seriously, big, huge glass lid. So, we finish. And so, I take the lid and I go to set it in the sink. And she yells out, “Whoa! Don’t you run water over that!” I’m like, “I am 40 something.”
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: “I’m an adult man. I know what I’m doing. I know how to clean.” And so I grab something (laughs) else and bring it over. Forget that the lid, piping hot lid, is right there. Turn the water on, and it was like an explosion went off.
Erin: Mm.
Greg: And I told her, “You probably shouldn’t run water over that-”
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: Yeah.
Greg: “… um, after all.” So, yeah. But even that’s a difference.
Erin: Yeah.
Greg: I mean, again-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … all these things, lifestyle differences, you know, temperature. Do you guys ever battle about temperature in the house?
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: (laughs) Oh man. I mean, the point is that that’s the stuff that we’re talking about. That’s all this perpetual stuff. We don’t resolve that stuff.
Erin: Mm-hmm. And so couples are going to return to the same things over and over again. And Dr. John Gottman found that the difference between happy couples and unhappy couples is that happy couples, they have the same amount of fights and disagreements, conflict as the unhappy couples. Happy couples repair. They come back to it. They talk about it. And so often, couples don’t go back. They don’t have that conversation of coming back after the fact. They don’t sit down right in the middle of it and try to resolve it because hearts are closed. It won’t go well. So how do we repair conflict like Dr. Gottman says?
Greg: Yeah, I love, he has a line that says, “All couples argue. Successful couples repair.” That is really where God has us. Just really, what does that look like? Because we do (laughs) frustrate each other. We do get into conflict and just especially for me, because I think you do that much better. You’re better at repairing than I am.
Erin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greg: So it’s really something I’ve been trying to learn to do. And so, we love the verse out of 1 Peter 3:7. So it says, “Likewise, husbands live with your wife in an understanding way.” What I like about that word, understanding, is that it actually, another way to say that word, understanding, is compassionate. So really, what it’s saying: husbands live with your wives in a compassionate way. It’s all about care.
John: You’re listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and, uh, we’re featuring Greg and Erin Smalley today. And you’ll find more insight in Greg’s book called Fight Your Way to a Better Marriage. We’ll send that to you for a gift of any amount to the ministry today and we’ll include a free audio download of this entire presentation. Donate and request those at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast, or you can call for details. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, 800-232-6459. Let’s return now to more from Greg and Erin Smalley.
Greg: The essence, the goal that we’re discovering around repairing these things that these perpetual problems is really how do we just care that, you know, I blew up your antique-
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: … (laughs) you know, nine generation lid or whatever. So, how do we repair in those moments? And so, that’s really what we wanna talk. You’ve got some notes there. I’m just gonna hit three things that kinda make sense to us as we go to repair this.
The first one really is all around… if I’m gonna repair something, so something has happened, got an argument about, you know, the fourth night in a row that we’ve had people over or the lights being on or the temperature causing us all this whatever.
So, the first thing that has to happen is that, again, whatever, in spite of Erin, whatever she’s doing, I can choose to become humble. Because the great verse in Proverbs that talks about that pride leads to conflict.
So, so much of this perpetual stuff that goes on and how it’s hard to repair that stuff is I just get prideful. I think I’m right.
You know, the verse that talks about do nothing out of, what, selfish ambition or vain conceit. The beautiful part of that verse, selfish ambition, vain conceit. Vain conceit is when we’re excessively proud of our own opinion. (laughs) That is so me. So often I’m so excessively proud of how I see things or my perspective.
Saw this one time. Uh, our son, Garrison, and I loved to watch basketball. We just loved to watch sports together. So it was March Madness. So, it was one of those weekends that there were so many great games on. And really, Garrison and I spent the entire weekend in our basement just watching games. We didn’t shower, you know.
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: We’d beg Erin to bring us food. We didn’t wanna miss anything. It was just one of those weekends. So now it was kinda late Sunday, right?
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And so you came down.
Erin: Mm-hmm. And I just was checking in with Garrison. I knew he had a big project due on Monday. “Hey son, you’ve completed the project, right?” And he’s like, “Oh no, I haven’t.” And so we got into a conversation about just suggesting maybe he goes upstairs and starts the project Sunday night.
Greg: Oh, there was like a minute left in this game that we were so into. It was a great game. So I said, “Hey, there’s like a minute left.”
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: “Just, just, ha- just … Well, I’ll send him up when he’s done and you’re being a little hard on the kid.” Oh, man. (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: Oh. Have you ever seen one of those scary movies-
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: … to where the monster thing all of a sudden starts turning slowly?
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: The head kinda goes all the way around? ‘Cause that’s what she did. And I could swear at some moment, her eye is like a great white kind of rolled back and it was just white.
Erin: Oh. (laughs)
Greg: So she’s just now locked onto me and I’m thinking, “Oh, no.” So she goes, “Garrison, why don’t you go up and start in on your homework? Your father and I need to talk.”
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: I was like, “No, we (laughs) don’t need to.”
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: (laughs) “Really. Uh, you win. I was wrong. It’s a … We’re talking.”
