# From Friendship To Forever (Guests: Kenneth & Tasha Cobbs Leonard)

An episode of [Dear Future Wifey](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506095537), 7 Jan 2026, 2 h 03 min.

Audio: https://prfx.byspotify.com/e/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/78a347aa-3282-4ac5-837c-a72300032082/293692a5-5b4e-44f3-89a3-b172011fe37c/5344a9e5-a3e6-4f87-961d-b3cb00776f7b/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ae4e871a-36ca-4d76-83c3-b172011fe393

In this powerful and transparent episode of Dear Future Wifey, Laterras Whitfield and Ashley sit down with Kenneth & Tasha Cobbs Leonard for a conversation that feels less like a podcast and more like a full-blown marriage seminar. Kenneth and Tasha open up about how friendship became the foundation of their forever, while also diving into real-time cultural and kingdom conversations. Tasha passionately defends Dr. Karri Bryant, shares her heart behind conversations on modesty, and brings wisdom with both grace and clarity. The couple also discusses: 1. How they manage and build their businesses together 2. The “why” behind their healthy lifestyle transformation 3. The vision and heart behind their church, The Purpose Place 4. What it really takes to steward marriage, health, faith, and purpose at the same time By the end of the episode, Laterras and Ashley admit it felt like they’d just attended a marriage seminar — full of practical gems, spiritual insight, and real-life wisdom every couple (and future couple) needs. Whether you’re married, preparing for marriage, or simply believing God for healthy love, this episode will challenge and encourage you. 👉 LIKE, COMMENT, & SUBSCRIBE for more faith-filled relationship conversations. 🎧 Available on all podcast platforms. CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST https://www.instagram.com/kennethleonardjr https://www.instagram.com/tashacobbsleonard PRE-ORDER LATERRAS R. WHITFIELD'S "STUDENT OF LOVE" https:/www.StudentofLove.com WANNA SEE BEHIND-THE-SCENES FOOTAGE? JOIN MY PATREON https://www.Patreon.com/laterrasrwhitfield SIGN UP FOR THE MAILING LIST https://bit.ly/LRWconnection PURCHASE "YOU (Dear Future Wifey)" Theme Song http://itunes.apple.com/album/id/1729993404 👑 SUPPORT OUR CAUSE Donate to Kingdom Royale: Empowering foster kids to become royalty: https://www.KingdomRoyale.com 👕 MERCH https://www.DearFutureWifey.com FOLLOW US 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearfuturewifeypodcast | https://www.instagram.com/laterrasrwhitfield 📘 Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/DearFutureWifey 🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfwifeypodcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome to the Diffre Twipy podcast. My home is Tasha
[0:03] Speaker 1: and Kenneth Leonard.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Let's go.
[0:07] Speaker 3: Look at y'all.
[0:08] Speaker 1: First of all, let's play attention to this outfit. Where'd
[0:11] Speaker 1: you get this wrong?
[0:11] Speaker 4: I got this from Tasha.
[0:14] Speaker 3: Mine is too.
[0:14] Speaker 5: I got all my mini y'all stop charity with my
[0:17] Speaker 5: sister Jerry Bryant.
[0:20] Speaker 3: Don't be doing the thing. I'm so encouraged by you.
[0:23] Speaker 3: I love you. Said church girls were bad too.
[0:26] Speaker 6: How did y'all meet? I was MD for a conference
[0:31] Speaker 6: called Gospel Heritage. We're rehearsing for Vish William Murphy. As
[0:35] Speaker 6: we're rehearsing, praise is what I do? She busts through
[0:38] Speaker 6: the door, y'all playing the wrong song. Y'all playing the
[0:40] Speaker 6: wrong song? I said, hey, how you doing? My name
[0:42] Speaker 6: is Kenneth Lennard. We'll get it taken care of.
[0:44] Speaker 3: Most of that is true. There was no door. I
[0:49] Speaker 3: was still growing.
[0:50] Speaker 5: God was working on my character and personality. From that
[0:53] Speaker 5: moment on, we became the.
[0:54] Speaker 6: Best of friendsis. This was literally before any records.
[0:57] Speaker 5: There were so many prophecies coming in. My mother would say,
[1:00] Speaker 5: I saw your name and lights. People will know your
[1:02] Speaker 5: name before they know your face. And so I started
[1:05] Speaker 5: to pray a prayer that God, if I'm going to
[1:07] Speaker 5: be on platforms, then I would love to know my
[1:10] Speaker 5: husband and know who he is, so that I would
[1:13] Speaker 5: have no concern or worry about you, know whether he
[1:16] Speaker 5: has he has any motives or not, and so to
[1:18] Speaker 5: meet him before all of this blew up?
[1:21] Speaker 7: Was it?
[1:24] Speaker 1: What started as a search for understanding became a journey
[1:27] Speaker 1: of transformation. Every letter that I wrote led me to
[1:31] Speaker 1: this day, the day I got married November the twenty second,
[1:36] Speaker 1: twenty twenty five.
[1:38] Speaker 8: Dear my forever, Forever is a long time. That's how
[1:43] Speaker 8: long I love you. Those lyrics echo through every fiber
[1:48] Speaker 8: of my soul at the very thought of you.
[1:51] Speaker 1: This journey has culminated with you as both the award
[1:55] Speaker 1: and the reward of my pursuit of love. You are
[1:58] Speaker 1: the award honor God placed before me, the recognition of growth,
[2:03] Speaker 1: healing and becoming the man I needed to be.
[2:06] Speaker 8: And you are the reward, the blessing given after endurance,
[2:12] Speaker 8: the gift promised to those who refuse to faint.
[2:16] Speaker 1: This isn't just our story, this is for all of us.
[2:21] Speaker 1: I'm the Terrassar.
[2:22] Speaker 4: Whitfield and I'm Ashley are Whitfield. Welcome to the podcasts.
[2:31] Speaker 1: Welcome to Dear Future Wifie podcast. I'm your host of
[2:33] Speaker 1: Tarassar Whitfield and.
[2:35] Speaker 4: I'm your co host Ashley R. Whitfield.
[2:38] Speaker 9: Listen, are you still shacking up with us? Because if
[2:42] Speaker 9: you are, we's married. Now it's time to stop shacking.
[2:46] Speaker 1: And make a commitment. Listen. Make sure you hit that
[2:48] Speaker 1: subscription button and subscribe. Make sure you're tearing your notification bells.
[2:52] Speaker 1: You be notified about upcoming episodes. And while you're at it,
[2:54] Speaker 1: go ahead and like this episode. Listen on January thirteen,
[2:59] Speaker 1: where we leasing the books Student of Love. I'm so
[3:03] Speaker 1: excited about that. You know, I've always talked about love
[3:06] Speaker 1: isn't about finding the right person, It's about becoming the
[3:09] Speaker 1: right person. A lot of times we are trying to
[3:11] Speaker 1: find what we aren't ourselves. Uh huh so yeah, So
[3:15] Speaker 1: I want you to become the love that you desire.
[3:17] Speaker 1: So make sure that you click the link in description
[3:20] Speaker 1: and purchase the books Student of Love. As a matter
[3:23] Speaker 1: of fact, take a moment and watch this promo. Student
[3:27] Speaker 1: of Love releases January thirteenth. But I want to share
[3:32] Speaker 1: with you a voice memo I received via text from
[3:36] Speaker 1: my friend Rachel Silver. Now always hire Rachel when I'm
[3:40] Speaker 1: working on major projects to help me ide aid and
[3:43] Speaker 1: organize my thoughts and ideas. And I did that with
[3:46] Speaker 1: Student of Love, and she challenged me a lot with
[3:49] Speaker 1: some of my thoughts and ideas.
[3:52] Speaker 2: But listen, listen, listen, listen to this, Hayle Harris.
[3:57] Speaker 7: I'm super super excited because in a few weeks, I
[4:01] Speaker 7: am going to be.
[4:02] Speaker 3: A married woman.
[4:04] Speaker 7: And as I reflect not only just on the relationship
[4:08] Speaker 7: that he and I have, but just over the last
[4:10] Speaker 7: few years, how God has really placed people like you
[4:12] Speaker 7: on my life to just help to bring forth new
[4:17] Speaker 7: insight and new purpose and.
[4:19] Speaker 3: Help to bring for growth.
[4:21] Speaker 7: I've always known that we would create something that would
[4:25] Speaker 7: impact the world, but I didn't always know that we
[4:28] Speaker 7: would create something that would impact my world. And so
[4:31] Speaker 7: as we were working on our last project, as you
[4:33] Speaker 7: were sharing your stories and sharing you know, just about
[4:36] Speaker 7: being a Student of Love and just about navigating this
[4:39] Speaker 7: thing called love, it really allowed me to gain you insight.
[4:43] Speaker 7: It allowed me to process not just internally, because you know,
[4:46] Speaker 7: I was processing verbally too, talking to you.
[4:50] Speaker 5: About things as well.
[4:51] Speaker 7: And even when it wasn't about me, just really allowed
[4:54] Speaker 7: that space and I appreciate that. And even when I
[4:57] Speaker 7: didn't agree with everything that you were saying.
[5:00] Speaker 2: I didn't let me not. I agree with a lot
[5:01] Speaker 2: of it, but not all of it.
[5:03] Speaker 7: I was still like, well, you know what, let me
[5:04] Speaker 7: try this out. Let me see what this is like
[5:06] Speaker 7: in real life. And so I got to try that
[5:08] Speaker 7: out while I was dating. I was dating him, and
[5:12] Speaker 7: I'm like, hey, I guess.
[5:14] Speaker 2: You know, maybe Willie Terence is saying it's.
[5:16] Speaker 7: Working a little bit because apparently I'm getting married a
[5:20] Speaker 7: couple of weeks. So it's just really been cool, and
[5:25] Speaker 7: it's been cool applying the things that God has given
[5:27] Speaker 7: you in my life. And I'm just I just I'm
[5:30] Speaker 7: just really grateful.
[5:32] Speaker 1: What are you waiting on? Pre order this book now?
[5:43] Speaker 2: Listen.
[5:43] Speaker 1: I'm so excited about today's episode. Y'all seen this dynamic
[5:49] Speaker 1: couple on the podcast when we did the podcast at
[5:53] Speaker 1: their church, and Tasha has been on the podcast individually,
[5:58] Speaker 1: but now we have the opportunity have both of them
[6:01] Speaker 1: on the Dear Future Wifie podcast. Welcome to the Dear
[6:03] Speaker 1: Future Wifeye Podcast. My homies, Tasha and Kenneth Leonard.
[6:08] Speaker 2: Let's go.
[6:12] Speaker 10: Yeah, listendin. You look relaxed. What does that mean to you?
[6:27] Speaker 6: It means no stress. It means that I've enjoyed the
[6:32] Speaker 6: fruit of good blessed me.
[6:35] Speaker 1: Amen. Thank y'all so much for coming to the wedding.
[6:39] Speaker 1: Uh that blessed us. I know. I told as I'm like,
[6:41] Speaker 1: you know, uh, Tasha and Kendle was not the podcast
[6:45] Speaker 1: was at the wedding and she was like.
[6:46] Speaker 2: Oh my god, I get to hug their necks or.
[6:48] Speaker 1: Whatever, and so thank y'all so much. What do you
[6:51] Speaker 1: think about that?
[6:52] Speaker 9: I just thought it was so amazing that they were there,
[6:54] Speaker 9: and I was very sad that I didn't get to
[6:56] Speaker 9: see y'all, but super happy by the video that you shared.
[7:01] Speaker 5: Yeah, we had an opportunity to send a video from
[7:05] Speaker 5: the car, so you guys to let you know that
[7:07] Speaker 5: it was such an honor to be there, y'all. It
[7:09] Speaker 5: was so beautiful, like every moment was just laced with
[7:15] Speaker 5: God's presence. It was excellent, beyond excellent. I mean, it
[7:21] Speaker 5: was just absolutely amazing to be there.
[7:23] Speaker 1: Yep.
[7:23] Speaker 3: So thank y'all for inviting us.
[7:25] Speaker 1: Oh man, I know that when you're planning the wedding
[7:27] Speaker 1: and you're dealing with people that are you know, have
[7:30] Speaker 1: their own church that it's hard to get them away
[7:32] Speaker 1: from their church, especially with them having service on a Sunday.
[7:35] Speaker 1: And so even while we were planning it on a Saturday,
[7:38] Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, a lot of our pastor friends
[7:39] Speaker 1: may not be able to make it. So the fact
[7:41] Speaker 1: that y'all did really, really, really really blessed us. So
[7:45] Speaker 1: thank y'all for making a sacrifice. I appreciate you. Oh yeah,
[7:48] Speaker 1: so I asked you what you want to know about them?
[7:53] Speaker 1: I'm making I feel really uncomfortable because I want to
[7:56] Speaker 1: throw it on her to get her to listen. We're
[7:58] Speaker 1: talking to friends, so we're gonna chop it up and
[8:01] Speaker 1: we're gonna get a chance to Just so you want
[8:03] Speaker 1: to starting off.
[8:04] Speaker 3: I mean I did.
[8:05] Speaker 4: I did think you were going to start all right.
[8:06] Speaker 1: So let me ask you all real quick. First of all,
[8:09] Speaker 1: let's let's play attention to this outfit that.
[8:13] Speaker 2: Fun.
[8:14] Speaker 1: Where'd you get this wrong?
[8:16] Speaker 6: Well?
[8:16] Speaker 9: I got this from Tasha. She has a boutique store,
[8:22] Speaker 9: clothing store. But I think you should tell the people
[8:25] Speaker 9: more about it because I want them to see her.
[8:34] Speaker 1: Yeah look at that. Yeah, that dope, you know.
[8:42] Speaker 5: So we we opened a boutique and actually last year
[8:46] Speaker 5: we had a sneaker store, and I think we talked
[8:48] Speaker 5: about that for a while. That was in a franchise
[8:51] Speaker 5: and we had to take a pivot from that. You know,
[8:54] Speaker 5: in this season, these are changing and you want to
[8:57] Speaker 5: want to make sure that you're sensitive to what God
[8:59] Speaker 5: is doing in every and for us, it looked like
[9:02] Speaker 5: pivoting away from the sneaker store to do something a
[9:05] Speaker 5: little bit more intimate, something that spoke a little bit
[9:08] Speaker 5: more to the community that we're in and the people
[9:10] Speaker 5: that we serve. So this elevate boutique, you know, it
[9:15] Speaker 5: is has been absolutely amazing. One of the things that
[9:19] Speaker 5: I tell people often I probably would have been in
[9:21] Speaker 5: the world of fashion had I not been called to
[9:24] Speaker 5: minister and sing around the world. I just love fashion
[9:28] Speaker 5: and this gives me an opportunity. Though I don't style
[9:30] Speaker 5: people one on one, sometimes I do in the store,
[9:33] Speaker 5: but it gives me an opportunity to offer styling to people,
[9:37] Speaker 5: you know, whoever shops at the boutique. So it's been
[9:39] Speaker 5: absolutely amazing. On top of that, we use the location for.
[9:43] Speaker 3: More than that. Yeah, we put several things inside.
[9:47] Speaker 6: Of there, like it's an event space in there. Now.
[9:51] Speaker 6: We just had our first party.
[9:52] Speaker 2: That it was un.
[9:55] Speaker 1: Which I have what was going on.
[9:56] Speaker 6: It was a birthday party. So I call her my sister.
[9:59] Speaker 6: She's a Tasa's I think.
[10:01] Speaker 5: I think she's my sister and assistant. Her name is
[10:10] Speaker 5: joy Murdoch and if you want to holler, take a chance,
[10:13] Speaker 5: you can reach out to us. Joyce said, this is
[10:16] Speaker 5: her year twenty.
[10:19] Speaker 6: For you.
[10:21] Speaker 5: So Joyce celebrated her fortieth birthday and she wanted to
[10:23] Speaker 5: host it at Elevate. We call it Elevating Coal and
[10:26] Speaker 5: it's a flex space where we have an event center,
[10:29] Speaker 5: we have a podcast room in there, we have a
[10:32] Speaker 5: photography studio that we built all this out side walk
[10:35] Speaker 5: and so we built all of it out and it's
[10:37] Speaker 5: something that could also minister to the community. There are
[10:40] Speaker 5: so many creatives in the South Carolina area and they're
[10:43] Speaker 5: often looking for a space that provides something for them
[10:47] Speaker 5: to utilize their gifts, and so we want to be
[10:49] Speaker 5: able to provide that. So along with the clothing, we
[10:52] Speaker 5: also have other things available at Elevate, So you can
[10:55] Speaker 5: go to Elevate Coal dot online and shop right now.
[10:58] Speaker 3: We got some nic stuff in it, elevate co.
[11:02] Speaker 1: Don't got so many. I said, all right, just tell
[11:05] Speaker 1: me all everything you want and I pay for it.
[11:10] Speaker 5: Yeah, mine is too, my little I got all my
[11:13] Speaker 5: mini solidarity with my sister.
[11:17] Speaker 6: Bryant.
[11:18] Speaker 5: Don't be doing the thing you're so encouraged by you.
[11:22] Speaker 5: I love you, sis, and we are standing because church
[11:25] Speaker 5: girls were bad too.
[11:27] Speaker 2: Come out and tell them, tell them, tell me so,
[11:28] Speaker 2: why do you think that is?
[11:29] Speaker 1: Why? You think that is where they say that Christian
[11:33] Speaker 1: women can't dress a certain way. I know spiritually they'll
[11:36] Speaker 1: say you have to be more modest, But what does
[11:38] Speaker 1: that mean in today's fashion?
[11:40] Speaker 5: You know, I think a lot of times, and I'll
[11:42] Speaker 5: let you speak to this baby too. I think a
[11:44] Speaker 5: lot of times we can take scriptures so far out
[11:47] Speaker 5: of context.
[11:48] Speaker 3: I think it is it.
[11:49] Speaker 5: Is key that believers learn how to study the Word
[11:53] Speaker 5: of God and get the context and the history behind
[11:57] Speaker 5: the scriptures that we use to beat people down on
[12:00] Speaker 5: social media. You know, I think often if we reflect
[12:03] Speaker 5: and before we post a comment, before we post something.
[12:06] Speaker 3: Does this say?
[12:08] Speaker 5: Am I representing the body of Christ with unity? Is
[12:12] Speaker 5: this something that I have to say? Is it something
[12:14] Speaker 5: that I have to post or is it just my feelings?
[12:17] Speaker 5: And how is the Body of Christ gonna benefit from
[12:20] Speaker 5: me posting what I feel? And it's not to say
[12:23] Speaker 5: that you don't post what you feel, but go to
[12:25] Speaker 5: God in prayer before you release something that's going to
[12:27] Speaker 5: cause an uproar to once again make the church look
[12:31] Speaker 5: like we're disunifying, you know. And so that's the first
[12:34] Speaker 5: thing I would like to, you know, to address. You
[12:36] Speaker 5: can have your feelings, and you can have your theology,
[12:39] Speaker 5: and you can have the things that you believe, but
[12:41] Speaker 5: when you put it out to the world, how is
[12:43] Speaker 5: it representing the Body of Christ?
[12:46] Speaker 3: That's what we think about.
[12:47] Speaker 1: Kenneth.
[12:47] Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, and I think that in a lot
[12:51] Speaker 6: of ways, Like some people are so afraid of going
[12:54] Speaker 6: too far in a certain direction that they pull all
[12:57] Speaker 6: the way back. And here's what I mean. When I
[12:59] Speaker 6: was growing up, Uh, they didn't want us to go
[13:01] Speaker 6: to movies, they didn't want they didn't want to well lipstick.
[13:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, all of that was the devil.
[13:07] Speaker 6: And I think that when we look at the splendor
[13:10] Speaker 6: of God and how that's represented, imagine if we lived
[13:13] Speaker 6: in a gray scale world. Imagine if He didn't do
[13:17] Speaker 6: everything excellent and we got, you know, trees with color
[13:22] Speaker 6: and all of these different expressions of life. And I
[13:29] Speaker 6: feel that as women they're able to do that. As
[13:32] Speaker 6: men we able to fly and express ourselves. And I
[13:36] Speaker 6: think it's an amazing thing. But besides that, as a man,
[13:39] Speaker 6: I'm attracted looking like a nun attracted to me. That's right.
[13:54] Speaker 5: I love that you mentioned the trees and God's the
[13:58] Speaker 5: beauty and how He's so creative and didn't create everything
[14:01] Speaker 5: the same. I think if we lean into that, everybody's
[14:04] Speaker 5: assignment is not the same, and who Pastor Carrie is
[14:07] Speaker 5: called to, doctor Carry is called to, it may not
[14:10] Speaker 5: be your assignment, you know.
