Rebuilding a Broken Marriage with Lymari and Tony Navarro

Summary

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Podcast Summary: With The Perrys

Episode: Rebuilding a Broken Marriage with Lymari and Tony Navarro
Date: March 23, 2026
Hosts: Preston Perry & Jackie Hill Perry
Guests: Lymari and Tony Navarro

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Main Theme

This episode dives deep into the Navarro’s raw, compelling story of growing up in Chicago, navigating generational trauma, salvation, addiction, and profound marital brokenness—including infidelity—and the difficult, grace-filled journey of rebuilding their marriage. The conversation is candid, compassionate, and instructive, offering both hope and wisdom for anyone facing brokenness in relationships or wrestling with the realities of covenant and grace.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How Tony & Lymari Met and Their Early Lives

• [05:08] Lymari and Tony met as teenagers, two blocks apart in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, growing up with shared friends and similar backgrounds.
• [05:13] “We like to call ourselves hood hearts. We literally grew up two streets away from each other.” – Lymari
• They started dating as teens, broke up, reconnected after Lymari’s pregnancy by another relationship, then Tony stepped in to raise their son.
• Both came from challenging backgrounds: Lymari from a single-parent home and Tony from a family with generational struggles.

2. Coming to Faith and Early Transformation

• [08:35] Neither was a believer early on; Lymari’s introduction to Christianity came through her mother and a cousin’s church.
• [11:19] Lymari describes her experience: “God, if you want me, you’re gonna have to make me go up there... by the time I knew it, I was walking down the altar and a miracle happened in my heart.”
• Tony’s initial reaction to her conversion was bewilderment and resistance, even expressing frustration when she decided to stop having sex (per her newfound faith).
• [14:52] Tony: “She said, ‘I’m a princess, I’m God’s daughter. That’s right, be married.’ And I was like, what? Who’s feeding you this garbage?”
• Tony’s own journey to faith took eight months, characterized by resistance, addiction, and confrontation with the gospel at church, eventually culminating in surrender—with all addiction gone overnight, though not all struggles.

3. Addiction, Trauma, and Early Struggles

• [19:11] Tony shares about coping with deep trauma, normalizing danger, and using hard drugs: “When you go to school worried about what colors you’re wearing… where you’re gonna be killed or shot… that doesn’t just go away because Jesus entered in my heart.”
• Tony describes a miracle in being freed from addiction, but cautions that heart/habit change is a process, requiring accountability and community.

4. Marriage, Covenant, and the Spiritual Reality

• [31:00] Tony describes the eventual movement toward marriage, guided by church elders and driven by biblical conviction.
• Their wedding was a humble, church-family affair, signifying a leap of faith and commitment to God and each other, despite humble means.
• [36:00] They both note that after marrying, the dynamic changes: “Marriage does come with a blessing, but it also comes with warfare.” – Lymari
• [37:21] Tony draws from Genesis, noting that spiritual attack targets marriage as the first institution God created: “We never want to give people the impression that marriage is a cruise ship, it’s a battleship.”

5. Intimacy, Drift, and Cultural Expectations

• [40:51] Jackie addresses the gap between romantic cultural expectations and biblical reality: “When there is some type of disruption, you start to immediately say, ‘Is this the right person?’ … Instead of realizing, no, this is a part of the package.”
• The couple acknowledge how both busyness and emotional isolation contributed to a slow drift; life, kids, work schedules—ships in the night—eroded their connection before either realized.

6. Infidelity and Confrontation

• [42:27] Three years into marriage, Lymari received an anonymous call that Tony was having an affair.
• [43:33] Lymari: “His name is Marcos at work, so I knew this woman was serious.” She confronted Tony and demanded he come home: “You got 15 minutes to get home or I will show up to your job. With all three kids.”
• At home, Tony first denied any affair, then confessed “I’ve fallen out of love with you.”
• Lymari fled to her pastor. They met with him together, and Tony (under pressure from wise counsel and presence of community support) confessed the affair.
• [46:45] Tony: “I said it. I said yeah, I’m having an affair. And she fell to the floor. She was just screaming and crying... the pastor then put it in her court and said, ‘Lymari, what do you want to do?’”

7. The Gospel, Grace, and the Hardest Decision

• Lymari recounted her background, her deep vow never to dead with infidelity, and the instinct for self-protection.
• [48:35] “I looked at my pastor and I said, doesn’t this mean I can get a divorce? ...He looked at me and said: ‘You’re right, you have the right to divorce him. There’s another option. The other option is grace.’”
• [49:14] Lymari: “It’s almost like in that moment… God took me back to the first time I heard the gospel… I said, I choose grace, Pastor. It was like it came out of my mouth…”
• She emphasizes that this instant choice did not mean the practical outworking was easy; the journey would be immense.

8. Drift and Personal Responsibility

• Tony reflects on how the affair was the result of months of drifting away from God—neglecting intimacy with the Lord, community, service, and Scripture.
• He describes how withdrawal from God slowly numbed his conscience and made space for compromise.
• Preston and Jackie highlight this: sin, relational and sexual drift, and infidelity are almost never sudden; they are the fruit of a “slow fade.”

9. Grace vs. Enabling, Genuine Repentance

• [65:45] Jackie asks: “How do you speak to that immediate thought that grace gives him license to do it again? How did you respond to grace?”
• Lymari: “The Lord gives us grace… it compels you to transform. This love, this grace, that we don’t deserve… it causes somebody, the right person, to say, ‘Man, I want to change.’”
• She clarifies: grace is not license, and she would not advise staying with a “habitual cheater;” Tony showed ongoing repentance and brokenness.
• “Love is giving somebody what they deserve the least, when they need it the most, and at a great personal cost.” – (quoting Chipping Room)

10. The Power of Wise Counsel & Community

• Throughout, both Navarros and hosts return to the critical nature of wise, godly counsel and church community throughout their process.
• Jackie: “A big part of y’alls story that I do not want people to miss is the constant presence of wise counsel.”
• The couple note how both “street friends” and worldly advice would have undermined their marriage and restoration, but spiritual leaders and a praying community made redemption possible.
• Preston: “Don’t just have people who love you—have people who love your marriage.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“We never want to give people the impression that marriage is a cruise ship, it’s a battleship. You are now suited up together; we’re going to war to keep the oneness together.” — Tony [37:21]

“I choose grace, Pastor.” — Lymari, after hearing of Tony’s infidelity [49:14]

“Love is giving somebody what they deserve the least, when they need it the most, and at a great personal cost.” — Lymari, paraphrasing Pastor Chipping Room [68:58]

“Sin grows every single day; like the weeds outside, they just continually want to grow. You’ve got to keep plucking them out.” — Tony [63:22]

“The world really don’t understand… it’s easy to walk away. It’s actually stronger to stay.” — Preston [69:56]

“Don’t just have people who love us, but people who love our marriage.” — Preston [71:44]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:08] – How Tony & Lymari met, early relationship, and family backgrounds
• [08:35] – Journey to faith, Lymari’s conversion, and Tony’s resistance
• [14:52] – Tony’s addiction, struggle, and eventual surrender
• [19:11] – Trauma and the reality of coping in “survival mode”
• [31:00] – God’s call to marriage, church guidance, and community wedding
• [36:00] – Marriage: spiritual blessing and spiritual warfare (“battleship”)
• [40:51] – Culture’s expectations vs. biblical covenant
• [42:27] – Infidelity revealed, confrontation, and confession
• [49:14] – “I choose grace” moment in the pastor’s office
• [54:16] – How sin and drift start as small, unnoticed steps
• [65:45] – Grace versus enabling; how genuine repentance proves itself
• [70:27] – The necessity of wise, godly counsel and community

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Tone & Style Notes

• The entire conversation is open, raw, honest, deeply spiritual, and full of practical wisdom.
• The hosts maintain light humor and empathy amidst heavy themes.
• Both Navarros frequently point to their story as evidence of God’s grace, not their own strength.

