Rebuilding Trust

Foreign.

Hey, it is Ron and Hope. It's Ron and Hope and it's unfiltered. Real.

Put that on. What? You put that on.

Put my shirt on.

You just came in here, you changed clothes.

And the lipstick, I just put it on back there. Why?

You didn't have that color on last time I saw you.

You like it?

Yeah, I like. Does look good on you.

You like it a lot?

I like it a lot. I really do.

So it's Ron and Hope unfiltered. We're so glad that you're here.

Glad you did your hair, Ron.

I just poofed it up a little bit.

You sprayed it?

Yeah, with my bug.

Boom. You can't take the 80s out of the girl.

You cannot.

Actually, we got a very serious topic.

Yeah, we do.

We got a very serious topic. So me and Hopes always being silly and playing around, talking about how to rebuild trust.

Yeah, been there.

So don't leave.

Done that.

Don't leave. Hang on. Cuz.

It is a journey, rebuilding trust. It is such an uphill journey.

Yep. I think the word, the word right there, the root word will be build. It is a process and you got process that you've got to be fully committed to on both sides. Because like the old adage, it's not a scripture, it's just an old saying. It can take a lifetime to build trust. It can take a moment to lose it. And seems like that's kind of not fair. You can do a whole lot of things right and get one thing wrong and all of it's broken and. But the fact is there's a lot of people that never recover a relationship, not because of lack of forgiveness, but because they just don't want to put.

Their self in that position to be hurt.

They cannot re establish trust.

And it's not just necessarily about the trust. It's. They're so wounded. They don't want to feel that again.

Yeah. Don't want to feel that. They say I've got to guard my heart. I can't make myself vulnerable again because what I'm feeling right now, I don't ever, ever want to feel that. And so it's a protective mechanism. So I'm not getting on you as though you're doing something wrong. Everybody has it. It's human nature. It's human nature. If you made yourself vulnerable to someone and really gave your heart away and that was violated, the natural thing is, oh, that hurt. And I don't like that way that.

Feels or not even give your heart away, you know you can be violated in a marriage by somebody spending all the money gambling, you know, and you.

Don'T trust them with money. It can be a meal.

You don't trust them with money.

It can be, you know, something that happened with parents. It can be something that happened with friends. But the fact that somebody talks so.

Much and you shared a secret, they told it.

You can't really be wounded in your heart. I mean, a crime can take place. I'm not talking about that. But somebody really can't wound you if you don't love them.

Yeah.

If I don't love you, it's going to be very difficult for you to hurt me. But now, if I love you, I've just given you permission to hurt me because you're on the inside now, and I've become vulnerable to that. And you need to use that place in me wisely. When we don't use it wisely, we get wounds. And I'm just going to tell you, there's a lot of people that never recover. There's a lot of people that get remarried but never retrust. They never retrust. They make the next one pay for the sins that the last one did because they never learned how to unpack that pain and get healed and become whole in their heart again. So, you know, there's never enough time to do everything we want. But I want to take some of our time and just talk about the journey that it is. Number one, hope I'll do the principles again. You give the commentaries every year at our marriage conference. I'm going to give a little bit away because I want you to come to our marriage conference, which is in Monterey this year. We're going to try to go back and forth coast to coast.

We have one in Greenville, South Carolina.

And one we're doing it in both next year. Okay. We're doing both. Okay, sorry. I'm sorry I messed up. So we got them on both coasts this coming year. Go ahead and get registered because we got plenty of room. We'd love you to be there. Having said that, I'll give a little bit away. I usually don't let that toothpaste out of the tube. Yeah. Because we keep that thing canned pretty tight. But I bring out a thing, I bring out a chair, and I call it the trust chair. And let's say that I'm going to. Let's say for this podcast, these gentlemen bring out this chair, they set up this set, and. And I come on here and they say, three, two, one. And we start the podcast And I put my weight on this chair, and it buckles underneath me, and I go back, fall on my back, slip a disc, go to chiropractic. I mean, listen, okay? And then I come in here a month later to do another set of podcasts, and he says, pastor, I fixed this chair, and slides the same chair back under me. Okay? I've forgiven that chair. I don't hold no animosity toward that chair. I don't get up every day thinking about how I'd like to destroy that chair.