[14:12] Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
[14:13] Speaker 5: One of the leaders at our church, she's actually part
[14:17] Speaker 5: of our pastoral team now, and she tells a story
[14:20] Speaker 5: about we hosted an outdoor event and.
[14:24] Speaker 3: That was the first time she joined our church.
[14:26] Speaker 5: But she came to that event because she saw me
[14:28] Speaker 5: on a photo with Pastor Sarah and I had grills in.
[14:32] Speaker 3: My mouth like I would wear a grill. Okay, I'm
[14:37] Speaker 3: timet grill.
[14:39] Speaker 5: And that night I decided to go to one of
[14:41] Speaker 5: Pastor Sarah's woman involve events and I put my grill
[14:44] Speaker 5: in and she saw a photo and it drew her
[14:48] Speaker 5: to our church. It is so many different stories like
[14:51] Speaker 5: that where people I don't expect every first lady or
[14:53] Speaker 5: every woman to go out wearing a grill, but that's
[14:56] Speaker 5: my thing, and it attracts the people that I'm called
[14:59] Speaker 5: to that person yep.
[15:00] Speaker 6: Oh yeah, but she's hood and holy.
[15:06] Speaker 5: Agree with your mouth, I sure will, I will agree
[15:13] Speaker 5: with bought another one the other.
[15:14] Speaker 6: Day, coming in and droves.
[15:18] Speaker 2: I was watch so many grills. Yeah.
[15:23] Speaker 6: I think it's one of the things that Tasha is
[15:26] Speaker 6: called to stretch, and it's something she's been doing her
[15:29] Speaker 6: whole life. She tells stories about how she stretched her father,
[15:33] Speaker 6: who was, you know, a Pentecostal preacher who you know.
[15:39] Speaker 6: She tells the story about how he didn't want the
[15:40] Speaker 6: children to sing stop.
[15:42] Speaker 1: Everybody was against So, yeah, the churches.
[15:45] Speaker 2: I used to go and I'll play the drums in
[15:46] Speaker 2: my mini skirt.
[15:49] Speaker 5: Make and I'll be late enough to church because our
[15:54] Speaker 5: church was in another town, so I would be late
[15:57] Speaker 5: enough coming out where he couldn't make me go change.
[15:59] Speaker 3: I have all the many stirt like this and didn't
[16:01] Speaker 3: get happy.
[16:05] Speaker 11: I mean he would be like I told you.
[16:14] Speaker 2: I'm married to a stretcher.
[16:18] Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, something I have to live out every day.
[16:21] Speaker 1: That's good.
[16:22] Speaker 6: But man, I feel like it turned real serious, that's all.
[16:26] Speaker 6: But but it helps me to stretch beyond what I
[16:29] Speaker 6: even see my own capacity as and become a lot
[16:33] Speaker 6: more than I would have ever imagined.
[16:36] Speaker 1: When did you realize that? Though at what stage of
[16:38] Speaker 1: your marriage, it was before marriage.
[16:40] Speaker 6: It actually is probably probably one of the things that
[16:43] Speaker 6: led me to marriage, because as a friend, she would
[16:46] Speaker 6: speak into me things that I couldn't see, and she
[16:50] Speaker 6: would say things like, that's not who you are, what
[16:55] Speaker 6: you mean, that's exactly who I am, exactly, and that's
[17:01] Speaker 6: not who you are. These aren't type of people you
[17:02] Speaker 6: need to have in your circle. They aren't people either
[17:07] Speaker 6: push you further towards pain or towards purpose, and their
[17:11] Speaker 6: pain partners, not purpose partners. And so she would speak
[17:15] Speaker 6: that kind of stuff to me. God has called you
[17:17] Speaker 6: for more than that. And even as a pastor, which
[17:22] Speaker 6: she pulled it out of me, but she pulled pastor.
[17:25] Speaker 6: She helped me to see, uh, the pastor in me,
[17:29] Speaker 6: But she didn't want to marry a pastor. She's very
[17:32] Speaker 6: adamant about it.
[17:33] Speaker 5: When I say trick Meess, you don't want to be
[17:38] Speaker 5: a pastor.
[17:39] Speaker 6: Even when she would ask me, she would be like, now,
[17:42] Speaker 6: are you sure you not a pastor?
[17:44] Speaker 2: I'm be like, no, what I.
[17:46] Speaker 3: Saw this man tricked me?
[17:47] Speaker 4: Why didn't you want to marry a pastor.
[17:49] Speaker 5: I've been serving pastores my whole life. My father started
[17:52] Speaker 5: passing when I was ten. I understood the weight of
[17:57] Speaker 5: responsibility that is on not just the past, but the
[18:00] Speaker 5: family getting rests on your house. There are there are
[18:04] Speaker 5: levels to the sacrifice you know, that comes with pastoring.
[18:07] Speaker 3: And I saw it with my mom.
[18:08] Speaker 5: I saw it with me and my brother, and I
[18:10] Speaker 5: saw it with my father as well, and it was
[18:13] Speaker 5: just not you know, at the end of the day,
[18:15] Speaker 5: I knew it was on me because I had been
[18:17] Speaker 5: serving pastors very closely my whole life. My father started
[18:21] Speaker 5: pastor when I was ten, and I moved to Atlanta
[18:23] Speaker 5: in two thousand and six, and I started to serve
[18:25] Speaker 5: with Mishop William Murphy immediately in the same capacity, almost
[18:29] Speaker 5: as an assistant pastor. And so I understand the weight,
[18:33] Speaker 5: you know, that comes with that. And then here he
[18:35] Speaker 5: come tricking me. But I was gonna retire.
[18:38] Speaker 2: He said, you spoke out of him.
[18:42] Speaker 3: They take take up.
[18:45] Speaker 6: It might have been delusion, like you've been serving pastors
[18:48] Speaker 6: your whole life.
[18:49] Speaker 2: The Lord has.
[18:50] Speaker 6: Literally groomed you for this. What would make you think
[18:54] Speaker 6: that you would marry a plummel god?
[18:59] Speaker 5: Isp No, But we love our church the Purpose place,
[19:05] Speaker 5: and you've been there.
[19:06] Speaker 3: I can't get away from.
[19:09] Speaker 5: Her space in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and it is just
[19:14] Speaker 5: absolutely amazing to watch, even since you've been there, to
[19:17] Speaker 5: watch what God is doing, it's just unbelievable. And in
[19:22] Speaker 5: a small town like where we serve, it is just
[19:25] Speaker 5: unheard of to see what God is doing in that community.
[19:28] Speaker 5: So it's just been a blessing.
[19:30] Speaker 1: What's the update on my You know what?
[19:34] Speaker 3: Bree had so many testimonies.
[19:36] Speaker 5: She just told us for New Year, she just closed
[19:38] Speaker 5: on a new space for her in Journey. She was
[19:41] Speaker 5: talking about Journey. He has a special needs baby, So
[19:43] Speaker 5: I don't know if we told you this. The background
[19:45] Speaker 5: story is Breeze my god daughter since she was fourteen
[19:48] Speaker 5: years old, and so I've watched the grace that's on
[19:51] Speaker 5: her life. She's an incredible inaccessor incredible worship leader.
[19:55] Speaker 3: Oh so powerful.
[19:57] Speaker 1: To somebody comment, I read it they.
[19:59] Speaker 5: Was like, that's yeah, yes, it's absolutely amazing. So to
[20:04] Speaker 5: watch how she's thriving and growing, it's just I expect
[20:07] Speaker 5: so much more.
[20:10] Speaker 3: You know what. She would not like for me to
[20:13] Speaker 3: share that because.
[20:14] Speaker 2: You know, okay, you feel like you know what I
[20:19] Speaker 2: pray for on that thing.
[20:20] Speaker 1: I said, I want to guy the linker with somebody
[20:23] Speaker 1: that is suitable for her, you know. And so I'm
[20:25] Speaker 1: just waiting for the manifestation because I believe there's a
[20:28] Speaker 1: unique individual that can cover a woman that has a
[20:30] Speaker 1: special needs child. So I just I'm just waiting, you waiting.
[20:35] Speaker 1: I'm waiting on.
[20:35] Speaker 3: It is awesome. She's gonna cry when she seated.
[20:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, yes, oh Journey. That's a beautiful name.
[20:44] Speaker 6: Journey.
[20:44] Speaker 2: Yes.
[20:46] Speaker 1: So let's jump into this. How did y'all meet?
[20:49] Speaker 2: Wow?
[20:52] Speaker 6: So she told the last time by herself.
[20:57] Speaker 2: Yes, she don't have no restraints.
[21:03] Speaker 5: It's only a slight one detail.
[21:07] Speaker 9: I watched the episode back and you did say that
[21:09] Speaker 9: he would tell it a different way.
[21:12] Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I'm gonna give it to you, right. So
[21:15] Speaker 6: we I was a musician in my former life, but
[21:22] Speaker 6: I was MD for a conference called Gospel Heritage, which
[21:26] Speaker 6: is led by Teresa Harriston, and Mitchell was actually over
[21:32] Speaker 6: the music, and he reached out to the m D
[21:35] Speaker 6: at our church and he actually placed me to be
[21:40] Speaker 6: m D over this thing. And so when he he
[21:44] Speaker 6: sent us the music and we learned the music, and this,
[21:47] Speaker 6: I mean, this is like the big finale, right, So
[21:49] Speaker 6: everybody's there, has a Kyle Walker, Juda McAllister, all the
[21:53] Speaker 6: Donnie McClerkin, Bishop William Murphy, like everybody's there, everybody. And
[21:58] Speaker 6: so they're doing this big finale concert recovering all their music.
[22:01] Speaker 6: And we're rehearsing for Bishop William Murphy. And as we're rehearsing,
[22:07] Speaker 6: praise is what I do. We were playing and I'm
[22:10] Speaker 6: talking it's loud, bro, you hear me, it's loud.
[22:14] Speaker 2: We got a choet, we got a band. It's loud.
[22:17] Speaker 2: And over all of that.
[22:18] Speaker 6: This is before in the ears where all my music
[22:21] Speaker 6: people wasn't loud, and over all of that, I hear. Okay,
[22:29] Speaker 6: what So she busts through the door.
[22:33] Speaker 5: Oh my goodness, guy, I'm gonna let you finish.
[22:38] Speaker 6: She busts through the door and stop Star stop y'all
[22:42] Speaker 6: playing the wrong song. Y'all playing the wrong song, and
[22:45] Speaker 6: so you know me, oh, you get to know me,
[22:51] Speaker 6: very peaceful person.
[22:53] Speaker 2: And so I hear this to my back, like I
[22:58] Speaker 2: can't even see who this is. But I stopped.
[23:01] Speaker 6: I stand up, I turned around. I said, hey, how
[23:03] Speaker 6: you doing? Oh on me like that? She said, hey,
[23:10] Speaker 6: how you doing? I said, hey, how you doing? My
[23:12] Speaker 6: name is Kennethlennick. Whatever it is, just just send it
[23:16] Speaker 6: to me. Here's my card. We'll get it taken care of.
[23:18] Speaker 6: And that's literally how we met.
[23:21] Speaker 5: Now most of that is true. The part that is not.
[23:25] Speaker 5: There was no door. I walked up a corridor in
[23:31] Speaker 5: a hallway, and if there were doors, they were opened.
[23:35] Speaker 3: I never opened a door.
[23:38] Speaker 2: Because a.
[23:40] Speaker 3: University park, Carolina.
[23:44] Speaker 5: Y'all, y'all come in to comments, all right, because most
[23:48] Speaker 5: of the time, what I'm believing that if there are doors,
[23:51] Speaker 5: you guys leave them open for greater access.
[23:53] Speaker 1: All right.
[23:54] Speaker 5: So I walked through the hallway and they were playing
[23:58] Speaker 5: the wrong version of praise is what I do. Most
[24:00] Speaker 5: people don't know this, and Bishop Murphy is gonna appreciate
[24:03] Speaker 5: me for this.
[24:04] Speaker 3: There are two versions. There's one that he did with the.
[24:06] Speaker 5: Choir Chicago Chakaina, which is incredible, and then he recorded
[24:11] Speaker 5: another version at new Birth, and that's the one he
[24:15] Speaker 5: normally travels and he does.
[24:17] Speaker 3: So there's one that.
[24:18] Speaker 5: Goes boom bump bump, boom bum bump, crazies, what I
[24:22] Speaker 5: don't don't do.
[24:23] Speaker 3: That's the one that they were playing.
[24:25] Speaker 5: Were giving, were giving, and back back then, you know,
[24:30] Speaker 5: I was still growing. I was still walking into who
[24:34] Speaker 5: God created me to be. So I had these walls
[24:37] Speaker 5: and I had some you know, God was working on
[24:41] Speaker 5: my character and personality. I didn't have a lot of
[24:46] Speaker 5: patience seeking and I felt like I needed to fix
[24:50] Speaker 5: that quickly.
[24:51] Speaker 3: And it was loud, like he said.
[24:53] Speaker 2: So I had to be louder than the music.
[24:57] Speaker 5: Charge here, and I will say that everything he said
[25:01] Speaker 5: after that when he stood up, immediately he has always
[25:06] Speaker 5: been the calm to my storm, Like immediately everything, because
[25:11] Speaker 5: I'm like, who is this guy? You need to meet
[25:13] Speaker 5: me where I am here.
[25:15] Speaker 3: You need to match my energy? Who is this guy?
[25:20] Speaker 5: And he's literally been there And we started a friendship.
[25:23] Speaker 5: From that moment on, we became the best of friends.
[25:26] Speaker 5: I would get him dressed for dates. I think I
[25:28] Speaker 5: told you that and it was you can go even.
[25:31] Speaker 6: Even that that day, man, I was killing her with
[25:36] Speaker 6: I had on a three piece all dinner suit with
[25:40] Speaker 6: the stitching and I had to remember, has a walker.
[25:54] Speaker 2: You can't take it, she can't take it.
[25:56] Speaker 9: It sounds like she was looking out for you though
[25:58] Speaker 9: she was was like, that's the insistent themes.
[26:00] Speaker 4: She was saying in your life. Yeah, she's always been
[26:04] Speaker 4: looking out for you.
[26:05] Speaker 9: Always sounds like I want you to do the wrong song,
[26:10] Speaker 9: to wear.
[26:10] Speaker 3: The wrong that's the thing.
[26:13] Speaker 9: It's really said, you somewhere looking out for you.
[26:18] Speaker 2: And I thank God for that. And then because who
[26:22] Speaker 2: knows where I would have been, where I would have been.
[26:25] Speaker 3: They're definitely church babies.
[26:26] Speaker 2: We would have loved church.
[26:28] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[26:30] Speaker 1: How long this platonic friendship left?
[26:32] Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, wow?
[26:34] Speaker 6: Five six years. So I mean she would get me
[26:37] Speaker 6: dressed for dates. So this was strictly platonic when we
[26:39] Speaker 6: started out. I got married, had a baby. Yeah, and
[26:44] Speaker 6: the baby was born on Tasha's birthday.
[26:47] Speaker 8: Wow.
[26:50] Speaker 5: We also have an older daughter, our oldest daughter, Alana,
[26:55] Speaker 5: and her birthday is on our birthday.
[26:57] Speaker 3: All three of us have I.
[26:58] Speaker 5: Tell him we started day and I said, I've been
[27:00] Speaker 5: giving you cues for years.
[27:02] Speaker 3: When's your birthday? July seven?
[27:05] Speaker 5: So both of our babies a our fourteen year old
[27:07] Speaker 5: and our twenty three year old seven July seven.
[27:10] Speaker 6: Yeah, so you can put my cash up right around
[27:14] Speaker 6: about May June.
[27:17] Speaker 3: Only in concept.
[27:19] Speaker 5: Yeah for me, I got to pay for them birthdays,
[27:22] Speaker 5: three of them.
[27:22] Speaker 6: Yeah, and they don't want to do anything alike because
[27:24] Speaker 6: they're so far apart none of it. And one of
[27:27] Speaker 6: them want to go to check E Cheese, the other
[27:28] Speaker 6: one want to want to go on a vacation. Now
[27:32] Speaker 6: my oldest daughter wants to go on she's twenty three.
[27:36] Speaker 9: Okay, Yeah, So when you first met Tasha, what were
[27:40] Speaker 9: you thinking? Just in the ft, like, when you first
[27:42] Speaker 9: saw her, she walks down the corridor and she walks in.
[27:47] Speaker 4: What were you thinking?
[27:48] Speaker 6: I mean, I think at that time I was kind
[27:50] Speaker 6: of used to different personalities. But here's what impacted me.
[27:54] Speaker 6: That same conference, we were doing praise and worship.
[27:58] Speaker 2: We were doing offering, now.
[28:00] Speaker 6: That's the context. And she was doing an offering. She
[28:03] Speaker 6: opened up her mouth and sang chasing after you. Oh wow,
[28:08] Speaker 6: his was crazy. As she finished singing that song, people
[28:14] Speaker 6: were literally laid out. And when I say it, I
[28:17] Speaker 6: mean literally offering, not figuratively laid out on the altar.
[28:22] Speaker 6: I felt led to stay connected to her because of
[28:25] Speaker 6: our purpose, and so as we did that, it just
[28:29] Speaker 6: was the beginning of God kind of developing where we
[28:32] Speaker 6: are now right where we're able to now partner our
[28:37] Speaker 6: ministries to be able to minister to the world. And
[28:42] Speaker 6: I don't know what that would because this was literally
[28:44] Speaker 6: before any any records, before Smile, before any of that.
[28:49] Speaker 2: It was just my friend tooster. She blew up on me.
[28:52] Speaker 2: I was like.
[28:54] Speaker 5: One of my prayers was always because there were so
[28:58] Speaker 5: many prophecies coming in about my mother would say, you know,
[29:01] Speaker 5: the Lord showed me that people will see your name.
[29:03] Speaker 5: I saw your name and likes people will know your
[29:05] Speaker 5: name before they know your face.
[29:07] Speaker 3: Like all of these prophecies would come.
[29:09] Speaker 5: And so I started to pray a prayer that God,
[29:11] Speaker 5: if I'm going to be on platforms, then I would
[29:13] Speaker 5: love to know my husband and know who he is
[29:17] Speaker 5: so that I would have no concern or worry about,
[29:20] Speaker 5: you know, whether he has any motives or not. And
[29:23] Speaker 5: so to meet him before all of this blew up
[29:26] Speaker 5: was an answer prayer for me. And I will say
[29:29] Speaker 5: even for the offering moment, I I don't know if
[29:32] Speaker 5: I had a chance to talk about this. I had
[29:34] Speaker 5: poly ups on my vocal cords. So on my left
[29:37] Speaker 5: vocal cord in twenty thirteen, right after we release Break
[29:41] Speaker 5: Every Chain, I completely lost my voice. And I don't
[29:44] Speaker 5: mean like Horace. I was trying to speak and nothing
[29:47] Speaker 5: would come out. And I went to the doctor and
[29:49] Speaker 5: I had a poll up on my vocal cord. It
[29:52] Speaker 5: happened from a like a puncture, like a wound for
[29:56] Speaker 5: me sneezing from allergies.
[29:58] Speaker 3: I'll never forget it.
[29:59] Speaker 5: I was at Walmart, we got out the car, and
[30:01] Speaker 5: seasonal allergies, and I sneezed in like blood and that
[30:05] Speaker 5: caused like this growth on the vocal cord and it
[30:09] Speaker 5: literally grew into the pole up and I had no
[30:12] Speaker 5: voice and I was walking around with a dry erase board.
[30:15] Speaker 5: I never forget the same, Tasha. So I had some issues.
[30:17] Speaker 5: I was screaming at my worship team, y'all sound a
[30:19] Speaker 5: mess on the dry e race board. And so I
[30:22] Speaker 5: had not spoken in over a month. That when I
[30:26] Speaker 5: sang that song was my first time releasing a sound
[30:29] Speaker 5: from my vocal chords in a month. And so God's
[30:33] Speaker 5: response to that was, you've been sitting with me in
[30:36] Speaker 5: silence in solitude, which is me and you. And now
[30:39] Speaker 5: watch what I'm gonna do and create from this prophecy
[30:42] Speaker 5: from this time with you. And I thought it was
[30:46] Speaker 5: just like, Lord, if I don't have no voice, what
[30:47] Speaker 5: do I have? And God was like, that's five percent
[30:51] Speaker 5: of what I've caused you to do, the gift. It
[30:54] Speaker 5: is more about your relationship with me. And so I
[30:56] Speaker 5: even wrote a song during that time, nothing can take
[30:59] Speaker 5: my prayse It's like I still, I'll make my praise
[31:01] Speaker 5: resound no matter how I have to do it, even
[31:03] Speaker 5: if I don't have a voice. And so that day
[31:06] Speaker 5: he wrote a song with no voice yep, yeah, And
[31:10] Speaker 5: actually William Murphy recorded it because I didn't have a voice,
[31:13] Speaker 5: so he put it on one of his albums.