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For Listeners…

This episode is essential for anyone wondering if broken things—even marriage—can truly be rebuilt; it’s a testimony to the power of grace, the necessity of wise counsel, the process of sanctification, and the need for a faith community. The episode ends with the encouragement to return for part 2, where more of the Navarros’ journey will be shared.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

All right. Hey, guys. Hello. Greetings.

[C]

What up with y'? All?

[B]

Howdy. Hey, babe.

[C]

How you doing today? It's one of them days.

[B]

Yeah, Incredibly blah.

[C]

Why you blah, babe?

[B]

Warfare, hormones, temperament, trauma.

[C]

I've listened to Love sloth.

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

Our listeners love how honest you are. Not in troubles.

[B]

Cause, yeah, I'm not going to act like I'm something I'm not.

[C]

You know, that's why I married you. Cause you just, you know, it is what you get.

[B]

Yeah. I had a blood sugar 57, 30 minutes ago, so it's a lot of things going on. Oh, it's fine.

[C]

How is it now?

[B]

Let's see. I don't know. I had some bacon.

[C]

This is real time, guys.

[B]

So it might have went on up. Yeah, 172. Cause I had. It was 57. So then I ate some bacon and then like a little thin, little bagel with some cream cheese and some eggs.

[C]

Yeah. Ye came in the closet and Jackie was just laying on the floor, lay down on our rug. I said, are you okay? She said, my blood sugar is xyz. So I got down and prayed with her and she ate a little bacon. And now she doing a little better.

[B]

Half better. Anyway, it don't matter. How are you? I'm doing. You look like Christmas. You do.

[C]

I knew you look jolly. So I knew you were going to say something about this outfit. I just didn't know why.

[B]

It's not the outfit. It's the color scheme. I think anytime you put red with green, it gives. December 25th.

[C]

Yeah. You know what? I was just. I saw this jacket and I was like, it's been cold. You know, in the podcast, Lil Sad or whatever, it's not bad.

[B]

You just. You do like a present.

[C]

I am a present. I'm a gift to you, and you're a gift to me.

[B]

Speaking of marriage, we want to welcome Tony and lamari to. We need to call this place something with the Paris. I don't know how y' all doing?

[C]

How y' all doing?

[B]

How are you? Y' all look nice. You got your neutrals on. Was that on purpose?

[A]

I didn't even notice. That happens in marriage. You start just kind of coordinating.

[C]

We've done that so many times. It was like, people gonna think we doing this on purpose, but no, we

[B]

just like similar things. Exactly. So.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Cause you know them Detroit couples, they always matching Jesus. It's like, why all the couples from Detroit always got the same outfit on.

[B]

I think they still do that. That was, like, in the 90s where they would be wearing blue, no shade,

[C]

if you from Detroit. But I'm like, why y' all always got the same jogging swe.

[B]

Go ahead, help us, man.

[C]

So we haven't met you guys, like, formally in person, but I feel like we know you guys because we've heard so much, especially about Lee Marty, because. Did I say it right?

[A]

You said it right.

[C]

Yes. Lee Mari. Lee Mari. Because our mentors, Melody and cd, if you not a. You know, if you're familiar with this podcast, you've seen Melody and CD on here a bunch of times. They're, like, very good friends of ours, mentors of ours. And Lee Motti and Melody Fabian are best friends. And so they told us about you guys story so much, and so I kind of feel like I already know you and y' all fellow Chicagoans, you know what I'm saying? Which is why when they came in, they brought me if, you know, you

[B]

know, yeah, we need to get an ad. They need to give us a check.

[D]

Yeah, man.

[C]

So Garrett's share this with Garrett's popcorn. Tell them, you know, like, I will sponsor them all the time for free popcorn, but this is a Chicago staple, so I appreciate the gift. You know what I'm saying? Very, very kind of you guys. I'm gonna eat that later on with my kids.

[A]

Good.

[C]

But, yeah, we want to just talk about you guys story. You guys story have blessed so many people. Melody and CD have told us about your story a bunch of times, and so I don't know how we want to just jump into this. I think we probably should just jump right into it. Do you have any questions, babe?

[B]

I mean, maybe we should find out how y' all met. Yeah. You know, because you've been married. The back of the book says, what, 28 years?

[A]

Yeah, 28 years. That's going to be 29 years in April.

[B]

That's a long time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so how did. How did all this start?

[A]

Yeah. So we met in the hood of Chicago.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

We like to call ourselves hood hearts.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. Because we. We literally grew up two neighbor, two streets away from each other, and kind of had similar friends, but started dating when I was. I liked him at 14, but he didn't notice me. And then at 16, we started talking, and then we got together. We broke up, and then I ended up getting pregnant at 17 from a different relationship. And then we got back together, and then he raised our son. And after that, we had a lot of kids. But you could share your part of the.

[D]

Well, you can tell them two blocks from each other. So if you're from Chicago, you know that in the city they call them blocks. And so we used to see each other on the CTA bus, and she would go to a different school, but we were taking the same. The same street. And I knew that I liked her, but her brother was like, one of them dudes that was like, hey, you touch my sister, I'll end your life.

[B]

That's a good part.

[A]

I was messing with my dating life.

[D]

I don't want to mess. I don't want to mess with her. And so. But still, she was just so different, so beautiful. And I used to always say, hey, I'm gonna. When I knew she was gonna be early. You know, sometimes they give you those first periods or you get there super early at school. I said, she's gonna be there on the bus. So I would get all decked out as much as I could. Get my Jabot's on, get some, like, shirts on, get that Fahrenheit on. And I just wanted to impress her because I really did like her, but I was kind of scared of her brother at the same time.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

But luckily, though, she made the first move.

[A]

I did.

[D]

I can say, you know, it wasn't me. It was all her. But, yeah, it's been ongoing since then, since the.

[C]

Out of curiosity, which hood? Humble Park. Little village.

[A]

Oh, west side. We're from Humble Park.

[C]

Humble Park.

[A]

Herschend Holman. That was the cross street where everything happened.

[C]

I don't know if you met Brian Dye before or know about Brian Dye. That's where I met Brian Dye in Humboldt Park. Yeah, midnight.

[A]

Really?

[C]

Yeah. When I was 17, I used to hoop in Humble Park, Hoop in Humboldt park with this guy named Marcos.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Redeemed. Oh, your name is Marcos?

[B]

Oh, that's your real name?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

That's crazy.

[C]

So this Redeemed gang member named Marcos, he knew a dude who led me to Christ named Gary, and he had a church. And on the top floor of the church in Humboldt park, he would, like, take all the little hood dudes, and we would hoop upstairs. And that's the first day that I met Humble. I met Brian Dye at midnight in Humble park on New Year's Eve.

[D]

Oh, wow.

[A]

You know what's interesting about that is that our church, which was in Humboldt park, right. Our pastor opened up the gym, and that's how a lot of these people from, like, you know, gang bangers and all that were getting saved. They were hearing the gospel because he was opening up, you know, just where they could play basketball. And so we were a part of a move that God was doing within the inner city of Chicago, where a lot of people that we hung out with that were dealing, doing all these things were getting transformed. And it was through this man who decided to go to the hood and preach the gospel at church.

[B]

So when y' all met, were you believers?

[A]

No.

[B]

Okay, what happened?

[A]

So when we got together and we got back together, we started having babies. We started living together. I was about 19 years old when I had a fallout with my mom, and I ended up moving into his apartment. And from there, we stayed together. And I got pregnant with our oldest son, Marcos, our second oldest son, Marcos. And we started just playing house. And my mom started going to church. And my mom's cousin, which I called her my aunt because she was older. In the Puerto Rican culture, you call the older people like your. Your uncle. And so she started trying to invite me to church. I don't want nothing to do with. I didn't want anything to do with God. And so I would be like, no. And so she bribed me. She said, well, Mother's Day is coming up, and they're going to honor all the moms. You should go. And I was like. So me and my sister went reluctantly. And then I heard about Jesus for the first time in this small church. I was 21. We had already two kids. I was pregnant with our third. No, I'm sorry.

