← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 505: Summer is the Season When Most People Go Through Divorce | Gabe and Rebekah Lyons, The Fight For Us
01:01:21
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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
Ginny Urch
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I have just read a wonderful, wonderful marriage book, which has a lot in it. It's got marriage, but it's got other things as well. The fight for us. And the authors, both authors co wrote it. Of course they're married, so that works out really well. Rebecca and Gabe Lyons, welcome.
- [00:52]
Rebecca Lyons
Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're looking forward to this.
- [00:55]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah, thanks for having us. We love all that you guys do, the ways you encourage so many of us in our life and with our children. So thank you.
- [01:02]
Ginny Urch
Oh, thank you for saying that. It says in my notes, rebecca Lyons and Gabe Lyons. Do you normally go by Rebecca and Gabe or Gabe and Rebecca?
- [01:09]
Rebecca Lyons
We go by Gabe and Rebecca with a book. It's. It's kind of written to my audience, but we wrote it together because we knew a lot of women wanted to have something for their husbands to read as well. So, Gabe, there's a lot of handoff in the writing, but because marginal. Mostly my audience, we started with my name, but that is not typical for us.
- [01:29]
Ginny Urch
Okay. I was wondering.
- [01:31]
Gabe Lyons
She does have my last name. Okay.
- [01:32]
Ginny Urch
It's good. That's good. Okay. I wanted to start with something. I've got a bunch of notes from the book. Fantastic book. And people are sometimes like, well, why would you talk about marriage on this podcast? But, you know, when you become a parent, you've got kids and you're trying to figure out what to do with your kids and how to spend your time and finding rest and all of those types of things, a lot of issues can come up.
- [01:53]
Rebecca Lyons
And.
- [01:54]
Ginny Urch
And so I think, you know, to talk about marriage here and there is really, really helpful. But I'm gonna start off with a part that's not about marriage that really stuck out to me. And this was something that you had written, Rebecca, about your childhood. So you talk about you. Both of you talk about these childhoods. You grew up. You're not kind of poor, Rebecca. You had Said you were one of the poorest in your whole area. You know, with the people that you grew up with, you don't have a lot in terms of material wealth. However, you talk really fondly about your summers outside. And so you wrote that you lived in the same house from age 4 to 18, literally stayed outside all summer from dawn until dusk, among the last generation to spend sweltering Florida summers riding bugs around the neighborhood or hanging out the community pool. And then you said this. I thought this was so interesting. What I remember most about those Florida summers is a sense of knowing and being known. I was like, that is a really big sentence. And we talk a lot about getting outside. And there's developmental benefits and there's spiritual benefits and there's benefits because, you know, you make memories together. But no one really ever talks about sort of, you know, what it sounds like? It just sounds really grounding like you are known is the people, you know, the area that you knew. Can you talk to us about that?
- [03:04]
Rebecca Lyons
Well, the permanence that you get with childhood when you kind of stay put and you, you, you come to know your neighbors, you come to know the rhythms of, I mean, Florida is one long season, let's be honest. So this summer's really stretched into the spring and fall and, and we had a sense of permanence there that gives you some settledness. You start to know, like, what trees are the best to climb, what homes are the best to give you the best snacks, who's going to buy like the world's chocolate for your fundraiser, like all those things. And so I think you were known communally, you know, in that community that kind of stayed put again, because people weren't jet setting even in the summers. They didn't have a lot of money for these expensive vacations. So we were just figuring out how to be resourceful, creative. Lots of garage sales, lots of forts in the garage, kids running from, you know, house to house. So that is the grounding that I think permanence can bring, especially when you're overlapping. We lived close, you know, there wasn't big gaps between the homes. So there was a lot of proximity and a lot of permanence that I think is grounding for childhood. And we didn't have screens, no devices, so there was a lot of play and a lot of social interaction and creativity. No tv. My parents wouldn't let us have a TV because they were both school teachers. And so we got to read books.
- [04:18]
Gabe Lyons
And she was called Becca Book in elementary school. She was always reading a Book?
- [04:22]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah, I read all 62 Nancy Drew books in fourth grade because I really wanted her to get together. But either way, I was really curious about her sleuthing. So, yeah, I just think inquisitive kids are outside. They're just working with their hands and trying to be resourceful with what they have.
- [04:39]
Ginny Urch
I think it's such a beautiful message too, because you talk about, you say I was among the poorest in my class from kindergarten to 12th grade. You know, people are mean. They're mean about your clothes. But this part about being around, I think that a lot of people would look at that and be like, oh, you didn't get to go on the big splash of occasion. But in some ways it's like, well, you were around and people were. And everyone else was around, so you get to build all of these relationships. I mean, this is obviously drastically different than childhood today. What do you think kids are missing out when they don't have, you know, those long, extended periods of time to play and get to know their neighbors and have some autonomy and freedom?
- [05:15]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah, well, that. That embodiment. Right. Like, so much of life is our physical bodies getting comfortable, trying new things, taking risks, doing active things, competing. I mean, I took a diving class at our community pool and I was terrified of the high dive. To do a back dive off the high dive, I must have gone up and down that thing at least 10 times. But it does build resilient kids, I think, just to try new things, to risk physically, not just watch things, but be try new things. I did a synchronized swimming class one year. Like, it was like we ra out of class swim lessons to take. So we just started going to the extra things because my mom as a school teacher was very adamant, like, you need to still be getting up at 7am and getting active by 8am in this. In the pool. So she. She kind of ran a tight shift. Plus we had to take piano lessons all summer. And one summer I begged her to not take piano lessons and I would do the dishes all summer long. And she said, no, you can still do the dishes, but you still have to take piano. So I. I think there's just something that confidence that grows in kids when they try a lot of things and they learn at that young age when their brains are still sponges and their less time is really watching things, but more doing things.
- [06:26]
Ginny Urch
So you talk in this book about childhood. It's part of the book in terms of, like, going back into your history. So the book is called the Fight for Us and Gabe you had said at one point that it really took you a long time to sort of dive into your history and just sort of figure out what was going on and. And learning how to sort of emotionally process things and deal with your emotions. So can you talk about this time period? It's kind of scary where you dive into your own childhoods and also kind of into each other's a little bit more.