[31:15] Speaker 3: Nothing can take my praise, Not thing can hold me down.
[31:21] Speaker 5: I'll lift my voice and sing I don't make my
[31:25] Speaker 5: praise read sound.
[31:27] Speaker 3: You're gonna hear it again.
[31:33] Speaker 2: In that song.
[31:34] Speaker 6: Not knowing she wrote it, really yeah, it was years
[31:37] Speaker 6: later she was like, oh, yeah, I wrote that.
[31:39] Speaker 3: I never I was sitting in my car just crying,
[31:42] Speaker 3: like Lord, what do I do now?
[31:44] Speaker 1: My voice with no voice.
[31:46] Speaker 5: I'll make it resound some kind of way my praise
[31:49] Speaker 5: will be heard.
[31:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I always love the story behind the song.
[31:54] Speaker 6: Song.
[31:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, yep, it makes you appreciate it so much more. Man,
[31:59] Speaker 1: it's just like she said, I'll lift my voice with
[32:02] Speaker 1: no voice.
[32:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy, Yeah, amazing.
[32:07] Speaker 1: So during that offering time you sung that was so
[32:13] Speaker 1: you had the pilots were healed. The polots were healed
[32:16] Speaker 1: at that.
[32:16] Speaker 5: Point, so they weren't completely healed. The doctors were waiting.
[32:20] Speaker 5: So I had to go through voice therapy for two years,
[32:23] Speaker 5: which was absolutely a blessing because a lot of times
[32:25] Speaker 5: what we don't we don't put a lot of attention
[32:28] Speaker 5: in the gospel church on how much, how much we injure,
[32:34] Speaker 5: how much what's the word.
[32:35] Speaker 2: I'm looking at?
[32:36] Speaker 6: Its trauma.
[32:41] Speaker 3: So it taught me how to heal them.
[32:42] Speaker 5: It taught me I had to relearn how to laugh,
[32:45] Speaker 5: how to call, I mean, what not to eat, and
[32:50] Speaker 5: those things were Yeah, I don't cough. You train me.
[32:56] Speaker 5: So I will keep a bottle of water with me,
[32:59] Speaker 5: and if I feel like I need to cough, what
[33:01] Speaker 5: I do is I'll drink a gulp and it literally
[33:04] Speaker 5: clears out whatever the particles or whatever in your throat
[33:08] Speaker 5: and it took time.
[33:09] Speaker 3: Now, that took some time to.
[33:10] Speaker 5: Do, but right now I still practice that.
[33:16] Speaker 1: When you're hearing me.
[33:17] Speaker 5: Yeah, it's traumatic to your vocal cords because when you're
[33:19] Speaker 5: doing that, they're actually hitting against each other and it
[33:22] Speaker 5: causes inflammation with your vocal corse. So same thing water,
[33:27] Speaker 5: You drink the water and it clears. Water is a
[33:29] Speaker 5: life save savor for anybody who does anything with their vocals.
[33:33] Speaker 3: I hear right now.
[33:34] Speaker 5: I have a burden for pastors, especially since he's been preaching,
[33:37] Speaker 5: because I just want to send all of them. You
[33:39] Speaker 5: need to do vocal warm ups, You need to do
[33:41] Speaker 5: vocal cool downs. This is what you need to stop eating,
[33:44] Speaker 5: you know, anything acetic and I know we love fruit,
[33:46] Speaker 5: but acid is not good for your vocal cords. You know, dairy,
[33:50] Speaker 5: It causes phlim. It's not good for somebody. Need to
[33:52] Speaker 5: hear this today. It causes phlim on your vocal cords.
[33:56] Speaker 5: And in the Gospel church, we like the RACI be
[33:59] Speaker 5: sound most times it's not healthy.
[34:02] Speaker 3: It means that there's something there.
[34:04] Speaker 5: And I just feel like in our community we need
[34:06] Speaker 5: to take better care of our communicators and our vocalists
[34:10] Speaker 5: so that our gifts will last much.
[34:12] Speaker 2: Longer, and I'm just.
[34:16] Speaker 3: A good job.
[34:17] Speaker 6: He does.
[34:18] Speaker 3: What's a little thing you've been using? He uses like
[34:20] Speaker 3: this thing every Sunday.
[34:23] Speaker 6: It's something similar to that. I'm trying to remember the
[34:26] Speaker 6: name of it. Uh doctor vox.
[34:29] Speaker 3: Oh it's so good human panther.
[34:38] Speaker 5: But yes, it works wonders for anybody. So even when
[34:41] Speaker 5: you prepare for your your sessions and your podcasts, I
[34:45] Speaker 5: would say, do some vocal warm ups, do some cool downs,
[34:49] Speaker 5: because just like my uh my voice coach, she calls
[34:52] Speaker 5: us vocal athletes. So just like an athlete with warm
[34:57] Speaker 5: up before a game and cool down after a game,
[34:59] Speaker 5: we have to do the same thing.
[35:00] Speaker 3: It's muscles.
[35:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, and see we used to do that in theater.
[35:03] Speaker 1: And then while I'm doing the podcast, I just don't
[35:05] Speaker 1: even do that at all. And then we always do
[35:07] Speaker 1: vocal warm ups. We do it the whole time. And
[35:09] Speaker 1: then I say on the podcast, I'm like, I'm just talking.
[35:12] Speaker 1: I don't never do vocal warm ups when I wake
[35:14] Speaker 1: up and talk to somebody, So lessen the benefit of that,
[35:17] Speaker 1: And so thank you for encouraging us to do that. Yeah,
[35:19] Speaker 1: We're gonna be doing all that stuff.
[35:21] Speaker 9: Yeah, in addition to taking care of your voice and communication.
[35:25] Speaker 4: You guys also take care of your bodies.
[35:27] Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, we've been watching you on social media. I
[35:32] Speaker 9: know that's a big part of your relationship. So can
[35:36] Speaker 9: you tell us a little bit about like your journey
[35:38] Speaker 9: and what fitness and health mean to you guys?
[35:41] Speaker 2: Oh?
[35:41] Speaker 3: Absolutely, you want me to start.
[35:42] Speaker 6: Yeah, I can tell MANA first mine was pretty vain,
[35:46] Speaker 6: like I just wanted to I just wanted to get
[35:55] Speaker 6: in shape and I want it. So I've lost over
[35:58] Speaker 6: one hundred pounds.
[35:59] Speaker 2: Wow, that's good.
[36:01] Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, what id He was a big, big guy
[36:04] Speaker 5: with dreads, dreds, a ponytail.
[36:07] Speaker 3: He was so cute.
[36:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[36:16] Speaker 6: And for me, it was just a matter of wanting
[36:19] Speaker 6: to stay consistent. Right. We were just in the service
[36:22] Speaker 6: last night and uh, pastor conwe was talking about.
[36:24] Speaker 2: Finding the win.
[36:25] Speaker 6: And the win for me was not to lose one
[36:27] Speaker 6: hundred pounds, It was to go to the gym and go.
[36:32] Speaker 6: My win was was that day I went. And I
[36:37] Speaker 6: also framed it from a pretty popular book, Atomic Habits
[36:41] Speaker 6: James Clear, and it was like, hey, a lot of
[36:45] Speaker 6: times we aren't able to accomplish large goals because we
[36:50] Speaker 6: focused on large goals and not stepping small, and so
[36:54] Speaker 6: I got consistent wins. Every day I went to the gym,
[36:56] Speaker 6: I went, Did I eat a good meal that day?
[36:58] Speaker 2: Maybe?
[37:01] Speaker 6: So for me it was kind of vain, but I
[37:03] Speaker 6: think for Tasha it developed into something deeper.
[37:06] Speaker 3: I love the word developed.
[37:08] Speaker 5: It grew for me because initially, starting out just like
[37:11] Speaker 5: he said, I wanted to be healthy at the probably
[37:15] Speaker 5: about three or four years ago, during the pandemic, one
[37:18] Speaker 5: of the things that I've always kind of been anxious about,
[37:22] Speaker 5: it became a reality to me. So my father he
[37:24] Speaker 5: died of a heart attack. He had cholesterol problems and
[37:26] Speaker 5: high blood pressure. Most of the people on his side
[37:28] Speaker 5: of the family died from heart attacks with cholesterol problems.
[37:31] Speaker 5: And so I went to the doctor. My blood work
[37:34] Speaker 5: came back and I had high cholesterol, and it was like, Bam,
[37:40] Speaker 5: there it is, you know. And I even talked to him,
[37:42] Speaker 5: I'm so sorry. I just did all these things. And
[37:44] Speaker 5: God is like, you have authority to you can take
[37:48] Speaker 5: authority over this. You can break a generational curse with you.
[37:52] Speaker 5: And it's not just about declaring and expecting a miracle
[37:54] Speaker 5: to fall out.
[37:55] Speaker 3: Of the sky.
[37:55] Speaker 5: I have given you the tools that you need to
[37:59] Speaker 5: cancel this your life.
[38:01] Speaker 3: And so I started on this journey.
[38:03] Speaker 6: Man.
[38:03] Speaker 5: It's been three or four years ago now, and I
[38:06] Speaker 5: know people see what I'm doing now and they think,
[38:08] Speaker 5: oh gosh, you on the shot, Oh gosh, you And
[38:10] Speaker 5: I've tried it all. I've done the shot, I've had
[38:12] Speaker 5: the surgeries, and what I found is that the only
[38:15] Speaker 5: thing that works is you being consistent and committed to
[38:19] Speaker 5: doing the work. And the work sometimes can be uncomfortable,
[38:23] Speaker 5: it can sometimes be a sacrifice, it could get hard,
[38:26] Speaker 5: but you got to commit to it every day, like
[38:28] Speaker 5: Kenny said, and then it just grew, Like I found
[38:31] Speaker 5: myself going to the gym last year. So it's been
[38:33] Speaker 5: about a year and I go consistently, probably four or
[38:36] Speaker 5: five six days a week, sometimes two times a day.
[38:39] Speaker 5: You know, it's my things where I find God there.
[38:42] Speaker 5: And I told him I went on a six weeks sabbatical.
[38:45] Speaker 5: It just ended about two weeks ago. And during that sabbatical,
[38:50] Speaker 5: one of the things that I learned is that the
[38:52] Speaker 5: same fulfillment that I feel when I'm leading worship and
[38:55] Speaker 5: standing on a stage in front of a crowd, I
[38:58] Speaker 5: feel it in the gym with just me and Jesus
[39:01] Speaker 5: and I think for so long you can find yourself
[39:05] Speaker 5: defining yourself by what you do. And God is Sayatasha,
[39:08] Speaker 5: I want you to see that I'm just as much
[39:10] Speaker 5: God in this gym as I am on that stage
[39:13] Speaker 5: when you're watching people be heal, set for and delivered.
[39:16] Speaker 5: And I want this time with you and I find
[39:18] Speaker 5: him there just meeting him there while I'm taking care
[39:22] Speaker 5: of the temple that He has given me. It has
[39:24] Speaker 5: created just another space for me and God to grow
[39:28] Speaker 5: in relationship.
[39:30] Speaker 2: That's good and I.
[39:30] Speaker 6: Think for me as her husband, when she initially told
[39:34] Speaker 6: me about the sabbatical, and I wanted to make sure
[39:37] Speaker 6: that she was keeping space clear because I know my
[39:40] Speaker 6: wife right, she's a visionary and the executor, so she'll
[39:45] Speaker 6: come up with the idea and just and go for
[39:48] Speaker 6: herself in it. And I was talking to him, I
[39:52] Speaker 6: was like, Babe, I just want to make sure that
[39:54] Speaker 6: this isn't like another thing that you're using to feel
[39:58] Speaker 6: the time since you your hands on more idol now
[40:01] Speaker 6: and she started expressing like, no, this is this is
[40:04] Speaker 6: literally being a sanctuary for me. And it helped me
[40:09] Speaker 6: to be able to cover her in that because it's
[40:11] Speaker 6: like some days like no I want you to chill,
[40:13] Speaker 6: it's get wings to She's like, no, I'm going to
[40:19] Speaker 6: the gym now.
[40:22] Speaker 3: Oh, probably about an hour, hour and a half.
[40:24] Speaker 5: Now, I'll say this. So I started doing this. It
[40:27] Speaker 5: just grew into something y'all. Like literally, there are women
[40:30] Speaker 5: who started reaching out to me on social media like
[40:32] Speaker 5: you have encouraged me. They would send me pictures of
[40:34] Speaker 5: themselves in the gym, and I mean like hundreds and
[40:36] Speaker 5: hundreds of people.
[40:37] Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, this is.
[40:39] Speaker 5: Another who would have ever thought that I would be
[40:42] Speaker 5: an influencer on the age fitness. This is a girl
[40:46] Speaker 5: who will overweight my entire life and I mean obesity.
[40:50] Speaker 3: My largest I was three hundred and fifty pounds.
[40:52] Speaker 5: Like, I never saw myself being someone that people would
[40:56] Speaker 5: look up to in the area of fitness.
[40:59] Speaker 3: So I said, you know, let's do it. I can
[41:01] Speaker 3: do what I can.
[41:02] Speaker 5: We are real people with real goals and we're just
[41:04] Speaker 5: saying real results.
[41:05] Speaker 3: And I opened like.
[41:06] Speaker 5: This this community call Elevate three point sixty. You women
[41:11] Speaker 5: just go online and they join us. We post like
[41:13] Speaker 5: these at home workouts. Some of them join us twice
[41:16] Speaker 5: a month where we meet we meet for workouts together.
[41:20] Speaker 5: Our first group we had over seventy women just show
[41:22] Speaker 5: up to the gym just to work out.
[41:24] Speaker 3: And these are women before you. Amen, yeah, and amen,
[41:27] Speaker 3: come too.
[41:28] Speaker 5: And some of them you literally haven't worked out in
[41:31] Speaker 5: probably four or five years.
[41:32] Speaker 3: And so they're trusting me in a safe space.
[41:35] Speaker 5: Like I felt uncomfortable going to the gym because I
[41:37] Speaker 5: don't want people to look at me, but I feel
[41:39] Speaker 5: safe here, and so it's just I'm just trusted God
[41:42] Speaker 5: with it.
[41:42] Speaker 3: Whatever he wants to do. I say, yeah, yeah, So.
[41:46] Speaker 1: How did y'all go from you getting him dressed for
[41:50] Speaker 1: dates to now y'all having clothing lines and everything else
[41:55] Speaker 1: and do something together because we don't talk about Kenny's
[41:58] Speaker 1: business too towards the end of this, Yeah, how did
[42:01] Speaker 1: that transition?
[42:02] Speaker 6: I think? I think in a similar way, like you
[42:05] Speaker 6: find God in some everywhere, right, And just like Tasha
[42:10] Speaker 6: found God in the gym, we started finding God through entrepreneurship.
[42:14] Speaker 6: We started finding God through other ventures, whether it was
[42:18] Speaker 6: entrepreneurship or not. And we began to change the way
[42:24] Speaker 6: we view our purpose right like it always stayed the same,
[42:27] Speaker 6: but it was a different iteration of it.
[42:30] Speaker 2: And so.
[42:32] Speaker 6: Together our purpose is to bring people into an awareness
[42:35] Speaker 6: of God. And when they walk into Elevate or even
[42:40] Speaker 6: order online, they're able to come into an awareness of
[42:43] Speaker 6: Him through how they present themselves because that matters to God.
[42:47] Speaker 6: When we when I started building the business you mentioned kinetic,
[42:50] Speaker 6: it started out for me as I started. So here's
[42:54] Speaker 6: something you may have experienced too. I was accomplished.
[42:59] Speaker 2: I traveled the world.
[43:00] Speaker 6: As an MD, but I was able to do it
[43:02] Speaker 6: under the radar. When I married her. Now I got
[43:05] Speaker 6: to sit on podcasts, I had to be on stages
[43:08] Speaker 6: now and my life, man, and it vertinly just became
[43:13] Speaker 6: more public. And so that means now I can't just
[43:16] Speaker 6: bust out into three piece, no, sir.
[43:20] Speaker 9: Right, that resonates exactly, and it's it's it.
[43:27] Speaker 6: Oh man, it's so so many, so many things I
[43:30] Speaker 6: can mention just from that experience alone.
[43:33] Speaker 3: Can I break in right there?
[43:34] Speaker 5: Because I do want to say as a word of
[43:36] Speaker 5: encouragement to you, like this was his prayer before we
[43:38] Speaker 5: came to y'all's wedding. We had no clue who you were,
[43:42] Speaker 5: and he just said it out loud. We were at
[43:44] Speaker 5: the hotel and he said, whoever his wife is, I
[43:46] Speaker 5: just pray you know that God is anointing her and
[43:49] Speaker 5: giving her the grace and the favor for this platform,
[43:53] Speaker 5: he said, because it's not always easy walking into a
[43:55] Speaker 5: spotlight when you've been able to hide in the background,
[43:58] Speaker 5: like he prayed that for you on your wedding.
[44:00] Speaker 3: Yeah literally, yep.
[44:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she needed and she needed it.
[44:04] Speaker 9: You No, I know that that's the anointing because I
[44:08] Speaker 9: have enjoyed being behind the scenes. I said that on
[44:12] Speaker 9: our last episode, how great it was to be around
[44:15] Speaker 9: people of influence, but to never have the camera turned
[44:19] Speaker 9: on me, because I said, you know, the internet is
[44:22] Speaker 9: not always a nice place, and so being on this
[44:25] Speaker 9: side of it is new for me. So it's lovely
[44:27] Speaker 9: to hear and see the manifestation of how that's worked
[44:30] Speaker 9: out in your life.
[44:32] Speaker 4: So I'm loving this story.
[44:33] Speaker 1: And so listen. Right before we were going out at
[44:36] Speaker 1: the wedding, you know, the wedding was live stream. It
[44:39] Speaker 1: was like five thousand and then it went to like
[44:41] Speaker 1: thirteen thousand, and she looked when you looked at her,
[44:44] Speaker 1: how many of your brides made.
[44:45] Speaker 3: Tell you said, five?
[44:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, we were five. She said, tech this phone. She
[44:48] Speaker 1: just got nervous.
[44:49] Speaker 2: I'm not going any more.
[44:54] Speaker 3: People join I'm.
[44:55] Speaker 1: Not twenty eight thousand people watching live. But if she
[44:58] Speaker 1: would have saw that, she would just problem.
[45:00] Speaker 9: And then I asked, I said, okay, just tell me,
[45:02] Speaker 9: tell me how many it is now.
[45:04] Speaker 3: They said, no, you can't.
[45:09] Speaker 6: Just started praying.
[45:10] Speaker 9: We just started praying, I said, they did. I said,
[45:14] Speaker 9: take this away because I always think about it. When
[45:16] Speaker 9: I'm focused on I, then there's ego involved.
[45:20] Speaker 3: And so when I do it for God.
[45:22] Speaker 9: I say that take me out of it. So whatever
[45:25] Speaker 9: you say, it's not about me. Yeah, in fact, it's
[45:27] Speaker 9: actually more about you.
[45:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[45:29] Speaker 2: See.
[45:29] Speaker 1: So during the whole Mystery Bride situation, she was enjoying
[45:32] Speaker 1: that a lot of times people were talking about some
[45:34] Speaker 1: of the toxic sites, like he's hiding her, Is he
[45:36] Speaker 1: really did he? Is he really marrying somebody? He's just like, yeah, listen,
[45:40] Speaker 1: I said, you think I got time to do something
[45:42] Speaker 1: for publicity, so lame to me, but I knew that.