But you don't want to sit in it.

But asking me to sit in it again is not asking me to forgive.

It without testing it.

You're asking me to trust it.

Yeah.

You're asking something totally different from me. So if I'm even willing to at all, I'm going to. Am I going to step out of the camera shot?

You're going to test it.

So I'm going to. I'm going to see if it'll, you know.

You going to do all that?

What? I'm not going to lay all my weight right back on it because the last time I leaned on you, you let me down.

Right.

So this chair is going to have to rebuild my trust. Trust always is a result of repeated reality. Whatever you do repeatedly is what you have taught me to trust.

Right.

If you repeatedly lie, you have taught me to trust that you will lie to me.

Right.

Okay. If you repeatedly spend. You have got me scared of every time you walk out and come in with a receipt or a bag because of that repeated reality. If you have been unfaithful over and over, then what have you trained me? You've trained me to feel unsafe. Trust is about repeated reality. If there is distrust, you got to understand that is a tormenting way to live. It's tormenting, it's fearful. If you can't trust. And so you say, some of you may be there, you're like, you know what? He forgave me, but I can tell he don't trust me. Or I can tell she don't trust me. Or after this last episode, it'll never be the same. You may be living right in that forgiveness is a decision that you make. It is a decision you make in a moment of grace where you choose to let somebody and let something go.

And forgiveness is not even really an option biblically. No, it's not. It says, forgive me as I have forgiven you.

It says, forgive if you want your sins to be forgiven.

If you want your own sins forgiven.

You have to forgive so basically, if you want the freedom that comes with knowing his forgiveness, you have to set other people free. If you don't set other people free, you'll never know the freedom that comes with what God gives you. That's what he's saying right there. So I'm sitting here, I've made that decision, and trust can't happen until the gateway of forgiveness has opened up for you.

Right.

So godly sorrow work is repentance. You repent. Forgiveness has been granted. Okay. Then nine months later, after there's been an infidelity, and she's sitting in front of a counselor and she's crying because he still leaves at 10 o' clock every night and comes back at 1 and she don't know where he's going. And he says, I don't know why she's acting like that. I said I was sorry.

Right.

Well, she forgave you, but she don't trust you and you're not doing anything to rebuild it. Always understand that a person in a relationship has a right to over scrutinize in the area you wounded them.

That's right.

They have a right to. So, sir, if you ran up a gambling debt and full credit cards that she didn't even know you had and she found out that retirement's now going to be put on hold 10 more years because you did that, then expect every time you walk in with a bag or the balance statement comes in, she is going to go through that thing with a fine tooth comb. Why? The area you violated. If you really want to rebuild the trust, you will be open to scrutiny. Okay. You'll call them when you leave at 10 o' clock at night. You'll tell them where you are.

That's part of the restitution. That's part of restitution.

I'm getting there. But people always overreact in an area they've been hurt.

Yeah.

Okay. What did Denise say? Two podcasts to go. Whenever there's a change in tone. I'd never heard her say that.

There's a stone.

Whenever there's a change in tone, there's a stone. I love that. That is just.

Wherever there's a stone, the tone. There is a stone.

Yes. So people usually overreact in an area where they've been. That's how Ron Carpenter said it. Denise said it better than I did. So what do we do? All right, Pastor, you set it up. But what do we really do? We've got some sponsors, baby doll.

Yes, we do. And I'm so excited about our sponsors that are in relationship with us. And I'm super duper excited about this one because I don't like to cook.

You're a really good cook.

I am. I know I'm a good cook. Everybody loves.

You are you can cook when I cook.

But I don't like it. And you know why I don't like it? Because I love a clean house and cooking just inevitably messes up your house. But I'm so excited about green shoes because, you know, dinnertime in most people's home is stressful.

It's chaotic at best.

Especially when you have littles and you're going to baseball and you're going to football and you're going to dance practice and you got homework and everybody's busy. It's just so stressful. But green chef has really, really knocked it out of the ballpark. It's healthy. It's not junk food. It makes it easy. You have choices. If you are on the keto D, if you're on the paleo, if you're vegan, gluten free. All of these things.

