Overcoming in Marriage

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Hello and welcome back to the Naked Marriage Podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast we address the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. And you guys, we are so excited to share this couple's very inspiring story with you today. But it is layered and it is about a very, a very important topic. And so right out of the gate, we want to make sure that we give you some information. Right, sweetie?

Yeah. Shane and Sheila Pitcock are truly an inspiration. They're now part of the XO Family Marriage mediators from sharing their story as a way to help others and coach others. But they have been through so, so much and their story does really contain patterns of going back to childhood cycles of abuse that had to be overcome. And so before we dive into their story, just to make sure you guys are fully equipped, if you right now are in an unsafe or abusive situation, we want to provide as many tools as possible to help you find safety in that. And a number to give that I want to give you right now is the National Domestic Viol hotline. Because for women in particular, when women leave an abusive partner, they're more likely to be injured or in tragic, some cases even killed. And so the hotline is there to help you devise a plan of safety and to get you the help that you need if you're in that type of situation or if you know someone who is in that type of situation to know that there's 24 hour help available. The hotline number is 800-799-7233 and call that if you need it. That being said, we're going to dive in. We're honored to have our guests here today again. What they've come through and where they are now is really a testament to God's miraculous grace and what can happen when two people choose to work together to find individual healing grace toward one another and just trust it in God's hands. And Shane and Sheila's story is going to inspire you. So let's dive in. Well, like we said in the intro, we are super excited to welcome our friends, Shane and Sheila Pidcock. They are marriage mediators here at Exomarriage, and they. Their story is one of the most inspiring stories we've heard of a marriage that at one time felt hopeless. You know, and we hate to use that word ever, but that's a word that people were using to describe where they were. But what we see is that no situation is hopeless with Jesus. And they have got a powerful story to share and a lot of lessons in it. If you're listening today, you're watching today, and your marriage feels stuck or hopeless, I think you're going to find a lot of practical inspiration and instruction here. But even if your marriage is going okay, there are going to be some things that are shared in this conversation that are going to help you get even stronger. And we are so just honored to welcome you guys. So welcome Shane and Sheila. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We appreciate the opportunity to be here. We're so grateful for the ministry of Pastor Jimmy Evans and what he started and all the years in which that has been going on. And now that Brent has handed that off to him and he's carrying it forward, we're grateful to be part of that. And we're so honored to be sitting here with you guys today as well, because this story is not about us so much as it is what God has done. And we're so grateful for that opportunity to share what he's done to give hope and to not give up.

I love it. I love it.

I love it so much. Well, like with most of our guests, we love to hear kind of your origin story of how the two of you met and how long you've been married.

Yeah. Yeah. Who noticed who first?

Yeah, that's a fun story, Dave. Interesting. You guys start with that? Yes. We actually met country dancing. And at the time we met, one of my friends was actually sitting in his lap. So that was a whole interesting dynamic right there. But you moved her out and said.

Hang on, I wish that had happened that particular night. I couldn't get her out of my lap. I was already there when Sheila walked in the door. But as soon as she did, it really was one of those opportunities or situations in me where my heart just leapt out and I just knew that moment that. That who God would be bringing into my life. I didn't know for sure until it just developed. But as it developed, yes, it was definitely one of those things that we knew without a shadow of a doubt. We were engaged two weeks later and we were married five months later. So had we known what we were going to be getting into and what God had planned for our marriage, maybe we wouldn't have gotten married. But here we are today, 30 years later.

30 years later, and we love hearing that. 30 years.

That's. That's awesome.

That is so amazing. And I know, like, we kind of, you know, alluded to things were not always going smooth sailing in your marriage, obviously, I mean, in every marriage has struggles, but I know that in your marriage in particular, there came a point where it got really hard. And I would love to hear you guys kind of tell us that story if you could.