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: So we began to discuss all of this and me, I just kept going on and on.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And what, what I’ve learned a lot of times within our marriage is that, obviously, there’s no winners or losers, you know, in a situation like this, but to quote unquote, often “win” these things by simply wearing Erin down. I just kinda win by attrition. She just gets tired.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: (laughs) And so she gets worn out. She’s like, “Okay, my head is splitting. I don’t know where we are. And I’m just gonna go. I’ll see you up in bed.” So Erin starts to climb our basement stairs. Then she stops, turns around again, (laughs) looks right at me and she goes, “And by the way.” She goes, “Your mother warned me that this is what you would do-”
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: “… anytime we had an argument.” And then she just left and kept going right-
Erin: (laughs)
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: … up the stairs. (laughs)
Erin: It was like 25 years into our marriage, so I decided that was a good time to share that piece of information.
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: Yes. So, how do we repair that kind of stuff? ‘Cause that is the kind of stuff that happens.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: So at some point, I have to go off and spend some time with the Lord really looking for a humbled heart-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … instead of a prideful heart. Because as Erin left, actually her comment really bothered me, not because I was like, “Oh, that was so disrespectful for … So snarky.” Like none of that. What bothered me, “Was that actually true? (laughs) Like, did my mother really warn you this is how it’d be?”
Erin: Mm-hmm. (laughs)
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: (laughs) Yes. It was, it was not, it was rhetorical, by the way.
Erin: Okay.
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: So-
Erin: My head didn’t move. (laughs)
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: “I’m triggered now.” So it just bothered me. And again, I love how God shows up, because the next morning, you know, often when our kids would be getting ready and we were out in the kitchen and we had this little devo. And so I’d just read a quick devo. And so this one was on that Proverbs verse. It just said, “Pride leads to conflict.” And it just was like, “Okay, fine Lord. I get it.”
And so, there’s just something about just that Philippians 2, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,” but in what? “But in humility, consider others, you know, is more important.”
So the, just that moment what I’ve learned is if we’re really gonna repair something, I’ve gotta go off with the Lord, spend some time, get my heart back open so that we can actually have a dialogue, right?
Erin: Mm-hmm. So once you have your humble self on, so often I’ll just go, “What would my humble self do right now in this situation?” And it kind of takes me to that place. But then it’s coming and establishing a dialogue between the two of you. So it’s, we’ve gotten really good at just going, “Hey, um, I really need a repair. You know, that thing that happened, can we talk about it? Are you available?”
And we like to use the language, “Are you available to have a heart talk?” Because it’s indicating, I wanna talk about something of the heart, feelings, emotions. I wanna offer that. And it’s always nice to ask, like, “Are you available?” Because maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re not there. Maybe your heart’s still closed, you’re still triggered, you’re not ready to engage. And so, just asking.
Greg: Yeah.
Erin: And inviting you into that so you don’t feel … I know often you’ll say you feel like when I don’t invite you in, you feel like you’re drafted in.
Greg: Hijacked, I think is the word-
Erin: Hijacked.
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: … I used, but yes.
Erin: Hijacked, drafted, it kinda goes hand in hand.
Greg: The same thing. Yeah.
Erin: And, you know, straight out of James 1:19, be, um, quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. And with that open heart recognizing we’re teammates, we’re on the same team. We can establish this dialogue and work towards repair together. And so, humble ourselves, establish the dialogue, but then simply leaning in and caring about, “How’s your spouse feeling?”
So often, we go logic and we wanna, you know, “Nope, that didn’t happen, or it happened this way, or it didn’t happen.” Versus just sitting and listening, like, “What are they feeling?” And being curious about, “What happened for them? What was that like for them?”
Greg: Yeah. Teamwork and just that we’re on the same team.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And Erin is great at that. “Hey, can we repair something? ‘Cause, hey, we’re on the same team here.”
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And that makes such a big difference. I remember I was super stressed out. We were selling a home and, uh, the buyers wanted a whole bunch of our furniture. And so on one hand, I was like, “Cool.” Because, I mean, we’d had this furniture for a long time.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: But Erin continued to talk with our daughters about all this stuff then that is an extrovert.
Erin: And just dreaming.
Greg: You know, just dreaming about-
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: … all this stuff that we could then buy. And so I’m just hearing dollar signs, and it was just stressing me out, the whole thing. And so this one time, we were just all sitting in our little living room kinda a couple weeks before we’re supposed to move out and just listening to Erin and the girls just talk and they’re adding stuff in and-
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: … stuff we never even talked about. And it just overloaded me. And so, I said rather loud, very, very sharp, “Erin, come on! We’ve talked about this. You gave me your word that you’re gonna stick within a budget. Like everything you’re talking about, that’s like double our budget. Come on, man!”
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: And everybody just went silent looking at me because I said that with so much energy, probably more energy than I intended, but clearly I was triggered. And so they’re all just staring at me. Well, Erin doesn’t say a word. She just gets up. She crossed the room. She just walks straight at me. And I just remember thinking the way that she’s moving, so purposeful-
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: … so quick right at me that I remember just kinda leaning back-
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: … thinking it’s gonna happen. I mean, 31 ye- … “Oh my goodness, this the day is that she’s gonna smack me upside the head or something.”