I haven't thought about it all.

Yes, it's easy. Easy meal plans. It's convenient, it's easy. Listen, it's pre made, it's premeasured. It has the recipe for you and it has tons of variety. And guess what else? It's organic.

Organic.

Can you believe this?

They have the whole package. They put the whole package in there.

We love it so much. And we usually eat ours every Tuesday and Wednesday. It's our busiest day so that it's already in the refrigerator. I come out and it takes about 20 minutes.

And I look at her and I'm like, we don't have to go out and eat tonight.

That's what he says. So go to greenchef.com ronanhope130 don't forget that. Use your code. Ronandhope. 130 to get 130. Can you believe it? $130 off and free shipping. Again, the number one. Say number one. Come on, somebody say number one. The number one meal kit for eating.

Well, check it out. You'll love it.

Check it out.

Let's get back. First stage of rebuilding trust is forgiving. Let me throw this in there. Hope so. Here again, some marriage comfort stuff. We're cheating a little bit by letting this stuff leak out. Forgiving from every angle. Forgiving from every. Okay. He ran up the credit cards and he has a gambling debt and they are trying to upgrade their house because they have more kids. And then she finds out because of the debt they don't qualify and then finds out their credit score has been ruined.

That would be a lot.

Okay, look. So what's going to happen to her? She forgave him a month ago and then this happens. The exact same feeling that she felt a month ago when she found out. She is going to experience that same feeling again and more. Which means she's going to have to do what again? Let it go again. You're going to forgive. When Jesus accepted you into the beloved, as the Bible says, and he saved you, he got into the business of saving you over and over and over and over and over and over again. So you got to understand, God has to forgive you over and over and forgive me over and over again. We have to forgive each other from every angle because the initial violation usually has collateral damage.

Yeah, it does.

And when you get to the collateral damage, a lot of times they can bring about the same feelings. And then you're going to have to revisit that feeling and process it all the way over again. Care to comment on that?

I just know that, you know, once you've been violated, it creates a wound. And then when you're violated again and again, it does. It does make it worse.

Yeah.

It's not like I said I'm sorry. You get hurt again. Okay, I'm sorry. Then the same amount of hurt. No, it goes deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And you have to see people make the necessary changes and effort. You don't just say, I'm sorry. I'm going to let you just prove it. I'm going to prove it to you. You can trust me. But there's no change.

It's like a bomb blast. You got the bomb blast, you got the initial. But what takes two years cleaning up all the damage, cleaning up, going piece by piece, all the rubble, all the things.

And then if it happens a month later, there's double the damage. It's just like that's what happens in our soul. Then if it happens a month later, there's triple the damage. It's a lot.

Forgiveness is the doorway to rebuilding trust. And forgiveness has to be done from every angle. Let's move on for the sake of time to number two. This is, I think, the toughest part. This has to be done on the part of the one trying to do the rebuilding. Restitution. Hope you in our very difficult time of piecing our life back together. You aced this part. You went over and above to send me a message that you loved Ron Carpenter and you had every intention on our marriage making it. And I've always credited you publicly for that. I just want to give you first dibs to speak to it. I got some stuff here biblically I want to talk about, but I just wanted you to give first dibs to speak about that to somebody who may like, I'm not doing all that.

Yeah. And most people aren't willing to. And that's why if it's in a marriage, their marriage doesn't make it. Because the person who is guilty, you know, they do have the attitude of, I'm sorry. Told you I was sorry.

You gotta get over it.

And, you know, it's up to you. That's your wound. You gotta get over it. But I truly believe. No, and I believe that it's biblical. You know, you may talk about this Zacchaeus, you know, he said, I'm gonna repay four times what I've taken. I'm gonna go above and beyond to make sure that I don't just make you trust me, but I show you how sorry I am. And I think that that's so key. I remember we were talking a while back about somebody who had had an infidelity and they were sorry publicly. And I look, because I've been there, you know, I can smell it. I can see it. It's just. I just know. And I looked at my husband, I said, there's no repentance there. Because when you're really sorry. I was in tears. I was squalling. I squalled publicly. I could barely even look at people. I was just. Over and over. There was no excuses. There was no. This happened to me when I was little and X, Y and Z. And some of that didn't. It does, you know, if you've been through any healing, you know that at.