- [06:55]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah. You know, one of the things Rebecca and I have learned over 28 years of marriage is, is that when you look backwards, it can be scary. But it's crucial to grow and go forwards together, because many of the fights that end up taking place amongst parents and in a marriage are historical. And we talk about how 10% of the fight you're probably having at that moment has anything to do with that moment. It's 90% something that probably happened in your childhood that you haven't quite healed from. You haven't learned how to process well. And so for Rebecca and I, that's been a big part of our journey this last decade is better understanding our history and how much it impacted the way we saw one another, what our expectations were for one another. And when you do look back, it means, you know, sometimes you remember things you didn't remember when you were, you know, a teenager, but now these memories are coming back and you're. You're able to put them into context with wisdom. And that's something we don't have the opportunity to do sometimes when we're younger and to have a marriage partner that can help you process that, too. I. I've seen God use that in a way for us. That's just been very healing for me and allowed me to start to unpack emotions and experiences that I'd never really had anybody to talk to about that I never had a safe place to go to realize that I needed some care and some love and support and encouragement and healing and in marriage that was possible for us. And so I think that's helped us, even in our parenting, to know that our children are walking through things today that are traumatic for them. We might not even realize it for them that it's traumatic. Our daughter just told us last night a story about something that happened to her, you know, as a young child where another kid was, you know, kind of roughhousing her in a way that we. We're like, we. We never story.
- [08:35]
Rebecca Lyons
Remember that?
- [08:35]
Gabe Lyons
No. She was in third grade. She's in college now. And as parents, we're like, how did we not know about that? And at the time, when you're a kid, you don't even know how to state some of the experiences that you're going through. And so when we can create those safe places, even for our children to remember, to reflect and then walk through with them, well, here's maybe what happened and, and I'm sorry we didn't know and we weren't able to love you well and walk you through that experience. Uh, those are the kind of healing environments I think as parents we can create for our children so they don't have to go so long kind of shoving these things down and never quite knowing what to make of them.
- [09:12]
Ginny Urch
So one of yours, you talked about, you grew up in this home of a conflict avoidant home. You say you were trained not to talk back. You learned to internalize your emotions. I thought this was a really big statement. There was no reward for being upfront and honest about opinions of thoughts. There was only cost and, and it was never worth paying. Those are the patterns. I mean, it's your whole childhood. You grow up, you're not dealing with conflict, you're internalizing your emotions. And then 20 years into marriage where you're sort of avoiding situations like you did in childhood, maybe numbing out or avoiding or doing, just doing something different, nothing bad. I'll go send emails or I'm gonna work on this project. That seems like a really hard thing to change 20 years into a marriage.
- [09:57]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah, I remember at year 19, kind of overreacting to a scenario and I was like, wow, that was, that was quite a reaction. And I realized, oh, you know, I've actually had feelings about this since year three and I've never really expressed them because I, I do think like, like we said, looking back to go forward is, is that if the code of conduct and the way you were raised is like just, that was just the air and the atmosphere that you breathe. Like you just came into marriage thinking that was normal. And if it was going to be abrasive or friction, it's just better left unstead. But then sometimes I think the body, as we know now that we understand the brain a little bit more in the neuroscience, like kids are resilient until they're not, and adults are resilient till they're not. And at some point you reach this tipping point where you're like, this inside isn't matching what's going on the outside. And with the person who knows me the most, I should hopefully have some more agency than I might have had at as a child to express my opinion or express my difference or express my outburst, even if that's what it feels like. Because all of a sudden I've realized I do have agency to say something. This does bother me. And maybe it's an outsized reaction just because I chose to not do that for so long. And so for, for Gabe's like, wow, okay, this is a thing we should probably explore that maybe we'll go to counseling. And it. We thought it'd be like a tune up, it turned in about a 21 hour intensive over three days. Partly because I think we were compatible enough to just like, let things settle and not, not ruffle too much. We kind of understood our dance, or even if it was a dysfunctional dance, we understood it. But I think you're 20. I think. I don't know what it is, but sometimes in all of us, something wakes up and is like, all is not well. And I need to acknowledge that, take ownership of that. If I want there to be some form of transformation or healing both internally and in our relationship.
- [11:56]
Gabe Lyons
It could be perimenopause, that could be.
- [11:58]
Rebecca Lyons
Hormones, but whatever it is, it's not silent any longer.
- [12:03]
Ginny Urch
But is it, is it weird to like, be like, okay, this is our pattern. You, you talk, you talk about the dance, right? Families have a script. You know, it's like, this is the way we've been for 20 years. I kind of avoid conflict. And, you know, when things get deep, I'm going to just go do something else. Like, is it weird then all of a sudden to change it?
- [12:19]
Rebecca Lyons
Oh, yeah, it definitely disrupts the dance of like, codependency, of like, I'm okay, you're okay. Well, let's just be quiet about stuff.
- [12:25]
Gabe Lyons
I think some people are better at it than others. I mean, I, I would say in our relationship, Rebecca has had the ability to have agility a bit more and processing some of that. I think for me it's been a little harder to walk through the change because you, you do realize some of this stuff feels very hardwired into how you were raised, how you think, how you deal with people. Even, even the way I might lead in a work environment where I'm leading a team and we're trying to go up and to the right, you know, and grow a business. You know, when you try to apply those things at home, that doesn't work. And I think that skill building was something that I just had to take on and realize, look, you've got to learn some skills. You've got to learn how to ask better Questions of Rebecca. You've got to learn how to actively listen more, and you've got to also be humble and understanding that you really don't know it all. And that Rebecca has incredible wisdom to bring into our family, our relationship. And it's probably 15 years ago when I think that shift happened for me where I realized, look, Rebecca's my partner and she is of as much or more value in this relationship than I am. And therefore, this led into more of her calling of writing and a lot of the work that she's done. I need to also find ways for her to even explore those gifts and to find out for herself what her assignments are her calling. This isn't just about me as the man, you know, who grew up in a home where it was very much about my father and my wife supporting my father and taking care of the kids. While we're going to do that and we're going to share the load of parenting, we're also going to share this beautiful responsibility. We get to cultivate one another's gifts. And so that's been one of the great parts of our journey, I would say, over these last many years, is getting to do that for one another.
- [14:01]
Rebecca Lyons
I think origin matters, because in my home, my mom was a firstborn female survivor. She didn't even have a father figure in her life after age 2. So I just grew up around a strong mother who, you know, again, she. She. She took charge. And my dad was the youngest with three sisters. And so even in their relationship, he was a little more emotive with his words and. And she was a little more direct. And that's, you know, sometimes atypical, just depends on what your family of origin looks like. Whereas his. His family, you know, his dad worked, his mom supported his dad, she was home and however that looks. But even their temperament was the opp. Parents temperament. So, of course you come into this, he's like a. Has a father who's a leader. I have a mother who's a leader. We're both leaders. And then all of a sudden we're like, there's probably going to be a little bit of friction at some point in the best of ways, but also in a way that's going to both refine and humble us and realize, okay, we really need to learn each other's language of how to communicate respectfully, but also continue to have agency in what we both believe that we're gifted in. And so that's been. I think that's what we started to waken to and go like, let's press into this instead of kind of just trying to be confused a little bit and dance around how to celebrate each other's strengths.