Erin: (laughs)
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: And she came right over and she grabs the sides of my cheeks and just pulls me right, (laughs) right eye level to her. And I really have no idea what to think. And she goes, “You listen to me.” She goes, “You and I are on the same team and therefore we either will win together or we’re gonna lose together. I won’t spend a dime unless it’s something that feels good to both of us.” And then she planted this super big kiss right on my lips-
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: … and then just let go and I kind of fumbled back.
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: And then she just went and sat (laughs) down and just kept going, making out her dream list.
Erin: (laughs)
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: I will never forget that moment though.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: You talk about establishing a dialogue-
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: … by reminding me that we’re …
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: “Hey, we got this.”
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And so we did later on that night. She said, “Hey, let’s repair this.” Or I think maybe I even said, “Can we repair that?”
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: So as I apologized … But again, we… I need moments to get my heart back open. I need to be humbled.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: Then we establish that dialogue. “We’re on the same team. Let’s repair this.”
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: “What do, what do we need to repair?”
Erin: Yeah.
Greg: And you’re right. Then it’s just caring.
Erin: Caring.
Greg: Yeah.
Erin: ‘Cause even in that moment, I was able, I was sitting there. I’m like, “What is happening for him right now? Oh, he thinks I’m gonna do something that I’m gonna go buy things that he doesn’t know about.” And I’m like, “Oh, that’s ridiculous. We’re teammates.” And so, being able to recognize something’s going on over there, oftentimes we begin taking it personally and that’s when we get triggered. And so, it allowed me to just lean in and just care what was happening over there and then give you a big ol’ kiss.
Greg: Man.
Audience: (laughs)
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: That rocked my world.
Audience: (laughs)
Greg: What it’s done is it’s just, again, within our own marriage. It’s just such a great reminder for me-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … that I’m not trying to resolve anything. More than anything, this is just an opportunity for us just to care about how the other felt and what was that-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … like when I, with all that energy. (laughs) You know, it did feel a wee bit controlling and whatever. I mean, these are small, quick little conversation. There’s bigger stuff that we gotta repair.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And that can take a little bit longer. Her and I will probably need at least an hour, you know, right?
Erin: (laughs)
Greg: Just really easily. But I mean that… but more than anything, I’m just leaning in, listening to the feelings. I love the quote that says, “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” And that’s exactly right, just to lean in, “What was that like for you?”
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And whatever the situation, all this perpetual stuff is just gonna keep happening again and again. We’re not gonna solve-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … the introvert, extrovert deal. But man, we can care about how that felt when one of us… you’re hurt because I’ve said, “I can’t have anybody over. I’m hurt because we’ve had too many people.” Whatever it is. That’s what we’re really learning to do that whole lot better.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: And again, the easy thing for me is just now going up to her and saying, “Hey, that interaction we just had a while ago, do we need to repair anything?” And there’s sometimes-
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: … she’s like, “Eh, I know we’re both tired, we’re both hungry, whatever.” But there are plenty of times she’s like, “Yeah, that’d be good.” And I know what that means. I know my goal is just to go after her heart, hear the emotions, care about how she felt.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: She does that for me. And we just, we’re just watching that make such a big difference.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: It’s hard.
Erin: Mm-hmm.
Greg: ‘Cause again, I get all up in my head and I wanna debate. I wanna be right. And we’re learning how to do that differently.
Erin: Mm-hmm. Because again, remember, the scripture says, “Those who marry will face many trials and troubles.” How do we do that in a way that we can come back together and repair those trials and troubles if it’s between us? Because I believe that is the design.
John: And that’s where we’ll have to end this presentation from Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife, Erin. And if you’re curious, Erin was referring, just then, to 1 Corinthians 7:28, uh, from the Apostle Paul.
Jim: Yeah, and it’s worth repeating. Paul said, “Those who marry will have worldly troubles.” But as we’ve seen, healthy couples can grow closer by overcoming those troubles as a team. That’s God’s design. And we have a great free resource for you to check out. It’s called the Reactive Cycle Assessment. It’s a 10-minute quiz that will help you identify the hot buttons that might make an argument worse because a core fear has been triggered. It’s really enlightening and I know mine. I mean, I can feel it. Then you gotta go to work on how to fix those things.
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And you can also learn more about our Hope Restored four-day marriage intensives, which have an 80% success rate. Scholarships are available, so please let us help your marriage.
John: Yeah, please call us, uh, to speak with a counselor or to learn more about Hope Restored. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.
Now, as Jim said, if you can pledge $30 a month to this ministry, we’ll send you the Smalleys’ book, plus Jim’s special coffee and the travel mug that we use here in the studio with our guests. Take advantage of this limited time offer when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or donate online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Next time, Sheila Walsh gives us a beautiful glimpse of what heaven will be like.
Preview:
Sheila Walsh: I believe that all those longings will be fulfilled in heaven. Artists will paint with colors they’ve never seen. Musicians will write songs that we’ve never heard those notes before. And all those things that are buried deep inside of us will come to fruition.
End of Preview
John: And on behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.
