I'll Just Let Myself In
"I’ll Just Let Myself In" is an empowering new podcast dedicated to people who are ready to take a chance on themselves and forge their own path. Hosted by Lish Speaks, each episode explores personal stories, triumphs, and challenges of navigating industries from the “outside-in.” From entrepreneurship to career advancement, self-care to self-discovery, this podcast provides candid conversations, practical advice, and inspirational anecdotes to motivate listeners to embrace their identity, defy societal norms, and pursue their dreams unapologetically. Join us on this journey as we celebrate the strength and tenacity of our guest and hopefully ourselves! It's time to take a chance on yourself and Let Yourself In!
Video version available on the @lishspeaks Youtube channel
I'll Just Let Myself In
What I Know About Love That I Didn’t Know Last Year - Into Love Part 2
In this heartfelt episode of I’ll Just Let Myself In, Lish and her husband, Jimmy Blain, sit down for Into Love: Part Two, reflecting on the lessons they’ve learned in the past year since their last conversation on love. From navigating challenges to deepening their connection, they share honest insights, personal growth, and the ways their faith has shaped their journey. Whether you're single, dating, or married, this episode offers wisdom, laughter, and real talk about love in action. Tune in for a conversation that’s both inspiring and refreshingly authentic!
Send us a text with your thoughts, feedback, or questions for the host!
What do you look forward to the most when you imagine our life in 25 years?
Speaker 2:I look forward to our children being out of our house. I'm already looking forward to getting them out Mind you.
Speaker 1:They're not born yet, they're not conceived. She's looking forward to them being out of the house, okay.
Speaker 2:But coming home frequently, frequently loving to come home, loving coming to see us, loving hanging out, raiding our fridge, raiding our pantry, taking our laundry detergent in my closet, borrowing bags that I'm never going to get back. That's what I see from our kids hopefully daughters but I envision us being that I'm never gonna get back. That's what I see from our kids my, my, hopefully daughters but I envision us being very much in love. I'm a great girl. Don't bring no drama my way. Don't bring no drama my way. Don't bring no drama my way. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the. I'll Just Let Myself In podcast with your girl. Lish Speaks.
Speaker 2:This is the podcast where we don't wait for any imaginary permission slip. We let ourselves into our God-given doors and listen. Usually, when you can let yourself into a door, that means the door is either open or the mechanism to open the door is available to you. The key might be under the mat or in the rock, or you might have a code that you need to put in to get through that door, but it is available to you. So here at this podcast, I'll pray our desires to encourage you to go ahead and walk through those doors. I'm hype today and I know I say that before every episode, I know, but I do be hype, and today I'm extra hype because I have a guest who is an amazing person, a great friend, an amazing businessman, a man of God, a servant in his community and his church, a man who loves family, a man who loves to plan and a man who is a lover and a friend. On my couch today I have none other than my husband. Glad you meet, blaine.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, what an introduction.
Speaker 2:I could have kept going. I know you could have I really could have kept going, but my parents watched this podcast. I just decided to chill out, but I'm excited because today is our episode for Valentine's Day and you know, if you're if you're new here, you've been watching since we started with Holy Culture Radio. Shout out to Holy Culture Radio. You probably noticed that our episodes are entitled Into Whatever we're Going to Be Talking About.
Speaker 1:That Day right.
Speaker 2:And so in March of last year we recorded an episode called Into Love. We were about six and a half months married at that time and we did an episode kind of talking about our wedding, our dating journey and and how we came to love and fell in love with one another and so the title of this episode is just into love, part two part two back at it again.
Speaker 2:We're back and we back and but we're gonna be talking about things we've've learned now that we've completed one, and also a half year and a half marriage um, and we'll also be speaking through some of the things that we believe we did as single people, um, and some of the things we went through as single people that helped us to be ready for marriage. Um, not that anyone is ever completely ready for marriage.
Speaker 1:That's another thing. You're not, you're not, you're just not yeah.
Speaker 2:But some of the things that helped us to have a very successful first year. But before we get into that, you know we got the best segment in podcasting and it's called what I'm Stepping In, and today me and my baby are actually matching and stepping in our Tom Sachs Nike Craft Collab General Purpose shoe. We love this shoe. He has more than one colorway. I only have this colorway, but I love it. First of all, I love a brown shoe and we don't get a lot of very nice brown sneakers. Brown sneakers it's kind of hard to do, but I love this shoe because it has two tones of brown a little bit lighter and a little bit darker. Um, it's super duper, comfortable, uh, can be worn.
Speaker 2:Actually, you know, we did communion at church today and he wore these sneakers with his outfit. Um, so you can dress them up a little bit, you can dress them down. They have a very relaxed uh type of vibe to them. I love colorful, ridiculous, bright, multi. Um, you know, uh, material sneakers generally, and my husband is very he's the complete opposite. He loves relaxed sneakers and so I love that these sneakers still have the cool fact that they still have, you know, that factor of like. If you got these, you know kicks, but they're a chill shoe um anything you want to share about them oh oh.
Speaker 1:I was trying to stay silent because I'm the one who has to edit these clips. I know how stressful it is when, when both people are talking during this part. Um, I just love them. Like you said I am, I am very much a function over form person. I I like sneakers that look well, but I absolutely need sneakers that feel good to wear, and these feel good. I can drive in them well. You know, I got the toe flexibility, so I love them. Like you said, I got them in multiple colorways. That's how you know when I really like something, when I'm just going to get it again in a different color I really like it.
Speaker 2:And he's not lying, he will not. My husband does not believe in breaking in a shoe. The shoe got to be already broke. If he wears it one time and it's uncomfortable, it's staying on the shelf. I don't care how much I paid for it or he paid for it. We might as well sell it because he's not going to wear it. So I do love that. These shoes are comfortable and, as we always say here and I'll just let myself in if you like them- go, get you some all right.
Speaker 2:So we are mad. We've been married now for how many months, uh? A year and A year and six. A year and six months.
Speaker 1:I want to say a year and six months, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's see.
Speaker 1:We just hit February, so this would be the six month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've almost been married for a year and six months.
Speaker 1:A year and a half.
Speaker 2:Actually, this month, in a few weeks, will be two years since you proposed to me.
Speaker 1:Yes, the day before your birthday.
Speaker 2:The day before my birthday and I feel like there's been so much that we have learned, experienced. I watched a few clips from that first episode.
Speaker 1:Oh, I should have did that.
Speaker 2:First of all, we've lost mad weight.
Speaker 1:Let's go. Let's go Period. We've lost mad weight since that episode.
Speaker 2:So kudos to us, but also I feel like looking at Y'all going to see it too.
Speaker 1:Look back on that episode. Yeah, look back on that. We'll make sure we look at it.
Speaker 2:But I feel like looking at the girls, looking at myself, and I was like man, girl, you didn't know yourself, Like you didn't know, Not so much I didn't know myself.
Speaker 1:I'm so curious, Like what did you see Not?
Speaker 2:so much that I didn't know myself, but like I didn't know who I was about to become, because, remember, we filmed all those episodes before we aired the podcast, like before we even announced the podcast, we had filmed all the episodes. Yeah, so we had filmed all the episodes. So at that point we hadn't even announced the podcast, nothing had come out. And I just remember, at that time, feeling so insecure. I remember feeling like I wanted to make you proud which is something that I struggle with in our marriage.
Speaker 2:I always feel like I want my husband to be proud of me.
Speaker 1:Mind you, he tells me he's proud of me every day, all the time, but I just, I have a thing you know.