- [15:24]
Ginny Urch
And you are both leaders. Someone was a quarterback, that's probably Gabe, right? If someone's a high school quarterback and you're a Florida drum major. So I mean, yeah, you, you bring in this and that's wonderful, right? These two leaders. But then you could see how there would be that conflict.
- [15:37]
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- [19:00]
Ginny Urch
And it was interesting you talked about Gabe the well the Boy Crisis talks about that. By Dr. Warren Farrell like the qualities that make you successful at work are often opposite of what make you successful at home. So for someone who's listening, who is maybe addicted to distraction, and it's interesting because there's I think a lot more things to be distracted by these days. But it's been around the newspaper. I mean, you know, got pictures in your mind of the dad comes home from work and just the newspaper. They're just sort of numbing out. What advice would you have for a young man who is maybe starting out in marriage or even dating to try and help them avoid all of the distractions that are out there these days?
- [19:37]
Gabe Lyons
Well, this is a battle. I think you're right. It's in this Age of technology, of constant, you know, algorithms and advertising and noise. To find this space, to not distract yourself and to really focus in on the things that are going to matter, that are going to last will just be this discipline that has to be developed and cultivated. Part of how we can do that is create environments that help us with that. You know, environments that don't have digital around. Some rules about where we're putting our phone when we walk in the door, our laptops, where we do work, where we don't do work. Now that so many homes or environments where people are both working, they're up at night, you know, getting projects done. You know, these types of ways of life we're now living in are going to require a team approach. And I think for Rebecca and I, that's what we've tried to do for one another is to be curious about, well, how could we do that better? How could we make sure, you know, we go to bed at night? How do we quiet the house and make sure, you know, we're not watching TV late? We're not on our devices? We're actually moving into a rhythm that's going to allow us to get good sleep, because that's going to be great, not just for us, but also for our children. Those are the kind of discussions, I think, in a marriage and for a family are crucial today. That's why I love, again, what you guys are doing, because you're helping so many parents, I think, recognize some of these new dynamics and understand the ways in which we can counter those by just being proactive and not just believing the inevitable, like, oh, this is just the way we have to do life because it's the way it's being presented to us. But actually saying, no, we can be a counterculture. We can do this differently, and we can build a different kind of life so that our children experience something different even than our neighbor's children are experiencing. Because we're going to take, you know, agency over that.
- [21:13]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah, I love the porch is my favorite place even here in Tennessee, because anything outside is. I'm just. I want to be outside. And I think it does hearken back to childhood, for sure. And also, I just like warm weather. I grew up in Florida. I don't like cold weather. So even I can't wait for spring weather in Tennessee and just the chance to calm. Right? Because there's just. I think there is such a grounding effect, as, you know, there's such a grounding effect to get away from it. And the longer you're away from the devices and the screens, the less you miss them, you just, you just kind of find that you come alive again, you come awake again. And this started for me about seven years ago with like a 100 day tech detox and I didn't want to return and I, even at that time I was an author and had you know, an online social media and I was like, man, I'm gonna have to come back to that. I don't know if I want to. You know, it's always a wrestle I think for a lot of us who are creatives because we know that's the first thing that's gonna suck. Our ability to create, to think just from inspiration, not from like scrolling. And so just being very mindful of that. It still work I would say even now to have to get on devices much more than it, you know, much more than we want to. And, and the, even our children who are now 20, 22, 24, plus the little one we adopted, they are off social media for the most part. They don't even enjoy it because they've, they had enough time off of it even at a younger age that they just don't miss it. It's not something they look forward to. So that's not even been from us trying to persuade them. So it, I think it's proving itself out over time.
- [22:57]
Ginny Urch
It does feel like this younger generation is wise. You know, they've seen it suck other people in and they've got their own special wisdom about it and ways that they're going to parent with it, which I think is wonderful. Okay, so tell us. This book came out this week. It is a launch week for you, so I'm sure quite a busy week. The fight for us and people can get it wherever they get their books. But you say you aren't ordinary marriage experts. So you've been married 25 years, you've got four kids, but you don't have PhDs, you're not licensed therapists, but you've just done a lot of work in marriage. What's the background?
- [23:28]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah, for us, we've obviously anybody who's been married 28 years has had their own experiences, but that's not all that we rely on. We've, we've done a lot of work becoming board certified as coaches in marriage and family as well as in mental health. And all in an approach to try to help more couples who are finding themselves a bit stuck right now when they're having challenges with their marriage. The, the list and the line to get Into a good therapist is very long. And people are usually desperate at the point that they're trying to make contact with a counselor. They're, they're usually having that fight where they're like, I don't know if we're going to make it or I can't keep doing this like this anymore. And there just needs to be more and more resources and honest talk about what do we do in this situation and how can we start to experience a sense of healing and hope versus despair. And so that motivated Rebecca and I, along with five years of now doing retreats where we've hosted now well over a thousand couples at our retreats where we've in smaller groupings worked through this conversation on marriage and parenting and family in a way where we've been able to learn a lot of where the triggers are, what people are really faced with and the differences between men and women and how they're trying to navigate marriage, the stressors that are part of our new normal in modern life. And so I felt like this project was an opportunity for us to speak to the modern marriage with all the new challenges that we're faced with, the mental health, emotional health challenges and pressures that people face. And I hope what we've done is create a resource that for, you know, $20, right, you can, you could pick up and you could actually start the, begin the healing conversation with your spouse. So you have hope that you can go another year, another month, you know, and, and have hope for that future.
- [25:11]
Rebecca Lyons
Or you're just looking for some ways to enrich your relationship. Maybe a lot of your attention is head down with the kids and you're talking calendar and kids all the time. And it's wonderful. Parenting is such a joy and a reward, but it's not supposed to replace the intimacy and communion that you have as a couple. The kids feel most secure when they see mom and dad are good and they're happy and they're laughing together and they're joyful and that can't come. That quality time still needs to have some quantity time. And so part of what we recommend for, for adults is to take 15 minutes a day, you know, later maybe before dinner prep and just the kids shut the, you shut the door. And the kids know mom and dad are just going to connect, catch up. And usually that's a check in on like, how are you? How are you feeling about today? What was good, bad, hard? It can, it can go to the heart level. It doesn't have to just be like, you know, whatever needs to get out of your brain, but just a way to again know and be known on a regular basis instead of just piling it up for a date night that may or may not get canceled and waiting for that perfect moment to have that meaningful conversation when really we are looking for more regularity. The brain needs more consistency than it needs these deep dives. And so if we just create these regular rhythms of doing this every day, our kids will feel the difference in that.