All right, well, I'll start with my side, and you can pitch in. I grew up in a wonderful home. We lived out in the country, and all my aunts and uncles and grandparents on the same street. And I can honestly say it's time I got married and we started having our struggles. I honestly did not know that married people fought. I had never seen that in my. In my family. And so when we started having our struggles, I had no tools to deal with that. And so I quickly moved into what I call my doormat days, where I just believed that our struggles were my fault. I wasn't being a good enough wife. I just try harder. I say, you know, it's like a hamster on a wheel. The harder I tried, the further I felt like I was falling into this pit of hopelessness. And so everything kind of came to a head. Thirteen years into our marriage. We were actually living in an RV at the time. We had set out on a grand adventure, and it ended up being the pressure cooker to bring the dysfunction to light, because there's not a lot of space to run and hide on the other side of a door. Right. And so it really did was kind of this simmering pot where everything came to a head. And so I'll let Shane kind of tell you how that happened.

A big part of that was my past. I brought into the marriage was an abusive home. Raised in a military family, a very strict hardcore dad, and a mom who had her own dysfunctional mental issues that she never got help for. So she was trying to handle three boys effectively on our own, with my dad being absent a lot of. And it turned into an abusive home in such a way that there was a lot of mental, emotional, even spiritual, and some physical abuse. I witnessed it all. I mean, praise God, there was no sexual abuse involved, and that helps. But even then, I felt a lot of the same kind of trauma. And even though I met Christ in college, before I met Sheila, and I Thought, oh, I've got my healer now, and then things are going to get better. I never really submitted to following Jesus fully. And so I brought all that into the marriage. Created conflict. My home was all about conflict. And I was like, we're going to work through this, we're going to fight through this. We're going to make sure we get this resolved. And Sheila was more passive as I became more angry. And it just escalated into 13 years where she had somebody come alongside her and say, this is not right. You need help. You need to seek hope for this situation because this is not a healthy relationship. And I was so co dependent upon Sheila for my identity, for my value, for everything about who I was as a man was based upon her being in my life and validating all that. Without that, she said, we need help, we need to separate. I thought she meant divorce. Unfortunately, I didn't handle that very well. And so we had to start the process of what is it going to take to make this look right? We started with a separation right off the bat because we needed to get our own selves stable first.

How long were you separated initially?

Initially, it was just for a couple of months. We didn't really know what we were doing or what the purpose of the separation was. I just knew that it was at a point where I had the kids and I needed a break, and that's all we knew. And so we took a short break, fell into some financial crisis and different things that came out of all of that dysfunction. But we got back together, were together for a couple of years still. Obviously no healing had occurred, but we were trying really hard. Right. And it wasn't until we moved to Texas a few years later that we really started getting the biblical teaching that we needed to understand what it means. You know, during. When we were still. Colorado was where we were at when all of that RV adventure happened. But when we moved to Texas is when we started getting that foundational teaching of how to stand on God's truth and his word. But even before that, while we were still in Colorado, at the lowest point, God gave me a vision. And the way I grew up, that didn't happen religiously. So I was like, this is really weird. But I knew it was the Lord and it was just a beautiful picture. And he said, that's your marriage. And I was like, well, it doesn't look like that right now.

Describe it.

It was really intense.

Is it okay if I take the time to do that? Okay. He showed me this beautiful picture of an oak tree it was a very tall and mature oak tree that I couldn't even fit my arms around the trunk if I wanted to. And the branches spanned out at least 12ft all around. And the sun was shining through the branches of the oak tree like a spotlight in front of the rose bush. And it was just this beautiful, peaceful picture. And so I went home and I told Shane about it. We had just gotten back together after our little small separation, and God gave him the words and he said, some will come for the shade of the tree and some will come for the.

Beauty of the roses, but all will come to see my light.

He didn't give me that piece till almost a year later, though. He just initially gave us the peace that was. That was what he was saying to us. And so I had to go on a journey to figure out what it meant to be that rose bush. And God really started teaching me that the rose bush would flourish in spite of the oak tree, but that he had put the oak tree that he had strategically. You know, oak trees grow in the wild and they just grow where the seed falls, correct. But rose bushes are usually started in a hothouse and planted underneath, you know, in the environment where the gardener wants them. And so as the Lord started unpacking all of this for me, I was angry with him. I was like, well, why'd you put me there, right? If you knew all this was going to happen, why did you put me there? And he didn't really give me an answer, but he just kept reassuring me that stay close to him, he was working those types of things. And so that's really. He taught me to stand and declare his truth and his promises in spite of what the natural circumstances looked like at the time.