Speaker 2:Um, I remember wanting to be like Lord please let this work out, because we spending money and I don't want like we were newlyweds. This was not in our plan for our first year of marriage, and so I just remember having a lot of big feelings. I also remember feeling very just green in marriage, like I do not know what I'm doing, and not that I'm some expert now, obviously in a year and a half but I I've learned a lot in that time, and so I wanted to talk to you about a few things today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and I've had. I've not been prepped for this at all, just like I know.
Speaker 2:So I'm getting this fresh, he knows, like y'all uh, he knows nothing, but you know, I think that we've we had a really good first year, successfully. We did emotionally, um and so in that, in that vein, what do you know about love, now that you did not know when we were filming that episode six?
Speaker 1:months? Oh, that's a good question. It's funny because I think you just said it we've had a very successful year and a half and I think I would have defined a successful marriage at that time as a marriage without issue, without any disagreements, without any drama, just like smooth sailing, like we kind of almost read each other's minds. And I think we have had such a successful, uh, year and a half is because we have maintained our, our love, our happiness, our joy through the struggle. Yeah, and not like around the struggle. We are we're very serious about like working through things, talking through things, getting advice from people, bringing people in and seeing how that fits into our marriage, how that fits into our lives, has shown me like, oh, like it doesn't need to always be peaches and cream, like you're gonna bump into things, and it's really how you deal with it on the other side, rather than just the fact of bumping into things, that that defines your marriage yeah, it does always need to be peaches and cream, but that's for a different podcast.
Speaker 1:We got the radio.
Speaker 2:No, but I love that answer and I think I've learned a similar lesson. Think I've learned a similar lesson. You know, I think when you first get married, you are terrified of the differences between you and the person. Yeah, like I remember, you know, when we first got married and we were probably two months in and I realized how much you like to be home. Now I like to be home.
Speaker 2:I remember this conversation, but my husband could be home for 30 days straight and it don't matter. He could not touch the grass, not see the sun.
Speaker 1:That's not enough time. I didn't want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he could be here, right? You see what I'm saying? He could be home for a whole quarter. He's like, as long as there's food here, the, the house is clean, the laundry is done, I'm cool, I forbid it's cold. And so I remember realizing like, oh, he really don't have to go out. And I remember I started panicking a little bit because my father, from the way my mom tells it, always loved to be out and about. He's very social, my mom very much a homebody, and I'm a lot like my dad, um, and I remember getting scared, like I just we're just so different and like, how are we gonna do this? Like how's this gonna look over time? And that's one of the ways that the devil gets me. Um, we'll get back to that, but it's, it's. I start thinking so far in advance. Um, and I remember bringing it up to you because we do have a healthy communication which I appreciate.
Speaker 2:And I was like, babe, you know, I just feel this about me and this about you, and like we're so different in this way. And he just said to me very calmly baby, it's too early to prescribe patterns in our relationship, like I'm not your mom, you're not your dad, and we'll do what we need to do for our relationship to work. And things like that always stick out in my mind because I believe part of the reason we were so successful our first year was because we didn't run from our differences but, we also don't let our differences define us yeah or our relationship, which I love because we are different.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, we are. We're very different. That's why we fell in love. We don't even like the same snacks. I'll be bringing stuff.
Speaker 2:He'll be like I don't like this. I'll be like great.
Speaker 1:That's our favorite thing.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you something Please don't like something I like that I have. I'm not trying to convince you got the like. Nothing I like, I like it. That mean I don't gotta share with you. Like you know, we're so different in that way and, um, now we like a lot of the same music, you know, that kind of thing, but like certain things we're just very different about. You see the world very differently, um, and it has caused some of our greatest conversations, some of our, some of the things that have bonded us most. But it's also caused some of our arguments, some of our disagreements, some of our strong feelings, because we just see things differently. And so I think my definition of I say all I have to say.
Speaker 2:I think my definition of love and that episode would have been um uniformity, but now it's harmony. I like, like that. Yeah, yes, it's harmony, different notes playing into one sound.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I think that describes our marriage so beautifully. A thousand percent.
Speaker 2:A thousand percent. Okay, so our faith is a big part of our marriage. You know we met through a mutual friend in our church, my best friend we met he actually was when we met I already lived in Atlanta but he was actually going to the church. I grew up in like same building and everything and we had tons of mutual friends who helped to guide us through our dating relationship with spiritual advice and and and just helped us you know what I mean to see God in all the different things the long distance, moving, all that stuff, and so being married right, being a husband, now, how do you think you've grown spiritually?
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's good.
Speaker 2:Since we got married.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, I always call you my prayer warrior because she does not play about praying and I've never doubted the power of prayer. But there's something about seeing someone who is so fully committed, so fully impassioned about the power of prayer and just takes everything to prayer, our prayer, and just takes everything to prayer, and seeing that just sort of living in that space, and not just living in it, but seeing the power of it, seeing the fruits of that labor, I'm like, oh, I've been playing life on hard mode, like like I gotta be praying about everything, not just about sickness, not just about, you know, some craziness that's going on in my life. Like I need to be praying for the sun to come out tomorrow. I need to be praying that my dishwasher work, I need to be praying that my sneakers still fit. Like, and she be praying about everything. And when I tell you the world lines up for her to just take it over, I'm just like, oh okay, this is, I've been missing out on this. This is powerful.
Speaker 1:And I feel like that that's also pervasive in just so many areas. Just seeing how much one you lead at the church that we go to, it's part of your profession. But even like, as you've always said, like, no matter what church you go to, you cannot stay in the pews too long. Someone is going to point you out, pick you out and be like she's got to do something. Her talents are being wasted just sitting down. I'm just like I'm. I've also started seeking like, listen, like I. I can't just be someone who sits down. I gotta really use my skills and my abilities to help wherever I'm serving well, you were never doing that, I wasn't sitting down.
Speaker 1:I wasn't, but I think you have almost like, put that battery in my back a little bit more. I just like one we are. I truly believe that we're a unit that is very much greater than the sum of its parts, like, no matter what we do, and that's even more true in our church. I think when we are unified in something in our church, it's like it's like it becomes something like greater. And that's not even boasting about ourselves, really, it's really not. It's more just about how unified we are and how well we slot into each other. How well my strengths match your weaknesses, your weaknesses match my weaknesses match your strengths. It matches so well. We really can become something so much bigger when we are in concert with one another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that made me think about spiritual compatibility. That's not something that people talk about a lot, but I think we're very much compatible spiritually, very compatible when it comes to the things of God, and I've talked about this before on lives and different interviews. But I think where a lot of people go wrong in the body of Christ, especially when it comes to women Women, listen, this is for you, right, and I've said this in other episodes, but I really want you to hear it Sometimes people will want strong you know, loud, boisterous, whatever you know strong, spiritual women. People will want strong, spiritual women to get with men that are loud and boisterous and leaders and all this other stuff. I think that that is not always who you are compatible with. A lot of time the church wants you to do that because it will benefit that church, not because it will benefit your life.
Speaker 2:I've been with the braggadocious, bravado, sticky, chest out kind of guy and it was drama and not until I got with a man who was spiritually compatible. What does that mean? That means when I'm over the top, he's able to bring me to a good place. When I am not in because I'm not always in the mood to pray I'm not always. You know, I pray a lot. I probably pray a lot more than the average person.
Speaker 1:I'll say that because I do.
Speaker 2:I will pray about a dishwasher or a sneaker or whatever. But there are times when I'm struggling and you pick up the lat. Right, the things that I'm strong in the prayer, that the outward gifts. Right, my husband is very strong in forgiveness. I struggle to forgive. My husband is very gracious. I can struggle to be gracious. Right, my husband is very patient. Right, I want things to be done. I want them to be done and well and excellent, in the name of Jesus, and I make it sound spiritual and it is spiritual. I think God deserves our best, but he also has. I think some of this comes from working in AV and churches.