[D]

Pregnant with the second one.

[A]

Pregnant with our second.

[B]

I'm about to say you fertile.

[A]

Very fertile.

[B]

Goodness, crazy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Extremely fertile. So I'm pregnant with our second son. And I go to this church. And I hear about Jesus and I'm broken. But at this point, I had been. I call myself a shell of a woman because I was looking for love in all the wrong places. I was raised in a single mom home, and my dad left really early, really young. And so I looked for love in all the wrong places. That's how I ended up pregnant at 17. And so, yeah, I walked into this church, heard the gospel, My heart was pricked. I did not come back until another month later where my cousin was sharing his testimony. He asked me to come. He was going to get baptized, share his testimony. So I ended up going with him. I ended up going.

[D]

And.

[A]

And I remember being there fighting with God at the. At the pulpit. At the. Yeah, the pulpit in the pew. I'm sorry. And just fighting the Lord. But I could feel God's love and his kindness drawing me. And the first thing I thought, like, is like, if you knew everything I've ever done, you wouldn't want someone like me. Like, that was my initial thought.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And yet I could feel that he knew everything and he was calling me. And so I went up to the altar with my heels on.

[B]

Okay, cool.

[A]

I was the only one that went up. I could hear. I said, God, if you want me, you're gonna have to make me go up there. By the time I knew it, I was walking down the altar and I went there, and a miracle happened in my heart. I used to have a sailor mouth. That was the first thing God took from me, was my vocabulary. The way that I used to speak about everyone. Everyone was a bleep, bleep, you know, that's just the way I was raised. And so then I go home and I tell him, I just gave my life to Jesus. And he said, that's nice. As long as God don't interfere with our relationship, I'm fine.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And I would start going. I started going on Sundays. I started going on Wednesdays, prayer nights. I was going all the time. I was like. I had an insatiable hunger for God's word to know about who I was and who he was. And as I started reading the Scriptures, as I started hearing from the pulpit, what God was saying about marriage, about life, my life was in stark contrast to what I was hearing.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

So I came home and I said, we gotta stop having sex. And he said, what do you mean?

[B]

The story of Easter is the most beautiful story ever told. But sometimes, because we know it so well, we move quickly past it and forget what it actually cost. If the Tree Could Speak, written by Tim Teat, invites you to experience the Crucifixion from a perspective no one has ever heard from the tree itself. Fashioned into an executioner's tool, the tree's dreams of becoming something great turned to shame until it found itself holding up the King of Kings, its purpose redeemed. It's beautifully illustrated, and every page invites you to pause, to reflect, and to feel the weight of everything. The cross wasn't just wood. It was a place where shame met mercy, where death met life, and where the love of God was put on display for the world to see. This is more than just a book. It's a meaningful way to prepare your heart and revisit the story of Easter in a new and thoughtful way.

[C]

As a poet, I really love this concept. I love how personification allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of a tree or a grass or whatever, to see the gospel from another perspective. And I think that that's what this book does.

[B]

So step inside the story of the Crucifixion, hear the witness, and experience Easter like never before with if the Tree Could Speak, available on Amazon. I encourage you. We encourage you to check it out. If the Tree Could Speak by Tim Tebow, available on Amazon. See the link in the show notes.

[D]

She got my attention then. It was. Everything was. I felt like at the time was cool because she was getting out of my hair. She left me alone and she wanted me to go, but it was like, I don't want to be part of that. It's good for you. That's okay, but it's not for me. And at the time, underneath everything, too, this is the time I was high every day, right? I was getting high by myself. So it wasn't party high. It was like just being high. I wanted to be alone. I had a group of people that I was tied to, that tethered to, in a sense that I didn't feel like I can give up at this time. And so I didn't want to really stop where things are going in my life. But when she said, we're going to stop having sex, I was like, well, what's going on with it? What is this? I mean, I never heard of that before. And she's like, well, yeah, I'm a princess. Like, I'm God's daughter. That's right, be married. And I was like, what? Who's feeding you this garbage?

[C]

Right?

[D]

And I decided to go to church, not to go. To seek the Lord, to see who this dude was that's sharing all this stuff to my girl and causing her not to want to have sex with me. And so I went there to the church high. I went high that day. And when I went in there, it was like, people hugging. And I was like, back off, don't touch me kind of thing. And I wanted to sit in the back. And she's like, come here. And she's like, has a seat all the way in the front. She wants to be all the way in the front. And I'm just like, man. And so we're ready to have a fight there, just about where we're going to sit at. But then I started listening, and I hear this man share the gospel, and I'm like, I know. I was raised Catholic. I knew that Jesus was part of God or was God to see the cross and Mary, all these things that. The religious part of it.

[C]

But that was, for me, like, wow,

[D]

you're talking to me. And so I remember the wooden pews that we were at. I'm standing there and I'm ready to, like, rip the wood apart. Like, just. I'm grabbing it because I really feel like the Lord was knocking on my heart in a sense. But I was angry because I'm like, I wanted to come in here and change things. I didn't come here to be changed.

[B]

Wow.

[D]

And so I didn't do the altar call experience and all that. Remember altar call?

[A]

Eight months. Let's just say it took some months.

[D]

And met the pastor. He embraced me, gave me a hug. I was like, all stiff, like, hugging me, and I'm like that awkward hug.

[C]

Get off of me.

[D]

Yeah, get off of me, man. I don't want to love you. But it was something was an imprint on me that day. And we went back and there was still frustration because I didn't really want to go back. I didn't want to give my life to the Lord. And we'd have these arguments here. Then she would play, like, Christian rap. Back then, the Christian rap was kind of rough.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[D]

She was playing in the 90s in this room, doing something. And then she'd leave the scriptures open and doing.

[C]

She was playing a gospel gangsters. I don't know who was popping in the gospel. I used to hear stories about them. I'm like, man, I'm so glad I didn't grow up in that area.

[A]

I don't give names of the.

[D]

They were trying, though. But, yeah, it took months later and. But I came to that. I came to a place of surrender because I was like, Lord, I. This ain't working. What I'm doing, what Tony's doing, it ain't working. I'm trying my best, and nothing's working. I'm still messing things up, right? And so I went in faith and I said, lord, I'm. Whatever needs to happen next, you know, just let it happen. And then when you're. I'm going to call it an egg. When you're an addict, you're thinking, like, but I'm going to get high right after this.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Like, there's no way to function without. Without being high.

[C]

You don't mind me asking, like, what type of high? Was it marijuana? Was it?

[D]

No, it was more than that.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

[D]

And drugs are even nowadays. We. We have a great recovery group at our church. And it's just the things that they. They say what drugs are now. It's like. It's like I never heard of that before because it's kind of evolved into new drugs, but still the same effect where it just keeps you capt reason why I asked.

[C]

I grew up in the hood my whole life, and, you know, everybody in my family smoked weed, including me. Like, you know, except my mama. She was the only person my family smoked weed. And I know the harder the drug is, the deeper the spiritual stronghold is.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, and so that's just a testimony within itself that God's. Because a lot of people don't even come out of doing drugs at all.

[A]

And I'll just say that I didn't know. I thought it was just weed. I didn't know that he had started hard drugs. And he's a miracle because his father struggled with drugs, his family members. So he literally is a chain breaker. His dad was a great man. We loved him so much. But he was just struggling with this demon that really took a lot of. A lot from him. It robbed a lot from him. So I had no idea that he was where he was at.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

What were you trying to numb?