And God's confirmation to me in that moment was a strategic Bible study that happened the summer after she told me about that particular vision was a follow through on the growth of a tree of all things. And it started out as a sapling. And at that point, that's where I realized I was, I was that sapling. There's no way I'm going to be this 12 foot oak tree. But it was a process, and that's the key. The Lord told me that he will redeem it all, he will restore it all. We were 13 and a half years into our marriage when things just hit the fan and we had to separate. We had to focus on getting our own healing first. Because our broken marriage was a result of each of us being broken in different ways. And that's what we try to help people understand, we try to help couples realize. You may come to realize there's a broken marriage. The key is that's the result of two broken people in that marriage. And let's work on what it takes to bring it all together as a court of three that God tells us, you know, the Holy Spirit is there and we're grateful for that opportunity. But the key is there's us individually, and then the marriage is developed based upon us individually. Our marriage was developed in a very wrong way. So even though we pulled back and worked on our own hearts and got healing for ourselves, every time we came back together to re. Enter into the marriage, it was also broken. So we had to go through a healing process of the marriage and learn to relate to each other differently as well. So there was really quite a bit of three journeys that occurred out of this, each of our own, and then the one as we came back together because we had. We had a total of three separations. The process was quite long.

Well over a span of a number of years.

It was an additional 13 years.

Okay, 13 years.

Yeah. We had, you know, counselors and stuff telling us, you're not going to get out of this in a day because you didn't get into it in a day. And at the point where we realized that we were in a really good place, somebody asked us how long things had been good, and I started counting back and I was just in tears. I was like, it's been 13 years of this walkout process and we were at a good place. Now, the second 13 years were not all as miserable as the first 13, but we did have two additional separations. We moved to Texas. We started really learning those biblical foundations. The dysfunction was still very much there. We were raising three children that were growing up in this toxic environment. So our first separation lasted a year. And at the time that that one occurred, the household was very angry, very. Just walking on eggshells. Very scary. It was a scary place. And so in that Shane and I were not even at a place where we were speaking for almost a year, other than a few emails of what had to take place. Now, I will say when that initial separation happened, there was a lot of emails coming my way that were. I didn't know how to respond. I still didn't have those tools. And I had a coach, and she was a. She was just very encouraging and she helped me to see what boundaries were. She encouraged me to read the boundaries book. And I will tell you, I was so blown away when I realized that I had control of my emotional boundaries. Like I didn't even know that was a thing. And being in an abusive relationship, you quickly realize you don't have control of very much.

Well, you used the word doormat before. You just feel like, this is what I have to do to keep the boundaries. I just have to take it. And you don't exactly. But once you realize you don't then. Boundaries is a wonderful book for anybody.

Correct.

It's helped us tremendously.

But. Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to talk about.