Speaker 2:He just understands that to error is human and things happen and systems break down, and I think that there's a compatibility that we share that I would have totally missed if I was going for the guy that some people thought I should be with. You know, I think that patriarchy, you know and I don't know, you know I didn't plan to go here, but I think patriarchy says you're a strong woman and so you need a strong man to preach, you know, so you're not the one, no, no, no, I can be the one preaching and there's nothing wrong with that. My husband serves in plenty of ways. That are his gifts and his abilities and I think a lot of times in the body of Christ, strong women die single because they're waiting on some imaginary man who has all these skills, gifts and abilities that are not even compatible with them. You know, they're two different types of strengths and I think the strength that my husband leads me in and I say this a lot to women when they ask me questions how do you, da-da-da?
Speaker 2:My husband leads me emotionally, a man who's always caught up in his emotions, which gregarious men tend to be very emotional. Um it it was. Would have been hard for him to lead me in my emotions. You know, I mean to help me to regulate, to help me to make good decisions, to help me to to be wise, to protect my time and space and energy from people who are. I needed that and I would have totally missed that if I were looking for some other type of person. So I really do appreciate that. I think to answer the question.
Speaker 2:I'll try to answer the questions I ask myself just to be fair, I think the way that I've grown spiritually in our relationship is that I've become more honest about who I actually am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the good and the bad. Tell me more about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the good and the bad. I think there were things before we were married that I was just unwilling to accept about myself because they scared me. I think I was unwilling to look at certain areas of my heart, unwilling to look at certain areas of my character, because it was frightening to me. I've talked about this before, but you know it was frightening to be like, hey, you don't have a good relationship with money, you don't have a good relationship with food, you don't have the best relationship with finishing things that you start. You know you don't plan a whole lot, you kind of just fly by the seat of your pants. These are all things that being married to you exposed to me and it was rough.
Speaker 2:And I was like, okay, you know I need to grow in these areas, and so I think I've grown spiritually or just in my character, you have.
Speaker 1:You have, absolutely have. Thank you, thank you think I've grown spiritually um or just in my character. You, have.
Speaker 2:You have, absolutely have. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, so I'm gonna go with a couple of more questions, um, and then I actually would like you to pick some questions from we have a little card game you got over there, um, and I want you to pick some questions from there, because I did not want to be the only person doing questions here, but what do you feel like was the biggest adjustment you had to make, going from being single to married?
Speaker 1:I feel like we had a pretty smooth on-ramp as smooth as you can have without living with someone Because we didn't live together until we got married. You can have without living with someone because we didn't live together until we got married. But I feel like going from going from long distance, which was the first, what year and a half? Of our relationship, going from long distance to moving out here, um, in the suburbs, where really there's no one else that I know out here. I didn't have a car at the time.
Speaker 2:Didn't have a license. Didn't have a license.
Speaker 1:I'm from New York City, so now I'm here in Georgia. So I think that I think I started preparing in my mind. I would call it a dependency. I'm just like she don't come for me, can't go grocery shopping, I can't do nothing out here. So I think I see that as like a good on-ramp. I would say probably the biggest adjustment and you might say the same is there's just always someone else around. We live in a two-bedroom apartment, which is pretty good. I work from home full-time, so one of the bedrooms is my office, uh, and I feel like you have this a little bit worse because you don't have a space to call your own, fully your own, um, but even then, sort of just like always needing to just think about the fact that you live no, just the fact that you are always.
Speaker 1:I've never I lived with my siblings, for I don't know, the first 25 years of my life, and then I moved out to live on my own. But I never lived with a stranger. And not that you were a stranger, but you just weren't. You know, you weren't my ex. We never lived together.
Speaker 2:We never lived together. You know, we literally we went on our honeymoon. So when we got up from our honeymoon was our first time sleeping in a bed together in our apartment, and I remember it was weird for me like I was like yo, this is my husband sometimes still, we were like yo, you, kind of a stranger. I haven't known you like that. We have a joke stranger danger whenever one of us does something that the other one is like. I never seen you do that before. We were like, hmm, stranger danger.
Speaker 1:You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, we only met four years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we saw in that first episode we met on a blind date, so we didn't have any history. You kind of just showed up in my life and then that was it really. So I think, just adjusting to the fact that you know, like I live with someone 24-7, you know, and not even a weird like oh, I always got to be on, kind of way, but almost like I take it just takes a certain level of consideration for things, you know, like I said, I'm a homebody and beyond that I'm also just like I'm a homebody because I like to be alone, I like to kind of just be in my own space fully. And it's very easy to live with someone and still feel lonely and I'm very like I try to be cognizant of that, like, all right, I don't want to be so into my shell that I'm even separated from my wife at this time, and also I try to just trying to make sure like, all right, like how do I make this still feel like we're sharing this space? You know you moved into my apartment.
Speaker 1:I didn't want you to feel like, oh, I'm. You know you moved into my apartment. I didn't want you to feel like, oh, I'm living in gladget's house now like no, like this is our home. You know, I think a big part of that was redoing the apartment and making sure a lot of your stuff, uh, could go up on the walls and stuff as well. Like making you feel like this is we're sharing something now and I think, as we embark on this journey, it's a god willing, buy a house, uh, this year, please lord, please, um, that we can go into a new space fully like all right, this is truly just our thing. We got it together with our money. Like I can't wait to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:What about you?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest adjustment I had to make was that I cannot shut down and go into my shell. Similar to me, I think, I think I'm looking at the cards.
Speaker 1:I'm going to pick one by random.
Speaker 2:Next yes.
Speaker 1:I'm picking a random one.
Speaker 2:Adjusting a little with somebody who don't follow rules.
Speaker 1:I'm actually the rule breaker Big time.
Speaker 2:I am. I tell people all the things that they love about me. Happen when I'm alone, all the thoughts that I share, all the stuff that I create. It happens in a shell for me, like a turtle. And Okay, I mean think about it, think about me.
Speaker 1:Does that?
Speaker 2:make sense? No, yeah, but when you're married and you want to be happily married and communicate and not you know, have your spouse feeling like you are, you know, a roommate or feeling like you are, you know, a roommate?
Speaker 1:or just you know you have to give. Yes.
Speaker 2:And when I am overwhelmed, overstimulated, when I'm nervous even especially when I'm nervous about something or planning something I can go. I go inward and I go inward hard. And so one of the biggest adjustments I had to make was just still serving, still giving you know when I want to just come out and make myself tea and go back in the room at coming into your office and say you hey, are you hungry? And making breakfast for us, or when I just don't feel like explaining my day or how things are going.
Speaker 2:You know, still telling you what's going on at work or what's going on with me and my friends, or whatever, because you want to know, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I do want to know. He wants to know honey, she does not like talking about work. I'm like this is what married people talk about. It's not.
Speaker 2:It is. There's a lot of other things to talk about. No, no.
Speaker 1:This is literally one-third of your life, like you spent eight hours doing this. Talk to me about work, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, just like learning to give you know and I think too, when you're a creative person, people are often fascinated by what you have going on, but it's one of the mill for you. So sometimes, even walking you through my ideas of how I'm going to do something, and you're like okay, tell me more. And I'm like I just said it in my mind.
Speaker 1:I don't say that to you.
Speaker 2:This is the first time I'm ever saying that, but in my mind I'm like I just said it, so sometimes my explanations may seem hurried or rushed, because I'm like just trying to get through it, because I don't even want to explain it.
