A few years ago, Andrea and I were asked to speak on the first night of FamilyLife’s Love Like You Mean It Cruise. The ship had a huge theater where over 1,000 couples gathered to be encouraged to love one another “like you mean it.”
We were sharing with the couples how our differences as husband and wife can sometimes cause us to drift into isolation if we don’t view them as opportunities to extend grace in our marriage.
During the talk, Andrea took off in a direction that I had not anticipated. She said something that I had not heard her say before. It’s not that she had never said it. It’s just that I had never HEARD her. But saying it into a microphone in front of 2,000 people, while her voice was being amplified and her image magnified on a screen, has a way of getting the message through to a husband who needs to learn to listen better.
Here is what she said: “Let me tell you how different Trent and I are. When I got married, it was my dream to have a simple life, living in a simple house in the warmth of the South, near my extended family, where I could enjoy seeing my sister, brother, aunts, uncles, and cousins.” (One of whom is Ed Helms. Yep, Andy from The Office.)
“But, that was not Trent’s dream. Trent’s dream was to do hard things for God. So, for the first fifteen years of our marriage, we lived in an RV travel trailer, traveling to over 400 churches doing ministry. Then, he felt God’s call to plant a church. I was sure that would mean we could settle down somewhere in the South. But, no, we planted a church in Granger, Indiana, where the sun shines 74 days a year, the temperature rarely gets above 74 degrees, and it gets 74 inches of snow.”
While she was speaking to the crowd, the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. “Are you listening? Can you hear her? Have you ever considered fulfilling your wife’s dream?”
You have to understand. Andrea loves to do hard things. I am amazed at her tenacity, productivity, and influence. But as someone who grew up on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, Andrea is solar powered. Her capacity to do hard things is directly proportionate to the amount of sun she receives. Without the warmth of the sun, her batteries die. But when she is warm, she is supercharged, easily powering through hard things that would mow others down.
But during our 13 years of planting and leading Gospel City Church in Granger, Indiana, the most often repeated sentence I heard from Andrea was, “I’m cold.” Not wanting to miss an opportunity to serve her, I kept turning up the thermostat in our home…until it was set to 78 degrees. But I would still find her in the living room wearing her Columbia winter coat.
Then she added another phrase, “I’m cold and I can’t get warm.” Then she lost 12 pounds, which is 12% of her body weight. Then she was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis, which caused nodules in her lungs, liver, and spleen, chronic pain, and…chills. One of the triggers of Sarcoidosis is Aspergillus mold, which Andrea had been exposed to in one of the trailers in which we lived.
In the midst of seeking God about all this, a book arrived at our home entitled Like the Shepherd: Leading Your Marriage with Love and Grace by my friend Robert Wolgamuth (a.k.a. Nancy DeMoss’s husband). When I opened it, I saw that Robert had written a personal note to me, concluding with the phrase “See page 89.”
This is what I found on page 89: “In Joshua’s final speech to God’s chosen people before they enter the Promised Land, he told them, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’” (Joshua 1:14) After centuries of slavery, travel, disruption, chaos, and pain, God was giving His people a homeland so they could rest. My friend, Pastor Trent Griffith, points out that Joshua went on to explain who was to benefit from this rest: ‘Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land.’ We are responsible for taking our wives to a place where they can rest, just as our Shepherd takes us to the same place. We have been called to this responsibility by virtue of our marriage, so we don’t need to ask permission to do this.”
Robert and Nancy had come to my church a year earlier when I was preaching through Joshua. I’m convinced God strategically placed Robert there to take notes from me to send a note back to me in his book.
Later, Robert shared with me how, in order to shepherd his wife, he left the career he had built in Orlando to move to Michigan. Now, I was realizing in order to shepherd mine, I might need to do the reverse. After 15 years of dragging her around the county in a trailer and 13 years of always feeling cold, it might be time for us to live in a place where she can rest.
And then I heard Andrea say something really hard for me to hear. “I’m cold, but you are colder. I could live in a cold climate if I had a warmer husband. But having to deal with both is really hard for me.”
That led me to ask God to allow me to give her both a warmer climate and a warmer husband. Soon afterward, I was offered a leadership position with FamilyLife, located in Orlando, Florida.
Message received.
Move initiated.
Dream resurrected.
Andrea and I have been married long enough to know we cannot look to one another to fulfill each other’s dreams. And we have walked with Christ long enough to know that no matter where we live, we will always be homesick for heaven.
Moving to a warmer climate was the easy part. Becoming a warmer husband—that’s harder. Harder than living in an RV. Harder than planting a church. Do I really want to do hard things for God?
Turns out God told me to keep Andrea warm long before I heard it from her. Ephesians 5:28–29 says, “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” My Greek lexicon tells me the word translated “cherish” literally means “to treat with tenderness and affection; conceived of as warming something up.”
Tenderness and affection are hard things for me, but I’m warming up to it.
Warming up means I must feel more deeply.
Warming up means I must speak more gently.
Warming up means I must show more empathy.
After three years of living in Florida, we would both say God has provided this season for us to warm up. We are still doing lots of hard things in lots of places. But we are doing them together. There are more hard things ahead for us, but I’m happy to report, “She’s warm and I’m warmer.”
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