[D]

I mean, we're so aware these days, there's just this hype in the awareness of, like, our lives, our emotion. And even when I share sometimes some stories with my kids, they're like, that's not okay. And I'm just like.

[B]

But that's the way it was.

[D]

That's just the norm. You know, when you go to school worried about what colors you're wearing, where you're gonna be dragged off the bus, where you're gonna be killed or shot, and it's just like. But you still. You're still Trying to make A's, something, a, B, a D, anything, Right. Like, I made some kind of effort. But the battle even to get to school, to stay within, even the neighborhood was rough. It was just like. That doesn't just go away because Jesus entered in my heart. Right. It's a process after that to start believing that you're free, walking like you're free, redeemed. Right. And walking in the spirit's power. But it's like, I had a lot of those areas that I was trying to. Yeah. Cope with. But then it just becomes like, it calls you. I mean, you're sleeping, thinking about it, and it calls you in the morning. Then you don't. You can't even function right. Without it. And so when you're thinking, like, I need to surrender, I'm thinking, I gotta surrender to the drugs then. Right. And not only that, but there was this again, I was making money, let's just say, with things as well. So it's like I'm thinking holistically, everything has to change in my life. Like, everything. And so the drug part, though, the addiction, God removed the taste and the need for it, like, overnight.

[C]

Wow.

[D]

And that's not everybody's story. Yeah, that's not everybody's story. But the taste for it didn't stop. The deceptive heart, the lying tongue. Right. The coping mechanisms turned into other things. And so in this process, though, when I share this with even people that are going through recovery and stuff, I say, but you're still going to need accountability in your life. You're still going to need to replace what you were going to. That was your source. Now let's go to Jesus. Let's go to his Word. Let's allow it to start renewing your mind and start renewing your heart and start making these changes. But you have to stay, like, it's a totally different lifestyle. But then again, we're talking about Christians. Isn't that supposed to be a totally different lifestyle, too? Why is it, I always ask myself, why is it that it's only for, like, the recovery group?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. This should be for everybody's group. We all should be looking at life totally different.

[C]

Right.

[D]

Really aware of, like, how we can follow up again. But in that season, though, it was. I felt for the first time, I told my wife the next morning, we're in the city of Chicago, a basement apartment, and I. I literally can hear the birds. When I woke up in the morning, and I was like, it was just a different piece. I wasn't angry or anything. I wasn't running to see, okay, let me go warm up the car so I can hide and get high. It was like, something's different, man.

[C]

Yeah, that's beautiful.

[D]

Really different.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And so that started the journey of, like, the rebuilding process for me individually. I think everybody has to go through, of, okay, you're. You're the Lord, right? I'm your son, I'm your servant. Like, what's next? Like, what do I need to do next? And trying to figure that out. And then, you know, reading the Bible was even tough because it was like, I didn't read books. I didn't want any books in school. Yeah, I started reading, you know, every time I go to church, you want me to read it again? Read, read, read. And so it was this whole process of just changing everything about your day, about your. I mean, by the whole thing. And again, she was having our son and I needed to get jobs. Like, I couldn't just make it off of one, so I needed to get jobs. So I'm hustling, trying to get, you know, working restaurants for fast cash and other things. End up going back to school for trade. And so I'm a tradesman, but I just wanted to be able to provide for my family without thinking the easy way, looking for the easy way.

[C]

We had a chance to go to a weekend to remember, and it was a blessing for us. For me, I thought it was dope to see so many married couples from all walks of life, from all ages, yeah. Coming together to work on their marriage. And it's so important to pause and to work on your marriage, to look your spouse in the eyes, to ask your spouse hard questions, to connect. And so I think family life is doing a great work of providing space for couples and married couples to connect and be one again.

[B]

Whether your marriage feels strong or a little worn down by life or a little worn out, we understand this weekend is designed to help you invest in it with purpose and intention, something that every single couple needs. These events have helped millions of couples in the last 40 plus years, longer than we've been alive. And with 80 weekend to remember events across the country, finding one in your area is easy. Learn ways to improve communication, resolve conflict, and how to restore romance in your marriage. And right now, you could save over 40 on any weekend to remember. So head to weekend to remember.com and register now through March 30th. That is right. A couple can attend any event for less than $200. So head to weekend to remember.com today to find your Getaway.

[C]

I'm curious to know about the timeline, because I heard you say eight months. It was eight months later. And so, like, I'm assuming that you didn't hear the birds the next morning. Like, that was it the next day after you went to church the first time, or how many months pass?

[A]

Well, I want to just say this because I was just. As you said that I was like, wow, I should talk about this.

[B]

I don't.

[A]

I feel the Lord just saying to talk about this. But when he got. When he heard the gospel for the first time, he would come to church with me ever so often, whenever he felt like it. So I started praying for him. And I'm like, every Sunday before he got saved, I will go up to the altar, broken, interceding. And I'm like, lord, grab him, God. Draw him, God, show him. And, you know, he'd be in the pew just. And he had no idea that people at the church were praying for him. Our small group was praying for him. It was a smaller church. And then the Lord told me, I want you to fast for him. And I remember coming home, I'm pregnant. And he would do things like, I know it was the other day.

[B]

So how you fast? Pregnant?

[A]

It. Oh, I was fasting.

[B]

Oh, okay. That's different.

[A]

I was desperate.

[B]

Okay, yeah, you were. The baby was desperate. Save my daddy.

[A]

You know, I wasn't doing seven days. I was very young, so my brother at the time, who was. Was a. A believer at the time, my. That's a different story. But he was like, I feel like you should start fasting. And I was like, what's fasting? I had no idea. You know, everything's new to me. And he's like, you're just, you know, not eating. And I was like, I think I could do, like, a day, maybe a couple hours. And so I started with what I had. But I would take moments of fasting to pray for him. Friends, though, were fasting for him, like, literally refraining from food. And so I'm praying for him. And as I'm. As I'm praying, I could hear the Lord. I'm begging the Lord. Like, lord, I would go to church, I see men worshiping, and I'm like, God, I want a man like that. I want that. And God is like, okay, just keep praying. And I was like, yeah, but that's not Tony. Like, I'm going home, and the guy's in the back, you know, in the laundry room, smoking weed with his brothers. Like, I'm like, that's not what I want to come home to. That's not what I want my kids to be raised up in. And I'm crying out to the Lord. Yeah, I'm putting. He would be smoking, and I would turn on the speaker, like, I would blast it with the Christian rap. I'm like, lord, speak to him. Like, you know, And I remember just saying, I'm done. I'm going to leave. Like, I can't do this. And then he wrote me a card, and I. In the card, he says, don't give up on me. And he put a picture of. Sorry, I'm not going to get emotional. But he put a picture of my belly. And he said, I want to be the man that you want me to be. I just don't know how. And I just started praying. And when he surrendered his life to the Lord, the church was rejoicing. When I say, like, his best friend, who was a smoking buddy, was standing next to him, and I looked over at his friend, and his friend looked like, we lost him. He's done, you know.

[C]

Wow, that's so beautiful.

[A]

So I'm already crying.

[C]

It's all good.

[B]

I was trying not to.

[C]

We welcome tears over here.

[A]

Okay, good. But I wanted to share that, because there's some people who are. God is doing a work in you, and you're praying for the person that you love. You're walking, you're encountering what they're going through, and it hurts you. There's some things we can't change. Only through prayer can we change it. I remember the Holy Spirit telling me as I'm praying, I'm like, God, why won't he come to you? And God says, because I like what's happening between me and you. I like your desperation. I like that you're coming to me. I like that you're bringing me everything. And I was like, oh, like something's happening in intimacy with me and the Father. And so when he did come to the Lord, he had no idea. But in the background, there were a lot of saints praying for him. And so it was from the first time he went, like, for eight months, he would do. And this is another thing, like, on a Sunday, I'm getting ready, got my kids ready, going to church. And then he's getting ready. And then he'll do things like, he'll be like, you know what? I'm not going to church today. I'll be like, what? And I'm like, crying, like, how am I going to get to church? I will walk to church and I would. Because he would do just little things that the enemy would just use. Or one time he's at the table and he's like. I was thinking, you know, it's not that bad if I go to hell. I was like. I'm like. He would say these things, and then I would be like, lord, show him. And then somebody gave him, like, a daily bread. You remember the daily bread?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

He opens it up, and it says, you don't even want your worst enemy to go to hell. And he was like, God was speaking to him in little ways. So God was faithful behind the scenes to be drawing Tony while we were praying.