- [26:28]
Ginny Urch
And so the book has all of these connection questions in them. It's fantastic. It's at the end of each chapter. And also I read that there's a journal. You could get a journal that goes along with it. Is that correct?
- [26:37]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah. September. It's called the journal for us. 10 conversations every couple Needs to have. So that'll be out in a few months.
- [26:44]
Ginny Urch
Oh, that's so great. So that comes out. Yeah, just at the end of the summer. Okay, that's wonderful. I love that you say that people come at the end of their rope, so maybe try not to get there right. Like intervene beforehand. And the book has, like I said, all of these conversation questions at the end of each chapter. So some of them are about childhood or all these different topics that you bring up in the book. So really, really helpful. I want to know about the retreats.
- [27:08]
Rebecca Lyons
Yes.
- [27:09]
Ginny Urch
What are they? Like, where are they at?
- [27:11]
Rebecca Lyons
Yes. So we host them some in Colorado and some here in Franklin, Tennessee. And so our next one is November 20th and 21st, and we do them once or twice a year. This is a launch year, so we're doing just one in November, but typically do spring and winter or fall. And it's about 100 people each time or 120. And it's a two day intensive. It's, it's. We have ourselves. And then we do also have licensed therapists that, that speak into different sessions depending on what we're talking about. But it is, it is, it's helping us with our emotional health, our spiritual health, our relational health, for sure. And then just again trying to equip and resource marriages and parenting, because we know all of it kind of gets mixed together and sometimes you get overwhelmed with one thing and then everything else starts to fall. So we want to be just come around couples. We've had couples come back that it's like their annual tuneup and they love Frank the holiday. It's like right before Thanksgiving, it's all decorated and it's like a fun little two day getaway. And so, yeah, I will say a.
- [28:11]
Gabe Lyons
Lot of husbands show up and they didn't know what they'd signed up for. Their wives were very persuasive and said, hey, we're going to go take a little retreat together. They never heard of us.
- [28:18]
Rebecca Lyons
They listen to our podcast on the way there.
- [28:20]
Gabe Lyons
They stepped into this retreat and they're. I think they're thankful that there's a guy there.
- [28:24]
Rebecca Lyons
Yes.
- [28:24]
Gabe Lyons
Talking honestly about these. These challenges. And we really create an environment where people, I think, feel safe to process just with one another if that's what they want, or if they want to share more with the table that they're sitting at. But by the end of day two, when people are reflecting on their action plan, what they're going to do now, when they step back into the busyness of life, people are many times in tears because there's been some new awakening thoughts that they've had that they didn't understand was why they did what they did. And they start to experience, I think, freedom. They start to have some language to name some of what's happening in their relationship. I think one of the biggest takeaways is they go, oh, we're normal. Like, the fact that we have disagreements and we have challenges in our marriage and with our family and with our kids. Oh, everyone else doesn't have it figured out. There's a sense of. Of solidarity to go, this is okay. And that's what Rebecca and I's hope was. Even with the Fight for Us, and even the title of the book, the Fight for Us is to normalize the fact that to have a healthy marriage, it will take a fight. It's going to take you working on this. You're probably never going to attain this level that you hoped you'd get to. And I think for Rebecca and I, we humbly go. We know the next few decades, like, we're going to encounter more tensions or challenges or transitions that we've never been through before. And so we want to keep helping people feel that's going to be normal. But here's the tools, here's the path towards making sure repair is quick and healing as possible.
- [29:47]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah. And sometimes just finding language for something, sometimes you need someone else to give words to something that you've been feeling but you didn't know how to express. They'll, like, hear an insight, and we'll ask them after each session, like, share with your spouse that aha moment that was in that last session. And it's always different. It's like the thing that just kind of surfaces out of. Out of the whole thing that they take away, and they're the ones that are always remembering on the back end and coming back and thanking us. So it's. It's very rewarding. We are so blessed doing these every year as well, because I feel like we're learning as we go in, in all the people who are contributing. It's such a joy.
- [30:24]
Ginny Urch
Okay, so tell people where they can find this and other books. And you have your own podcast.
- [30:29]
Rebecca Lyons
Yes. So Rebecca Lyons.com retreat would tell you everything about November. If you want to go to Rebecca Lyons.com marriage, you'll find everything you want to know about this book. Free download a fight for your marriage master class, an emotional health toolkit, things like that.
- [30:46]
Gabe Lyons
Just even a quiz to know what's your dysfunctional dance. Because there's four. And we've seen thousands of couples now take this quiz to just identify what's the dance we do together.
- [30:56]
Rebecca Lyons
Yes, yes.
- [30:57]
Gabe Lyons
And why do we do it. And we try to give them resources on how do you get out of that dysfunctional dance and that. You don't have to buy the book to do that. You just go to rebecca lines.commarriage and can learn all about that. We also have a podcast series. So Rebecca and I have been doing a podcast for six years now called Rhythms for Life. And we're right now in the middle of a series for seven weeks where there's two a week. And we're talking about marriage, we're talking about themes from this book, but also trying to work through how do we renew our marriages as we head into summer. Because what we know from the data is summer is when the most people go through divorce. It's the moment where families are home together. It's similar to Covid in a sense, because I think what takes place is couples are together, kids are together. There's not as many distractions. And the Google searches, when you get to July are at its highest for divorce attorneys.
- [31:44]
Rebecca Lyons
Or they're saying, marriage help, marriage support. How do I. Because I think every. There's a little lull. It's kind of like, right. So there's a summer lull. And while it should be fun and playful, I think what happens in the lull is, like, things slow down a little bit. The kids are home. Everyone's kind of staring at each other like, we need to have a plan. Reality hits that we don't have a plan, and maybe we.
- [32:04]
Gabe Lyons
There's a little tension when we're all together. Like, it doesn't always go well.
- [32:07]
Rebecca Lyons
It doesn't feel great. Right. Sometimes patience backfire. And so it is. It's good to equip going into summer, going, okay, like, maybe we can be more intentional about this summer versus reactive.