[45:46] Speaker 1: She and I had a conversation. She was like, listen,
[45:48] Speaker 1: I want to stay as private as long as possible
[45:50] Speaker 1: so we can build something in privacy. So we're going
[45:54] Speaker 1: through therapy and all that. It's like, how look, just
[45:58] Speaker 1: imagine us going through therapy at the same time dealing
[46:01] Speaker 1: with the audience and the community saying whatever they got
[46:04] Speaker 1: to say, and then we take that into our therapy sessions. Well,
[46:06] Speaker 1: we saw this post about this, We didn't have to
[46:08] Speaker 1: worry about none of that stuff, and we just got
[46:10] Speaker 1: a chance to build something solid together so that then
[46:13] Speaker 1: when we did step out, then we could step out
[46:15] Speaker 1: strong and be like, whatever y'all got to say, y'all
[46:17] Speaker 1: even know what we built in privacy, and so that's
[46:19] Speaker 1: what it was about. But she was enjoying that, she said,
[46:21] Speaker 1: the terrorists listenin' I ain't really got to do this podcast.
[46:25] Speaker 9: And I'm fascinated by how much people love him. Yeah,
[46:28] Speaker 9: I mean, they spend so much time creating stories.
[46:33] Speaker 4: I'm like, my husband is a legend.
[46:36] Speaker 6: Ya.
[46:37] Speaker 4: I am amazed at how consuming.
[46:40] Speaker 9: But I am to the people right to the people
[46:43] Speaker 9: who are making money by making content about him.
[46:47] Speaker 4: I'm happy that your Christmas was a little bit.
[46:58] Speaker 6: Like I to learn h restraint and you kind of
[47:02] Speaker 6: touched on it earlier, like you you don't have to
[47:05] Speaker 6: come in on everything, and there's some things you really
[47:08] Speaker 6: want to and like she's she at this point already
[47:13] Speaker 6: groomed into the understanding of not feeding the fire right
[47:17] Speaker 6: and so, but I'm like.
[47:19] Speaker 2: Say, somebody my wife again, Mama, mama.
[47:32] Speaker 3: Right now, right now under her name. She don't care.
[47:38] Speaker 3: She wants me to tell her. She asked me.
[47:40] Speaker 5: I was on the breakfast club today, She said, why
[47:42] Speaker 5: didn't you tell them that your mama comments.
[47:48] Speaker 2: She wants the world.
[47:49] Speaker 6: Knows, always had she's in life two point oh, she got.
[47:57] Speaker 5: Why don't you tell them your mama like to come in, Mama,
[48:05] Speaker 5: they see you.
[48:08] Speaker 6: Oh God, yeah, I gotta applaud you on that, because
[48:14] Speaker 6: like without us having conversations about it, like you always
[48:17] Speaker 6: kind of wonder, like, man, this is an amazing season
[48:20] Speaker 6: that you know she's in obscurity, but you never thought
[48:23] Speaker 6: of it from the sense of you as a husband,
[48:27] Speaker 6: covering your wife so that you guys have time to build,
[48:31] Speaker 6: have time to really solidify what God was doing.
[48:36] Speaker 1: Because that was important because again, as a leader, man,
[48:39] Speaker 1: I don't want to be dealing with all this stuff,
[48:41] Speaker 1: like at the end of the day, and I know
[48:42] Speaker 1: how she doesn't care about all this stuff. She doesn't
[48:45] Speaker 1: she doesn't care about all this camera stuff. She don't
[48:47] Speaker 1: care about it. Like listen, I was living my good
[48:48] Speaker 1: life private. You know, she's one of those people that that,
[48:52] Speaker 1: And we joke about this. She said, I want to
[48:53] Speaker 1: be a millionaire that nobody even knows about.
[48:57] Speaker 6: Period.
[48:58] Speaker 1: She'd rather be a millionaire and nobody know sitting in
[49:00] Speaker 1: the restaurant, nobody know what I got, And so she
[49:02] Speaker 1: didn't care about fame. And so I was like, well, God,
[49:05] Speaker 1: you know the mantle that's on my life. My wife
[49:08] Speaker 1: can't be in obscurity. I look like a fake because
[49:11] Speaker 1: if I'm sitting there still doing their Future Wife, he
[49:13] Speaker 1: having a whole platform. He like, well where your wife at?
[49:15] Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And I'd be like, well,
[49:16] Speaker 1: she just don't like the line like, Na, you don't
[49:18] Speaker 1: want to have the line like no, I really do.
[49:20] Speaker 1: But she know they're like, you just chose wrong. So
[49:23] Speaker 1: to be all this stuff that I have to combat.
[49:25] Speaker 1: And so privately, as I was building their Future Wife,
[49:27] Speaker 1: I said, God, I want you to fashion my wife
[49:29] Speaker 1: to be able to sit on this couch so we
[49:31] Speaker 1: can have conversations like this together. And I said, and
[49:34] Speaker 1: that's how I vetted, you know, it didn't. I didn't
[49:36] Speaker 1: need her to be that when I met her. I
[49:39] Speaker 1: need her to have an open mind, to be willing
[49:41] Speaker 1: to do that, you know. And again like it's a
[49:43] Speaker 1: situation of it's interesting because God had to change your
[49:47] Speaker 1: heart to even want a pastor, because at the end
[49:49] Speaker 1: of the day, he wasn't a pastor when you met him.
[49:51] Speaker 1: But then now I look at y'all having a whole
[49:53] Speaker 1: purpose place, you.
[49:54] Speaker 2: Know what I'm saying.
[49:54] Speaker 1: So that's that's guys in his sovereignty, you know, And
[49:59] Speaker 1: so that's why I'm so thankful. So I tell her
[50:01] Speaker 1: all the time, I say, you can do as much
[50:02] Speaker 1: as this, as little is this. She likes this space.
[50:05] Speaker 1: She don't like it when we go do other people's platforms.
[50:08] Speaker 1: So she's like, I'm knowing what they're gonna ask me,
[50:11] Speaker 1: I'm gonna show it on my face. And I'm just
[50:14] Speaker 1: I said, listen, I said, I know, I know. If
[50:15] Speaker 1: you get uncomfortable, I know how to you know, you
[50:17] Speaker 1: give me then alley oop and I know how to
[50:19] Speaker 1: take that or whatever.
[50:20] Speaker 6: But that's like the most ideal situation though, right imagine
[50:25] Speaker 6: imagine her having the ambition to be what you do,
[50:30] Speaker 6: and now she turns, she changes from being somebody that
[50:35] Speaker 6: completes you to somebody that competes. Don't make me, Yeah,
[50:39] Speaker 6: Ken quit playing and I understand it because I sat
[50:43] Speaker 6: in that I sit in that seat as a man,
[50:47] Speaker 6: an accomplished man, musician, minstrel. I have to be wise
[50:53] Speaker 6: enough to understand the gift that my wife has as
[50:57] Speaker 6: a plat being in the limelight platform and not like
[51:02] Speaker 6: admire but not desire, like not being don't desire. Yeah,
[51:07] Speaker 6: like you preach, I feel my health. Yeah, it really
[51:18] Speaker 6: requires the Holy Ghost.
[51:21] Speaker 2: And I know we use that lightly.
[51:23] Speaker 6: But what I'm really saying is when when when I
[51:25] Speaker 6: said it requires the Holy ghost, the Holy Ghost comes
[51:28] Speaker 6: with fruit.
[51:29] Speaker 2: One of those fruit is self control.
[51:33] Speaker 6: And so I gotta be able to control my emotions myself.
[51:38] Speaker 2: I gotta be emotionally aware.
[51:41] Speaker 6: I have to be spiritually aware that when they're saying
[51:45] Speaker 6: her name and and she's getting awards, to not feel
[51:49] Speaker 6: like that makes me less than it makes me less
[51:52] Speaker 6: of a man, because I know that in order for
[51:55] Speaker 6: her to do what she does, I gotta be strong
[51:57] Speaker 6: enough to cover that. I gotta be strong enough to
[51:59] Speaker 6: cover her. And it gets interesting sometimes because it's like, man,
[52:04] Speaker 6: I produced the song, and I think it's amazing for
[52:10] Speaker 6: us to be able to celebrate that and see my
[52:13] Speaker 6: win as her win as our win, and her win
[52:16] Speaker 6: is our wind.
[52:17] Speaker 1: And see, I think more men need to hear that
[52:19] Speaker 1: more because a lot of times, especially in the church,
[52:23] Speaker 1: we're taught that the wife is supposed to support the
[52:25] Speaker 1: gifts of the husband, you know, And it's always like that.
[52:28] Speaker 1: He's a pastor and you come by default. You're the
[52:30] Speaker 1: first lady, and you need to go serve him, serve him,
[52:32] Speaker 1: serve him. We never see it where it's the other
[52:35] Speaker 1: way around, where not only are you serving her, but
[52:38] Speaker 1: y'all serving each other. You know, you just don't. We
[52:40] Speaker 1: just don't see that, you know. We always hear even
[52:42] Speaker 1: the word submission only one way. It's like saying the
[52:45] Speaker 1: wife submit to your husband, but we don't even acknowledge
[52:48] Speaker 1: submit you one to another. We don't even hear that.
[52:50] Speaker 1: And so it's good that you say it's my wine
[52:54] Speaker 1: because the Bible says a man will get his glory
[52:56] Speaker 1: through his wife. Yeah, that she is a crown upon
[52:59] Speaker 1: her husband's head. So the greater you make her become,
[53:01] Speaker 1: the greater that you look.
[53:04] Speaker 2: That's how they.
[53:05] Speaker 1: Will honored you at the city gates because they're looking
[53:07] Speaker 1: at you and like, you know, man, his wife is best.
[53:09] Speaker 1: She looks well taken care of. She looks very happy.
[53:12] Speaker 1: She's not putting on a fake smile. She seems like
[53:15] Speaker 1: she's walking in joy. She's successful, she's great, and she's
[53:18] Speaker 1: able to serve her family well. But if it wasn't that,
[53:21] Speaker 1: then she'd be like when he kids graduate high school,
[53:24] Speaker 1: I'm divorcing.
[53:25] Speaker 7: You know that.
[53:27] Speaker 1: And you hear women say stuff that says that a
[53:31] Speaker 1: woman is happier not married, And the only reason why
[53:34] Speaker 1: they're saying that is because that woman has witnessed a
[53:36] Speaker 1: bad marriage, because you can't say that if it's a
[53:39] Speaker 1: thriving marriage. There's no way the Bible says two or
[53:41] Speaker 1: is better than one. There's no way you can say
[53:43] Speaker 1: that two people together that's thriving is less than one
[53:47] Speaker 1: person surviving.
[53:49] Speaker 6: I would even throw this out there too. You see
[53:52] Speaker 6: a lot of people say that men are happier got
[53:55] Speaker 6: married exactly, And there's no way you can say that
[53:58] Speaker 6: if you're not in a unless you're in a thriving
[54:01] Speaker 6: and you've seen many of us haven't seen seen we
[54:04] Speaker 6: haven't seen it. We haven't seen it. And I thank
[54:07] Speaker 6: God for some amazing models examples through my spiritual father
[54:15] Speaker 6: and pastor Bishop Brian Pearce where Like I've grown up
[54:19] Speaker 6: in the church like Tasha, and I've seen people one
[54:22] Speaker 6: way on platforms and another way off platform Yes, but
[54:26] Speaker 6: we we literally would see their marriage off stage, behind
[54:32] Speaker 6: this when you don't have.
[54:33] Speaker 1: To, you know.
[54:34] Speaker 6: And like, one of the things that really impacted me
[54:37] Speaker 6: most was watching them. We were all on a trip
[54:39] Speaker 6: together and they're walking in front of us. They don't
[54:41] Speaker 6: even know we're watching, and they're literally hand in hand
[54:45] Speaker 6: walking and I'm like, man, after all these years, to
[54:48] Speaker 6: see to see a man that loves his woman that
[54:52] Speaker 6: way that where yeah, where we And this impacted me
[54:56] Speaker 6: so much. I went on a trip with him with
[54:57] Speaker 6: his brothers, and his brothers re afected his walk as
[55:01] Speaker 6: a pastor. And it wasn't like you know, like you know,
[55:04] Speaker 6: stuff changed when you're around people that like, all right, man,
[55:07] Speaker 6: come up out of that.
[55:08] Speaker 2: I've been knowing you.
[55:09] Speaker 6: I've been knowing you your whole life, and to see
[55:13] Speaker 6: that it can be done and it ain't corny like
[55:15] Speaker 6: you know what I mean, like it looked to see
[55:19] Speaker 6: somebody do that. I think that's incredible And I think
[55:22] Speaker 6: a part of a responsibility I feel with our relationship
[55:28] Speaker 6: is to be that model for for somebody else.
[55:31] Speaker 1: Absolutely, So now let's talk about how y'all got here.
[55:34] Speaker 1: How did y'all get from being friends to graduating a
[55:38] Speaker 1: fiance and then the wife. So you were married, you're
[55:42] Speaker 1: you ended up getting a divorce, and then what happened.
[55:44] Speaker 6: During my divorce season. It was really tough. And I
[55:48] Speaker 6: think that's even if you know it's the right decision,
[55:52] Speaker 6: you face things that you don't even realize their moments,
[55:56] Speaker 6: and dark knights where you don't even realize this was coming.
[56:00] Speaker 6: So I would even miss my ex and I know
[56:02] Speaker 6: I made the right decision, but I'm having to kind
[56:05] Speaker 6: of process.
[56:06] Speaker 2: Through all of this.
[56:07] Speaker 6: And it was during that season that I said I
[56:09] Speaker 6: need my friend. I need my friend because we had
[56:12] Speaker 6: gone through a season where we weren't talking as much.
[56:15] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he do not answer in my phone.
[56:22] Speaker 2: We talk about.
[56:26] Speaker 7: You.
[56:26] Speaker 3: Even though we haven't defined this. I believe it.
[56:29] Speaker 5: It could be old school thing, you know, I grew
[56:31] Speaker 5: up old schools church, Like your wife now is your
[56:34] Speaker 5: best friend, this is your focus. So I'm not gonna
[56:37] Speaker 5: do anything to try to be in the middle of this,
[56:40] Speaker 5: you know. So it was probably about two years where
[56:45] Speaker 5: he sent me that text like I need my friend,
[56:48] Speaker 5: and I could hear and since the depression, the darkness,
[56:52] Speaker 5: he was in a very very.
[56:54] Speaker 3: Hard place, and so was I. Like literally I needed
[57:00] Speaker 3: him too.
[57:01] Speaker 5: I needed my friend, and so we would just literally
[57:03] Speaker 5: help walk each other through those seasons.
[57:05] Speaker 3: I would send him songs like I need you to
[57:08] Speaker 3: listen to this.
[57:08] Speaker 5: This is gonna help you in this season where you are,
[57:11] Speaker 5: and I mean worship songs.
[57:13] Speaker 3: He would send stuff back to me, and.
[57:15] Speaker 5: That friendship, it was just it's almost you know, you
[57:18] Speaker 5: have those friends where it's like we haven't talked two years,
[57:20] Speaker 5: but we picked right up where we left. Literally that
[57:24] Speaker 5: that's what happened with us. And so one night I
[57:27] Speaker 5: told this the last time I was sitting in the hotel,
[57:29] Speaker 5: and you got feelings for me?
[57:32] Speaker 3: You just told him.
[57:32] Speaker 5: I was like, I'm going to walk in a holy
[57:34] Speaker 5: boldness on this evening.
[57:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, you got feelings like me. That's what this is.
[57:52] Speaker 6: You know, I'm a processor, right, And so I think
[57:55] Speaker 6: I had to take that in and really kind of
[57:58] Speaker 6: come to a realization of a, yes, I do have
[58:02] Speaker 6: feelings for you, but now it's kind of starting to
[58:05] Speaker 6: look like a conversation of what that looks like.
[58:08] Speaker 2: And what can this be?
[58:11] Speaker 6: And you know, thinking through that, like it's all like
[58:15] Speaker 6: great when we start talking about our music and music ministry.
[58:20] Speaker 6: But I mean, so I'm coming out of a marriage,
[58:25] Speaker 6: I have three children, and so that's a consideration.
[58:29] Speaker 2: Right, Like we just talked about the comments and stuff.
[58:34] Speaker 2: He got three kicks.
[58:36] Speaker 6: I'm like, man, I had a child at twenty four,
[58:40] Speaker 6: nine years later out of a marriage. I had my
[58:43] Speaker 6: youngest daughter and my son is a bonus son. And
[58:48] Speaker 6: so I was looking at that and couldn't respond. But
[58:53] Speaker 6: my point is there were a lot of considerations, but
[58:56] Speaker 6: I felt like this was God's for me, in God's
[59:01] Speaker 6: purpose for us, and it was amazing to be able
[59:04] Speaker 6: to really kind of release all of that other stuff
[59:07] Speaker 6: because when you when you do this, when you say
[59:10] Speaker 6: yes to this, it's a faith move. You don't know,
[59:14] Speaker 6: you're not gonna know. God doesn't design it, so you
[59:17] Speaker 6: have all of the answer at all. And that's for
[59:19] Speaker 6: a lot of people that like, we just did a
[59:22] Speaker 6: masked wedding at our church, and uh, it was for
[59:25] Speaker 6: a lot of people who were kind of standing in.
[59:28] Speaker 6: A lot of us want to have everything lined up.
[59:32] Speaker 6: But there's a scripture that says a man that stares
[59:34] Speaker 6: in the wind would never saw and so we would
[59:38] Speaker 6: say it like this, you study.
[59:39] Speaker 2: A long, you study wrong. Yeah, yeah, so I had
[59:43] Speaker 2: to step in.
[59:44] Speaker 6: It's probably one of my first lessons of faith, where God,
[59:47] Speaker 6: I trust your voice enough to step on it and
[59:52] Speaker 6: be assured that I will land on your something. He's
[59:54] Speaker 6: not gonna reveal everything. And so I released all of
[59:58] Speaker 6: those proclivities, all of those a all of it. You're
[1:00:01] Speaker 6: never gonna be ready, and I just stepped out on
[1:00:03] Speaker 6: faith and just let God do what he's gonna do.
[1:00:07] Speaker 2: And then what was your response back? So you waited?
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: How long did you wait to articulate to Tasha that
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: the feeling was mutual?
[1:00:15] Speaker 2: It wasn't that long at all. Yeah, it was like,
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: let's do this.
[1:00:19] Speaker 5: I think one of the things that I love about
[1:00:20] Speaker 5: Kenny he keeps saying he's a processor and it takes
[1:00:24] Speaker 5: time for him to matriculate through those different thoughts and
[1:00:28] Speaker 5: how am I going to manage this even with our
[1:00:30] Speaker 5: blended family, Like I appreciate my husband so much because
[1:00:34] Speaker 5: there are moments where you know, for some of us
[1:00:36] Speaker 5: we might just flip off the handle, but he's like, no,
[1:00:40] Speaker 5: this is how I feel like we should do this,
[1:00:42] Speaker 5: you know, even when there were times where I would
[1:00:44] Speaker 5: go to him and say, I feel like I'm on
[1:00:46] Speaker 5: the outside looking in, trying to articulate how I feel.
[1:00:49] Speaker 5: I feel like y'all have this moving car and I'm
[1:00:52] Speaker 5: in a car beside you. If we're going to the
[1:00:54] Speaker 5: same destination, I feel like I need to get in
[1:00:56] Speaker 5: the car. And so he would hear me out and
[1:00:58] Speaker 5: then figure out ways on how to implement different styles
[1:01:03] Speaker 5: of parenting so that I can fit into, you know,
[1:01:07] Speaker 5: the equation, and he's just he's just such a great thinker.
[1:01:10] Speaker 5: So even in that I remember so me being me,
[1:01:14] Speaker 5: which is a line to don't put on that dinim suit,
[1:01:16] Speaker 5: don't wear that. I remember because of what he had
[1:01:19] Speaker 5: been exposed to an industry, the different types of male
[1:01:24] Speaker 5: influences that he had, just how to break some of
[1:01:27] Speaker 5: those influences off of him. I would say stuff like
[1:01:30] Speaker 5: I don't want us to go another day without communicating
[1:01:34] Speaker 5: in some kind of way. And I would ask him like,
[1:01:36] Speaker 5: every day I want to hear your voice.
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: I want us to text want And.
[1:01:40] Speaker 5: That was me saying, this is how you are become
[1:01:44] Speaker 5: a faithful man.
[1:01:45] Speaker 6: That was that was when it got real to me too,
[1:01:48] Speaker 6: like because you know, you know, but yeah, yeah, I
[1:01:53] Speaker 6: like you too and know she was serious, but also,
[1:02:01] Speaker 6: like you were saying, it kind of laid out a
[1:02:03] Speaker 6: framework too, and like since that day, I made sure
[1:02:06] Speaker 6: every single every day that's good that I, you know,
[1:02:10] Speaker 6: was sending a text, sending some type of communication, calling,
[1:02:14] Speaker 6: just to make sure that we stayed connected.