[B]

Go ahead.

[C]

No, I was just gonna say, I love you guys. Story. I grew up in Chicago, and years ago, you know, not just drawing Tony, but just drawing both of you guys. Cause years ago, I had wrote this poem. And in the poem, I said, when God saves a soul from the hood, I imagine the angels rejoicing a little different. Some people didn't like that. That's just the way I felt when I wrote it. Because you talk about. Jackie asked you a great question, like, what was you coping with? Like, what was you trying to. With the drugs? And it's a lot. When you grow up in the hood, a lot of emotional drama, a lot of. Yeah. Generational trauma. All of the things, you know, you thinking about, man, am I gonna make it home today? And so for God to, like, reach down in all of that mess and to grab you guys out, you know, and then also to, you know, keep you guys together, it's just a huge testimony. It's inspiring. I used to be in Humboldt Park. I know what it's like over there. And so that's just super inspiring to me.

[D]

Me.

[B]

Yeah. I imagine that at some point, conversations about marriage came up where it's like, all right, we should probably, you know, do Ephesians 5. Like, who initiated that conversation? How did it go? Because, I mean, y' all are functionally behaving as one, but not, like, in covenant.

[D]

Well, obviously, working with our pastor, walking with our pastor and the elders, the conversation started coming up. It wasn't like a force. You got to get married. It was like, we need to relook at this, because this is what the scriptures talk about with marriage, and what you're doing is in sin. And I thought about that, you know, even when the first time I sat down with our elders to talk about it and not in, like, a. A board meeting kind of way, he was just, like, having conversations here and there with different leaders, they're all sharing the same. The same message. This truth of. And I'm like, you had to come to the point where you're also thinking, okay, marriage is. Even though I didn't entertain the idea of being married at the time. But when you think about marriage, no matter if you're believing as a believer or not, you know, there's a big commitment there, right? And so I'm thinking about the commitment. Have we just been together because of our kids? Is it like. Is it just. Has been easy to just grow on each other? Is this really the woman that I want to marry? Can I marry? Am I going to mess up and not make it? Marriages don't last. And all these other types of things were coming up or thoughts in my mind. But I remember the saying, like, lord, no, she's the woman that I want. I want to be with. And marriage is actually a statement of faith. It's a declaration of faith, because you're believing that the person that you're vowing to is a person that you're vowing to. But, you know, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years down the road, sometimes it's a totally different person that you married, you know, and that's because we're all growing. Hopefully we're growing and we're changing, or some things come up physically that we didn't foresee. And so I'm believing. I said, lord, this is the woman for me. So we had no money, but the church put together a potluck.

[B]

I love that.

[D]

Right after the announcements and closing prayer, they played it on the piano.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And here we are walking down the aisle, and everybody that came that Sunday was invited. And we had a mixtape for us downstairs in the fellowship hall. And we're slow jamming downstairs in the fellowship hall and having rice chuletas. I mean, all that kind of good stuff that Puerto Ricans love. And people donated flowers and the person donated, like, a hotel for us in downtown Chicago. We just walked by Billy Goat Tavern when we were in the hotel at the airport. Billy Goat, that's where we went to for our first, first dinner together as husband and wife was Billy Goat Tavern. And I'm like, not so. Doesn't sound so romantic right now, but back then, I mean, everything was just new to us. And so it was a big change. But we got married out of conviction, didn't want to live wrongly before the Lord. And we took a leap of faith to say that this is what we want, this is what we really want. And we try to figure it out after that.

[C]

I think Fabric by Gerber Life is important because I know I wasn't. And a lot of us are not taught about life insurance. We're not taught the importance of leaving an inheritance money for our children and our children's children. And so that's the reason why I think thinking about life insurance now, whatever age you are, is super important.

[B]

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[A]

No, definitely. That's the one thing is that marriage does come with a blessing, but it also comes with warfare.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So we. It's kind of. And you say you have a really good quote about It. But about warfare and marriage, about when you get on the. I'll let you interject about the ship.

[D]

Well, I'll just say this, that we know this now, but we didn't know. We didn't have the language for it. But we believe that when you are in covenant, you are in right standing with God. Just like as you are receiving Christ, his blood is sacrificed, you're in right standing with God. So when we as a couple, though we are now married, we are in right standing with God, right? So what happens is that if you look at the scriptures and you look at. In Genesis, is God created the first marriage, right? Everything was good. They had great fellowship together. They didn't have to work, they had food, they didn't get sick. Life was good. But literally after chapter two, chapter three, comes the first attack, which is actually against marriage. And so Satan, more craftier than anything else created, and so he deceives them. And so right away you start to see that there's shame, there's guilt, there's fear, and there's blaming, right? Adam's over here blaming God for giving him Eve. He's not taking ownership of that. I mean, so you see just a mess happen within the first three chapters of Genesis, right? And so I tell people is that when you're not in right covenant with God in your marriage, you're actually on the wrong side. So why would the enemy want to mess it up? Because people say that, man, I've been with this woman for 10 years now. I get married, we can't get along. It's because you're on the right side. And we never want to give people the impression that marriage is a cruise ship, it's a battleship. You're now suited up together. We're going to war to keep the oneness together, that we can live this out because the enemy's coming after us and culture is coming out through us. And then like I said earlier, there's also the battle within us is coming out. Because I don't know why God did this, but Lamadi has superpowers that she can turn me up in anger without even saying a word.

[A]

I can push his button.

[D]

She can just give me this look.

[C]

And I'm like, man, that's marriage, isn't it?

[D]

And it's like, it takes people all kinds of other stuff, but my wife just knows how to get me. And then she can also say something that makes me feel like Superman, like I can conquer the world, like I can go after this. And so the way that he has designed marriage. I feel like it's also this incubator stage of life. Like, we're gonna speed up the process of sanctification in this relationship. Because what you've been putting off in your singleness, we're gonna have to address marriage.

[A]

Just how selfish you are. You find out how selfish you are when you share a space with someone, right?

[D]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And so you find out, like, the things inside of you that God wants to chip away at in marriage. And so when we did get married, I thought we were doing okay. You know, I thought we were in a good place. But then definitely the warfare was raised up in our marriage. And some things happened three years in our marriage.

[C]

Yeah. The enemy doesn't attack his own. You know, I'll never forget we did marriage counseling years ago, and this lady, she was kind of in our group. And she said, when you out of marriage, the devil wants you. And everybody spit. When you're in marriage, he don't even want you on your own. You know, he just attacks intimacy with married couples all the time.

[A]

It's interesting. Cause when you're not married and the temptation to have sex is just there, or you're just having amazing sex, right? It's lust. Then you get married and it's like, oh, I don't wanna have sex anymore. Like, that's very distorted and twisted.

[C]

But when you think about it, though, you know, like, even before you guys told me about, like, told us about your spiritual warfare in marriage, what you told us is your gospel story about how the Lord drew you. And our reason why, real reason why the enemy attacks marriage is because marriage is the most accurate, like, relationship we can have. To actually depict that gospel story. Like, it literally is a picture of Christ loving his church. And that representation in the world, I don't think people realize how huge it is, Especially in a world where marriages just don't work at all. And so if the world can see a gospel marriage working, it just shows off Christ of the world in a way that nothing else can. And so the devil just don't hate the marriage because of marriage. He hates the marriage because of the gospel. You know what I'm saying? It points to something greater than us, and it's Christ loving his church.