Speaker 2:You know, what I mean. And so just giving, I think, is one of the biggest adjustments that I had to make. And, like you said, you're here all the time, so you know I go out and about and do things, you work from home and you're not my husband. Like he said, he's not the type of person who like after work he's like yeah, I've been home all day, let's go. Let me go get a drink, let me go. He's chilling.
Speaker 1:Right on his couch. We be taking this set down. Turn this TV on. We watching something.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so just learning to really appreciate that, because so many women wish they had that, you know. And um, I remember my mother told me one time she used to complain about my dad watching football all the time and how my grandfather told her just be grateful, he's watching football at the house, he could be at the bar watching football, you know, and I think about that with you. I'm like you know what your husband wants to spend time with you. He want to hang out, he want to talk, he want to ask you about work.
Speaker 2:He could be somewhere doing something else you know, and so just learn to be grateful for the time spent and learning that it's okay to be seen by you. I think that I've spent a lot of my life being seen by people but them not really seeing me, If that makes sense.
Speaker 1:That makes sense to me.
Speaker 2:I think you know for different reasons, but we both have had that experience and, I think, just remembering that, like you actually see me for who I am and you still really want to be with me, and be around me and letting that make me feel safe and comfortable. So yeah, All right so. I have more questions for you, but yes. I think that we should go ahead and pick a question.
Speaker 1:A question from the box. What do you look forward to the most when you imagine our life in 25 years?
Speaker 2:Oh, I look forward to our children being out of our house. I'm already looking forward to getting them out.
Speaker 1:Mind you, they're not born, yet they're not conceived. She's looking forward to them being out of the house. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:But coming home frequently, loving to come home home, loving coming to see us, loving, hanging out, raiding our fridge, raiding our, our pantry, taking our laundry detergent in my closet, borrowing bags that I'm never gonna get back. That's what I see from our kids, um, by my hopefully daughters, hopefully daughters. But I envision us being very much in love, very much pillars of whatever faith community, whatever church we're a part of, maybe even being elders, elder and elder's wife. I envision us traveling. Same I definitely envision us traveling.
Speaker 1:Same here.
Speaker 2:And I believe that within our respective careers, we will have made a significant mark. So I see us accepting awards, I see us being honored at dinners, I see us giving incredible encouraging speeches to children and young people, to children and young people. But more than anything, I see us still being as silly and playful as we are Like. I see us still acting a who the way we act in the time. Absolutely Cracking jokes. Yes, slow dancing out of nowhere. I see us still singing songs off key as loud as we can, I see us still.
Speaker 2:You know soft pranking each other, not anything too crazy, but you know playing with each other.
Speaker 1:I think I really see that playfulness is just so important. It's just so important, yes, and your love, just it. It provides a levity. Yeah, in the house that's. Again, we don't have children yet, but I am excited, if we are blessed with children, to have them grow up in a house that is just filled with levity and lightness and just like, oh, like it's it's good to smile and be joyful. Not that my house wasn't that. I want a house where it's just like music blasting, where it's just laughter all the time where it's like what are mom and dad talking about now?
Speaker 1:like why are they so?
Speaker 2:loud in their room, like I can't wait for that. I love that. Yeah, so that's what I see. I see an elevated version of who we are right now, you know, and I see versions of us who have been through some things, who have loved each other through things, forgiven each other through things, but um maintained our fun-loving relationship.
Speaker 1:Yes, what about you.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Very much a lot of those same things. Like I said, the levity is going to be really important, just keeping that Just fun, the excitement alive, traveling, and an addendum to that God willing, we are early retired. Praise the. Lord Around 60.
Speaker 2:55. 55, jesus, we pray a 55 blessing over our lives.
Speaker 1:Amen. Something my friend jokes about, or joked about before Brian, is like we would talk about like our dream job. He's like I do not dream of labor. Yeah, I don't want to be working as much as I love my job. I would love to not be working by choice by the time I am 60 years old. Yeah, and just enjoy life. Enjoy life for what it is, for what it's meant to be. But I do agree with you, I think wherever we plant our feet at that point in our life, I can't imagine us just sitting back and sitting in the pews. I feel like we're going to be something, involved in something. I would also love for our kids to be out there. She was a joke, she was a liar, but more than anything, just the adventures that we get to go on, just unburdened by anything, where we are, where we have to work, just enjoy awesome.
Speaker 2:I love that you want to pick one more before we go back to my questions you got one, I do got one, I do got one.
Speaker 1:Um, what is something that motivates you to work hard and be your best?
Speaker 2:oh, this is easy. My children, that don't exist.
Speaker 2:That don't exist. It's so funny because before I met this man, I didn't even want children. He has completely changed my life and my perspective. I'll say this I didn't think I would be a good mother. It wasn't so much that I didn't want children yes, I felt that as well but the core of that feeling was I don't think I'll be a good mom and I had plenty of reason to feel different things and whatever trauma from the past and just more than trauma, warped self perception.
Speaker 2:I look forward to, if God allows me to be a mom, what the sacrifices that we are making right now will mean for those children's future. And even if God does not allow me to be a mom, I work hard because I want the people, the young people around me my cousins, my nephews, your nephews, who are my nephews, your nieces to have options. I want them to say I really want to be in radio, I really want to be in media, I want to be in music. Let me call Auntie Lish, because I know she knows somebody, because when I wanted to start doing these things, I had nobody to call. You know what I mean to really get me in the door, no one who could really make something shake. You know what I mean, and my family and I want to be that.
Speaker 2:I also truly you know not to sound super saved, but I really do believe God has something very unique for me to do in the earth. I really believe that. I've believed in my entire life and nobody ever told me that until way later. You, like you, know that things have been prophesied over me and people have said things to me, um, but even as a child I'm talking like four years old I knew I'm supposed to do something. I don't know what it is, I may never get credit for it, I may know, but I'm supposed to do something. I'm not supposed to just be normal, um, whatever normal is. You know what I mean, and so I think the reason that the question is like the reason that I work so hard, yeah, yeah, it's because I motivate you to work yeah, I don't feel right when I'm not.
Speaker 2:It's like you said about me being at a church. You know, yeah, I would love one day to just go to church and sit down and just listen to the message and then get up and go home. I've that's never been my life ministry ted.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know what I mean, and even when I was not being paid to be in ministry, I was serving, yeah you know, and I just don't think god would have it any other way for me. So I I work hard because I believe that god has a special assignment which I don't know, that I've even found out yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:People see all I'm doing, like, oh, you're doing it. I'm like I don't even know if this is it. This might not be it.
Speaker 1:I love that about you too. I really, I truly adore that about you, where you are just not bound by something that you can be very successful in, but Something that you can be very successful in. But if God calls you to do something else and it's a clear call you're just going to take it. Oh yeah, you're just going to do it 100%.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be outside of the will of God ever, for any reason. It ain't never that good of a deal, good of a contract, good of a situation, it ain't enough fame. Not personally, but I have seen what going after something outside of the will of God has done to people. It's scary, because you're operating in the devil's will at that point, and I'm just, I don't want that, and so the only thing I am bound to is you.
Speaker 2:You are my husband. I love you. I will go where you lead. Anything else I will walk away from very easily, you know that about me?
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, it was fun while it lasted.
Speaker 2:I don't be tripping, I really don't you know, um, and so yeah, but uh, yeah, that's what about you? What motivates you for me, besides buying me nice things?
Speaker 1:yes, that's first of all, that's always going to be number one. It is not number one, no, it is, I would say. Recently it has become a renewed concept of what freedom looks like for me. I think I have been fairly successful in my career.