- [32:19]
Gabe Lyons
And we're also on that series, just interviewing a lot of other couples, some that your listeners, I'm sure, have admired and watched their marriage publicly, but talk very personally about the ways their relationship works and how they've had to fight for their marriage. Willie and Corey Robertson, Tim and Elizabeth Hasselbeck, lady a Hillary Scott, lead vocalist for that band, and her husband Chris, and so many more. Just processing very openly and vulnerably like, this has been our struggle, this has been our fight, but this is why we're committed and this is what we've learned and we hope that just continues to encourage people to have hope and to keep working because our marriages are worth it.
- [32:54]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah.
- [32:54]
Ginny Urch
That's so interesting about July. It kind of reminds me of where we started. It's like, maybe you're not really known in your home. That's where it really starts to come out because you got all this time together and you're like, oh, you don't really know me, or I don't really know you. So this is a great time for this book to be coming out then, for people to get a copy and to start working through it. You might even be through the whole book by the time July comes around. Talking about vacations backfiring, I loved how you started this book out with a vacation that backfired, but it was kind of a good reminder. And you can tell the story, but it was kind of a good reminder that, like, you just don't know what's coming. And you can have these expectations of something that's going to be great and grand and easy, but you don't really know. And little things can throw things off. And it's really good to have this toolkit. So talk about this. I mean, this was. So you're. You've been married 28 years. This was your 25th.
- [33:45]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah.
- [33:46]
Ginny Urch
Like your big trip.
- [33:47]
Gabe Lyons
Yes. I mean, we'd been planning this trip for a little over a year, and we were going to Scotland, and that was kind of the birthplace for my family and our heritage. It's going to be our first time there. And all the preparations were in place. The kids were going to be taken care of. You know, these are hard things logistically to work out. So you just cannot wait to get to the plane. And the first night, we're on the Red Eye flight heading over to Edinburgh, and Rebecca discovers that on her arm, there's a rash that is getting worse.
- [34:16]
Rebecca Lyons
By these hours to burn an itch and burn an itch. And we. We garden here in summers. And by that end of summer when we were leaving, it's gone wild. And so I'm pruning and cutting and pulling, and I'm just going quick. Right. I'm not paying a whole lot of attention. Saw some weeds, just went and grabbed them. Turns out I got the worst case of poison ivy. I've never even had it. It just consumed my entire body. The whole time we were in Scotland.
- [34:39]
Gabe Lyons
We were having to lather her in crazy.
- [34:40]
Rebecca Lyons
I had like three different steroids that I got from, like a telehealth.
- [34:45]
Gabe Lyons
Literally, her hair touching her skin hurts.
- [34:47]
Rebecca Lyons
Shingles off.
- [34:49]
Gabe Lyons
You know, all my dreams of this is going to be also a romantic getaway. We opened the whole book telling this story because what was so redeeming about it was normally that would have literally ruined that trip and we would have just been both, like, sad the whole time. We wouldn't have had fun.
- [35:07]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah.
- [35:07]
Gabe Lyons
And. And we had grown so much together in a different way that we were able to, like, go on that trip and still enjoy it, enjoy one another, have deeper conversations, but still walk away from that being so grateful for one another. And. And I think, yeah, in marriage, you've got to be prepared that there are going to be expectations you have that do not go the way you hope the year you had planned doesn't work out. The job you thought you were going to get, you don't get. The conflict you never hoped to have with your children happens. And you, you want to be strong here so that you can withstand those moments that are very hard and difficult to take on alone. And when you have each other and you have that bond, it gives you an extra resilience I think that we all need, especially these days, especially when.
- [35:49]
Rebecca Lyons
You'Re weary and tired. And child rearing is no joke. Right. Like, we have four children, two with down syndrome diagnosis, so we understand a special needs side of this. You know, three years into marriage, that was our reality. And so Even in our 20s, I think we thought we have a choice. We can, we can divide in our kind of confusion and pain and like, the weariness of this, or we can unite. We can turn toward one another. We can be a unified front on going. Like, we. We need to learn this together. We're. We're not going anywhere. We need to stick together, humble ourselves in our ways that we might have preferences that we think are right. Or you think are right. You just go like, let's be a team and let's learn how to partner. And that's been the, that's been the breakthrough, I think, to be able to have this lasting marriage.
- [36:32]
Ginny Urch
Yeah, you think you're having this pinnacle moment and then you have a raging case of poison ivy. It is very sort of indicative of how life goes sometimes. You just, you think, you think, you think and then are you going to be able to weather that?
- [36:46]
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- [37:40]
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- [38:09]
Ginny Urch
I would love to talk about this is just maybe it's going to seem kind of silly, but I thought I really liked your list of like the little things, medium things and big things. Big things. So I thought maybe you could just give a little bit of advice. We could take maybe one from each section. But you wrote gabe and I fight about everything. Well, we used to anyways. We fight about small things. We fight about medium sized things. It's like Goldilocks, right? We fight about big things. So can we just start off with the small things? You get married and there's just different ways that people do things. There's different ways they sort laundry. There's different ways that they raise chickens. There's different ways to respond to strangers and cut an onion. How do you advise for couples, especially at the beginning, to navigate all of those smaller things?
- [38:51]
Rebecca Lyons
Well, I would say it's the Little things that can create a little bit of friction because it's preference, but it's really, truly back to childhood. So for me, one of the things we fight about is how to load a dishwasher. And I think what's underneath that, again, there's always something underneath it is that I can't handle waste because we never threw anything away. And so partly it's like, how much. How so? Maximize is one of my strengths. And I'm like, how many dishes can we put in the dishwasher so that there's less water and then there's less mess? You know, that way that, like, the sink is cleared for a minute because outer order for me helps have a little inner order. And so it just becomes like this thing that I care about, whereas so I'm like, why don't you use that smaller plate, Gabe, to put the egg on versus, like that big, large plate for egg?
- [39:34]
Gabe Lyons
And I'm going, can I not just pick the plate I want to use out of the cabinet and use it to give our child an egg this morning? You know, and you could easily just stop the little fight there. That. That's all it is. But the more Rebecca could unpack that with me, I all of a sudden appreciate it. Oh, that's why you. You're so motivated to use certain dishes to pack the dishwasher.
- [39:54]
Rebecca Lyons
It's not great, but I think it's great.
- [39:55]
Gabe Lyons
But you know where we landed. And this is, I think, true of a lot of the small and medium things is a lot of them are preferences. And you really, you become wise in your marriage when you start to label these things is that's your preference and I have a different preference. These aren't moral rights and wrongs. The mistake we make is we start to judge our spouse for their different preference and tell them they're wrong, and they just don't think rightly about it and they don't do it right. And that creates a sort of judgment towards them that's not fair. And when we started to learn that, that's made it so much easier. And. And then we can learn to prefer one another's preferences or to just serve one another because we know it's their preference, even if it' not morally a right or wrong. And that. That alleviates a lot of that.