The moment, the person who's wounded don't give a fool.

They don't want to hear that.

That's what you deal with.

Counseling.

They want you to own it.

But you own it. You say, I am sorry and you truly mean it, and your heart is broken that you have hurt them so deeply. And I'm willing to go above and beyond. I remember, you know, I didn't have a phone. I didn't have a car for years. I didn't have a cell phone for two years.

I didn't take it from you.

I willingly gave it up and I was fine with it. I remember you said, hope for me. These are the things that I expect and that I'm not Going to tolerate or I won't allow, you know, if you're going to come back home and we're going to work on this. And it was a lot. And I was like, absolutely 100%. I will do whatever you ask me, no questions asked. Because I loved you so much. I loved my family. I was so broken and I'd come through so much healing and I would, I was willing to do whatever it took.

And that's key because rebuilding somebody's trust is not easy. It's not easy. It takes a lot of effort. And she said, restitution. After forgiveness, restitution begins. The Bible says if the thief be found, he can't just return what he took, he must return sevenfold.

Sevenfold.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. They were all known to be basically thieves. And Zacchaeus just being in the presence of Jesus, Jesus never even addressed his thievery. But just being in the presence of Jesus, he was so convicted, he said, I'm going to go back and restore fourfold every time. What did God do for job? I gave him, he gave him back double for his trouble, everything that he lost. So you're saying in restitution, I'll give you double the information. Yeah, I'll give you double the access. Yeah, I'll give you double the access. I'll give you more information than you asked me for. I'm willing to go above and I'm willing to go beyond. Because restitution, I believe it is the key stage in rebuilding trust.

Me too.

Because it exposes the heart of the person that is willing to go to whatever length necessary.

And if the person is willing to.

Do restitution, it's a red flag.

It is a huge red flag. They're really not repentant.

Yep, that's a red flag. Third. And you know what? Before I jump into third, we got a sponsor again.

We do, we do.

We do.

So parents, listen, this is for you. It's time to finally cross off one of the most important to do list in your life. And it's called life insurance. You have to do it.

You gotta do it.

Listen, listen to me, young couples, you have to do this. No one is promised tomorrow. We only have the day that we are in and you have to make the necessary provisions for your family. We have paid for so many funerals for people who just were not prepared. And that is not fair to churches, to family members. Seen so many families suffer because they didn't make the necessary choices. And fabric makes getting a great term life insurance Policy that's key for your family. Quick, easy, and surprisingly affordable. It's built by parents for parents. It has an online hub where you can go and you can create a will. Yes, you can set your kid's college fund up. And it's a 1cm. So protect your family with term life insurance. Now, it only takes about 10 minutes to apply. You apply@meetfabric.com Ronhope meetfabric.com Ronhope that's M E E T fabric.com Ronhope you gotta do it. Take care of the necessary things.

Do what you got to do. Because you don't want your last memory to be the fact that you saddled all of your loved ones with trouble. You don't want that to be the parting memory. And I wish that had been a fabric way back when because the fact is we paid an astronomical amount of money, we did buy all these different entities to do that. And this is a one stop shop.

That's right.

And so we're so grateful for our sponsors. And you need to take a look at fabric. Let me get back to this number two. I mean number three. Number one, forgiveness. Number two, restitution, which I think is the hardest one. Then number three is restoration. Restoration is a weird word in the Bible because a lot of people think it means it's interchangeable with healing. Jesus told some people, go, your faith has healed you. But then he told other people, you've been restored. The word restored means to build a new structure, right? The man with the withered hand, Jesus said, stretch out your hand. And the Bible says his hand was restored as new. In other words, he must at some time in his life had lost the finger members of his hand. And so what happened? He regrewed structure where he had lost one. There is no way to go back to your old structure and have a new life.

Ooh, say it again, Ron Carpenter.