Speaker 2:That's an understatement, but go ahead.
Speaker 1:I've been successful in my career and it's just the path that it's taking me on.
Speaker 1:But it's almost like and I don't say this out of any lack of gratitude, but I don't know if you heard the term like golden handcuffs, uh, basically, where it's like, well, you have something that like usually a career or a job that's like elevated your life so much that you're grateful for, but now your life is dependent on maintaining this thing and if you don't maintain it, you lose everything.
Speaker 1:So now you are chained to this luxury and again, I'm very grateful for where I am. But it's revealed to me I'm like I have so little freedom in this space even to pursue some of my other passions, and I think that is what's motivating me. You've seen me go so hard in my studies, go so hard in working towards making your dreams come to fruition, because your dreams are my dreams. You blow it up and you doing your best and you becoming who I truly believe you can become is a part of my dream. To feel more free and how I choose to lead and dictate my life and lead my family ultimately, and that is just a massive motivating factor.
Speaker 2:I love that you talked about my dream being your dream. We have a joke that my husband can become very Joe Jackson. But you know, I would tease him and be like all right, joe, all right. And one day he said I only become Joe Jackson when you're acting like you don't know that you're Michael and that ever since he said that I'm like heard you, you know, when I'm acting like I'm not, you know the star that he believes I am, he gets very serious with me. He's like baby. No, you know what I mean. You said you were going to do this, we planned this, and it is let me just say this for me as a wife to know that you are 110% behind my dreams.
Speaker 2:You're 10 toes down about my dream, about my gifts and my talents, when you really don't have to be. You could very much just throw money at him, be like all right, that's your dream, that's your hobby, go ahead, go have your show produced, do your thing, I'll see it. When it's produced, I'll watch it later, and it's no shade to any husbands who do that. But the fact that you have literally stepped fully mind, body and soul into this process, um, into this project, um, into starting, so much so that we started a media company together, um, where we are now trying to help some other people who want to do this, is, I can't tell you how much confidence it gives me, truly, truly. It gives me so much confidence, you know, when I look at the man you are and the way you show up for our family and our family being just the two of us right now.
Speaker 2:You know it gives me all the confidence in the world that, no matter what we go through in life, you'll do it the same way. You do this excellently, selflessly. You know um, with love, with gentleness, with wisdom, with commitment. Yeah, it gives me so much peace and confidence and I show up so much better on this microphone, on these cameras, because of the way that you support me behind the scenes. So I love you. I'm very grateful. I'm very, very grateful for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for saying that it is, I would say, mostly an outpouring of just my love and dedication, but there is also a true belief that I see something in you that I'm just like there is so much potential, there is so much here that the world would be lesser if it is not exposed, if it is not expanded on, if it's not shared.
Speaker 1:And I feel like I am doing, honestly, my small part in helping you at this stage, because I do believe you will get to a place where you're you have a whole production crew, you know, and at that point it is me just managing the money and I just want to be able to say like I did everything I could to get you to that place, to get you to that point, and just knowing the kind of person that you are like you're a payback tenfold kind of person Like I've never doubted that. So I'm like I know she doesn't take this for granted, like it's never a question for me, so it just makes it so much easier. I'm like my wife is someone who's just going to go all the way. She just needs support, you know, and I'm just here to provide it.
Speaker 2:And that's what I mean behind when I said you see me, but you really see me. You know, you see me in a way that people who have been seeing me my whole life don't see me. You know, and it is something that it really it lifts me.
Speaker 1:I'm going to keep going because I'm going to keep going.
Speaker 2:So listen, we were. We were raised very differently two different worlds. We were raised differently and you were raised in the two parent home. I was raised by a single mom, yeah, you were raised in one home your entire life. I moved around a couple of times. You were raised as your friends, kind of being accessories to your life. My friends were the cornerstone of my life and in the heart of my life I have the same best friend that I've had since the first grade to this day.
Speaker 1:Insane to me.
Speaker 2:We still talk several times a week. What up Jazz? We still. She knows every detail of mine. We locked in. And we see a lot of things differently based on how we were raised. How do you feel like we've navigated cultural differences? You're Haitian, I'm American, black American but how do you think we've navigated our cultural differences in our marriage?
Speaker 1:It's funny. I feel like it's been a learning journey and the journey continues. Journey, uh, and the journey continues. I I think we came in honestly naive towards just the differences in our lives. Not all black people are the same black people, um, and I think for us that that's true in a regard where it's just like we you look at our skin colors you think you know we, we've experienced same things and we just haven't. Yeah, you know we, we truly have just led different lives and I think coming into this space of marriage, of sharing a home, of sharing a life for one another, has been emerging of those experiences, of explaining and being patient, meeting in the middle. A lot, I think, has also been huge for us, you know, because we we are, we also realizing like we're not beholden to our past, we're not beholden to the rules that brought us here, to the, to the path that brought us here. We are really, we're doing a new thing and it can really be whatever we define it as.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I love that. I love that. I think for me, I've seen us. I think I've seen us take the best of the way that we were raised and try to implement it into the way that we treat each other and in the way that we govern our household.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, even like day-to-day things, like chores and different things, right the best of the way that we were raised and do it. I tell people all the time I still fold my laundry, our laundry, the way my mom folded our laundry. Going out, my mom would bring all our laundry home from the laundromat and whatever she didn't fold at the laundromat, or if she folded it all at the laundromat, she would take it out and put it in stacks on our couch, so the back of the couch, the sides of the couch, you know wherever the coffee table, and then we would all be responsible to come get our stuff and literally, I literally, literally, our house is.
Speaker 2:I come out, I sit I throw on whatever I fold it, I put the underwear, the towels or whatever and I'll put it, and then, when he's done with work, we together take it to wherever it's supposed to go in the house. You know, and I just thought about that. I'm like why do I do that? I could just fold it in the room and put it away, but it's's just. It doesn't.
Speaker 2:You don't realize how much your upbringing is, you know, affecting you and what you're knowing, because I didn't grow up in a house with my parents, I think I didn't know. I had no idea what it would be like to live with a man to cater to a man to. You know, my mom taught me a lot about hospitality in general. My mom is very hospitable. You come to your house, you know her house. She's going to make sure you have a good time. But I didn't know what it was like to live with a man day in, day out morning, night you know morning, afternoon and night.
Speaker 2:And so I think, I've just tried to take the best of what I saw her do in general and do it, and it's been fun, I felt really good and I think we really embrace each other's culture, you know we love if you're going to throw on some Haitian compas.
Speaker 1:We in here we going to compas If I throw on?
Speaker 2:Frankie, Beverly and maids. We might be backing it up in an electric slide.
Speaker 1:We be having a good time in here we definitely do A party and don't get started on the food. We will happily explore each other's culture. Yes, we going eat.
Speaker 2:Mexican food. We explore everybody's culture. We do not discriminate when it comes to the food, and so, yeah, I think we've had fun doing that and I think I take a lot of, which will lead me into my next question, but I take a lot of pride in learning from the way you experienced and saw love growing up, and I think you do the same Like. You really want to know.
Speaker 2:We want understand each other's yes um, not just culture, as an american haitian, but the culture of the households we grew up in and not necessarily use it to like explain away or try to dissect a person, but just to really just to understand it is.
Speaker 1:It is from a spirit of understanding. Yeah, you know, and, like you said, like we, as we understand, we take the best parts of that and we truly fuse it into something. Yeah, that is just our own. It is just I want to call it the blatant household. My, my old home is still the blatant household. This is the new blatant household. You know the new blatant rules and I just I love it yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:I love, in that line of thinking, what is something that you do as a husband that you think your father would be the most proud of.