- [40:38]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah. And I would say some of the medium things or bigger things is that because I was a firstborn and we didn't have anybody helping us, like my parents, both dual income, like, both worked for kids, we had to learn so much and do everything for ourselves as young kids. We were doing laundry at a young age. We were kind of cleaning the house. We were pitching in. And so I always like to have the kids, you know, not do for, but show how. And I didn't do that as well because Cade was our first and I just did probably more. And then I automatically. My middle child was like, he's like, sure, you can tie my shoe till I'm eight. You know, I just was already doing it for Kate and realizing, going, wait. And so I think those are bigger things, right? Like that our kids learn agency and they learn how and. But it takes more time to teach them than it does to just do it for them. And so sometimes those were conflicts of like, his mom did everything, she did everything.
- [41:31]
Gabe Lyons
I walked upstairs and cereal bowl, was there cereal for that hard.
- [41:37]
Ginny Urch
Then you get married, Rebecca, and you're like, wait a minute.
- [41:40]
Gabe Lyons
She's like, no, I don't think that's how this is going to work. You're going to be giving me my cereal. And so those things come from our heritage and it's okay. Like, I think that's what's good. You learn in marriage, obviously, to be unselfish. Some of the big things for us, though, they're the big decisions usually that create stress and pressure. It's the decisions, where are we going to send our children to school this year and should we move to that new city? We took on a move to New York City that was a three year journey of getting alignment on. You know, I felt it at one point. Yeah, I think this is what we should do. Rebecca's like, I love the idea, but I don't think the time is right. And. And so I had to be patient with that. And. And we waited till we were 100% aligned. And I think that can be the mistake couples can make on some of these big decisions is moving forward when there's not complete peace and alignment. And we've learned such resentment can settle in. Yeah, we've learned to just be patient and ask God. And our relationship as Christians, we just, hey, we invite God into the equation and say, help us understand what do we need wisdom beyond even right here. And we need peace with that together. And when we've gotten that, we've learned that those big decisions, even if we both look back and go, that probably wasn't the best decision, we at least aren't resenting one another, which can lead to contempt, which leads to really the death of a marriage. And so the big ones are the ones I would say, we need to be careful, slow, patient, and aligned. And when we do that, I think we'll be thankful later.
- [43:08]
Ginny Urch
I like how you categorized it. I mean, it just goes to show that there's a lot of things. There's a lot of things that you can be a little off kilter with, I would imagine. It's almost tricky to figure out, is it a preference or is it moral? Because I think in some ways, Rebecca, you could argue and say, well, a smaller plate uses less energy and takes up less room in the fears. Like a little bit of morality, you know, a tie to it. So to really sort of go through those things and to figure out what matters and what doesn't matter. And you even talked about how long ago. This is a big one. The drive through. The drive through is a big one. Josh is so overwhelmed because, you know, the kids change their mind, and then he's like, it's frustrating. And I'm just like, well, just. We can take our time. They can change. I don't want pickles. I want whatever the thing is. So that was in there. What's the issue at the drive thru? Who takes too long to order?
- [43:57]
Rebecca Lyons
Oh, me, for sure. Because I. I'm very particular in Gabe's. Gabe is embarrassed of the people behind us, so he's probably more.
- [44:04]
Ginny Urch
So is Josh.
- [44:05]
Rebecca Lyons
He's more moral and that he's caring about other people behind us.
- [44:10]
Gabe Lyons
Way more than her. I care way more about those people.
- [44:13]
Rebecca Lyons
More value than our family has value to decide what we want while we're already. We waited in line as well. And. And I'm like, if. If Pierce doesn't want pickles on his chicken sandwich and that sandwich feels like it costs $1,000, we should be able to ask for no pickles. So part of it is, yeah, it's preference, for sure. And there is a sensitivity that is right on both ends. And so just trying to find that.
- [44:35]
Ginny Urch
Compromise because it really is. It's the childhood things, like, we don't want to waste. I'm about to spend $12 on one sandwich, so hopefully they're going to like it. And also, we're avoiding conflict, so we don't want people behind to be mad or the person who's taking the order defense.
- [44:50]
Gabe Lyons
Okay, listen, you guys have ordered at these same restaurants at least 100 times. Like, there's nothing new on the menu. We know what the kids want to eat. Why do we have to really deliberate on this for five minutes, you know, And.
- [45:03]
Rebecca Lyons
And if you have been waiting, why didn't you decide while you were waiting? So I get it. I get it.
- [45:09]
Ginny Urch
How about. I just. I love it. I just. It goes to show that there are a lot of nuances and a lot of things that you have to work through, and that that is very normal. Let's take another topic. This is a really good one. The energy decline. So, oh, my gosh, this is so good, because it's. Everybody relates. And you had this sentence, energy is attractive. And I thought, oh, I've never really considered that. It's like when you're dating, you're going and doing all this stuff, and you're high energy, and you're super excited to be together, and then you're married, you throw some kids in the mix, you got work, you got to get the groceries, and you're just kind of like, you lose your energy. So it doesn't say that lack of energy is unattractive, but, like, the energy is attractive, is kind of something, I think, to remember. But you talk about your buckets, and both of you had a lot of things in your buckets, things that you are interested in and what happened over time.
- [46:01]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah, you come with a lot of hobbies, a lot of preferences, a lot of creative outlets, interests, because you have some margin. It's just you, you know, as a single person, and then you start dating, and then all of a sudden you have all these responsibilities and jobs and then children. So those buckets dwindle down to typically work and parenting. That's what we found. And then. So then it's this idea of going, okay, how do we recover some of those buckets, those hobbies, those interests, those things that kind of are rejuvenating for us. And so Even in the 28 years, I would say it was in the last seven to five to seven years that we're going, hey, we need to recover that play. We need to find those things that we loved. Even if we learn new things together. Now we have chickens and we have gardens and bees, and we're kind of learning together.
- [46:45]
Ginny Urch
Poison ivy.
- [46:45]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah, and poison ivy. And we're learning all this together. So even that is like, learning something new is inspiring. Doing it together, getting on YouTube and trying to learn and try new things with our hands, I think that gives you a new kind of energy, because the brain needs novelty to be healthy and to grow. And so when you can do that together and whatever that looks like, not just in parenting or not just in the workplace, but what kind of things can you explore outside of that? I think we'll Keep it more interesting.