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: Let's talk about this because a lot of men don't
[1:02:18] Speaker 1: share this, but they operate in it. Did you have
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: a fear of remarriage?
[1:02:24] Speaker 6: Yes, I think for me, the fear was kind of oh,
[1:02:32] Speaker 6: it was kind of rooted in being driven, right, And
[1:02:36] Speaker 6: so I'll say it like this, and I heard this
[1:02:39] Speaker 6: from Pasadarius, who walked with us pretty closely. But so
[1:02:42] Speaker 6: we can we live out purpose one of two ways.
[1:02:45] Speaker 6: It's either being led or being driven. And so one
[1:02:48] Speaker 6: of the things that would cause me to fear about
[1:02:52] Speaker 6: moving forward is I was being driven by brokenness in
[1:02:55] Speaker 6: my past, driven by failures, driven by and so now
[1:03:01] Speaker 6: I'm operating out of out of a failure instead of
[1:03:05] Speaker 6: operating like.
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: Jesus, who who this is?
[1:03:09] Speaker 6: This is my son who is well pleased before any
[1:03:11] Speaker 6: miracles or anything happen. And so he was always operating
[1:03:14] Speaker 6: out of confirmation and not operating out of brokenness. And
[1:03:18] Speaker 6: so I was I had to go through a process.
[1:03:21] Speaker 6: And this is a faith move as well. Everything is
[1:03:23] Speaker 6: about faith. I can't say that I had to go
[1:03:27] Speaker 6: through a process of breaking all of that. You fail before,
[1:03:31] Speaker 6: you're always gonna be a cheater. You're always gonna have
[1:03:33] Speaker 6: a roster. You're not gonna be able to say no
[1:03:36] Speaker 6: to temptation and say make decisions and steps to be
[1:03:42] Speaker 6: led and not driven that.
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: God, dog, wow, oh I need men to hear that
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: right there?
[1:03:50] Speaker 1: My God, Yeah, I'm getting emotional just hearing that. That
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: is so powerful. And I heard the Holy Spirit tell
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: me to ask you that question, saying that you're going
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: to say something that's impactful. And when I tell you,
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: it's because that's the fear that keeps men from remarrying
[1:04:09] Speaker 1: or getting married even the first time. They're just we're
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: so programmed to chase after the wrong thing, you know,
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: and we'd be like naw, Like you said, men will
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: say mayors don't work. A man is happier being a
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: single because and they'll take they'll give all these examples
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: of everything that went wrong. You never hear them say
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: examples that went right because truth be told. Like you
[1:04:31] Speaker 1: said earlier, Kenneth, that they don't see positive examples, so
[1:04:35] Speaker 1: they be like, well, I mean I ain't never seen
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: the mayors actually work, so they like, so it don't work.
[1:04:41] Speaker 1: Instead of saying, let me be the change I want
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: to see. They used to tell us that when we're
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: in kindergarten, that was a model be the change, you know,
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: and I've been like, oh, I want to be okay,
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: but that taught you how to be leader, how to
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: walk in leadership and become a leader. Instead of saying, well,
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: el sins nobody else ain't getting married, well I ain't
[1:04:59] Speaker 1: gonna get married either, you're saying. And it's like, and
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: I'm glad that you just level set expectations from a
[1:05:05] Speaker 1: healthy standpoint instead of this toxic masculinity that we've adopted
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: for so long to say this is what is supposed
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: to be. And it's like no, no, and like you said,
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: driven by the fear of something not working, you know,
[1:05:17] Speaker 1: and people don't understand that a righteous man, when you
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: look at when you failed and mismanaging a marriage before,
[1:05:25] Speaker 1: you rather just say.
[1:05:26] Speaker 2: I ain't gonna do it again because at least you can.
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: You can get on to me all day about being
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: single and not getting married or whatever, but you can't
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: fault me. If I don't get married again, then it
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: doesn't fail, you know what I'm saying, Because if I'm single,
[1:05:38] Speaker 1: I'm just single.
[1:05:39] Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: You'd be like, well, that's what single man is supposed
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: to do. But you get married. Now you have a responsibility.
[1:05:45] Speaker 1: You have a fidiciary duty, and you have a responsibility
[1:05:47] Speaker 1: by Christ to be able to say now you need
[1:05:49] Speaker 1: to be a leader. Now you're a husband, you're a householder.
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: So now when you take those vows, you gotta take
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: it seriously. So most men be like, I'm just never
[1:05:56] Speaker 1: gonna do it because I don't want it to know
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: this go right.
[1:05:59] Speaker 6: Because it's hard, right like, And that's the thing. Marriage
[1:06:02] Speaker 6: is framed weird to single people. The first thing you
[1:06:05] Speaker 6: hear is marriage is what hard, and most people run
[1:06:10] Speaker 6: away from pain faster than they run to pleasure.
[1:06:12] Speaker 2: There it is, so you see people you.
[1:06:15] Speaker 6: See in my context as a man, so I say men,
[1:06:19] Speaker 6: but it's really people that will run away from the
[1:06:21] Speaker 6: hard thing. But most of the time what we find
[1:06:25] Speaker 6: is where resistance is that's where growth is. It is like,
[1:06:28] Speaker 6: that's how it works with weights, that's how it works
[1:06:30] Speaker 6: with spiritual life. That's why you fall asleep when you're
[1:06:32] Speaker 6: trying to read the scripture and you see this resistance
[1:06:37] Speaker 6: or maybe even this like pruning or even correction even
[1:06:44] Speaker 6: And I had to release an ego in my life
[1:06:49] Speaker 6: to be able to see my wife differently, to see
[1:06:53] Speaker 6: the quote unquote hard, the quote unquote challenge. And here's
[1:06:57] Speaker 6: what I mean, Like, there are moments where with my wife,
[1:07:01] Speaker 6: she has become my greatest mirror. And you don't go
[1:07:06] Speaker 6: out into life, especially for us, without checking to see
[1:07:11] Speaker 6: what you look like. And there are things on you
[1:07:14] Speaker 6: about you that you can't see without a mirror you teaching.
[1:07:17] Speaker 6: And so here's the thing though, sometimes when you see
[1:07:20] Speaker 6: the mirror, it's a hard truth. I thought I looked
[1:07:22] Speaker 6: good in this this terrible wow. I thought I was justified.
[1:07:28] Speaker 6: This ain't justified. I didn't even know I had this
[1:07:32] Speaker 6: right here. And there are moments where she literally said
[1:07:34] Speaker 6: something to me last night where it's sometimes it's hard
[1:07:37] Speaker 6: to hear. But if you if your perspective of it
[1:07:40] Speaker 6: is differently, you'll be able to grow beyond your own
[1:07:44] Speaker 6: your own strength, because God literally placed somebody in your
[1:07:49] Speaker 6: life that can help you get to your next level.
[1:07:53] Speaker 6: Like our greatest gifts we get from God comes into
[1:07:57] Speaker 6: our life on two legs. Jesus came in who our
[1:08:00] Speaker 6: life on two legs. He could have come in any form.
[1:08:04] Speaker 6: And so he gave me my wife. And she'll say, no, baby,
[1:08:08] Speaker 6: you need to make sure you do this, or how
[1:08:10] Speaker 6: about because she's so graceful, right, she's so incredible, And
[1:08:13] Speaker 6: she'll say instead of she'll say, how about trying it
[1:08:16] Speaker 6: like this?
[1:08:17] Speaker 2: Well, how about saying.
[1:08:18] Speaker 3: A far from the girl who burst through the doors.
[1:08:23] Speaker 2: And us because of him?
[1:08:26] Speaker 6: And I think, like when the Bible says iron sharpens iron,
[1:08:29] Speaker 6: like we we've sharpened each other in grace. And she's
[1:08:33] Speaker 6: had grace to grow as a wife because because she
[1:08:37] Speaker 6: can see and break every chain. Real good has nothing
[1:08:39] Speaker 6: to do with how great she could be a wife, yeah,
[1:08:44] Speaker 6: or or how well she could be a mother or
[1:08:48] Speaker 6: anything else. Right, And so we've given each we got
[1:08:51] Speaker 6: a couple in our mention that has a mention called
[1:08:53] Speaker 6: grace to grow.
[1:08:54] Speaker 2: We've given each other grace to grow.
[1:08:57] Speaker 6: This is a safe space to fail, and it's good.
[1:09:01] Speaker 6: Baba says two is better than one because if one falls,
[1:09:04] Speaker 6: you got somebody else to help you. And so you
[1:09:07] Speaker 6: can fail here and we'll get back up together.
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: That's good. God, dog is good. I always say Actuley
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: is my ultimate do over. And I say when I
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: was when I was a foster parent, they were always
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: teach us and parenting classes to give kids correction by
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: allowing them to do a do over. So if the
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: kids grab the toy from Johnny, then you say, hey,
[1:09:27] Speaker 1: now that's not nice to snatch his toys. We're going
[1:09:30] Speaker 1: to give your due over. Now ask politely, can you
[1:09:32] Speaker 1: play with Johnny's toy? And so the kid you give
[1:09:34] Speaker 1: the toy back to Johnny. It's like can I play
[1:09:36] Speaker 1: with the toy? And then Johnny gives them the toy
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: the do over. So I told Ashley early on, I said,
[1:09:41] Speaker 1: you're my ultimate due over. I said, you're going to
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: be the teacher, the professor that can grade me on
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: whether or not you're being loved properly. I said, I
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: don't care what other people may say on these platforms
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: and what not. To be like liok Terrace is so amazing.
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: If my wife is saying he's terrible.
[1:09:57] Speaker 2: He's horrible.
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: He's the worst husband I could have ever chose her.
[1:10:01] Speaker 1: At these I failed. And I told her and I said,
[1:10:04] Speaker 1: I don't care what I wrote in the book. In
[1:10:06] Speaker 1: this book, I wrote in the acknowledgment, I it was amazing,
[1:10:11] Speaker 1: I wrote, Ashley R. Whitfield. Before I even proposed, I
[1:10:15] Speaker 1: gave her a dedication. I turned the book in in
[1:10:17] Speaker 1: May and I proposed to her July to thirteen.
[1:10:20] Speaker 2: Wow. And my editor said you sure. Joe said, Okay,
[1:10:28] Speaker 2: you stepping big?
[1:10:30] Speaker 1: I said, listen. I said, hey, if she says no
[1:10:33] Speaker 1: when I proposed to her or whatnot, that's just be
[1:10:35] Speaker 1: another lesson in my Student of Love that I that
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: I step and it didn't work out. When I said,
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: this is my wife and I'm a move like she's
[1:10:43] Speaker 1: my wife until she tells me she's not.
[1:10:45] Speaker 3: Wow, period.
[1:10:46] Speaker 1: I told that from March. I said, listen, I'm marrying you.
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: And I said, if this don't work out, it's gonna
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: because of you. I said, because you're getting everything I have.
[1:10:56] Speaker 1: If I'm not holding anytime she tell me something that
[1:10:59] Speaker 1: she don't like and need to, I said, okay, change, Wow, okay, change.
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: So when you talk about somebody that's able to speak
[1:11:04] Speaker 1: into your life and say, let me sharpen you. Because
[1:11:06] Speaker 1: I was single for ten years. I failed in the marriage.
[1:11:09] Speaker 1: So there's things that I thought. I knew that once
[1:11:12] Speaker 1: you begin to get married or you're dating somebody and
[1:11:15] Speaker 1: they go, no, I need you to change this. I
[1:11:16] Speaker 1: don't like all these relationships you have with all these
[1:11:18] Speaker 1: women that you have. Whatever changed, change what else? What else?
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: I said that my thing. Now, I'm not gonna be
[1:11:25] Speaker 1: a hard headed husband. You tell me what needs to
[1:11:28] Speaker 1: change is changed. You are priority and nothing else matters, period, period, period.
[1:11:35] Speaker 5: I remember you sharing with us, Yo. You guys were
[1:11:37] Speaker 5: just talking about when you propose. You told me something
[1:11:40] Speaker 5: about it was like the day after you left for
[1:11:42] Speaker 5: our church, or the night you left the Purpose.
[1:11:44] Speaker 3: Place, the night you had the night I didn't even
[1:11:48] Speaker 3: tell you about me.
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: So this is what happened, man. So it was so
[1:11:51] Speaker 1: high in the Purpose Place. It was such a beautiful
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: episode The Dear Future WIFEI podcast, thank y'all because that
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: was like, really like you call, like a couple of
[1:11:59] Speaker 1: weeks we got to have you come here, and I
[1:12:02] Speaker 1: was like, what cos as you come from where you go,
[1:12:05] Speaker 1: let's go, let's go. So we went there and whatnot,
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: and this is spirit was just high. It was just high.
[1:12:11] Speaker 1: It was some little weirdos that came trying to give
[1:12:13] Speaker 1: me gifts and stuff. Don't you take that message with you?
[1:12:16] Speaker 1: You know, it was just strangers that was popping up.
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: It wasn't people, not for one order two and so
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: and so I was, I left and I said, God,
[1:12:28] Speaker 1: I don't want to spend another Valentine's Day by myself,
[1:12:31] Speaker 1: Like I said.
[1:12:31] Speaker 2: I don't.
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: I don't like this. I don't like all this attention
[1:12:34] Speaker 1: from women and they're not mine. And I said, I
[1:12:38] Speaker 1: want my person. And so I went to that hotel room, lonely, sad,
[1:12:42] Speaker 1: and I had a dream about her. I had talked
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: to her that that night, and then it was some
[1:12:47] Speaker 1: guy trying to shoot a shot at or whatnot while
[1:12:50] Speaker 1: she was with her cousin terrible and so I sat
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: there and I just laughed with on the phone. I
[1:12:55] Speaker 1: got the phone, I went to sleep, had a dream,
[1:12:56] Speaker 1: and I had a dream that because every time we
[1:12:59] Speaker 1: were we were friends, she was dating, she d up
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: dating somebody else and then it don't work out, and
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: then you know, I'm dating somebody or whatnot, and so
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: that day that from the end of January to until
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: we got together, she was single and I was singling.
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: So I was like, hmmm, I keep thinking about this
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: woman all the time, and then it came into my subconscious.
[1:13:18] Speaker 1: Went to sleep, woke up the next morning she was
[1:13:20] Speaker 1: with some guy and I got jealous and I was like,
[1:13:24] Speaker 1: this man done took my woman, I said. I woke
[1:13:28] Speaker 1: up in the morning. I called us. I woke up
[1:13:31] Speaker 1: in the morning and I was like, it's too early
[1:13:34] Speaker 1: to call of this. I'm gonna wait to six, but
[1:13:38] Speaker 1: fave O two, I'm calling. By the way to six CLO.
[1:13:41] Speaker 3: I called.
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: I said, hey, I said, I started telling. I said,
[1:13:43] Speaker 1: I had this dream or whatever, and and I had
[1:13:45] Speaker 1: dream that she was with this guy whatever, like like
[1:13:48] Speaker 1: you know, and she was like, what I mean, good morning?
[1:13:49] Speaker 1: I said, okay, good morning, but hold on, I was.
[1:13:52] Speaker 1: I was spasing out. I was spasing out, and I said, listen,
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: I know we've been friends for over a year. It's
[1:13:58] Speaker 1: about a year and three months of the time. I said,
[1:14:00] Speaker 1: we've been a year a friend for about year and
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: three months. I said, listen, I got to see if
[1:14:04] Speaker 1: it's more to this, I said, because we've been, We've
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: been solid. I've watched you date other people. These people
[1:14:11] Speaker 1: can't cover you like I can. And I said, listen,
[1:14:15] Speaker 1: I want to I want to take you on the date.
[1:14:17] Speaker 1: And I said every time I go to La we
[1:14:19] Speaker 1: go out and it's just a platonic little lunch or
[1:14:21] Speaker 1: dinner whatnot. I said, this is going to be a
[1:14:23] Speaker 1: romantic date. I want to know if there's more to
[1:14:26] Speaker 1: us than just friendship. When are you available? She said,
[1:14:30] Speaker 1: looked at her calendar, March the eighteenth. I said, dang,
[1:14:33] Speaker 1: that's a long time. I just gonna come a little bit.
[1:14:38] Speaker 1: Wait a tomorrow, she said, listen eighteenth. He said, lord,
[1:14:43] Speaker 1: this is it. Eighteen nineteen more days. So I said,
[1:14:46] Speaker 1: all right, cool. I booked a flight. While we're on
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: that phone, I said, I'm coming to see you March
[1:14:51] Speaker 1: the eighteenth. And in that moment I was sitting there,
[1:14:53] Speaker 1: but we've been so you know, platonic friends that it was.
[1:14:55] Speaker 1: She was like, I don't want to ruin the friendship
[1:14:58] Speaker 1: and care about this friendship like my wife. Yeah, I'm like,
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: and this is interesting. And then so she was just like,
[1:15:08] Speaker 1: all right, let's see. And so on the eighteenth, I
[1:15:10] Speaker 1: went there or whatnot. And I was just like And
[1:15:13] Speaker 1: a couple of days prior to that, I told her,
[1:15:14] Speaker 1: I said, listen, because she still open the date of
[1:15:17] Speaker 1: other people. I was still open the date of other folks.
[1:15:19] Speaker 1: And I was like, I just don't want no more distractions.
[1:15:21] Speaker 1: I said, listen when I come down the eighteenth. A
[1:15:24] Speaker 1: couple of days before that, I said, I'm committed to
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: you before the commitment. Because I always teach people all
[1:15:29] Speaker 1: the time, I said, date, folks, and date, and then
[1:15:31] Speaker 1: if God says y'all alive, then y'all not stopping each
[1:15:34] Speaker 1: other from meeting each other's person. So y'all just date.
[1:15:36] Speaker 1: And when y'all, if God says that's your wife, that's
[1:15:39] Speaker 1: your husband, get confirmation, then y'all become committed to one another.
[1:15:42] Speaker 1: But in that moment, I said, I don't want nobody
[1:15:44] Speaker 1: but her Jesus, and I said until God gives her
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: the confirmation that I'm the one, I'm confirmed enough and
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: I'm a move like she's the one. And I told
[1:15:53] Speaker 1: her straight up. She was just like okay. I said, no,
[1:15:56] Speaker 1: you keep doing what you're doing, keep doing what you're doing.
[1:15:58] Speaker 1: I'm fingna move with intention. And that's exactly what I did.
[1:16:01] Speaker 3: Did you know, like, did you know what? You were
[1:16:04] Speaker 3: just kind of waiting?
[1:16:05] Speaker 4: Well, I think the transition for me was a process.
[1:16:09] Speaker 3: Okay, process, speaking.
[1:16:12] Speaker 9: Of process, But what I knew in February I had
[1:16:16] Speaker 9: read all these books about neurotransmitters, and so he was
[1:16:20] Speaker 9: my friend and he had never tried anything. But I
[1:16:23] Speaker 9: knew that a sign of vasappressing developing in men was
[1:16:28] Speaker 9: mate guarding. And so when a man starts to mate guard,
[1:16:32] Speaker 9: that's usually a sign that there's like a shift, right,
[1:16:36] Speaker 9: So he's now protecting you in a way where he
[1:16:39] Speaker 9: sees you as something because he had never asked me
[1:16:42] Speaker 9: about who I was with or he had never been
[1:16:44] Speaker 9: concerned about that. But he was angry. So for me,
[1:16:52] Speaker 9: really angry, I was like, oh, something shifted. And so
[1:16:56] Speaker 9: for me, I was like I saw him as my friend.
[1:17:00] Speaker 9: I saw him as one of my closest friends. I
[1:17:02] Speaker 9: was telling him all my business, you know that sort
[1:17:05] Speaker 9: of thing. So it was like, how do how? I
[1:17:08] Speaker 9: just had questions like, how do we get from from
[1:17:11] Speaker 9: this to this?
[1:17:13] Speaker 2: Did you feel like you had to give up the close.
[1:17:16] Speaker 6: Friends a little bit?
[1:17:18] Speaker 9: Because yeah, and I think because sometimes when you're dating,
[1:17:25] Speaker 9: there's like this performative nature attached to it if you're not.