Yeah, no, it was so powerful because I would say the most impactful thing from that boundaries study for me was realizing that boundaries are not brick walls. Because growing up the way I had, you know, women were just, you know, we baked casseroles and we made the guys look good and we did all the things, you know, that they say Christian women do. And I'm thankful for that foundation of God's word and helping me understand, but that my little girl mind just did not grasp it correctly and it caused a lot of dysfunction and wrong beliefs in me, which made me the perfect enabler in the situation. And so when I realized that boundaries are not brick walls, but they're fences and they have gates in them and I get to control the gates, I was like, I can do that. And it was so helpful. And so of our story, that's one thing I just, I want people to know. When your marriage is in a place that feels hopeless and dark and you're walking on eggshells, don't do it alone. And you know, I tried so hard to keep everything a secret and make everybody just thought we were this wonderful couple. Right. But eventually that's going to come crashing down around you. And you really do need a community of faith based people that are going to hold your arms up and declare God's truth with you, even when it doesn't look like that's the case should be. I had some people telling me, girl, you don't deserve that. Get out of there. You know, and then I had other people saying, well, if that's what God's telling you, I'm going to stand here with you and we're going to pray through this together. And that's the kind of people that you need. You can see the contrast. And so of course, I don't ever want anybody in an abusive situation to feel like they have to stay in the abuse. That's never God's plan. But setting healthy boundaries means I'm taking care of me. I, I matter to God too. And you can choose whether you take care of you or not. But God's promise to me was, you and your kids are going to be okay no matter what Shane chooses. And, you know, I had no idea what was going on with him. We weren't talking, but God was working on him as well. And so I'll let him kind of share what God was speaking to him. But through that whole process, for me, it was just this sweet time with the Lord. Even though it was hard and I was. It was still scary because I had no idea what the future looked like. What he was going to choose was our marriage going to work. We had moved three states, and I'm a nurse, but I. I had let my license, had not renewed it, and I was back before compact. And so I wasn't licensed. I couldn't go back to work on a nurse's salary. And I just. I didn't know what all of that was going to look like. So it was scary. But God was so faithful in every piece of that. And the Lord just kept saying, I'm with you. It's gonna be okay. Trust me. And he just did it with me. And he put the people. Sometimes you need Jesus with skin on. And he would put the people in my path to guide me into the things that I needed at the time.

And the right people make all the difference.

Make all the difference.

And then we need to be the right people for the people in our lives, because every single one of us has people in our own circles that need us to step in and be that kind of friend and say, I'm gonna stand with you and pray with you, and I want to support you. So you got to that place where you were finally moving forward in a healthy way. What were some of the changes you were making? What did communication look like? What did you start doing differently to start coming out of that long road where you'd been kind of going deeper down the wrong road to turn things around and say, no, we're going to go in a new direction. And I know it was a long process, but what were some of the things that stood out in that aspect?

The key thing to remember is that we talk about our separations. It was never with the intent to divorce, Right? And we were never living like we were single. So it's okay to separate because you need to heal. You need to get healthy. You need to find ways in which you can stabilize your own self. For me, I had to learn what it meant to be a child of God. I had to learn My own identity. I had no identity growing up. I had to find my own identity as a child of God. And that is always the key thing that we get lost in understanding. I'm a Christian. Yes, I understand. But have you truly experienced the love of the Father? Because until the Father truly infiltrated my heart, almost like a physical transfusion, there was one particular night that changed everything, that I was crying out to the Lord, and for whatever reason, he said, go to the middle of the book. Read that particular chapter, whatever you find there. In the middle of the Bible is Psalm 119, the longest Psalm in the book and probably the longest chapter. But I wept through the entire thing and cried out and prayed to God. And that night, it was, as I said, a physical transfusion that I felt his love washing through me from my head down through my feet, and the anger also washing out at that moment. So it truly was a transfusion that we had to come to a place of understanding who the Father really meant to me in my life and be able to accept that love. That's really where it was. And the key is, she was told many, many times by Christian friends, counselors, everybody, that almost everybody she came into contact with, pastors saying, you don't deserve that. You have every reason to leave. And she goes, well, that's not what God told me. And I praise God for the fact that she was seeking him regardless of what I was doing, because that was the example that gave me hope to continue as well. And I talk about the abuse being the abuser, because we need to talk about that. We need to express that there's hope for that person, too. A lot of reason that they fall into that cycle is because there is some hurt there, there's some pain, there's some wounding that has occur that needs to be addressed as much as the damage that was caused in the marriage. And so that's where we were working it out, is realizing there's hope for the abuser, too, and you don't just leave him. And Sheila said, that's not what God said about my marriage. And she hung in there. And a lot of times I held onto that to be able to stay focused. But it was always coming back to a question saying, have I done everything I can to keep this marriage? And I always posed that to the Lord. And of course, his answer was, no, let's try this. There's more work to be done. Let's go do this. Exactly.