[B]

I think a thing that really does affect the way we show up in marriages is the expectations that we've gotten from the world, you know? Cause I think when you consider. I probably said this before, when you consider how we're cultivated to think that marriage is all romance, all butterflies from Disney Movies to music, that when there is some type of disruption, you start to immediately say, is this the right person? Did I make the right decision? I don't have to take this. Like, you start to look for ways and options to get out instead of realizing, no, this is a part of the package. Like, this is a part of the thing. You know what I'm saying? And I think those exist. Expectations actually set us up for greater disappointment. And so it's like, we have to be. This is for everybody listening. We have to be informed by the scriptures, like, we just have to. And particularly we have to be informed by how God does covenant. You know what I'm saying? Like, God is faithful to unfaithful people. God is pursuing. Like, the way he shows up with us is the way God expects us to show up in our marriage. That's beautiful and that's hard, but possible in Christ.

[C]

Yeah, I'm gonna steal what you said that, you know, marriage is not a cruise ship. It's a battle. That's so true, you know, because I think what Jackie just said, I think the world conditions us to think it's some type of cruise ship for sure. And how better would it be, I think, if we had Royal Caribbean. More Christians preparing Disney cruise. Preparing Christians, young Christians, for the realities of marriage.

[B]

You know, you said three years into marriage, something happened. What happened?

[A]

So three years into marriage, I thought everything was doing. We were doing well. And then I got a phone call from a strange woman. I don't know who she was, and to this day, I don't know who she is, who called me and said, you, husband Marcos is having an affair. And then she hung up the phone. And so his name is Marcos. That's what he goes by at work. So nobody calls him Marcos unless you work with him. Everyone calls him Tony. The government knows him as Marcos. And I like to call it, or I call it the demo day of our marriage. It was when this wrecking ball came swinging into what I thought was a beautiful home, even though there was a lot of things behind the walls that were eroding and God would eventually show us those things. And then I called him and I said, you got 15 minutes to get home or I will show up to your job. Listen, with all three of your kids.

[C]

Real humble. Park with it.

[B]

Yeah, but you didn't tell them why?

[A]

Oh, I told him I heard that you're cheating on me. Yeah, I did tell him that. And I said, you got 15 minutes to get home and explain yourself. And he showed up and There at our kitchen table, he tells me, I'm not having an affair. Care. He's like, but I've fallen out of love with you. And those words are devastating to hear from the man that you love. Like, when did that happen? How did that happen? When did you stop loving me? And so I grabbed our kids and. Well, I grabbed. I didn't even grab my kids at that time. I just left the house. I'm a runner, so I just left and I went to our church, and my pastor was there, and I told him what was happening.

[B]

You had a pastor pastor?

[A]

I had a pastor pastor.

[B]

That's a blessing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know how many people he was

[A]

like a spiritual dad to us would

[B]

go to church and the pastor, like, you don't have that access.

[A]

That's beautiful. Yeah, Yeah. A lot of them are bi, vocational.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

That's beautiful.

[A]

So he, you know, he set up a meeting for us to meet in his office. And I called Tony and I said, if you want to salvage what's left of our marriage, you need to show up the pastor's office and let's have a conversation.

[B]

Your turn.

[D]

Yeah. Lamari called me and she told me, I know that somebody said that you're having an affair on me over there at work. It was like my heart dropped and it was like everything just. I couldn't hear nothing. It just kind of was like time stopped, you know what I'm saying? And. And I knew that I had to get home, though. I said, I got to get home. And so I rushed out of work, went home, and then I was playing damage control, like, trying to not make it. It's big, but not, you know what I'm saying? You're trying to prevent it from going from 0 to 100. And then we look at it now, our marriage now, where we were at at that time, three years into our marriage, it wasn't still healthy. We thought a little, but it wasn't. And our blow ups were like the Tetela novellas, like those Spanish soap operas that are just extreme. So I'm over here really trying to let it out slowly. And that was actually the way I felt, that I did feel like I didn't love this woman anymore. And so she tells me to go to the pastors. Now I'm feeling already the pastor's got to know, right? But at the same time, I'm also believing that this is a good place because we need a third party that's going to be able to get through this conversation. There was no way we're going to be able to do this on our own. And so got the kids and took them over to a sitter and went to the church and started talking with Lamadian pastor in his office. And they started asking the same questions that she was asking. And I remember the pastor, just. Our pastor having such a great, great pace. Grace to him that he's just like. He's just telling me, come on, Tony, just, Just get it out, bro.

[C]

Yeah, just.

[D]

Just get it out. I know there's more. Yeah. Just, Just, just to say it. And so I said it. I said, yeah, I'm having an affair. And she fell to the floor. She was just screaming and crying and. And I know she wanted to put her hands on me, too, because she was just really.

[A]

I was pretty violent. I was back then.

[D]

But the rawness of that, I guess I started to see, wow, how much this really, really has hurt her, you know? And that's not even. That's just the tip of the iceberg. That's not even the whole thing, you know. And so the pastor then put it in her court and said, lamari, what do you want to do?

[A]

Yeah. And so when I heard those. That confession, I. So I. I was raised again like a single. By a single mom who would date different men. Men would come in and out of her life. And so I had vowed to myself, I'm not going to let a man hurt me. I've seen my mom get cheated on. I've seen my mom get hurt. And I had told Tony, if you ever cheat on me, like, that's it. We're done. I'm not going to. I'm not going to be that person. And so I was thinking about that. I was thinking about so many things. I was thinking about, like, when. When did this happen? Like, where was I at now, mind you, I was. I'm raising three kids. Like, you know, life is just like. Like sucking the life out of me. Like, I'm just trying to maintain, you know, my. My sanity. So I didn't have any idea this was happening.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I got up. I was, you know, I'm. I'm crying. But then I got up and I just wiped my tears, and I was just angry. And I. I looked at my pastor and I said, doesn't this mean I can get a divorce? Isn't this grounds for divorce? Divorce? And I didn't know a lot about the scriptures, but I think I read somewhere.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, one day, and I was like, that was the first thing, you know, that I Could reference. And he. He looked at me and he said, you're right. You have the right to divorce him. And he said, there's another option. The other option is grace. And I just thought about, like, it's almost like in that moment when he said the word grace, it, like, God took me back to the first time I heard the gospel. God took me back to that moment of where I was standing guilty. I can't explain it other than it was the Holy Spirit, guys.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Because the Holy Spirit becomes the impetus, right? Like, he's the gut reaction when he's living in you, that I said, I choose grace, Pastor. And it was like, it came out of my mouth, like, and now saying it and living it, that's a two. You know, that's two different things. But, yeah, it was my first reaction to say, I choose grace. And I. I think about my pastor, like, every moment. I could see how God was strategically putting people saying things or do, like putting us in places where we would hear the right thing.

[B]

That's good.

[A]

And I was even telling Tony, even how he supernaturally just brought certain people into our lives during this season. Like, it was all working together.

[C]

That's beautiful.

[A]

Like, beautifully.

[B]

I want to rewind for a second just because I think it would be helpful. Tony, what was happening in you, in your relationship with God that kind of opened the door for the adult?

[D]

That's a great question. I want to say this. When people hear our story, it's like, that's not me. We haven't had an affair. We're not that off. Right. And so I like to say that I'm a warning to some and a hope to others, you know, because when you start to drift in your relationship with the Lord. Wasn't having my time with the Lord in the morning mornings. Wasn't listening anymore to Christian rap, Wasn't spending time in fellowship, wasn't doing it. Wasn't really serving as much as I was before as well. I was slowly pulling apart, looking at career as that's what I need to be doing. I need to grow in this company. I need to, like, take it to the next level. I need to show them that I'm. That I'm your guy. And so I started to really put all of my coins into career wise. And to me.