[1:17:29] Speaker 9: And that's why his friend of fiance thing resonated so
[1:17:32] Speaker 9: deeply because I was like, on one hand, this is
[1:17:35] Speaker 9: really good because I've been myself and you want me,
[1:17:38] Speaker 9: you know what I mean? And sometimes I have to
[1:17:40] Speaker 9: say yeah, like I don't have to fake anything, versus
[1:17:43] Speaker 9: sometimes when you meet someone and someone's like, oh, let
[1:17:46] Speaker 9: me introduce you to my friend.
[1:17:47] Speaker 4: You're gonna step with your best foot forward.
[1:17:50] Speaker 3: I'm like you about it?
[1:17:56] Speaker 2: Amazing.
[1:17:58] Speaker 9: I could see how it was going to happen, but I,
[1:18:00] Speaker 9: just like I said last week, wanted to just wait
[1:18:04] Speaker 9: to see actions and words align and to be sober
[1:18:08] Speaker 9: because I know that you know the scripture, be sober,
[1:18:11] Speaker 9: be vigilant for your adversary growth about seeking who we
[1:18:14] Speaker 9: can devour.
[1:18:15] Speaker 4: I know the way to devour me is my heart
[1:18:18] Speaker 4: because I'm such a lover.
[1:18:20] Speaker 9: And I was like, oh man, that would really crush
[1:18:22] Speaker 9: me if I lose If I get my heart broken
[1:18:25] Speaker 9: and I lose my friend.
[1:18:26] Speaker 2: Wow, nice, that's crazy.
[1:18:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody asked you all to start interviewing.
[1:18:31] Speaker 11: Up to them, you know, and I.
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: Knew always asked them to ask whatever you go to
[1:18:52] Speaker 1: the middle of this, and so that transition once you
[1:18:55] Speaker 1: started finding the alignment and saying, hey, I'm gonna go
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: ahead and take this step forward to try transition from
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: y'all's friendship. What did they look like?
[1:19:03] Speaker 7: Oh?
[1:19:03] Speaker 3: It was beautiful.
[1:19:04] Speaker 5: One of the things that I love that I keep
[1:19:06] Speaker 5: talking about him carrying this with such crazy. He's so gracious.
[1:19:09] Speaker 5: He is the calm to our storms. We have a
[1:19:12] Speaker 5: few storms in our family, mainly me and the two
[1:19:14] Speaker 5: girls and that little little boy.
[1:19:17] Speaker 2: But he then.
[1:19:20] Speaker 5: Started to process and think through ways of managing the
[1:19:23] Speaker 5: transition now, like what does this look like and how
[1:19:26] Speaker 5: can I protect her, especially with the platform with me
[1:19:29] Speaker 5: being a divorced man, me having children. He thought through
[1:19:35] Speaker 5: all of that and was very communicative with the entire family.
[1:19:39] Speaker 3: Even from the beginning.
[1:19:41] Speaker 5: It wasn't always Peaches and Creed, you know, with his
[1:19:45] Speaker 5: ex wife and with our children's mom, and that was
[1:19:48] Speaker 5: a relationship and communication that had to be developed so
[1:19:51] Speaker 5: much so to one day it's two stories that I
[1:19:54] Speaker 5: have and I love Shy. That's our baby mama and Devin,
[1:19:58] Speaker 5: our oldest baby. He's mom too. But Shaya, she reached
[1:20:02] Speaker 5: out to me. She had seen an article with will
[1:20:05] Speaker 5: Smith and his Jada and his oldest baby's mom and
[1:20:11] Speaker 5: in that are in that interview, she said, I can
[1:20:15] Speaker 5: love you because of the way that you love my children.
[1:20:18] Speaker 5: And there was like this wall that Shaya had had up,
[1:20:21] Speaker 5: even though she was open to us spending time with
[1:20:23] Speaker 5: the kids. But one of the things that kids needs
[1:20:25] Speaker 5: to they need to see is that the three of
[1:20:28] Speaker 5: us are also aligned. And that was always his prayer
[1:20:31] Speaker 5: for sure and mine. And when Shaya saw that, she
[1:20:34] Speaker 5: sent me a message and both of us just cried,
[1:20:36] Speaker 5: like she was like, I can't help but to love
[1:20:38] Speaker 5: you because of the way you love my children. And
[1:20:41] Speaker 5: from that moment until this one, we have been There's
[1:20:44] Speaker 5: nothing that we don't talk about about our kids. Nothing,
[1:20:47] Speaker 5: There's nothing we're not going to show up to.
[1:20:49] Speaker 3: Even with Asher.
[1:20:50] Speaker 5: She's involved with Asher, She's just like, well, Asher got
[1:20:52] Speaker 5: going on. I mean, it's it's a family unit that
[1:20:55] Speaker 5: we are committed to. And I know, you know, it's
[1:20:58] Speaker 5: sometimes it sounds so distant for people, and I understand that.
[1:21:02] Speaker 5: I feel like, you know, what we can't do in
[1:21:05] Speaker 5: our own strength, that's where faith goes to work. You know,
[1:21:08] Speaker 5: there are some things I couldn't have ever been the
[1:21:10] Speaker 5: one to show her that article.
[1:21:12] Speaker 3: God had to make that happen.
[1:21:13] Speaker 5: He will provide a window or door of opportunity for
[1:21:17] Speaker 5: his voice to be heard in their lives and not
[1:21:19] Speaker 5: anybody that's listening to that.
[1:21:20] Speaker 3: And you're dealing with a blended family.
[1:21:22] Speaker 5: I know sometimes it could be challenging, but where you
[1:21:25] Speaker 5: have come to the end of yourself, that's when it's
[1:21:27] Speaker 5: an opportunity for you to trust God to work a miracle.
[1:21:30] Speaker 5: And I am a living witness, a living testimony that
[1:21:33] Speaker 5: he can do it. And so with Kenny, that's what
[1:21:35] Speaker 5: he did. He just began to build our unit. What
[1:21:38] Speaker 5: does this family look like? And you got to talk
[1:21:40] Speaker 5: about like the privacy. Our wedding was private, like nobody
[1:21:44] Speaker 5: even knew they were coming to a wedding, Like so
[1:21:47] Speaker 5: I can even tell you that I think we talked
[1:21:49] Speaker 5: about the lifetime So I understand what you're saying about
[1:21:52] Speaker 5: the dear future wife and you didn't want her to
[1:21:54] Speaker 5: be revealed too soon and all that. We had a
[1:21:56] Speaker 5: private wedding, So it was at the top of the year.
[1:21:58] Speaker 5: We got married March third.
[1:22:00] Speaker 6: We even had a private relationship though for a while,
[1:22:03] Speaker 6: Like I remember the label now because I was her
[1:22:07] Speaker 6: MD and we were working together.
[1:22:08] Speaker 2: And when y'all started.
[1:22:13] Speaker 3: They were not y'all married.
[1:22:17] Speaker 5: And so we decided that we would do a New
[1:22:21] Speaker 5: Year's dinner that we wanted to share with our friends
[1:22:23] Speaker 5: and family in March in our godparents, our parents, our
[1:22:30] Speaker 5: close friends, pastors, and we invited them to a dinner.
[1:22:34] Speaker 3: We literally had invitations designed.
[1:22:36] Speaker 5: They looked like wedding invitations, had our initials and everything on.
[1:22:39] Speaker 3: It was beautiful.
[1:22:40] Speaker 5: And we went to a venue in Atlanta, and when
[1:22:43] Speaker 5: people drove up, from the moment that they drove up,
[1:22:46] Speaker 5: I wanted them to know surprise. So we had valet outside.
[1:22:50] Speaker 5: We had the wedding cake in the window.
[1:22:53] Speaker 2: And all of it.
[1:22:53] Speaker 5: Like my god father, Pastor Mark Baker, he was like,
[1:22:55] Speaker 5: now you know, you should have told me I would
[1:22:57] Speaker 5: to put on something else.
[1:22:59] Speaker 3: It was just that like there was.
[1:23:00] Speaker 5: It was not open to the world because we we
[1:23:03] Speaker 5: lived so public public. There was this is the one
[1:23:07] Speaker 5: thing that we want the presence of God to be here,
[1:23:10] Speaker 5: and we want our loved ones, those who support us,
[1:23:13] Speaker 5: who are going to be pushing for us and praying
[1:23:15] Speaker 5: for us, to be in that room. And so they
[1:23:17] Speaker 5: showed up thinking they were coming to a dinner and
[1:23:19] Speaker 5: it was our wedding. We got March March the third,
[1:23:21] Speaker 5: twenty seventeen, so we're coming up on nine years now,
[1:23:24] Speaker 5: and it was it was exactly what we prayed for.
[1:23:26] Speaker 5: The Presence of God was there. Bishop Murphy got up
[1:23:28] Speaker 5: and he sang Alpha and Omega. The presence of the
[1:23:32] Speaker 5: Lord was there. Our pastors, Bishop Peers and Lady Davy,
[1:23:36] Speaker 5: they did the wedding. It was just everything we wanted
[1:23:40] Speaker 5: and it was It was not open. It was the
[1:23:42] Speaker 5: one thing where we were like, hey, God, we don't
[1:23:44] Speaker 5: want this to be a spectacle.
[1:23:45] Speaker 3: We don't want it. We want this to be private
[1:23:49] Speaker 3: with just your presence. And that's what it was.
[1:23:52] Speaker 7: Dating.
[1:23:52] Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, they knew we were dating. They knew
[1:23:55] Speaker 3: we were dating. Yeah, not labeled it.
[1:23:57] Speaker 2: No.
[1:23:58] Speaker 1: So we had this us that we was talking about
[1:24:01] Speaker 1: making that like an event for doorhowks you remember, and
[1:24:04] Speaker 1: just inviting everybody, all her family and friends, and and
[1:24:07] Speaker 1: she was like, I was like, will your family come
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: if it was something that you were doing with your company.
[1:24:10] Speaker 1: She was. We were trying to figure out everything, know
[1:24:13] Speaker 1: how to do it, and we just could not come
[1:24:15] Speaker 1: up with what y'all came up with was clearly brilliant.
[1:24:19] Speaker 5: They all showed up, one of them and you what
[1:24:23] Speaker 5: thing they had like a thought.
[1:24:25] Speaker 3: Many of us told us.
[1:24:26] Speaker 5: Many of them told us, no, we really thought we
[1:24:28] Speaker 5: were coming to a dinner reception.
[1:24:33] Speaker 3: Everything. It was beautiful. They were there for the reception,
[1:24:36] Speaker 3: our dances.
[1:24:36] Speaker 7: It was.
[1:24:38] Speaker 6: How many people we had about.
[1:24:43] Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, because I remember I remember, yeah,
[1:24:49] Speaker 5: I remember doing the invitations. And they started ging how
[1:24:51] Speaker 5: this works, and started growing and growing more and more people.
[1:24:54] Speaker 5: And I had this anxiety. And so Sarah is one
[1:24:56] Speaker 5: of my closest friends. I call pasted Sarah because she
[1:24:58] Speaker 5: had just done and Pastor Torrey had done a closed
[1:25:02] Speaker 5: wedding as well, and.
[1:25:03] Speaker 3: I called her.
[1:25:03] Speaker 5: I said, I just need I need an ear really
[1:25:07] Speaker 5: quick because and she was one of the ones that
[1:25:09] Speaker 5: I told. I was like, I'm planning a wedding and
[1:25:11] Speaker 5: I'm being overwhelmed because I wanted to be intimate. And
[1:25:14] Speaker 5: she was like, Tasha, this is about you and your husband.
[1:25:17] Speaker 5: This is about you and your husband and God and
[1:25:19] Speaker 5: what you're called to do. And she said, any anxiety
[1:25:22] Speaker 5: or fears that you have, we cast them out now
[1:25:24] Speaker 5: in Jesus' name and God will reveal the people who
[1:25:27] Speaker 5: are supposed to be in that room. And I remember
[1:25:29] Speaker 5: going back through that list, and it wasn't that I
[1:25:31] Speaker 5: didn't care, It wasn't that I didn't love you, love you,
[1:25:34] Speaker 5: but there are certain people that God desires to be
[1:25:36] Speaker 5: in this room for this, for this cause. And so
[1:25:38] Speaker 5: it was literally our list probably was about one hundred
[1:25:41] Speaker 5: to one hundred and ten people.
[1:25:43] Speaker 1: What would you say, Because a lot of people deal
[1:25:45] Speaker 1: with a lot of guilt from people not being invited
[1:25:47] Speaker 1: or whatever, and weddings can get extremely expensive. So what
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: would you say to speak to people who may be
[1:25:54] Speaker 1: planning their wedding now and they budget won't even allow
[1:25:58] Speaker 1: for the amount of people that they want to come,
[1:26:01] Speaker 1: or just like you said, God has spoken a word
[1:26:03] Speaker 1: to them to say, get a specific group of people
[1:26:05] Speaker 1: in the room. And I'll share this before you say that.
[1:26:08] Speaker 1: My original idea was, will I want to get married
[1:26:11] Speaker 1: in Dallas, where I have all these relationship with churches,
[1:26:14] Speaker 1: already had Concord Church on hold, where I was going
[1:26:16] Speaker 1: to have just invite everybody there. I mean, whoever want
[1:26:19] Speaker 1: to come come to the wedding. Now, the reception is different,
[1:26:22] Speaker 1: but the wedding let everybody come. It be three thousand
[1:26:24] Speaker 1: people there, I asked. It was like, I don't want that,
[1:26:29] Speaker 1: She said, I don't want people in that room that
[1:26:31] Speaker 1: I don't personally know that. I just I want that
[1:26:34] Speaker 1: room curated with the people that know us and love us.
[1:26:37] Speaker 1: And that was one of my compromises, not only just
[1:26:40] Speaker 1: the compromise of the people that would come, but even
[1:26:44] Speaker 1: have it in La.
[1:26:45] Speaker 2: She said, Listen, I was born and raised in La.
[1:26:47] Speaker 2: Can we just have it in La?
[1:26:48] Speaker 6: Yeah?
[1:26:49] Speaker 1: I said, cool.
[1:26:49] Speaker 3: I love that.
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: And so it went all the way down from venues
[1:26:52] Speaker 1: that hold three thousand to five thousand seats to Warren
[1:26:55] Speaker 1: Campbell and Erica Campbell's church, and we said this was
[1:26:58] Speaker 1: going to be and it's not going to be open
[1:27:00] Speaker 1: to the public in person now virtual That was a compromise.
[1:27:03] Speaker 2: She said, you do it virtually. Yeah, so go and
[1:27:05] Speaker 2: do that.
[1:27:05] Speaker 3: But I should have said that.
[1:27:16] Speaker 1: We were grateful to be in the room, but that's
[1:27:20] Speaker 1: what it was. So I would say to you and
[1:27:23] Speaker 1: then like the number stretch, she said, originally her idea
[1:27:26] Speaker 1: for an intimate wedding was what around what.
[1:27:29] Speaker 9: Like seventy five to one hundred people, because I always
[1:27:32] Speaker 9: feel like like kind of what you said. A lot
[1:27:34] Speaker 9: of people come to look and it's yys, but they're
[1:27:38] Speaker 9: not praying for you. And I know how important covenant
[1:27:40] Speaker 9: is to God. So I like my threshold and barometer
[1:27:44] Speaker 9: is like, can I call you and when something is
[1:27:47] Speaker 9: going on in my world, you're gonna say go home,
[1:27:50] Speaker 9: We're gonna pray, and then you gonna go home to
[1:27:52] Speaker 9: your husband, you know what I mean?
[1:27:53] Speaker 3: Like some people come.
[1:27:54] Speaker 9: To create divisions and I just want to vet everyone
[1:27:59] Speaker 9: on the list to say, like, what is your heart
[1:28:01] Speaker 9: posture for this right here before you come in the room.
[1:28:04] Speaker 5: Yes, I think that answers your question, though it is
[1:28:08] Speaker 5: like who are the people that's gonna be praying a
[1:28:11] Speaker 5: year from now? Yeah, you know they're not coming in
[1:28:14] Speaker 5: to get the next social media clip, right, And to
[1:28:16] Speaker 5: say that I was on the guest list, you know,
[1:28:19] Speaker 5: I feel like for anybody that's feeling that anxiety, just
[1:28:23] Speaker 5: release that. Keep the main thing the main thing, and
[1:28:25] Speaker 5: the main thing is the presence of God on your union,
[1:28:28] Speaker 5: and that's it.
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: The president of God. And so what was so great
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: about y'all's journey? Y'all y'all celebrating what nine years come?
[1:28:36] Speaker 3: In March nine years.
[1:28:38] Speaker 1: March third. We always said, somebody perfectly spoke to us
[1:28:41] Speaker 1: that March is a special month for us. That's when
[1:28:43] Speaker 1: we got together and all this stuff, and both our
[1:28:46] Speaker 1: birthdays in March. Marsh twenty my birthday, March the twenty ninth,
[1:28:49] Speaker 1: Hers Marsha thirty first.
[1:28:50] Speaker 8: Wow.
[1:28:51] Speaker 1: Wow, two days, two days and two days and ten
[1:28:54] Speaker 1: years apart. You know, I'm younger, but I'm a baby.
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: You know, I got me a cougar, but I'm forty seven.
[1:29:06] Speaker 1: She's thirty seven. So whereas exactly two days and ten
[1:29:09] Speaker 1: years apart? And then I joke and say two hours
[1:29:12] Speaker 1: from a time zone because I'm in Texas and she
[1:29:14] Speaker 1: was born in La. But when you look at your
[1:29:18] Speaker 1: marriage nine years, what for the people who feel like
[1:29:23] Speaker 1: marriage has no value? I want both of y'all to
[1:29:25] Speaker 1: answer that what did your marriage bring you that your
[1:29:29] Speaker 1: single life couldn't have.
[1:29:31] Speaker 5: I'll jump in first, because I know he got a word.
[1:29:34] Speaker 5: I will say the word of God. A man that
[1:29:36] Speaker 5: finds a wife finds faate, obtains favor with the Lord,
[1:29:41] Speaker 5: like there are some people and he talks about this,
[1:29:43] Speaker 5: and I don't want you to go into that a
[1:29:44] Speaker 5: little bit like you're trying. There are some people trying
[1:29:47] Speaker 5: to do something that requires favor without the favor. Like
[1:29:51] Speaker 5: we just talked about we hosted a mass wedding where
[1:29:54] Speaker 5: six couples got married in our church and that you'll
[1:29:58] Speaker 5: be surprised, and we were sharing with them the favor. Now,
[1:30:02] Speaker 5: that makes this easier because when people say marriage is hard,
[1:30:05] Speaker 5: I combat that, like marriage is hard.
[1:30:07] Speaker 3: Until you realize it's easy.
[1:30:09] Speaker 5: It's easy when you allow God to lead you and
[1:30:11] Speaker 5: guide you and show you you. Many times we're trying
[1:30:14] Speaker 5: to change our spouse when God is saying, if you,
[1:30:16] Speaker 5: if you work on you, I got everything else.
[1:30:19] Speaker 3: That's why this is a threefold corps.
[1:30:20] Speaker 5: There is nothing that we do where we leave him
[1:30:23] Speaker 5: out because this is the three of us. You know
[1:30:25] Speaker 5: what I'm saying. So I feel like the favor comes
[1:30:29] Speaker 5: you obtain favor both of us. You know, I share
[1:30:32] Speaker 5: this testimony. That was it a three weeks. Three weeks
[1:30:36] Speaker 5: after we got married, we recorded our album Heart Pastial Pursuit.
[1:30:40] Speaker 3: And we have been doing albums together probably.
[1:30:42] Speaker 5: Two three four years yes before that, and they did great.
[1:30:47] Speaker 3: The Alpus did great.
[1:30:48] Speaker 5: And I'm not even thinking Heart Passion Pursuit is going
[1:30:51] Speaker 5: to do what it did. But because of the favor
[1:30:53] Speaker 5: that came with the Covenant that we had, that album
[1:30:57] Speaker 5: broke every single record that year and that album won
[1:31:01] Speaker 5: every single award that year. And I just have to
[1:31:03] Speaker 5: believe that God's favor was it was what impacted.
[1:31:08] Speaker 3: Now our ministry together.
[1:31:10] Speaker 5: There's something we've been ministering together, but we were not
[1:31:12] Speaker 5: in Covenant. When we got into Covenant, God gave us
[1:31:16] Speaker 5: a greater favor.
[1:31:17] Speaker 1: That's problem.
[1:31:17] Speaker 6: Yeah, just to piggyback off that door, yeah, I was.
[1:31:21] Speaker 6: I was just had this revelation, Like people always say
[1:31:23] Speaker 6: marriage is hard marriages and these are married people, I
[1:31:27] Speaker 6: know it, which means they have the favorite.
