Marriage Advice with Lisa Bevere

what is your top five pieces of advice

to anybody in their marriage early late

wherever they’re at and this is the top

five welcome to loving fearlessly this

is my home and I want to feel like you

and I are sitting across the sofa

talking to one another I had the

privilege of having so many people

participate they said we have questions

that we would love to have you talk

about or answer if we had an hour

together you with you this is the one

thing or this is the two things and in

this session we’re going to be talking

about another way to love fearlessly I

got a great question said what is your

top five pieces of advice to anybody in

their marriage early late wherever

they’re at and this is is the top five

marriage advice first and foremost love

fearlessly this is what we’re talking

about we’re talking about love

fearlessly this is the overarching theme

what do you mean love fearlessly well

perfected love has no fear so I’m asking

you to actually look at your life and

begin to separate love and fear just

going to tell you in my own life John

and I have been married 37 years and

there’s one thing I regret I wish I

would have loved my husband more

fearlessly early on I wish I wouldn’t

have held back and you think what what

do you mean well see I came from a very

broken family my parents were divorced

not once but twice and so I didn’t know

what family looked like I had never seen

it modeled and so I felt like kind of in

the back of my mind I always thought all

men will one day leave all men will one

day disappoint don’t give all of your

heart because if you give all of your

heart and they leave you’ll have nothing

left your life will be empty it’ll be

devastated it’ll be utterly broken so

you know what I did with my husband I

loved him just a portion I wasn’t all in

I was like you know what I love you 70%

now that didn’t mean I wasn’t nice to

him but somehow he knew that I wasn’t

giving my all to him and so I reserved

some pushed back a little bit was always

the first one to start patting him when

we hugged to push him away and he said

to me you know Lisa I’m not your dad I’m

not going to leave I don’t know how long

we are going to have to be married

before you actually believe me that I’m

not looking for a reason to leave you

and I looked at him and I thought

that is so unfair but I also knew he was

right he said Lisa if we need to wait to

we’re 70 and you turn around and you

look at me and say oh you’re still here

I expected you to leave 20 years ago

he’s like I’m okay with that but we are

going to miss an awful lot of great

times in the interim so I said all right

you’re completely correct and I got on

my knees and I said God I don’t know how

to love fearlessly I don’t know how to

do this I need you to help me and you

know what God wants me to love

fearlessly and God wants you to love

fearlessly and so I’m going to unack

that a little deeper in the next section

next thing so first love fearlessly and

this is part of loving fearlessly

forgive quickly forgive quickly I have

learned that the longer it goes to

resolve something the more reasons I

have for not resolving it’s grows in my

mind it gets bigger you know I would

when John I first married we’d go to bed

I would still be mad at him and he would

like do ridiculous things like pull off

the bed spread stand up turn on all the

lights and say we are going to work this

out before we go to sleep we’re not

supposed to let the sun go down in our

wrath and I would say you know what we

started fighting but it was already dark

I have until sundown tomorrow and he’d

be like that’s not scriptural I was

looking for reasons to hold on and to

not forgive quickly so I remember I

would have bad dreams about him that

night we’d have a fight I’d be like you

were even mean in my dreams he’d be like

I was not in your dreams I don’t know

what you’re talking about and I would

carry into my next day and I would be on

edge forgive quickly that doesn’t mean

you’ll have it all figured out that

doesn’t mean you’ll have it all resolved

it just means you’ve taken the first

step forgive quickly decide I you know

that really hurt me but I’m going to

forgive you I’m going to believe the

best in you I don’t know how many of you

have ever gone to God and said I am so

sorry he has never said to me Lisa I

can’t forgive you right now I’m going to

put this on hold for uh three months and

then you can come back when I feel like

you have paid enough no he always is

quick to forgive me and what I sense in

my spirit is that God says to me Lisa I

believe you don’t want to do this I

believe you want to change and I forgive

you so believe the best forgive quickly

forgive quickly so love fearlessly

forgive quickly laugh a lot you need to

laugh a lot life is utterly ridiculous

you need to have joy in your life you

need to learn to laugh a lot you know

one of my favorite scriptures is in the

Psalms and I believe it’s Psalm 128 but

that could be wrong it’s about those

that fear the lord it says there’s