[B]

How old were you? Not to.

[D]

Because time was only 22. 22. Okay, 23.

[A]

23. Yeah, I think it was, yeah, 2000.

[D]

But when you're in the. When you live in the hood, that's like. That's an old man, 23 years old. That's like, man, that guy is still banging. And it's like, so at 23, we have kids already. I'm like, this is.

[B]

You're a grown man.

[D]

Build a life now. Yeah. And so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna. I going to do this. And, you know, I just stopped hearing from God. I just didn't hear his voice anymore. I was. When I go to church, it was kind of like, I'm more concerned about when the bearers play and, you know, what time are we going to get out of here and what are we going to eat, you know, even during prayer. And I just. I just wasn't like, I was critical on a lot of things, and so I was distant. I was really far off from him. And so. So it made it easier to start making the choices that I said I wasn't gonna do again. Little at a time interaction with women, what I went for lunch, what I was doing after work, who I was hanging out to, who I wanted to joke around with. I mean, all those different things where I was like, man, I'm back to feel like I'm back to square one again. Even worse, because I'm thinking of things that I didn't want to think about before. And so. So that process, though, was, you know, even when she said, I Grace you, it was still, like, in my head, I was already believing, I'm the weekend dad. I'm going to go live at Mom's. You know, I'll just come pick them up on the weekends, be there for their sports games or something and move on with somebody else, you know. And so when she said, I choose grace, it stopped. My mind, like, just had like a cracking. And it, like, boom. It just, like, opened up. And I'm like, wait, I might. Is this. So is this still going to happen? Like, are we still going to be married and I get to go home? I mean, it's like all these things are starting to, like, play in my mind. And it was. If it's. If you were to record, it was kind of awkward because there was, like, dead silence at times when we were in the office where both of us are processing things.

[B]

But.

[D]

But yeah, it was okay. There's something here.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I started to feel again like I felt three years before that, in a sense, it's those daily hopes of, like, something can change here, you know? But still couldn't see it, though.

[B]

Yeah. The reason. I want you to speak to this real quick because the reason I asked that question is Because I think a lot of people think that falling adultery, the big stuff happens overnight. And people can think, oh, my partner is the reason I did the things when really the fundamental. The fundamental issue is you and God first. You know what I'm saying? And so I guess you pressing in your history with just walking with men and your life with God, I guess, what is your challenge, encouragement when it comes to preserving intimacy as a way of preserving, like, integrity?

[C]

Yeah, I think it's vital. I think that's what you're essentially saying. One, I just want to say, even before I say that, it was just like, I think you were shocked when she said, I choose grace. Because it's like that type of grace is so unfamiliar to us. In our minds, the first thing we think is, I'm going to get what I deserve, which is divorce or whatever. And so I think that was just beautiful. And even God speaking to. Through you, how he spoke through her, you know, like, give you grace. But, yeah, like, I fell three. I don't know if it was three, four years into our marriage, I fell into just watching pornography. She called me. I. I was so shamed because of it, you know? But I was also shocked that it hurt her so, so bad, so badly. And I just remember just that same thing with you. Like, the. Like the same thing as you. The more I spend less time with the Lord, the less I pray. I just slowly. And the thing about drifting is sometimes you don't realize you're moving far away until you look back and like, whoa. Like, I'm not even nowhere near the Lord anymore. Like, he's been stable. It's me who drifted away, you know? And so I think, you know, when a man is not intimate with the Lord, he's not honest with himself. He's not honest with the people around him. And the enemy just distracts him with so many other things. And so then we look up and it's like, not only have I had distance between my family, but more importantly, I've had distance between me and the Lord, which has caused the distance between me and my family. And I feel like the enemy attacks men and women, too, but I think with us men, he attacks us in a particular type of way because we're the leaders. I think a lot of ways we kind of establish the nature of our home, and our wives typically take our lead, even if they don't admit it emotionally. And so I think the enemy always attacks us with intimacy because when we don't feel safe with God, the enemy knows our family doesn't feel safe with us. You know what I'm saying? And so I think intimacy. Intimacy is so, so important. I have a question, too, though, because with that being said, I think when you realize that you've kind of drifted away from the Lord because of your lack of intimacy, often what happens is there's a. An emotional disconnect in. In our marriage, even if we don't realize it. And so, like, as you're processing how you should walk with him, you know, forgive him, did you guys re, like, visit the. The emotional disconnects you guys had?

[A]

I'll talk about it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

The drift was real in our marriage. Sexually, emotionally, our friendship, life. Just pulling me away, pulling him away while he was going to school sometimes on Sundays. And I think it started little by little, that drift. On Sundays, he was getting, like, his motorcycle license. It was just different little things that was keeping him away from community. Although I was very connected to community, I'm still very close with people at church. I'm reading my Bible. I'm having as much time as I possibly can with little ones in the Word. But I was working at night, and so he would get home, and then I would leave. I'll be like, tag, you're it. And I was leaving. And so we were ships in the night. So the truth was, not only did he drift from the Lord, we had drifted from each other. I would have moments where he wanted to have sex, and I'm like, you're so selfish. I mean, I have a little one. I'm tired. And I think back at that moment, nothing gives him the right to have cheated. But I had my own part in the drift. I was very selfish in a sense, not knowing that he had needs and emotional needs. And we were not dating. Dating was, like, obsolete at the time. Were we talking like. No. I look back, and I'm like, wow. We literally were not having communication. And that was happening little by little by little. Right. It's a slow fade when you give yourself away. And so it feels like when we look back, not only was the enemy works in isolation. Okay, so he. He works in shame. He works in isolation. He pulls you away from voices that speak into your life, that tell you, hey, go to the Lord. Hey, how are you doing? Hey, are you clean? Like, he slowly pulls you away from the voices.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That necessary. And so you start listening to the voice of the enemy. And so as believers, we could also grieve the Holy Spirit. We could also quench his voice in our life. There's things that we can do that. Do that. And so although he was a believer at the time, I'm not sure. And you could speak to that if he was hearing the voice of the Lord at that time, as the Lord was warning him or giving him, you know, clear warnings that say, hey, leave or don't do that, or don't say that, or don't hang with those people. But when you're, when you're asking that question, I wonder. And I never asked him this question, but I'm not going to turn this into an interview.

[C]

That's a great question.

[A]

I wanted to ask was there a duality in your lifestyle at the time where you would be one person at home, at church, and then at work, like, not mention the Lord, not, like, be completely different? And I'm sure there was, but I just asking.

[D]

Absolutely, there was. First one respond to. About intimacy. Looking back now, I don't believe I cherish my intimacy with the Lord. I didn't know what that was supposed to look like early on in my walk. And then talking to men about, hey, how's your intimacy with God? I mean, the hood's like, what are you talking about, intimacy? What is that talk? What are you talking about? What does that talk about? But it's just like, yeah, it was more of duty read, you know, a few verses here and there to keep it, not the checklist, show up, serve, do those kinds of things. But real intimacy with God happened afterward. Yeah, it happened afterward. It wasn't something that I grew into right away as a new believer. And again, talking about the time of when we got. I got saved, she got saved, and the things that were already changing in our lives. Life was only about three years, you know, that we're shifting from, like actually going to apartment that has windows, you know, you can see above everybody else, like from basement to other. And then also doing things together, going to church together, trying to, To. To change life up. But still, we had a lot of residue from our past, from our culture, from society. I mean, all these different. The way we communicated, communicated. So it was, it was. It wasn't the healthiest. I would say it was pretty toxic, to be honest with you.

[B]

It was a lot of little things.

[D]

It was a lot of little things. A lot of little things. And so, yes, even in that time, the Lord, he always gives a way of escape.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful.