[1:31:29] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:31:29] Speaker 6: You got to imagine doing something outside of Covenant and
[1:31:34] Speaker 6: trying to handle it with the same handle, the weight
[1:31:38] Speaker 6: of something that requires favor, and even with favor, it's
[1:31:43] Speaker 6: a heavy lift, Yes it is. And so I was like, man,
[1:31:46] Speaker 6: I want to make sure we get people to understand
[1:31:49] Speaker 6: the grace of marriage. And over nine years, what it's
[1:31:52] Speaker 6: brought me is that grace. For one, it's also helped
[1:31:57] Speaker 6: me to really fight off my ego and selfishness. Pastor
[1:32:04] Speaker 6: John Gray said one of the greatest things one time
[1:32:06] Speaker 6: he said, marriage is guy's attack on selfishness. Woo, And
[1:32:11] Speaker 6: I was like, but but you see, I've seen over
[1:32:16] Speaker 6: the years there were some unnecessary struggles we had because
[1:32:21] Speaker 6: I was so so committed to my own self righteousness
[1:32:26] Speaker 6: being right, or my own emotions or it's like she says,
[1:32:31] Speaker 6: I'm a processor. And this was one of the things
[1:32:33] Speaker 6: we had to overcome earlier in our marriage, because it
[1:32:35] Speaker 6: would be weeks and weeks and weeks that I'm not
[1:32:38] Speaker 6: even speaking to you.
[1:32:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, what in the world, And I'm the.
[1:32:42] Speaker 6: Total over She mentioned it is what are we going
[1:32:47] Speaker 6: to eat?
[1:32:48] Speaker 5: We could have a disagreement and I'm like all right
[1:32:51] Speaker 5: with him, and I had not experienced that before, so
[1:32:55] Speaker 5: as oh, this speaks volumes because the enemy will use
[1:32:58] Speaker 5: anything as a tool. He'll try because I was rejected,
[1:33:02] Speaker 5: that was one of my That was one of the
[1:33:03] Speaker 5: things I had to overcome was rejection. Fear and anxiety
[1:33:07] Speaker 5: that stemmed from the root of rejection.
[1:33:09] Speaker 3: And so do it.
[1:33:10] Speaker 5: To him, I'm just processing this and I'll be all
[1:33:13] Speaker 5: right in a week. To me, it's saying, oh, you're
[1:33:16] Speaker 5: rejecting me, you don't want me, you don't love me.
[1:33:19] Speaker 3: I'm not good enough. I'm not enough. And so we
[1:33:22] Speaker 3: had to find that how this.
[1:33:24] Speaker 5: Can work together because when you do that, and I
[1:33:27] Speaker 5: know it's just your personality, but this is how it
[1:33:30] Speaker 5: makes me feel.
[1:33:31] Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, And so even in that we have this mantra,
[1:33:35] Speaker 6: divorce is not an option. My thought was, bru, it's
[1:33:38] Speaker 6: stupid for you to walk around here with a chip
[1:33:41] Speaker 6: on your shoulder and y'all ain't going over. So I
[1:33:50] Speaker 6: just learned to let it go. Nowhere another nine years
[1:33:55] Speaker 6: brought me was that season's end. And there's some there's
[1:33:59] Speaker 6: some seasons that are tougher than others. My commitment is
[1:34:03] Speaker 6: not to make a season of cycle, because you seasons
[1:34:08] Speaker 6: just in with time, but cycles in when we change
[1:34:13] Speaker 6: and so so I wish I could take credit for that,
[1:34:18] Speaker 6: but like Passidarius, he's coached me in so many ways.
[1:34:22] Speaker 6: That's so, and I could go into that, but literally,
[1:34:25] Speaker 6: I learned to see seasons differently because what I found
[1:34:31] Speaker 6: is when we made it through those seasons.
[1:34:33] Speaker 2: Our relationship was better.
[1:34:35] Speaker 6: It was stronger when my season of carrying that chip
[1:34:38] Speaker 6: on my shoulder was over. Now I'm learning that see,
[1:34:42] Speaker 6: I inadvertently was pushing the trigger. I didn't even know
[1:34:44] Speaker 6: I was pushing, so now it's causing more problems. Now
[1:34:47] Speaker 6: I've not only got to deal with what I was
[1:34:49] Speaker 6: mad about, now I gotta deal with about what exactly,
[1:34:54] Speaker 6: And so getting through that cause save me the issues
[1:34:59] Speaker 6: of a this stuff. Here's the last thing I'll say
[1:35:02] Speaker 6: about that. And this is all of this I'm learning
[1:35:04] Speaker 6: even sitting here. It was about perspective. There were many
[1:35:08] Speaker 6: things that would let me use some some hot words,
[1:35:13] Speaker 6: right nag, that would that would bother me about her,
[1:35:19] Speaker 6: And God gave me this revelation that there are the
[1:35:23] Speaker 6: things that bothered me about her were the things I
[1:35:26] Speaker 6: was called to cover and not criticized. And so now
[1:35:31] Speaker 6: I started I started seeing my role as a covering differently.
[1:35:35] Speaker 2: And there were like that.
[1:35:37] Speaker 6: Like she she's she's in a space that I need
[1:35:40] Speaker 6: to cover her, not criticize and make it worse.
[1:35:46] Speaker 2: Wow, we had a whole marriage retreat.
[1:35:55] Speaker 1: Let me tell you something, y'all, man, think of a question.
[1:36:01] Speaker 2: I'm over here, good Lord Jesus, I talked.
[1:36:04] Speaker 6: I talked to a lot of a lot of men,
[1:36:06] Speaker 6: especially those that I'm I'm called and grace to lead,
[1:36:10] Speaker 6: that are ready to give up in a season that's
[1:36:12] Speaker 6: not a cycle and ready to give up because it
[1:36:17] Speaker 6: doesn't feel like love. And I was thinking about this
[1:36:21] Speaker 6: will probably be one of a key that I'll leave.
[1:36:24] Speaker 6: But like, this is a decision, Love is a decision.
[1:36:29] Speaker 6: This is an intentional decision that you make to show
[1:36:33] Speaker 6: up and honor a covenant. It's not contingent on your feelings.
[1:36:38] Speaker 6: Bible said our heart. You can't trust our heart. No,
[1:36:41] Speaker 6: there's no good thing in it right, no good things right.
[1:36:46] Speaker 6: And so don't follow your heart, follow your covenant.
[1:36:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, you you may, we don't.
[1:36:53] Speaker 6: I don't have to base my actions off of how
[1:36:56] Speaker 6: I feel because I can lean on my covenant. I
[1:36:59] Speaker 6: can lean on the decision that I made not just
[1:37:03] Speaker 6: at a wedding, but in front of God. And I
[1:37:06] Speaker 6: know that because we have that threefold court, I never
[1:37:09] Speaker 6: have to do any of this in my own strength
[1:37:11] Speaker 6: because he's always entangled in.
[1:37:14] Speaker 5: I want to plug right here, though, because my husband
[1:37:17] Speaker 5: is definitely called to me in and I love that
[1:37:19] Speaker 5: you kept saying that me.
[1:37:20] Speaker 3: I need to hear this.
[1:37:20] Speaker 5: Man, need to hear this, even being led in that
[1:37:22] Speaker 5: moment to ask him to minister to the.
[1:37:24] Speaker 3: Men at the end of this month.
[1:37:26] Speaker 5: He's been for years preparing to host the conference that
[1:37:29] Speaker 5: God released him to host. It's called Mentality, and it's happening.
[1:37:32] Speaker 6: In January twenty thirty two.
[1:37:34] Speaker 3: They were twenty third, twenty fourth.
[1:37:35] Speaker 5: Then we have some powerful, powerful moments that are gonna
[1:37:37] Speaker 5: be happening at that conference, and I just feel like
[1:37:40] Speaker 5: you needed to share that.
[1:37:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's gonna drop next week. So that's on the
[1:37:44] Speaker 1: what is that the what's the next Wednesday?
[1:37:46] Speaker 3: What's the conference dates?
[1:37:48] Speaker 2: Twenty fourth?
[1:37:48] Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, in church. So first one, I
[1:37:53] Speaker 6: am very nervous and excited because you know, growing up,
[1:37:57] Speaker 6: I never saw myself as the and still the alpha
[1:38:01] Speaker 6: male or the that you know what I mean, like
[1:38:03] Speaker 6: that quintessential toxic maximinity. And I realized that that most
[1:38:09] Speaker 6: men aren't, and even even those that are, there are
[1:38:12] Speaker 6: some things that we need to hear because a lot
[1:38:15] Speaker 6: of us are self restrictive and we're holding ourselves back
[1:38:21] Speaker 6: because of just the way we see life. And the
[1:38:24] Speaker 6: thing that God showed me was that like life isn't
[1:38:29] Speaker 6: left to be meant to be lived alone, that we
[1:38:32] Speaker 6: grow in community. The reason why I was able to
[1:38:36] Speaker 6: overcome all of the stuff that was that was driving
[1:38:39] Speaker 6: me is because because God placed me in communities and
[1:38:43] Speaker 6: in relationship of other healthy men with the same faith,
[1:38:48] Speaker 6: with the same struggles, but we don't feed those. And
[1:38:52] Speaker 6: mentality is a space where men will come that we
[1:38:55] Speaker 6: can talk about in a very real way the things
[1:39:01] Speaker 6: that have been on our heart. And because you you
[1:39:04] Speaker 6: mentioned it a second, I thought about it when you
[1:39:06] Speaker 6: said it, how like I don't want to have to
[1:39:08] Speaker 6: give up my my true self because now I gotta
[1:39:14] Speaker 6: guard your feelings and emotions. I could tell you about
[1:39:17] Speaker 6: my date before, but I can't.
[1:39:19] Speaker 3: I can't.
[1:39:19] Speaker 6: So when men get together, there are certain things that
[1:39:22] Speaker 6: we say it and maybe even it isn't that we
[1:39:26] Speaker 6: wouldn't say it in front of our wives or in
[1:39:29] Speaker 6: front of our children, but it would be how we
[1:39:31] Speaker 6: say it coating and don't. God is building those spaces
[1:39:37] Speaker 6: where we will be able to my wife I love.
[1:39:40] Speaker 6: She has a revelation of iron sharpening iron we mentioned earlier.
[1:39:42] Speaker 6: But what are you sharp What are you sharpening?
[1:39:47] Speaker 3: That's good?
[1:39:47] Speaker 6: And there are some of us that have been living
[1:39:49] Speaker 6: seasons being sharpened into pain, into poison, into stuff that's
[1:39:54] Speaker 6: not pushing us into purpose all because we want to
[1:39:58] Speaker 6: have fun or want to have moments and so mentality
[1:40:01] Speaker 6: Man is an opportunity for us to get together. We're
[1:40:03] Speaker 6: gonna I got this thing set up called a man
[1:40:05] Speaker 6: Cave where you just go sit and you chill and
[1:40:09] Speaker 6: you just literally reset. We're doing competitions. We're gonna do
[1:40:13] Speaker 6: a bench press competition, free throw competition, because men are competitive,
[1:40:20] Speaker 6: and we got some incredible speakers of Pastor Brian Bullet
[1:40:24] Speaker 6: will be there, Bishop Brian Pierce to be there, Pastor
[1:40:27] Speaker 6: John Gray will be there, Roosevelt will be there, and
[1:40:33] Speaker 6: they literally have been called to be able to do
[1:40:37] Speaker 6: impartation man, because you know, there are many things that
[1:40:41] Speaker 6: we do where we have the information, but you need
[1:40:46] Speaker 6: an impartation to be able to have the power to
[1:40:49] Speaker 6: do it. In that's one of the reasons why God
[1:40:51] Speaker 6: gives us. He gives us the Holy Spirit when we
[1:40:54] Speaker 6: give our life to Him, when we get saved. It's
[1:40:56] Speaker 6: a gift that you get because now you're able to
[1:41:00] Speaker 6: operate in a power that's not your own out of
[1:41:04] Speaker 6: and so as these impartations will know what to do,
[1:41:08] Speaker 6: but the impartations are gonna give us power to do.
[1:41:10] Speaker 2: It how They.
[1:41:16] Speaker 6: Can go to my tpp dot org. It's our church
[1:41:19] Speaker 6: website and the registration is there, It's a link in
[1:41:22] Speaker 6: my bile. Yeah yeah, and just register, man, bring your
[1:41:26] Speaker 6: boys come out.
[1:41:27] Speaker 2: I really, really, really believe that.
[1:41:30] Speaker 6: When we see a shift in our men and our leaders,
[1:41:33] Speaker 6: that will see a shift in our literal region and
[1:41:36] Speaker 6: our nation, and especially for us as men of color,
[1:41:41] Speaker 6: but any man. I mean, I think that for us
[1:41:43] Speaker 6: to be able to operate in the strength that God
[1:41:47] Speaker 6: just gives us and not deny the power of it,
[1:41:51] Speaker 6: I think that we get an opportunity to see see
[1:41:55] Speaker 6: literally exceeding abundantly above all we ask, think or imagine,
[1:41:58] Speaker 6: like God is gonna blow out our minds through this.
[1:42:01] Speaker 1: Again, I want you to share what has God told
[1:42:03] Speaker 1: you prophetically over your region.
[1:42:06] Speaker 2: Over our region.
[1:42:07] Speaker 6: God is shared with me that this is a season
[1:42:10] Speaker 6: where He is bringing people literally back to Him. And
[1:42:16] Speaker 6: we have literally been trying to do things based off
[1:42:20] Speaker 6: of Grandmama's and Granddaddy's revelation of God. But what he
[1:42:25] Speaker 6: called us to do, and it's our church vision, is
[1:42:27] Speaker 6: to restore hope to the community and beat the hands
[1:42:29] Speaker 6: and feet of Jesus. But when he said restore hope,
[1:42:32] Speaker 6: he said, I want you to go back, pull back
[1:42:34] Speaker 6: all the fluff because we're in a season where people
[1:42:37] Speaker 6: don't want fluff anymore. They don't want theatrics, they want
[1:42:41] Speaker 6: what did God say? Because He's only obligated to what
[1:42:46] Speaker 6: he says, not what we.
[1:42:48] Speaker 2: Thought he says.
[1:42:49] Speaker 6: And in this season, God is saying in our region,
[1:42:52] Speaker 6: we're getting ready to see more peace, more joy, more
[1:42:56] Speaker 6: power than ever before because we'll operate in a line alignment.
[1:43:03] Speaker 1: I think any question my mind is just so much
[1:43:09] Speaker 1: fool right.
[1:43:10] Speaker 3: Now, Jesus.
[1:43:14] Speaker 9: I guess the question I would want to know before
[1:43:18] Speaker 9: y'all leave us is just you're approaching is it nine years?
[1:43:22] Speaker 9: Nine years in three months, less than three months? What
[1:43:28] Speaker 9: have you learned that if there were just say you
[1:43:31] Speaker 9: were a dear future wife and there was a new
[1:43:33] Speaker 9: couple who just got married, you know, last month, if
[1:43:38] Speaker 9: that were the case, what advice, what wisdom?
[1:43:44] Speaker 4: Obviously you're going to fill out a key to love, but.
[1:43:46] Speaker 9: What would you say specifically for newlyweds that helped you
[1:43:51] Speaker 9: When you guys first said I.
[1:43:53] Speaker 5: Do yeah, I'll start, I would say from the beginning,
[1:43:58] Speaker 5: just really die. Just that we're on the same team,
[1:44:01] Speaker 5: and we're both sports people. We both played basketball, I
[1:44:04] Speaker 5: played everything, softball, track, I've done it all. And one
[1:44:08] Speaker 5: of the things I support putting your kids on teams
[1:44:11] Speaker 5: because there's nothing.
[1:44:12] Speaker 3: Like learning teamwork.
[1:44:13] Speaker 5: And one of the things that we are committed to
[1:44:16] Speaker 5: is that you practice with your teammate. You know, you
[1:44:19] Speaker 5: know they are weak spots, you know where they're injured
[1:44:22] Speaker 5: when they got injured in practice last week. There has
[1:44:25] Speaker 5: never been a time where I'm going to get in
[1:44:27] Speaker 5: a game with my teammate and go directly to their
[1:44:30] Speaker 5: injury and trigger it.
[1:44:32] Speaker 3: That's good because I want us to win.
[1:44:35] Speaker 5: And so I feel like a lot of times at
[1:44:37] Speaker 5: the beginning of marriage, at the beginning of the game,
[1:44:40] Speaker 5: we go in attacking our teammate because we.
[1:44:44] Speaker 3: Want to be right. I want God's glory on my
[1:44:47] Speaker 3: marriage more than I want to be right.
[1:44:50] Speaker 5: And if that means I don't injure my teammate because
[1:44:54] Speaker 5: we're all going towards the same goal, then I won't
[1:44:56] Speaker 5: injure him. I know more than anybody in this world
[1:45:00] Speaker 5: how to trigger my husband, but I will never press
[1:45:02] Speaker 5: that button, and I won't let and then I won't
[1:45:05] Speaker 5: let anybody else press that button.
[1:45:07] Speaker 3: As far as I can.
[1:45:08] Speaker 5: You know, I actually fight, but you know what I'm saying,
[1:45:11] Speaker 5: and so that's one of the things that come on here. Yeah,
[1:45:15] Speaker 5: and that's one of the things that I for sure
[1:45:18] Speaker 5: and too had to learn very early that we're on
[1:45:20] Speaker 5: the same team. So even when we have a disagreement,
[1:45:23] Speaker 5: we're disagreeing, not so I can win or he can win,
[1:45:28] Speaker 5: but so we can get to a space of peace.
[1:45:31] Speaker 3: You know, and so not not to because if he loses,
[1:45:35] Speaker 3: then I move, you know.
[1:45:37] Speaker 5: So what does it mean if you were writing a
[1:45:39] Speaker 5: conversation and you in the argument, nobody won, nobody want.
[1:45:44] Speaker 5: And so that is one of the things that you
[1:45:45] Speaker 5: focus on, is that, Hey, this.
[1:45:47] Speaker 3: Is my teammate. I always keep that in the back
[1:45:49] Speaker 3: of my mind.
[1:45:50] Speaker 1: That's good.
[1:45:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so good.
[1:45:51] Speaker 3: That's so good.
[1:45:53] Speaker 2: First.
[1:45:53] Speaker 6: Yeah, man, it's so many things. One I would say,
[1:46:03] Speaker 6: I would say cast your crowns consistently. That when I
[1:46:10] Speaker 6: say catch your crowns, for those who may not know,
[1:46:13] Speaker 6: it's literally a meaning of like, I'm giving up all
[1:46:17] Speaker 6: of my ways of thinking that I'm right, all of
[1:46:20] Speaker 6: my righteousness and submitting to his. And in a marriage,
[1:46:27] Speaker 6: I think when you're able to master that skill, well,
[1:46:32] Speaker 6: it allows you to move with more speed. And so
[1:46:37] Speaker 6: by casting your crowns even means like my idea of
[1:46:41] Speaker 6: what I thought marriage would be should be, and it's
[1:46:44] Speaker 6: going to be. This is your marriage, this is and
[1:46:49] Speaker 6: how let let it develop however God wants it to develop.
[1:46:55] Speaker 6: You don't have to conform to any because this is yours.
[1:47:00] Speaker 6: This is your unique thumb print. And I'll even give
[1:47:03] Speaker 6: you an example. Most people feel like, So, my wife
[1:47:06] Speaker 6: and I, this is how we communicate when we have
[1:47:08] Speaker 6: serious conversations. We text instead of having face to face conversations.
[1:47:13] Speaker 6: And what it does is, especially for me, is the processor.
[1:47:17] Speaker 6: I get an opportunity to be able to and I
[1:47:20] Speaker 6: don't we ever really made a decision to do this.
[1:47:22] Speaker 6: It just happens. But I get an opportunity to communicate clearly.
[1:47:25] Speaker 6: She gets an opportunity to communicate with me clearly, and
[1:47:28] Speaker 6: we're able to. This is ours. This is just how
[1:47:31] Speaker 6: we do it. Most people will say, it's serious, you
[1:47:33] Speaker 6: need to talk face to face. This is ours. What
[1:47:36] Speaker 6: works with us, So don't judge us, or you can,
[1:47:40] Speaker 6: but this is.
[1:47:41] Speaker 3: But I will say, we do eventually.