feasting and laughter around the table

why because when we honor God God

creates community and love and laughter

in our lives he says he said because you

wouldn’t serve me with joy and gladness

he said you’re going to serve your

enemies in fear so we don’t want to

think that God isn’t about laughter

about Joy about family around the table

God wants laughter in your marriage he

wants joy in your marriage John and I

love to laugh together we have

completely different senses of humor he

finds things funny that I don’t think

funny but you know what I think it’s

funny that he finds it funny so it’s

still kind of works so laugh a lot

develop an atmosphere of laugh laughing

with each other not laughing at each

other that’s not going to work for you

so when you can learn to laugh at

yourself you move outside of yourself

next thing honor one another honor one

another honor one another when you’re

together but almost even more important

honor one another when you are not

together I can’t tell you the regret I

have that when I was young and I didn’t

know how to go through a marriage issue

I told way too many people about the

struggles we were in and I Dishonored my

husband now you think well no you were

looking for Solutions I wasn’t going to

the right people see if you’re going to

somebody that can actually help you then

you’re honoring your relationship

because you’re going to somebody that

you can build with but that’s not what I

was doing I was like all men are jerks

can you believe this or maybe I wasn’t

even the one that started it maybe

somebody else was there and they were

talking about the Terrible Things They

were going through with their husband

and I thought well I need to add my

portion of that protect your marriage

with what you say honor your marriage by

going to people who can help you because

I’m going to tell you what happens when

you talk to too many people or people

that AR for both of you then when you

resolve the thing and those people come

back into your world they have a really

hard time seeing your husband the same

way they’re like that guy’s a jerk and

you’re like yeah he was a jerk but he’s

not that person anymore and they’re like

yeah you just don’t know what you’re

talking about so we always want to have

this ability to talk about believing the

best and bringing out the best now if

your husband’s doing horrible things and

he’s threatening your life or breaking

your spirit or there’s something really

unhealthy you don’t honor that you don’t

honor that I’m talking about maybe

you’re annoyed with your husband or

maybe he did this be careful about just

going out with your girlfriends and

having a talk about it so anytime you’re

in danger we want to see you go to

somebody who can make sure you’re safe

so this isn’t what we’re talking about

so we don’t want to compare we don’t

want to compare our husband to other

people’s husband again going back to did

we like it if they’re like hey she

literally looks good she looks like she

takes care of herself and works out you

should work out that’s not honoring a

wife that’s not honoring a wife and when

you compare your husband to somebody

else’s husband it’s also dishonoring I

remember telling my husband John so and

so prays with his wife every day you

never pray with me that was a comparison

thing that had my husband looking worse

so you don’t want to do that so let’s

honor one another and fight for your

relationship rather than trying to prove

you are right see now you can be right

you can push your point and you can be

absolutely right but it’s more important

to be rightly related when you are in a

relationship sometimes if you say you

need to hear me and acknowledge I’m

right see I did that to my husband my

husband would come to me and say what do

you think we should do should we do this

or this I’d be like you need to do this

and he’d be like I think I’m going to do

this I’d be like are you serious he

would do that then I would follow him

around and say you do remember I told

you not to do it you do remember I’m the

one who told you that would be a bad

idea and I thought that John would be

like oh Lisa you are wise and wonderful

you alone are right but that’s not what

happened he pulled pulled away from me

and stopped counseling with me sometimes

you have to actually position people

where together you find the right answer

and you can say it in the right way

being right all the time is overrated

you don’t want to do it you don’t want

to be it it kind of sounds like a smart

elic so we got to actually be women who

are wise and women who are wise aren’t

constantly proving their own state of

wisdom they’re actually drawing other

people into a place of wisdom so I’m

going to go over this again love

fearlessly forgive quickly laugh a lot

honor one another and fight for your

relationship so those are my top five

pieces of advice for your marriage and I

can’t wait to dive deeper into loving

fearlessly in the next

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session

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