[D]

We just don't respond to that way of escape. We just go in, right? It's like on. I think it was Proverbs 4, 5, where the woman that's calling the fool, you know, enticing him to come into the house. And she says, my husband is gone. Come and lay with me. And it's just like a sheep to the slaughter or a cat to the slaughter. He just walks right in. And so you just kind of. I believe that when you're in this season of habitual sin, where it's become part of your nature to say yes to whatever the body wants, you kind of go to this kind of spiritual blackout. You start making choices where you start going further and further and further down a path that you're like, wait, wait, wait, I didn't think it was going to get this far. And then you're more and more. It consumes you. And so when the season of redemption, of freedom, of healing and grace, you can look back then on that season and look at yourself and be like, man, I can't believe I was making those choices. Can't believe I did. That's not even me. But you give yourself over to yourself. It's almost like what Romans 1 talks about. It's almost giving yourself over to your flesh, that it has a craving. And we talk about this too a lot, even in our conferences that we share is that, like, sin grows every single day. Like it just wants to continue to grow.

[A]

The flesh grows, the flesh does.

[D]

It's like the weeds outside, they just continually want to grow. You got to keep plucking them out, keep plucking them out. And when you have a seed season of not plucking out weeds, your front lawn looks crazy. Yeah, the HOA is ready to, like, find you. What's going on over here? Abandoned. And so it's. It's really when you get into that, that season of just turning over to yourself, the lust, the flesh, that I think that it just pulls you away. But even in that season, the Lord still finds a way to give you away out or warns you. And you just don't heed to that, to that warning yourself, that's good.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. I've had similar testimonies, similar testimony when I drifted in sin, even in my marriage. Because what people got to realize, man, salvation is a location change. It is God taking us out of the domain of darkness and placing us into light. But the truth is, man, we've had a lot of years in darkness, right? And so, like, if somebody gets free from slavery, slavery, they might not be under the slave masses rule anymore, but their minds are still slaves. And so, like, it is a daily renewing to remind yourself, I'm actually free now. But I think that if. I think it's very natural for us to go back to our old man, our old behaviors. And if we start practicing living the way we used to live, you do become numb in a way, because the devil is trying to kill you. He's trying to numb you to the point where you just eventually die. You know what I'm saying? And so I think that's what sin does. It try to. Tries to continually lure us back to our old dead self, our old, you know, dead behaviors. And it just numbs us over time, you know? And so that's the reason why God uses so many things like your grace to show him, like, man, like, you know, I still love you and I'm calling you out of this thing, which is beautiful. I don't know if you have a question. I had a question, but I do,

[B]

and I have a. I'm going read a text and then I'mma ask the question because I think it's necessary. Titus 2, chapter or chapter 2, verse 11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. I know for a fact there are women listening to you and heard you say that you gave him grace.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And thought you're enabling him, you're creating space for him to do it again. That, that's foolish. That that's silly. But I think another question is. So my question for you is, how do you speak to that immediate thought that grace gives him license to do it again? But also, how do you speak to how receiving that grace actually convicted you to not do it again? Like the two folks response to grace.

[A]

I think I'll just say I think the gospel, when we respond to the gospel, the Lord gives us grace, he forgives us in the middle of our mess. What that does to the right heart and the right seed being thrown on the right heart is that it compels you. His loving kindness draws man, and it compels you to transform this love, this grace, that we don't deserve unmerited favor. Right. It causes somebody, the right person, not all people, to say, man, I want to change.

[B]

Right person, right person.

[A]

Right. The right person. But grace does not give him license to sin. I wasn't saying like, hey, Tony, I'm gonna grace you. You can continue to cheat on me, buddy, you can do this whenever you like. And I, I am here to grace you. First of all. That don't fly with me. But at the same time, I think God graces us, but he expects us to transform, to change. When Jesus extended grace to people, he said, now go and sin no more. Right? And so it's not that I had this power to make him not sin anymore. The Holy Spirit was doing a work in my heart, like a transformation in me. That sin says man, I think it's. I can't remember who said it, because it's not Chipping. Pastor Chipping Room says love is giving somebody what they deserve the least. Help me out. Love is giving them when they need it the most and at a great personal cost. And that's exactly what the gospel is. It's giving. I gave to Tony what he deserved to leave. He didn't deserve for me to say, I grace you now. Does that mean just because I graced him, does that mean I continue in the marriage? Well, God told me personally to stay in the marriage. I don't, you know, encourage to stay in a marriage with a habitual cheater, with somebody who's continually living a lifestyle that's continually wounding you. Tony was repentant. He walked into that office, first of all, he had been broken. I mean, he'd just been crying. And I'm looking at him, although I wanted to tear his face, like, off. I could see not necessarily repentance, but a remorse for where he was at.

[B]

That was helpful.

[A]

Yeah, it was helpful.

[B]

He came in there smiling. It's like, okay,

[A]

that was Hollywood enough. Helped him if he came in there smiling, but. And so I think the Holy Spirit was doing a work in me. This is my story. Do I believe that God can transform somebody because of grace? Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I've seen too many stories that God can do it. I've also seen stories where the person is not repented. And we'll kind of share a little bit about how he got to that place.

[C]

I just want to say. Cause I'm glad. So the question that you just asked him was the question I was gonna ask. And so we were on the same page with that. But I wanna say that I think what makes it so beautiful with Jackie's question, A lot of times people will say, oh, you know, they'll try to, like, look at you and say, oh, you're a weak woman. You're this and that. But it's. I just met you today. But like, you talked about fighting them. You know what I'm saying? So it wasn't weakness. It was the Holy Spirit giving you strength.

[B]

No strength.

[C]

And so I think that's something that the world really don't understand. Because we want to appear strong on our own. And this is, like, actually, it's easy to walk away. It's actually stronger to stay. Right. And so, like, a lot of times, we. Even. Our ideas of strength is so taint, like, so tainted by the world, and we have wrong ideas of what strength is. But the Holy Spirit actually gave you real strength to walk in grace and forgive, which ultimately helped y'. All. I think that's beautiful. I think that only the Lord can do that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I want to name something, because a big part of Yalls story that I do not want people to miss is the constant presence of wise counsel.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you are in the room with your pastor. Your pastor's walking y' all through the thing. He's the one saying, there's this option. There's that. Like, and I. I think when we make decisions either in isolation or with unwise counsel, then we are more prone to make decisions that just aren't good. You know what I'm saying? And so I think, consider the context by which they are explaining their story, and then consider the lack of wise counsel you might be having. And that might be why you're so quick to push back, because you're not in the lifestyle of having community of people that think highly of stuff.

[D]

You know what I'm saying?

[C]

Yes. And I don't know why I just thought about this, but what I. This is mainly for the listener. What I've experienced in the past is people getting so called wise counsel from their friends.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Men. That homeboy saying, she don't appreciate you, man. You working. You do this and yada, you do that. I've even had brothers tell me their friends told them, you deserve a little extra on the side. You know, it's like, get rid of those friends.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

But then it's often the women friends that we have and say, you could do better. Leave him. They don't even make you consider what the Lord wants because their idea of strength is walking away, you know? And so I think that having wise counsel, not just people who love us, but people who love our marriage, is super important.

[A]

It's key.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Hey, saints, I know you want to hear the rest of this conversation, and you can if you come back next week. We ain't cutting it off, you know, as a. As a punishment, but rather as a stewardship of your time. You understand what I'm saying?

[C]

And this is not to hook y', all, but this is a hook. But it's a truthful hook. The story gets better. It gets better. Yeah, and I think it's worth listening to, so tune in next week.

[B]

Bye with the Perrys is produced by the Perrys, with support from Amanda reed and Channing McBride. Video recording and audio production by Matthew Baxter and Xavier Fairley Edited by the team at Tread Lively Artwork by Hop thank you for listening. Now go with God.

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