- [47:13]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah. We have a whole chapter just on play. And this idea that you gotta keep play going in your life, you know, as kids, that was all we wanted to do. We could not wait to get out of school, to get home, to just run out in the yard. Like Rebecca was describing her summers. I mean, we gotta create that still as adults. We gotta find time for that. We've gotta make space for it. Our kids love it. They love to get out there, even if you have to convince them a little bit or maybe incentivize them because they'd rather sit home and play a video game or do something else. Creating that space. We know now so much about our mental health is renewed by that. Our physical health is good when we exercise. And so for us, we've just had to make that a priority in our marriage. We've had to say, look, you know, some mornings, you know, we're gonna go work out together. And that means we're gonna get into work a little later than we had hoped or would have wanted to. And fortunately, we can make some of those decisions. Not everybody can do that. But if you can't, it's still going. Hey, we're gonna go walk together when we get home. We're gonna go for a walk after dinner. Kids, we're all gonna do it because we've gotta get out. We've gotta get, you know, our bodies moving, and so we feel healthy. So we actually bring our best self into our marriage and our parenting and.
- [48:20]
Rebecca Lyons
That recreation as a family. I know you're big about. And we have found that. We try to make sure that even with our kiddos who are home, Kate and Joy with down syndrome, like, they love riding bikes, and they have these great bikes called Mobo because they're tricycles, but they're for adults, too. And so they go fast.
- [48:35]
Gabe Lyons
They're low to the ground.
- [48:36]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah, they go fast, and they're around curves, and we go on trails and things like that. And we're just. Just. We're kind of huffing just to keep up with them. So it turns into just finding ways. Like, we both golf. Joy is on my cart. Kade gets on his cart. They want to putt at every hole. You just find ways to include them and everything. And that way we're all moving and we're playing and we're getting outside together.
- [48:56]
Ginny Urch
Your buckets were really interesting. Piano and trumpet player Rebecca. Gabe's a watercolor and charcoal artist. Super interesting. And Rebecca's. Yours said that you were a party planner. But Gabe said an epic party entertainment coordinator. So what's the difference between a party planner and an epic party entertainment coordinator?
- [49:17]
Gabe Lyons
Well, the party planner has to do a lot of the pre work. You know, that's the logistics, the planning, the invitations. I don't. I don't enjoy that.
- [49:24]
Rebecca Lyons
You know, make sure the house is presentable at some level.
- [49:27]
Gabe Lyons
Paperless post to save that for someone else. But when it gets time for people to show up, then it's on. And it's trying to create just a of fun environment. Lots of activities, lots of preset ups of games. People complain. You know, if it's a summer, it's great. People are hitting golf balls off the front porch, over trees, to targets, ziplining, you know, doing diving contests in the pool, maybe taking a tour of the garden.
- [49:50]
Rebecca Lyons
Sign a liability waiver.
- [49:51]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah, yeah.
- [49:53]
Ginny Urch
You might get poison ivy. And be careful in the pool.
- [49:57]
Gabe Lyons
I think the waiver is the key to knowing how good is your party.
- [50:01]
Rebecca Lyons
Is the karaoke disco ball.
- [50:04]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah.
- [50:04]
Rebecca Lyons
Machine.
- [50:05]
Ginny Urch
I want to come to a party.
- [50:06]
Gabe Lyons
Come on.
- [50:07]
Ginny Urch
Next time I'm in Franklin, I'm going to a party. You use this phrase, erosion of personality, which I thought was such a good phrase and something you don't really think about. It's like if you get stuck in doing just the two buckets of work and parenting, your personality might erode away. Who wants that?
- [50:23]
Rebecca Lyons
I love your appreciation for vocabulary. It makes me so happy. I do feel very seen right now.
- [50:30]
Ginny Urch
It was a great book. Yeah. You gotta play. Research affirms the value of play in marriage. When couples play even board games together or take a painting class with each other, their bodies release. Oxytocin is really important.
- [50:41]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah, I know, but that's a fun thing. I like to paint. Rebecca just recently did pottery.
- [50:47]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah.
- [50:47]
Gabe Lyons
Where she made these beautiful with the wheel and everything.
- [50:51]
Rebecca Lyons
Like, I needed a lot of lessons, but it was fun just trying new things. I think we be never too old to do that.
- [50:57]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah. But it takes intentionality for each of us. And I think it takes giving space to your spouse to do it. You know, when Rebecca did pottery, that was in the middle of the day, you know, but. But it was like, I'm going to carve time out to go do something. I've got plenty of other things to do, but I'm going to prioritize play, learning beauty and working with our hands. And I think today these are the kinds of things that are going to take more intentionality from each of us. But as a marriage, when you go, hey, let's do it. Let's make this a key as we look at the next year that we just want to work into our rhythm. I think you'll experience like you come to life a bit more than. And your personality starts to show up in ways that you didn't. I didn't realize she was a great potter.
- [51:32]
Rebecca Lyons
Well, I didn't. I'm not, and I didn't either.
- [51:34]
Gabe Lyons
But it looks awesome.
- [51:34]
Rebecca Lyons
But you are recovering a little bit of your childhood when you do things like when you try something new and you've never done it before. And I have found bringing joy home. So she. She is 11 and she loves to cook. She loves to try new things. And so it. Even just being a little older and adopting her like we were at 20 years of our. Our marriage when, when we said yes to adopting her and we brought her home and we went back to kindergarten where our other kids are, like, going off to college. So it definitely was like a reset on parenting, starting over in many ways, but being old enough now this time around to go, hey, I just want to do things with her. And it's going to bring out the child in me, and it's going to make her want to lean in and create all these things. And she's always up for it. She wants to cook anytime, anything sourdough cook. She loves dishes. She must not be my blood. She loves doing the dishes. She just wants to be in the middle of the mix. And so that's just fun. I think it's good for all of us, even as we get older, to just recover our youth in those ways.
- [52:32]
Ginny Urch
And it's interesting because so many of the examples that you brought up are in the Bible. So, you know, I don't know if you felt spiritual lessons, but if you're doing pottery, you know, that's in the Bible and knitting together and we're knit together in our mother's womb. And the bread and the, you know, the way you're learning about gossip and you're learning about daily bread. And I mean, there's so many things of the gardening that you reap what you sow and seeds and soil and all of those types of things. And so there's all those spiritual lessons, I think that. I don't know. I don't know. I've never actually done pottery on the potter's wheel.
- [53:02]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah.
- [53:02]
Ginny Urch
Did you feel that at all? Like any spiritual lessons, it's powerful.