And we did have counseling individually, extensive counseling. And then when we started coming back together, we had counseling together as well. So that's another thing. When things are that hard and you're feeling hopeless, the chance that you're going to turn that around on your own is very slim. It does take accountability, sometimes, professional help, depending on what the situation is, and especially in situations of abuse, because the person who's in that situation is being abused, they don't have the tools to get out. And the person who's being abusive, they didn't wake up one day and say, hey, when I grow up, I want to be an abuser. But they find themselves, through their own wounds and patterns of whatever they've learned along their life course, that they're in that situation. So God never writes any of us off, but sometimes we can write ourselves off or write others off. And so I very clearly want to say, when you're in an abusive situation, God's not saying, stay in the abuse, okay? But he is saying that there's hope. And he told me that I was. I was literally. I was so angry. I was just really screaming at the Lord and telling him how much I hated Shane and how, please let me out of this marriage. And he said, you can go if you want to, but I'm asking if you'll stay. And at the point when I was telling him how much I hated Shane, he said, well, I love him. And that made me mad. Again, that's not the answer I wanted to hear. I wanted him to say, yeah, you're right, you know, but that's not what he said. And it stopped me in my tracks because I knew he was right. I knew, you know, from growing up, you know, we all sing the song Jesus loves me. Well, he loves us all, right? And so I knew that was God's truth, but I didn't know exactly how to get there. And so I started praying. I said, lord, if there's something lovable there, I'm not seeing it. So you're going to have to help me see here, my husband, through your eyes. And so that was something very practical that I did. I just. God, every day, help me see what you see. Help me see the good that's there. Because I knew it was there. That's what I was attracted to in the first place when we met, right? And so it was just a matter of waiting for the Lord to heal those broken places in both of us, because I was just as much at fault in being an enabler, right? And it's easy to point fingers, but we. We all have our own wounds. We all have our own weaknesses, and the Lord is gonna love us through it. And that is the main thing that I want people to know, is everybody's story is different. Not everybody's is gonna end the same, but it's the same God that sees us all. We all have value and he loves us and he is in the pit with us. That's the thing I love about the Lord, is he's not up there in heaven far away saying, okay, well, do this or I'm gonna thump you on the head. He's that friend that sits beside you on the road and says, hey, here you are. Let's get up together and I'm gonna show you what next step to take. And so he would give me scriptures. I would Write them on three by five cards and post them all over the house. Philippians 4. 6, where, you know, don't be anxious about anything, but in everything, with praise and thanksgiving, present your request to the Lord. And so I just posted it everywhere. And every time I would start to feel that anxiousness, I would just say, nope, nope, not believing that lie. This is what the Lord said. And I would just speak it out loud. Because the power of our word, spoken word, is so powerful.

And that was a key factor too, all along the way was ensuring that we found what the truth was about what we were thinking. And that's a real big key right there, is trying to learn where you're not believing the right things and what is the truth about what you should be believing. And then focusing upon that. And a big part of it goes back to what are your beliefs? And your beliefs are formed by so many factors that we don't realize. And then when we come to the Lord and say, here's what I'm believing right now, help me understand your truth. What should I be believing about this? About her, about our circumstances, about our plan that you have for our marriage? And in all those things, he would lovingly redirect us back to what was the truth. To believe about one another in such a way that that we could modify our own thinking and then rest upon his truth with that.

I love just how you shared that, because I do think so many times the enemy really can enter in these situations and try to convince us that we're powerless and that we don't have control over those thoughts. And it's hopeless. You know what I'm saying? And we're defined by whatever happened in the past. And what I hear you all saying is, no, with God, you know, miracles are possible. I mean, you all are a Living, breathing, miracle. I mean, the fact that you're still married, and not just still married, but I can just see you glowing. Like, you guys radiate Christ. Like, you really radiate.

Thank you.