Speaker 1:I think my seriousness about our financial future and financial stewardship, financial future and financial stewardship I think that comes from my dad, because my dad wasn't the breadwinner but my dad maintained the household. In that regard, and one, it showed me that a man doesn't need to be the breadwinner to show up in this way and also that those are two separate skill sets, two separate assets to a household, not that one is more important than the other, but they are separate and they need to be refined separately because it's very easy to be a breadwinner and spread furiously and it's very easy to be someone who's setting that financial standard but you have your family living in a way where they're miserable because you're you're strict or you're too frugal and sort of being able to to hone those and try to put us in a place where we are responsible but we're not struggling, we're not unhappy. Yeah, that really comes from how I saw my dad sort of maintaining the structure of the house I love that that was not the answer I expected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to know what you expect. I want to hear your answer and I also want to know, yeah, yeah, um, I think the thing my father is most proud of for me as a wife he said it to me is how I keep my household. Yeah, he said it reminds him of my mom. You know, when he comes, here and he sees how well I keep my household.
Speaker 2:And listen, I was a junkie teenager and adulterer too. Sometimes, Like as an adult, I'd just be not dirty but just sneakers everywhere and all of that. And I think my father was like you can't do that when you get married, Kevin. But I always knew when I had a house of my own I would want to govern it the way I saw my mom govern our home. Even as a kid I knew like, oh, this is how a wife is. Even though she was a single mom, she just showed that, and so I think my dad is really proud of that, and I think my dad is also really proud of the man I picked.
Speaker 1:Dad loves you like he is so proud.
Speaker 2:I love him the fact that, because I think he was nervous for me, I thought, well, I think he was nervous for two weeks. I think he was nervous that I would either never find someone or I would pick someone, like people he saw me pick in the past that he wasn't crazy about. Yeah, um, and then I would just settle, or that I would be the one. You know that I would have to be the breadwinner and I would have to be the one taking, you know, care of things and you know, I think he's just happy to see me in a relationship where I'm actually being taken care of. And I love what you said about your dad, because I think about that. I think you know, right now you're very much the breadwinner.
Speaker 2:I'm in the ministry y'all, so y'all know what that means, but you always say there's going to be a day where you're going to retire me.
Speaker 1:I believe it. She's going to retire us.
Speaker 2:And I just feel so good that, if and when God allows that to happen, you don't get your security from the fact that you make more money than me and that you're the man Like you know. I say this and I heard this in an interview the other day with on Club Shay Shay, with Cheryl Underwood.
Speaker 1:She said no matter how much my man makes, he'll be the breadwinner.
Speaker 2:He can make less than me, he's still the breadwinner. You know what I mean? Because the breadwinner is who has the say over what we do financially and how we govern financially, and I matter what happens in our lives.
Speaker 2:First of all, we'll be blame media period, um, but you will always be that lead and I think that's because you saw that from your father absolutely um, and so what I thought you were gonna say is actually our playfulness, because your dad, from what I've heard, was very playful and very fun, so and and he didn't always see that side of you when he was a lot, so I thought you would say that that he would be proud of that. That's a good one.
Speaker 1:That's a good one. Yeah, you know, my dad was. My dad was very outwardly playful, Like when we go to restaurants. He would just be a joker with like waitresses and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But yes, I could see that yeah my mom, although sometimes it doesn't benefit her. I think she is proud of the way that I put my marriage first. I think she's proud of the way that I, um, you know, really place you at your rightful place in my life, you know. I think she's proud of that. And I think my mom is also proud, um, of the way that we are in business together. You know, she often talks about the fact that it's so cool that we work out together, that we started a business together. She's proud of our unity and I think she's proud of the way that I let you lead me, that I follow you rather, that's a better way to say that uh, because I am a strong woman and I am whatever, and I was single until I was 35, so it's very easy to just be, you know, get married and still be acting like you, the boss, but I am extremely submissive to you because you're you're worthy to be submitted to you know, what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like you really lead um. I think my mom would be proud of that, is proud of that. So what do you think your mom would be most proud to see you as a husband.
Speaker 1:I think my mom would be extremely proud of how patient I am Not that I wasn't patient before, but I think I get that from her that I can love through anything, that my love doesn't change, no matter what's going on happiness, sadness, you know, arguing and whatnot.
Speaker 1:I think that's very much something that I learned through osmosis with her. It's not something that she like talked about in the saddest sound to ever really explain that, that side of love, but I saw it so much that it very much defined how I view love, especially marital love, and I almost I don't know how to do it a different way. You know, I can't even I can't even fathom marriage outside of that kind of love. And now that we are just more exposed to a lot more married couples that we just, we just hang out, we talk to, just so much, it's just like, oh, like. This isn't how all relationships work out. And being like, oh, like, and then looking, I just through talking to you, just realizing like, oh, this is something I get from my mom and you never had the opportunity to meet either of my parents. They passed before you and I met, um I.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that through me you get these small glimpses of them from the stories I tell, and then you sort of relate back to the way that I act in relation to those stories yeah, they did a heck of a job with you and your siblings, and I say it all the time just incredible human beings you all are, and I can tell that their love, though it wasn't perfect, was exactly what you needed to see to become the man that you are.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm so grateful to them for that. All right, so you alluded to this earlier, but we are certainly a couple who likes to get advice, who talks to our friends. We people be in our business Over this last year and a half. What is the best marriage advice? You know what? Actually, we'll include premarital as well. So from premarital um counseling until now, what is the best marriage advice you feel like you've gotten?
Speaker 1:I have a little bit of recency bias. It's always hard for me to remember things going far back, but we recently met with really good friends, diamond and dylan. Um and dylan, uh, specifically just reminded me just how important it is that I have to always put you as number one, no matter what, and it's just. It's one of those things where it's like it's obvious, like it's like with is your wife, you still are number one.
Speaker 1:I need to go through those disagreements with the end goal that I'm like this is my number one priority. This is the person that I need to be okay with, no matter what, and, looking at it from that point of view, that it is something that is pervasive. It is not just in this one scenario, but in all scenarios of my finances and my spiritual health and my friendships and everything, that you are number one. It's it's almost like this key that I can like, this master key that I can use to sort of get through anything. I'm like what does this mean for us and how do I apply this logic to that?
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Dylan. Shout out to Dylan.
Speaker 2:I get so much great advice because I talk way more than you do. But I want to say the greatest piece of advice that I've gotten is from this couple that we also shout allies with.
Speaker 2:We call them our young ogs Byron and Danielle, shout out to y'all but I was talking to Danielle recently about some stuff and just different things that I've been struggling with emotionally and she said something to me that is so profound. She said you know your marriage goes through spiritual warfare. And she said you think it's not spiritual warfare because y'all not arguing and fighting and fussing and yelling and cussing and all that. But the devil knows he can't get you that way. The devil knows that you and Jimmy are going to talk things out, y'all are going to communicate, y'all are going to forgive each other, y'all are going to love. Y'all are going to seek to understand more than being understood, which I think is one of our biggest strengths.
Speaker 2:When we're talking generally, we really are seeking to understand the other person more than we're seeking to be understood yeah, totally um, and she said so what the devil is gonna try to do with you which is what I was struggling with is, in the aftermath of the forgiveness, he's going to try to recall to your memory and mind hurt feelings, things that you should have said, reasons you still have to be upset, reasons you don't have to trust. The struggle that I was talking about earlier I'll start thinking about in the future. Well, what if this happens in the future? What does this mean when we have kids and all of this stuff that really don't have nothing to do with nothing? Know, and and I did not see that as spiritual warfare, I just saw it as my mind, that's just the way I think.