[1:47:43] Speaker 5: So what we find is that the texting it clears
[1:47:46] Speaker 5: out that the initial space of heat if we are
[1:47:50] Speaker 5: face to face, it ain't gonna be nothing but a
[1:47:52] Speaker 5: bunch of coming at each other.
[1:47:53] Speaker 3: But we don't need that.
[1:47:54] Speaker 5: We are we are intentional about the peace in our
[1:47:58] Speaker 5: house and the peace in our marriage. And so if
[1:48:01] Speaker 5: communicating via text message, and even if there's a question
[1:48:03] Speaker 5: about what was in the text, because we got rid
[1:48:06] Speaker 5: of that initial heat, we can now sit and have
[1:48:10] Speaker 5: a peaceful conversation about what the disagreement was. So we
[1:48:13] Speaker 5: always come back and we talk about it.
[1:48:16] Speaker 6: Yeah, and it's just you'll you'll miss the evolution if
[1:48:20] Speaker 6: you stay committed to a certain path and like my
[1:48:23] Speaker 6: wife at one point like a certain candy and then
[1:48:27] Speaker 6: a year later she hates this my.
[1:48:29] Speaker 3: Favorite snack change all the time. Yeah, he'll pick up somebody.
[1:48:33] Speaker 3: I got you. I'm like, I thought you like now
[1:48:38] Speaker 3: His will remain.
[1:48:39] Speaker 6: The same yesterday today, follow Jesus. But if you don't
[1:48:48] Speaker 6: say that close, that close, to keep your ear that
[1:48:52] Speaker 6: close to what's happening, you'll be like so committed. Well,
[1:48:57] Speaker 6: and they'll be literally telling you I don't like twigs anymore?
[1:49:00] Speaker 3: Yes, you do?
[1:49:01] Speaker 6: You always like like so Caship Crown consistently.
[1:49:06] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[1:49:07] Speaker 6: So where we're at today, I don't know, are we
[1:49:10] Speaker 6: at today.
[1:49:11] Speaker 1: That's good. Well, here's so in the first ten seasons
[1:49:17] Speaker 1: of the Dear Future Wifey podcast, I would write a
[1:49:18] Speaker 1: letter to my future wife and that letter manifested this
[1:49:23] Speaker 1: amazing woman here, Ashley. And so now I said that
[1:49:26] Speaker 1: I want to create this wall the Keys to Love,
[1:49:29] Speaker 1: where I asked each guest to write down the key
[1:49:31] Speaker 1: to love and then hanging on the wall. So if
[1:49:34] Speaker 1: you look in that box there, you'll have the open
[1:49:38] Speaker 1: up box there, it's a little key and a piece
[1:49:41] Speaker 1: of paper and a pen. This is beautiful and I
[1:49:43] Speaker 1: want you to write a note on that use as
[1:49:47] Speaker 1: the book. I got something for you for you?
[1:49:50] Speaker 10: Is it stealing if we just keep its borrowing?
[1:49:54] Speaker 1: Borrow long term, borrow long term, each side of the
[1:50:00] Speaker 1: onside of the keyside on the flipp it just flipped
[1:50:03] Speaker 1: the key up. Well however you want to do it? Yeah,
[1:50:04] Speaker 1: and it's right across the long way. How have you
[1:50:07] Speaker 1: on to?
[1:50:08] Speaker 2: Uh?
[1:50:09] Speaker 1: And then asking now just convert? So what you think
[1:50:11] Speaker 1: about this episode? This is our first interview that we
[1:50:13] Speaker 1: did together.
[1:50:14] Speaker 2: This this is amazing.
[1:50:16] Speaker 1: Couldn't pick the better, I guess, huh.
[1:50:18] Speaker 9: I just wish that they could stay here.
[1:50:21] Speaker 3: Do they have to go home.
[1:50:23] Speaker 2: He said, Mommy, can we keep them?
[1:50:26] Speaker 3: Come back? Can we go visit?
[1:50:28] Speaker 1: You know what? We do need to get out there.
[1:50:30] Speaker 2: Are y'all gonna be doing like anything for Valentine's Day
[1:50:32] Speaker 2: this year?
[1:50:33] Speaker 3: We always do this, so we do a series put.
[1:50:36] Speaker 5: On program Sex Love and Relationships, Sex Love and the
[1:50:40] Speaker 5: entire month of February, and then we ended with a
[1:50:42] Speaker 5: panel similar to the one we did with you.
[1:50:44] Speaker 3: I would love to have y'all.
[1:50:46] Speaker 1: Comfort all right, come on, come on, madam. I love
[1:50:53] Speaker 1: your church though I love the spirit of your church.
[1:50:57] Speaker 1: It's so cool, man. They got this amazing property that
[1:50:59] Speaker 1: they have, and I mean it's a lot of room
[1:51:01] Speaker 1: for expansion because of the building they got. But yeah,
[1:51:05] Speaker 1: it would be great. That'd be great to do that,
[1:51:07] Speaker 1: especially be in the place that the night I left
[1:51:10] Speaker 1: I had about you.
[1:51:12] Speaker 9: Yeah, and you kept saying how beautiful it was.
[1:51:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, I told you, I said, I just I felt
[1:51:17] Speaker 1: it was just amazing. That More that that, I had
[1:51:20] Speaker 1: a counseling session with love Matt Peerson the that noon
[1:51:25] Speaker 1: about about one or two o'clock, I can't remember now,
[1:51:28] Speaker 1: but right before I did uh their their their service,
[1:51:32] Speaker 1: and I was like, hey, I want to schedule this
[1:51:34] Speaker 1: counseling session on the day that I'm there, And so
[1:51:36] Speaker 1: I scheduled that and then I went to their church.
[1:51:39] Speaker 1: All right, y'all wrote it? Now what y'all wrote?
[1:51:42] Speaker 6: I wrote what I just said, cash your count crown consistently,
[1:51:47] Speaker 6: and I wrote.
[1:51:48] Speaker 5: The key to love is selflessness and constant communication, and
[1:51:52] Speaker 5: constant communication.
[1:51:53] Speaker 1: Let me have y'all go hang that up on the
[1:51:55] Speaker 1: hooks over there.
[1:51:56] Speaker 2: Let's hang it up.
[1:51:57] Speaker 3: Hang with how many?
[1:51:58] Speaker 1: Yeah? Held me the book? We can you bring my
[1:52:07] Speaker 1: gifts for my guests?
[1:52:08] Speaker 6: Oh? Wow?
[1:52:11] Speaker 1: Yeah? You know? All right, So y'all know I have
[1:52:19] Speaker 1: this book Student Love, and I'm gonna make y'all the
[1:52:23] Speaker 1: first Yes, the book comes out in thirteen.
[1:52:29] Speaker 2: Wow, God, come on, so open up.
[1:52:36] Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
[1:52:40] Speaker 2: So I called.
[1:52:41] Speaker 1: I called Kenny.
[1:52:42] Speaker 2: I text him and said, what's what's O shirt you wear? Yeah?
[1:52:47] Speaker 2: I'm thinking you was about to bring a shirt out
[1:52:49] Speaker 2: of thirteen.
[1:52:51] Speaker 1: That comes out to thirteen. You can't have this. I'm believing.
[1:53:03] Speaker 2: He did have a clothing.
[1:53:04] Speaker 1: Can appreciate Thats why I can appreciate apparel. That's why
[1:53:08] Speaker 1: he loved doing. But yeah, I had, y'all.
[1:53:13] Speaker 3: Yeah that some of your flowers can't order.
[1:53:17] Speaker 1: First first, I was just doing it go to the
[1:53:19] Speaker 1: wire shot. At first, I was doing it where it
[1:53:21] Speaker 1: was just gonna be with influences that I had. And
[1:53:24] Speaker 1: I know a lot of people going want that. Look
[1:53:26] Speaker 1: at that that is clean. Look at what makes it
[1:53:34] Speaker 1: the right cover? You know a member of organ.
[1:53:42] Speaker 12: Yes, yeah, look at the back of the your frop.
[1:53:58] Speaker 1: Women cut cross church, Yeah, put that on.
[1:54:06] Speaker 3: Oh yes clean, because we're.
[1:54:12] Speaker 1: All students will love you. You got to get your
[1:54:17] Speaker 1: letterman jacket.
[1:54:20] Speaker 3: Camera. Looking at ourselves. We're looking at ourselves on the camera.
[1:54:33] Speaker 1: But listen, man, Like this book was very special to
[1:54:36] Speaker 1: me because you know, like Eve when you was talking
[1:54:38] Speaker 1: about rejection or whatnot, that we're reframing rejection in the
[1:54:42] Speaker 1: book that rejection is redirection. And at the end of
[1:54:45] Speaker 1: the day, if we don't internalize love that doesn't work
[1:54:47] Speaker 1: out or expectation that God knows what's best for us.
[1:54:50] Speaker 1: And if we just keep leaning into love and become
[1:54:53] Speaker 1: a student of love, then God will direct us to
[1:54:57] Speaker 1: the person that we're supposed to be with. And so
[1:54:59] Speaker 1: Student of Love is teaching us that love isn't about
[1:55:02] Speaker 1: finding the right person but by but about becoming the
[1:55:05] Speaker 1: right person. Because at the end of the day, that's
[1:55:07] Speaker 1: what you really want. You want to love that is sustainable.
[1:55:09] Speaker 1: You don't want to just get married and it lasts
[1:55:11] Speaker 1: over a year or two years. You want to love
[1:55:13] Speaker 1: that keeps you in the place of ever evolving and
[1:55:16] Speaker 1: leading into it. So that's what it is.
[1:55:18] Speaker 2: I love it because that texted, that text it good.
[1:55:22] Speaker 3: It's good. Y'all gonna get this right now, go ahead, listen.
[1:55:26] Speaker 3: This is going bestseller New York Times best seller.
[1:55:30] Speaker 5: Is where we're going. I want you to go right now,
[1:55:32] Speaker 5: blow Amazon up, blow wherever you get your books and
[1:55:35] Speaker 5: getting literal from. I believe that this is going to
[1:55:38] Speaker 5: really be a blessing to your lives. And I cannot
[1:55:40] Speaker 5: wait to read it.
[1:55:41] Speaker 3: I can't. Matter of fact, we need to make all
[1:55:42] Speaker 3: of the.
[1:55:43] Speaker 5: Singles setting the married couples read this at the church.
[1:55:46] Speaker 5: I think this would be a good read for our church,
[1:55:48] Speaker 5: family purpose place. This is what we're gonna do.
[1:55:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, who name you see that? On the other forward.
[1:55:55] Speaker 5: Doctor Gary Chapman. Wow, New York Times best selling author
[1:55:59] Speaker 5: The Fire. I love languages.
[1:56:01] Speaker 2: Wow. So let me tell you something y'ah already know.
[1:56:06] Speaker 1: So let me tell you something. I literally was sitting
[1:56:08] Speaker 1: there and I said I had a vision that doctor
[1:56:11] Speaker 1: Gary Chapman would do the forward. And I was like, God,
[1:56:13] Speaker 1: how's that going to happen? This man eighty six years old?
[1:56:16] Speaker 1: How am I going to have to meet him? And
[1:56:18] Speaker 1: then I told my publishers to reach out and reach
[1:56:21] Speaker 1: out to him to come into podcast. He came in
[1:56:22] Speaker 1: the podcast. I asked his I guess that's his publishers. Whatever.
[1:56:28] Speaker 1: I said, you think I can get doctor Gary Chapman
[1:56:30] Speaker 1: to do the ford. He's like, nah, he don't really
[1:56:31] Speaker 1: do stuff like that. And then I said all right,
[1:56:34] Speaker 1: I'll just ask him personally. And so when he came
[1:56:36] Speaker 1: on the podcast, I said, listen, I would love for
[1:56:39] Speaker 1: you to do the forward. Matter of fact, while he
[1:56:40] Speaker 1: was there, I got a call from my literary agent
[1:56:45] Speaker 1: that W Publishing want to offer me, you know, a
[1:56:50] Speaker 1: publishing deal with him, and I was like okay, and
[1:56:53] Speaker 1: he was like, oh my god, that is great. While
[1:56:54] Speaker 1: he was sitting there, I said, Hey, well, since God
[1:56:56] Speaker 1: has blessing me, this is my other big ass Wow,
[1:56:58] Speaker 1: I would love for you to do the forward. He said,
[1:57:01] Speaker 1: I don't just put my name on anything. I'm gonna
[1:57:04] Speaker 1: read the book. If I like it. I'll do the forward.
[1:57:06] Speaker 1: He read that book. He read the book, he was like, oh, yeah,
[1:57:10] Speaker 1: I'll be honored to do this. This is amazing. He said,
[1:57:13] Speaker 1: what I love about is that you don't approach it
[1:57:15] Speaker 1: from being this know it all, that you actually approach
[1:57:17] Speaker 1: it from being a student, and you talk in Layman's
[1:57:21] Speaker 1: turn where people can understand it. It's witty, it's funny,
[1:57:24] Speaker 1: and it gives some powerful truths. And he was like,
[1:57:27] Speaker 1: I can't believe that you're not a therapist, because even
[1:57:29] Speaker 1: in the book you sound like you're a therapist. But
[1:57:31] Speaker 1: it comes from a very creative way. And he was like, man,
[1:57:34] Speaker 1: I love it. And he wrote an amazing forward to it.
[1:57:36] Speaker 1: And I was like, God, that's a huge guy, wink.
[1:57:38] Speaker 1: And so this has been amazing thing that God. I
[1:57:41] Speaker 1: can go on and on about how God was systematically
[1:57:44] Speaker 1: opening up doors for this book. But again I led
[1:57:48] Speaker 1: in the acknowledgment of talking about this would be my wife,
[1:57:52] Speaker 1: you know, and I was like, I.
[1:57:53] Speaker 5: See it right here. You're word of prophecy and to missus,
[1:57:56] Speaker 5: Ashley R. Whitfield, you are the grace after the grind,
[1:58:01] Speaker 5: the reward for every tear shed in the classroom of
[1:58:03] Speaker 5: my becoming you inherit the healed version of me, the
[1:58:07] Speaker 5: man who falled forward into faithfulness.
[1:58:10] Speaker 2: Woo, maybe that's.
[1:58:13] Speaker 6: Just the So if you were thinking about bonding this,
[1:58:19] Speaker 6: but even if you weren't, this is your confirmation. This confirmation,
[1:58:24] Speaker 6: the fact that you are hearing this right now is
[1:58:26] Speaker 6: your confirmation that God wants to get this into your life.
[1:58:30] Speaker 3: Yeah good, Yeah, Amen.
[1:58:32] Speaker 1: Well listen. May the love you share today outlived the
[1:58:36] Speaker 1: season you're.
[1:58:36] Speaker 4: In, may carry you through the days when words are few.
[1:58:40] Speaker 3: And faith has to do the talking.
[1:58:43] Speaker 1: So thank y'all so much for this episode of Dear
[1:58:45] Speaker 1: Future Wifey podcast. Y'all give it up for my homies,
[1:58:48] Speaker 1: the Lennards. Laderim thrust it suddenly into child protective services
[1:58:56] Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, My nephew black a boy. The likelihood
[1:59:02] Speaker 1: have been adopted outside of kinship, slim to none Rmione,
[1:59:07] Speaker 1: sixteen years old, black a boy with five years in
[1:59:11] Speaker 1: the Falter care system before I even knew his name.
[1:59:14] Speaker 1: The likelihood have ever been adopted? Yep, you guessed it.
[1:59:18] Speaker 1: Slim to none. While Laderian and Ourmiani were trying to
[1:59:23] Speaker 1: survive and barely thrive in an overpopulated and underfunded, false
[1:59:27] Speaker 1: care system. I was living my own life, doing well professionally,
[1:59:30] Speaker 1: having been a single father with a daughter who at
[1:59:33] Speaker 1: that point was doing well in college. It was my
[1:59:35] Speaker 1: time to live my life right.
[1:59:37] Speaker 5: Wrong.
[1:59:39] Speaker 1: I felt unsettled, tireless, agitated. There are just two many
[1:59:45] Speaker 1: of our black children stuck in ambiguity and in the
[1:59:48] Speaker 1: limbo of the falseter care system. In twenty seventeen, I
[1:59:52] Speaker 1: legally adopted my nephew Ladarian. Fast forward to twenty nineteen.
[1:59:56] Speaker 1: I had no ties to this other young king, but
[1:59:58] Speaker 1: I felt God instructed me to adopt them also on
[2:00:01] Speaker 1: al Babe. Starting over with parenting should have been enough. Right,
[2:00:05] Speaker 1: Working with various foster care and adoption agencies to help
[2:00:08] Speaker 1: bring awareness to the countless young Black kings and the
[2:00:11] Speaker 1: foster care system should have decreased my agitation. Right join
[2:00:15] Speaker 1: the board of directors of Advantage of Adoption and organization
[2:00:18] Speaker 1: that helps find permanent adoptive homes for children in Falter
[2:00:22] Speaker 1: care should have led to some type of resolve. Right. No,
[2:00:26] Speaker 1: not at all.
[2:00:27] Speaker 2: None of it felt like I had done enough.
[2:00:30] Speaker 1: I now realized that every one of those experiences was
[2:00:35] Speaker 1: land the fundamental foundation for my life's mission. Kingdom Royal.
[2:00:40] Speaker 1: Kingdom Royal would be a luxury, state of the art
[2:00:43] Speaker 1: home for foster boys. Our first location will be in
[2:00:46] Speaker 1: the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. We will utilize the whole
[2:00:49] Speaker 1: person approach that instills identity, empowers them to advocate for themselves,
[2:00:54] Speaker 1: and enlightens them regarding new perspectives and limitless options that
[2:00:58] Speaker 1: they thought were in possible. Though the young Kings will
[2:01:02] Speaker 1: attend the local public schools that are in proximity to
[2:01:05] Speaker 1: King of Royale, our at home curriculum will broaden their
[2:01:09] Speaker 1: worldview through participating in the arts, attending various cultural events,
[2:01:13] Speaker 1: learning about and engaging in multifaceted discussions about current events
[2:01:17] Speaker 1: and even relevant historical contexts, Introducing them to gardening and landscaping,
[2:01:22] Speaker 1: and even caring for our animals on our form and
[2:01:26] Speaker 1: on site stables. We just launched our startup capital campaign
[2:01:30] Speaker 1: with the goal of raising two point eight million dollars.
[2:01:33] Speaker 1: Now why two point eight million dollars?
[2:01:35] Speaker 2: Well.
[2:01:35] Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, I created a web series in which
[2:01:37] Speaker 1: I performed random acts of kindness for targeting the homeless community.
[2:01:42] Speaker 1: One of the most notable successes was that one of
[2:01:44] Speaker 1: the videos went viral garnering twenty eight million views. However,
[2:01:49] Speaker 1: one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't raise
[2:01:52] Speaker 1: a single dollar to help in implementing a more sustainable
[2:01:55] Speaker 1: plan for the homeless community. So, throughout the years remorse,
[2:02:01] Speaker 1: I reflect that I'm not maximizing that moment. I knew
[2:02:04] Speaker 1: if at that time just ten percent of the viewers
[2:02:07] Speaker 1: donated one dollar, we would have raised at least two
[2:02:10] Speaker 1: point eight million dollars that could have really established long
[2:02:13] Speaker 1: term support for the homeless community, or at least started
[2:02:17] Speaker 1: a long term initiative to do so. This is my
[2:02:21] Speaker 1: do over, this is our new beginning. Together, we can
[2:02:25] Speaker 1: attack this at the route by specifically helping our homeless
[2:02:29] Speaker 1: Black boys who are already disproportionately represented in the American
[2:02:33] Speaker 1: fossil care system. I'm a terisar Wickfield. I've been nominated
[2:02:37] Speaker 1: for three regional Emmys documenting my work with the homeless
[2:02:41] Speaker 1: as well as my personal adoption journey. Despite those accolades,
[2:02:45] Speaker 1: the greatest award for me is truly providing the infrastructure
[2:02:50] Speaker 1: for a transformed life. Visit Kingdomroyal dot com for more
[2:02:54] Speaker 1: details Crown of King and make a donation today. I
[2:03:05] Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dear Future WIFEI podcast.
[2:03:09] Speaker 1: Remember be lit live intentionally and transparently, and don't stop loving.
[2:03:15] Speaker 2: Make sure to subscribe to our Dear Future Wife and
[2:03:17] Speaker 2: YouTube channel.
[2:03:18] Speaker 1: We're available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
[2:03:22] Speaker 1: You welcome your support.
[2:03:23] Speaker 2: Simply share our podcasts with your friends and family.

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