And that's why we wanted to bring you here. I mean, just talking. Anybody who meets this couple, talk to them for, like, three minutes. You're gonna see it, and you're just gonna be just so, like, inspired. And I would love to hear, you know, when you guys did come back together, you've had this encounter with the Lord. You know, you've released this anger, and you're starting to establish boundaries. How did that go? Because I know that's a big change, and it's not overnight, obviously, but how did that go? Because I'm sure that was hard to navigate, that it was tough.

And a lot of guidance that I fall back to was when Pastor Jimmy talks about his initial days, too, with his initial marriage with Karen, and how that went sideways for a few years until he realized his scales fell from his eyes, right? And he had to have a new awareness of how he was treating his wife. Well, that was an example to me and a spiritual mentor of sorts that I looked to understand, how am I treating her? So I had to learn to sit down and allow her to rise up and give her her boundaries and be able to submit to that. Because what I was learning in this all was surrender to the Lord. And I needed to surrender. That was the key word over and over again. And as the one who was very demonstrative, very powerful, very angry in the relationship, if I didn't learn to be submissive properly first to Christ, as Ephesians tells us, love your wife. As Christ loved the church. Well, that was so critical to me to realize, how am I treating her? Am I loving her? Am I really understanding who she is and what she needs for love? What does love mean to her? This was the journey that we went on, and we had many conversations like that to just understand one another. But the communication didn't go well. And there were many times that I would still fall back or I'd get triggered and I didn't realize it. And I would snap and react in the moment and then catch myself later and try to start over. It really became a walk of humility for me and submission to understanding her more than anything else. And quite honestly, until this past year, when we learned some of the tools that exomediation provides, it really didn't resonate with us as much as that helped us realize, am I trying to think my way through this, or am I falling back to the old reactions and I'm sinking in the marriage again? And so that really changed our way of pursuing one another again. According to the four laws and what God has set in place, we're focusing back on that and changing our communication to really defer to one another. What are you believing about me? What am I believing about you? And then changing that because it gives us a new way of communicating to one another.

Yeah.

Yeah. That third separation of ours was actually a result of that coming back together after that year long separation, thinking, oh, I'm healthy and things are great, and he's healthy and things are great. And we realized we didn't have the new tools to learn how to communicate that to each other. We just kept trying to communicate the same old way, thinking we were going to get a different result because we were better individually. And so that interaction, we were still doing the same dance is what I say. And so we had to step back again and say, okay, we need to slow this down and just get some additional help. And so we did. We were very intentional. We got some great counseling. It wasn't easy because we thought, oh, I've, you know, I've had all the counseling. I'm good. And then we realized that the marriage itself is almost like a third person. You know, it's its own entity. And so we had to get some tools to learn how to dance differently in that. In that situation, as we came back together as different people, we had to learn to know each other again. And so communication, I mean, that's always a big thing with people. But we were. We were. We learned a lot through counseling. We continued just to practice those kind of new communication tools. But it really was in the exomediation training that we just had this huge aha. And this powerful tool that any conflict, no matter how big or small, can be resolved with some simple tools. And so we've been practicing those and using them and teaching them, and it really does make all the difference when you realize that you can have conflict in your marriage and walk away with both of you feeling like you won. That's pretty awesome.

And that's the way it should be. Because in marriage, you're on the same team. You're either going to win together or lose together. And you guys have found a way to win together. And as I hang out with you and I hear your story, it's just. I just want to just applaud for what each of you have done individually in your Own healing shame you for breaking a cycle, a generational cycle of abuse, which is so, so difficult to do. And. And when we have to unlearn things that we've been learning from childhood, even if those things are broken, it can be so difficult. And you having the courage to do that, and Sheila, you having the courage to extend grace in such a healthy and biblical selfless way while still having that understanding of boundaries and standing firm in all that and standing firm in your trust in God, even when things from the outside seemed hopeless. And. And Christ, of course, is the hero of all stories, him walking alongside you and providing the healing that only he can provide. And to now look at where you are today, that from now a place of healing, our message always becomes, our testimonies, become a way to help others. And so often, I think for us as individuals, couples, we get to a place of healing and we're like, oh, thankfully, we came through that, and we think it was just for us. But Shane and Sheila have wisely realized what all of us should, that everything that God carries us through, it is for us, but it's also for others that we can help as a result of the healing we've experienced. And so Shane and Sheila have done the work to not only get healthy themselves, but to equip themselves to be able to help other couples. And so they are now part of our exo mediation team, where they're providing, you know, they're providing help and coaching. They are trained and gifted and called to this. And if you've been listening and you're like, oh, my gosh, I just wish I had a way that I could talk to this couple myself and tell them what we're going through, guess what? You can. And I am thrilled to now be serving alongside them as them being part of the exo family. But Chan and Sheila, tell folks a little bit about exo mediation and specifically how they can connect with you, because I know there are going to be people who want to reach out to you specifically.