- [53:06]
Rebecca Lyons
Have to control the speed with your foot. Like, and I learned to go with like a sewing machine that had a foot with like kind of you press down and it gets faster and slower. So you're, you're definitely like all engaged with your hands and your legs and your bracing. So it's a full, it's a full extended workout. Yes. And it's, it's a little stressful because you got to keep it in the center and hold it and so. But yeah, I think it was really good. And then with gardening, the vines, like we have a lot of trellises and you know all the scripture about abiding and how we'll go to bed at night and all of a sudden there's fruit when we wake in the morning. And all we needed to do was prune and lift it back up towards the sun. So so much I think we've like, even God has just reminded us how tactile our lives are, how embodied they are. And you think about like that first century, you know, it's a Middle Eastern diet.
- [53:52]
Gabe Lyons
Every.
- [53:52]
Rebecca Lyons
Nobody was on screens or devices. Everything was whole food. They would walk 3, 600 miles. They say in Jesus life. From all the towns he went. So if we just get back to being human, I think in those ways that I think is where we really do come alive. We find the fullness of the sustainability or resourcefulness. And I don't know, it just, it does. My daughter says, I hear you humming a lot. I'm like, I'm not conscious that I'm doing it, but I do think there's just like a little bit of lightness that can come from that kind of life. Life.
- [54:22]
Ginny Urch
I think that would be a really good book title. 3,600 miles. About like our humanity.
- [54:29]
Rebecca Lyons
Yeah.
- [54:29]
Ginny Urch
And that it's meant to be hands on. I like that a lot.
- [54:32]
Rebecca Lyons
I've never heard that everything was agrarian. So only in the last years has that shifted.
- [54:38]
Ginny Urch
Yeah. Wow. Let's wrap it up with this. You were talking in the book about fears, insecurity and belief. Gabe has a deep need for Rebecca's belief. And Rebecca, you're wanting security. And one of the things that you're talking about was just a lack of provision. So some of that's coming from childhood. You talked about, you know, being one of the poorest kids from all the way through elementary school. And one of the things that you stepped out, and I might not have the total details right, but you step out into this sort of mission oriented work. Was that think.
- [55:10]
Gabe Lyons
Yeah.
- [55:10]
Ginny Urch
Or was that something else that became.
- [55:12]
Gabe Lyons
Oh, that's what it was. Yeah. 20 years ago when I had five years of a career out of College and got to this point where it felt very clear I was being called towards this new work, which is called think spelled with a Q, by the way. T H I N Q. Rebecca and I had a big decision to make. We just had. She was just giving birth to our second child. We had a little bit of money. We had like a few months of savings in the bank.
- [55:35]
Rebecca Lyons
That's it.
- [55:36]
Gabe Lyons
And it was a big decision. Are we going to risk everything, go after this purpose and this meaning and calling in our life? Wife and I needed her belief and she was having a hard time with that risk, as any person would. And especially a wife who just gave birth to her second child and those fears of provision that are so normal. But when she came around me and said, I actually believe in you, I'm with you. Let's jump together, let's go for it. What that instilled in me in terms of confidence, courage, like, I'm going to take the hill because I have my wife's belief Thief. It's such a gift for wives to be able to give to their husbands. They. They hardly know how much it means to us to just know that they're with us, that they believe in us. Not only because they respect us, but they actually believe that what we are going for is worth it and that we have what it takes to do it. So many sons grew up in homes where their father never told them that they had what it takes. And so they. They have that question lingering in their mind. And when their wife can put words to that, it's amazing how healing that can be as they launch into whatever it is that they're feeling passionate about in terms of their pursuit.
- [56:46]
Ginny Urch
And here you are. That is incredible that it was think, oh, you were working for John Maxwell and that's what you jumped shit from, which does feel very risky. And then here it is. I mean, that's incredible. T H I N Q. I wondered if that was what it was.
- [57:02]
Gabe Lyons
So.
- [57:02]
Ginny Urch
Wow. So it was a good move. A good. It was a good move. Here you are.
- [57:08]
Gabe Lyons
Wow.
- [57:09]
Ginny Urch
Doing so many cool things. Well, what an honor. The book is called the Fight for Us. This time flew by. We're like at the end here. Overcome what Divides to Build a Marriage that Thrives. By Rebecca Lyons and Gabe Lyons. It is already out, so you can grab that now. September, the companion journal is going to come out so you can work through that. That'll be here before you know it. The Marriage Journal for Couples. And you have all. All these other things that you offer. I'll make sure I put all those things in the show notes. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood? We kind of already talked about this for Rebecca. A favorite memory from your childhood. That was outside.
- [57:42]
Gabe Lyons
So mine was my brother and I wanting to play basketball so bad that we dug out this entire like 20 foot by 20 foot area by hand with shovel mattock because we needed to get it it perfectly flat, which meant three feet of dirt in certain areas to ensure that we had the perfect flat dirt basketball court. That, though, paved the way for me to practice a lot and ended up in 10th grade making the varsity team, scoring a thousand points in basketball. But. But it came after that hard work of just creating a space. But we had to do it by hand. We didn't have any fancy tools, but I learned a lot about leveling things and about digging.
- [58:21]
Rebecca Lyons
Mine was again at our community pool. I did a synchronized swimming class one summer, and it was a routine to singing in the rain. And all of the girls had umbrellas that we. We had like a whole dance and then we would throw the umbrella, jump the bull, and then we did the knee kicks and the whole thing. I felt like I was like on Broadway or something.
- [58:42]
Ginny Urch
We do. We do. I want to see it. Maybe at your next epic party.
- [58:47]
Rebecca Lyons
Exactly.
- [58:51]
Ginny Urch
What a. What a memory. Well, and then you ended up playing football, too. So you were like a big sports guy. Yeah. Thousand points in basketball plus.
- [58:59]
Rebecca Lyons
And I was. I was not. I was.
- [59:01]
Ginny Urch
I.
- [59:02]
Gabe Lyons
If we were in the same high school, we likely wouldn't have dated. I don't know. But when we met in college, y. We had eyes for each other.
- [59:09]
Rebecca Lyons
Game on. Yeah.
- [59:10]
Ginny Urch
I love it. Well, I still appreciate your time. I appreciate what you're putting out into the world. You know that people are really looking for a lot of help with their marriage, so they can look into your retreat, into your retreat, and all of the other things that you offer. Thank you for being here.
- [59:23]
Gabe Lyons
Oh, man, you had some of our favorite questions.
- [59:25]
Rebecca Lyons
Thank you. This was fun.
- [59:31]
Bible Stories Podcast
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