Speaker 2:But the battlefield is in the mind and because the devil knows he can't get us to be um, disunified, you know, get us out of harmony in the day-to-day because we're so big on resolution, his tactic in warfare, for me, is the aftermath, and so, since we've had that conversation, every time a thought comes to my mind where I'm tempted to feel some way about something that we have already resolved. I'm like, oh, this is the devil, this is the devil. Yeah, because we have already resolved, I'm like, oh, this is the devil.
Speaker 2:this is the devil yeah because apologies have already been made, we've already resolved this, we've gotten advice. Everybody was humble, there's nothing left to do. So why are you still feeling this? You know, and it's taking it away from me, just from like, oh, I'm in'm in my feelings as to, oh no, we're going to fight this. You know what I mean. Like we come against every thought, you know what I mean. That sets itself up against the knowledge of Christ.
Speaker 1:That's one of the thoughts. You know what I mean? Yeah, and it requires a different tool set, you know.
Speaker 2:And you fight war differently. You know what I mean when you think of taking every thought captive and you think about that as spiritual warfare. You're not going to play with it. It's not just going to be something you allow to muddle around in your mind. You know what I mean. You know I'm very serious about my thoughts and what I allow myself to dwell on, and so that is probably some of the best advice that I've gotten Outside of that.
Speaker 2:I've gotten so much great advice from friends who are married and not married about loving someone unconditionally and meeting their needs, and so I really try to take that advice. You know it is the month of Valentine's you know, and we had a lot of single Valentine's as adults. I got married at 35. You were 30 when we got married.
Speaker 1:Yes or 31? I don't remember.
Speaker 2:You were 31 when we got married or 31, I don't remember. Yeah, you were 31 when we got married or turned 30.
Speaker 1:No, I was turned.
Speaker 2:I just turned 31 after you got married, um, and so we had lots of single valentines right, and I think the world can make this day feel so lonely when you don't have someone. But I remember, um, those times of just feeling like, okay, I got a treat today, like any other day, I'm not gonna let this day drive me crazy. Now.
Speaker 2:I think it's different for women than it is for men, but during this Valentine's week for those who want love and I asked this in an episode that another episode that's going to air this month but for those who want love, right, for those who want to be married now we're not talking to the Pauls out there who are, like you know what I just think it's my lot in life, amen God bless you.
Speaker 1:Why did you call that boy? Put an extra sauce on it, Like I just think it's my lot in life to be like I'm child. Now Okay, If you don't want a husband or a wife, sure, but most people do right.
Speaker 2:So for the single men, and women'm going to give advice to the men Specifically who are struggling on this Valentine's week wanting love. What would be your advice to them?
Speaker 1:My advice to the women is one don't ignore the self-work. There is so much that needs to be done during this season of singlehood. Yeah, that it's not that can only be done during that season, but it's, I would wager. It is easier to do some of these things when the only person you need to worry about emotionally is yourself. Yeah, because that that emotional growth is like a whirlpool. It drags everyone else in around you and if you are waiting until you get into a relationship to grow in patience, to grow in gratitude, to grow in just emotional well-being, it's going to pull in the currents of everyone else around you, including someone that you are in a relationship with. So the more you can do that while it is just you, the better it will be, the more you'll see the fruits of that labor.
Speaker 1:And then my second piece of advice is to be very wary of setting hard like I will never date someone that is like this. Uh, because when you, when you don't know what blessings you are blocking. I think if we had asked each other four or five years ago, like what is your like ideal person to date, we would name people or name characteristics that are that we don't have. And now I cannot imagine myself with anyone but the person that I'm sitting next to right now. So you really have to come into this space with eyes wide open. Uh, just willing to to see, like what, what is out there yeah what, what can I get from this person?
Speaker 1:what can I learn from this person? And take all these in stride, Because you just never know. We literally met on a blind date. We did not even know each other existed and now we are happily married. Like you need to really go into it with that level of just like I'm just going to take a chance, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a great answer. I think you know if I had to give advice to single men, you know during this week who are looking for love, I think the first thing I want to say is I see you. I see you, bro, like a lot of times single men, especially in the body of Christ, it's like well, why are you single? It's all these sisters. It must be you, something must be wrong with you, or you must be dibbling and dabbling in the world, or you must be, and that's not every man's story, you know, I think, understanding that some men are really being hidden by God because they are for a very particular woman, and not every. You know, sometimes, as women, we really, we really think we have no flaws, right, and sometimes you, brother, are still single because you might be too good for the women around you. I don't even got time to bother that, as Dr Darius would sayI. I want you to know I see you and I want you to know that your patience will be rewarded. The biggest piece of advice that I want to give you is date, but stay picky, because you really do need to be with a woman who will honor and respect you. You deserve that and not every woman will do that, and so my advice would be to date, with intention. My advice would be to listen and to watch, to honor your body. Men are not taught to honor their bodies. Men are not taught to respect themselves, bodies. Men are not taught to respect themselves. And I want to encourage you Don't let your need for love turn into an enslavement to intimacy, turn into Desires that you don't know how to curb. I want to encourage you, man of god, to wait on the Lord, and if you are in your feelings about being single on Valentine's Day as a man, that's okay. It does not make you any less of a man. I would encourage you to scope out the scene of your church. Find a sister who is the most spiritual, that you are also attracted to in some way, right.
Speaker 2:I do not believe in just marrying somebody that you are also attracted to in some way, right. I don't. I do not believe in just marrying somebody that you're not attracted to. Right, and get to know her, you know, and even if you're not initially attracted to her, just be, begin a friendship and see what the Lord does. But I really want to encourage you most of most of all, that you are seen, that nothing is wrong with you and that you need to be in deep prayer about the woman that God has for you, because I promise you when it comes, it will be worth the wait for sure. So that would be my advice to single men. That's good advice. A couple other questions for you before we round out here. What do you feel like is the most important trait in a wife for you Like, what is the thing that I do, that you're like, and this makes our marriage work.
Speaker 1:You really push me to grow in my emotional I don't want to say intelligence accessibility. I think I understand my emotions to a decent degree but they're not always accessible to me and I think you practice a level of both patience but also prodding that one makes me feel like, but also prodding that one makes me feel like this is a really safe space for me to feel what I'm feeling. But I don't get so comfortable not sharing or not like really digging deeply into those emotions that I let them fester like. You really give me the opportunity and space to flourish in that way and it's something that I'm still growing in. But from where I am today to where I was when I first got married, to where I was when we first met, it's it is several football fields away of growth and I attribute so much of that to really the the space you have provided me to really grow at my own pace during this.
Speaker 2:I love that. Grow at your own pace. Let me give this advice to wives or girlfriends, fiances if you feel like you're struggling with a man maybe emotionally stifled, not as emotionally intelligent as you or not as forthcoming with their emotions as you are, I want to encourage you to dig, but dig with a plastic spoon. That's what I do. He doesn't even. He's never heard me say this.
Speaker 1:I've never heard this, but I know she's about to spit some bars.
Speaker 2:A lot of times a lot of times we want to dig and get to know them with a shovel and we want to just go right as deep down as we can, as hard as we can, and pull up the most dirt that we can to get to the heart of whatever matters to them or whatever's going on in them. And I've learned that that wasn't going to work for you. I also learned that I couldn't afford to not dig because you weren't going to dig.