We appreciate the opportunity, but in all of this, it truly is a matter of submission, surrender to God. I mean, it's his story. And from the very beginning when we met and the first night that we had a chance to go out and have a date and we talked. It started out as coffee, which turned into dinner and dessert and two hours into the midnight hours and things like that, we knew from the beginning God had a plan for our marriage, and that's really what we held onto through the whole thing. The last 30 years has always been something within us drew us together because we knew God had a plan for our marriage. We had no idea. And I'm thankful he didn't tell us what that plan was because we would not have gone through it the way that we did, quite honestly. But as we went through it, we always said, individually and together, lord, don't let this be just for us. Prepare us for how we can help others. And it chokes me up every time to think about it because that's. That's the power of what we're here to do is to one, be a witness, but two, to help others along the way. Because I had a hard time finding that I was written off as the abuser. I was the one they were trying to shun. I was the narcissist that could never get healed. All of those things, God changed. And he can do that for anyone. And he's no respecter of persons. He loves us all. And from that perspective, we want to be able to give back to others. So, yes, we have completed the exomarriage mediation training. We are certified marriage mediators. We have established our own coaching practice called Journey to Unity with the number two. And in that, we've also established an email for now as inforneytoynity.com perfect.

So people can email that journey2unity infourneytoyunity.com and it will come to the two of you and you can start a conversation with them that might lead to them coming on as clients that you can provide some personalized coaching too.

The vision God gave me about a year later, I was explaining that to a friend, and when she got up to go to the restroom, I was telling her, I had told her about the sun shining through the branches and everything. And some will come for the shade of the tree, some will come for the beauty of the roses. And then God gave me the final piece and he said, all will see my light. And so that is really our heart. The story is not about the oak tree or the rose bush. The story is about God's light and his redemption. And so that's where we're at. And exo and their mediation has really provided such a beautiful way for us to be able to minister to these couples. We get to spend two days, one on one, with a couple, just helping them kind of unpack how they got to where they were and giving us a very powerful and practical tools to how they can walk it out in their marriage as well. Because remember, we didn't do this alone. We had coaches and counselors and friends along the way. And so that's what we do as a coach. We come alongside, we say, okay, here's where you are now and where do you want to go? And here's how we're going to get there. And it's all guided by the Lord and the tools through EXO and all of the amazing tools that Pastor Jimmy has kept, accumulated and written and provided over the last 40 plus years. It's a powerful combination.

It really is. And we're honored to be part of this family as well. I mean, it's been a blessing to us what we've learned from Pastor Jimmy and from you guys and from the stories of others who have shared their testimonies and are now part of the team in various capacities. And so I just want to thank you both for your courage and your transparency and for being just a living example that we and others can look to and say, when you put it in God's hands and you do it his way, there is hope and there can be healing, no matter how broken things may seem. And I'm just so thankful, so thankful for that and so thankful for both of you and thankful to those who are watching and listening. Guys, Share this episode if you've got a friend in your life who is struggling or whose marriage maybe feels hopeless, share this conversation with them and say, listen, I think. I think this would really encourage you and then maybe encourage them to, you know, to reach out to Shane and Sheila directly for continued help. But guys, thank you again. We just pray God, we continue to bless your marriage and your ministry and we love you and appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So grateful.

Sam.