Speaker 2:You were going to let that dirt stay right where it was, and you were not going to dig into your feelings. And I think long distance dating helped us, because I'm like the only way we're going to know each other is if we talk. We can't have surface level conversations. I got to get to know you because if this is not worth my time, then we need to break up and move on, and if it is, we need to know that. So we know how to proceed.
Speaker 2:But I learned how to dig with a plastic spoon, and why I say plastic spoon is because sometimes the earth that is over his emotions is so hard and has been there for so long that while I'm digging the spoon breaks, and that's when I know I need to stop. This is not the time. He's not ready, we're not ready. He hasn't even come to terms with that on his own. So why in the world will we be ready? So I am not a professional, I am not a therapist, I am his wife, and so even then, if I was digging with a regular spoon, I would just keep going. You know I'll start scraping stuff, but I think of it as digging with a plastic spoon because it only can hold so much and I can only hold so much right, and so I always want him to know that I'm curious, I want to know how you feel, and I am going to push you a little bit.
Speaker 2:I'm going to push you past your where you want to stop explaining, where you want to stop talking. I'm going to push you a little bit, but never to the point where you feel like my curiosity and desire to understand is more important to me than your emotional wellbeing. Sometimes we want to push a person so hard to tell us something and then, after they tell us, what can we do for them? So now you're stuck in this emotion that I've made you dig up this thing from your past and now I'm like, oh, at least I know that about him going on my day and now you're messed up.
Speaker 1:It's selfish.
Speaker 2:You know, you know, and I really had to learn that and it has helped us so much and I think, you have grown exponentially, babe.
Speaker 2:You've grown so much and being able to access and communicate your feelings and your needs. Well, also, as women, we got to remember that men are not socialized to talk about their feelings and their needs. And so you get with this man and you want him to be like you and like your home. Girls like y'all sit around and talk about you. That's not how men operate and it doesn't mean that you don't need to grow. You actually have to grow in that if you're going to be a husband.
Speaker 2:But I think the patience is probably the most important thing that I have with that. So I got that analogy because when I first started driving, I had a very heavy foot and one of my friends who was in the car with me when I first started driving she said to me I want you to imagine that you're driving with your big toe just with your big toe, not with your whole foot, and that really helped me to drive more gingerly. And so when I think about things that I might be tempted to do hard which is everything I do I try to think what's a more delicate way I can do this, which is everything I do. I try to think what's a more delicate way, I can do this, and when I think about it that way, it helps me. So, yeah, that's kind of how I know what your emotions. But I think the most important trait that I've learned that I needed in a man, as a husband, is something that I never prayed for and it's something that I never thought about until we were married.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 2:And it is your level of patience. I always tell people I feel no shame with you. No shame, no matter how many mistakes I've made, no matter what things come up and you're like, okay, what happened with that? I lose things regularly, y'all, I'm working on it, but the man is going to spend a good 10 years of his life helping me look for my keys, my wallet, my, you know. God bless him.
Speaker 2:But he never makes me feel stupid. You know I ask questions that maybe you know, especially when we were first getting married with finances and trying to get you know that maybe somebody my age, you know, I'm four years older than him you might be thinking, oh, you should know this by now. What were you doing before we got married? But you never make me feel shame. You really are patient with me and loving and gentle, so gentle with me in my shortcomings, even times when I know you're annoyed. I only know that because I really know you.
Speaker 2:But there's no sign of annoyance in your voice and your tone, like that thing you said about your mom. I really see that Like your love does not change based on circumstance, even when you're upset or disappointed. You know you'll share that, but I never feel like man, I really blew it, he's not going to. I never feel that way, you know, and it really does. I know I've said this about other things, but it does lift me. It really makes me feel um, very loved and and taken care of and protected emotionally Um and so that's something that I did not know to pray for.
Speaker 2:I did not know to pray for a man that wouldn't make me feel shame, a man that would be patient with me and soft and gentle and cover my mistakes and cover my blemishes. You know, I remember um, I'll tell this. You know you can cut it out. You edit the podcast you can cut it out.
Speaker 2:But, um, our first year doing our taxes, you know, we got a bill back from something that I hadn't taken care of and the way you handled it like shocked me. Like he was like, okay, just call them, let them know that I'll pay it. No, like well, how could you not take care of this? Or what? Why didn't you submit this? Or you know I was beating myself up and you were like, baby, it's okay. Like, like, truly like, didn't bat an eye and it wasn't a crazy deal, which, you know, had it probably been, maybe you would have had a different reaction.
Speaker 2:But, just in general. You know, I think I grew up money was something to panic about in my life and you know same thing.
Speaker 2:I lost my wallet when we first got married and you were so chill about it. Just like it's okay, like you know, and you know it actually makes me more responsible, because that level of grace makes me want to never take your patience and your attitude about it for granted. So you really take care of me in a way that makes me feel really safe and protected, and I finally found myself having a similar reaction to things Like you know what, whatever comes, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 1:We'll take care of it together.
Speaker 2:know, you always say that whatever comes at us, we'll just, we'll just take care of it together, no big deal you know, exactly, and I really love that about you. I really do. Okay, last question, let's go. Uh, we asked this question to all our guests and so I will not treat you any differently but I'll put a little twist on it yeah, yeah. In the grand scheme of things, what do you want the legacy of our marriage to be?
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. I want the legacy of our marriage to be that two people can come from such vastly different worlds, come together and really just make something beautiful out of this world. Unimaginable, cannot be repeated. I don't know how else to describe it. I see us as truly like a dream team. I really feel that way. I could not imagine a better partner, and when people look on our marriage, I want them to feel like, oh, this could have only happened with Glad. You and me enlist. There was no other scenario. If you ended up with someone else, if I ended up with someone else, like this thing wouldn't have happened. There wouldn't be blame media, there wouldn't be a podcast, there wouldn't be this, there wouldn't be that, there wouldn't be this amp, like whatever it is. It'll just be like this could have only happened because god saw fit. This was, this was a, this was a literal sign of God's infinite wisdom that these two met. Because this could have only happened, because they came together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful. That's a beautiful way to end the episode. Listen, thank you for being my guest. Thank you for doing Into Love Part 2.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love you. The first return guest. The first return guest. I beat you, portia, you was sleeping on it.
Speaker 2:No, I love you so much and I'm so grateful for you, for our love, for our marriage, for the way that you lead us. You are my best friend and biggest supporter and none of this would be happening without you. So God bless you and I love you.
Speaker 1:I love you baby.
Speaker 2:Listen, this has been another episode of I'll Just Let Myself, in which a Girl, lish Speaks, and my husband pleasure me. Blaine, if you are listening for the first time and you love what you have heard, I want you to write into Speakers S-P-E-A-K-E-R-S that's, speakers S-P-E-A-K-E-R-S at LishSpeakscom and tell us what you thought of this and all episodes that you've seen. And if you have a question that you want us to answer, a topic that you want us to talk about, I want you to go ahead and send us an email. I am so grateful for my Holy Culture listeners and all the ways you guys have been hitting me up in the DMs and following me on socials. I love that we're becoming family. Follow me everywhere at LishSpeakscom and make sure that you check out Holy Culture's website, as well as their YouTube, to see replays of this episode. You can also find this episode on my YouTube, which is at Lish Speaks, and all my social medias, which are at Lish Speaks.
Speaker 2:Listen, we're here at this podcast, same time, same place, every week, to give you the encouragement to go through your God-given doors. I thank you for your time, for joining us, and I pray that, although Valentine's Day is coming up, you feel loved every single day of your life because you deserve it. This has been another episode of. I'll Just Let Myself In With your Girl, lish Speaks, and I will see you next week, same time, same place, peace.