There is no way to go back to your old structure but have a new life. Even Jesus came on the scene in Mark 2, first thing out of his mouth. You cannot put new wine in old skins. Your marriage, your relationship cannot have a new, new experience with an old structure, with an old habit. And so the restoration is not when you are healed. Restoration is when God helps you put in place a new structure, a new structure that helps you replace the old one. Because if he takes a healed you and puts it in an old structure, then the same thing that you that the same structure that caused you to get robbed last time is going to cause you to get robbed so our.

Marriage is totally different.

Oh. It's not even in the same ballpark as it was in the 90s and early 2000s.

We've gone through rebuilding, trust and restoration. Our marriage is 100 completely different. Completely.

And to say old structures and old habits. You have to examine what were the old structures when all this happened.

Yeah, yeah.

What were the friends structures? What were the relationship structures? Who were you hanging around? Who were you running with? Whose voices did you listen to? What atmospheres did you go to? What activities did you engage in?

Where did you compromise?

Yeah. Where did you compromise? Where did you turn? Just a little bit to the left or to the right. So in order to put a new structure, you've got to go find out this is what was broken in the old one and then allow God to travel different. Something totally and completely brand new. Which leads me to the fourth one, which is the creation of new boundaries. The creation of new boundaries. You read the book by Dr. McLeod, hadn't you?

Boundaries, Dr.

Cloud. It's been a few years, Dr. Cloud. Henry Cloud. It's been a few years, but I remember when we were going through, I tore into that book, almost like a Bible. Talk a little bit about the importance of the new boundary.

Yeah.

And making sure it don't happen again. The new boundary is put in place for one reason. So this won't be repeated, right?

Absolutely. I remember when I was going through healing, and Pastor Denise would say, there's a hole right here in the road. And just imagine yourself walking down the road, and. And you fall in this hole, and then you're hurt. Whatever happens, what caused, you know, you fell in that hole. You get up, you go back, and you start walking again. You fall in the hole. Well, you got to start recognizing how many steps it took before that hole is there. You got to recognize the landscape. Oh, that hole's coming up. I can't. I gotta go a different path. I gotta go around this thing or I'm gonna keep falling in this hole.

And the pain from the broken ankle should make you avoid the hole.

Right. So you have to look around the landscape of your life and say, why do I keep getting in debt? Why do I keep going out on the weekend and making the same mistakes? You know, who's. It's the people, the places, and the things. It's really that aa whole mentality. And it's true. It's people, places and things.

And I, for me, God always asks, who? Who has bewitched you? Who has who? Who shall separate you from the Love. It's never. It's never a what. It's always a who. And because every joint supplies, every relationship you have is supplying you with something. And if the supply is unhealthy, what do you have to do? Cut it at the joint. Cut it at the joint and you stop supply. You can't have new habits most of the time with old relationships and old friends.

No. So I did. I had to look around my life and say, okay, this right here causes this in my life. These people bring out the worst in me. These people bring out the best in me. And so I had to just really change everything in my life, and I had to do it. We're talking about rebuilding trust, so I had to do that also to prove to you I'm not going to bring this pain on you anymore because these people are associated with the pain. I'm not going to go to this place anymore because that place is associated with the pain. There had to be distance in between the violation and the pain or whatever it is. Mine's different than yours, yours is different than mine. And I was willing to cut that off. Well, now, I mean, it's been 10 years, almost 10 years. Me and you can go to certain places now, and it doesn't bother us because there's no triggers. Because I went above and beyond. I made the necessary changes and I put the necessary boundaries in my life so that there was been enough space. What did you say when we first started? Repeated reality.

Repeated reality.

Now the repeated reality's different because I have so much track record of. Yes. Good, good, Good job. You passed, you passed, you passed.

Boundaries are hard because. Especially relational, because most boundaries are visible. Like when one company's land ends and there's a street, then another company's land, you can easily tell the dividing line. Two houses have a fence running through them or a ditch running through them. You can tell the dividing line. I always use this analogy. I've never woke up one morning and somebody else was raking my leaves. I've never woke up. And my neighbor, I was cutting his grass because that's outside of my boundary. That's not my responsibility. And my yard is not his responsibility. Now, having said that, those boundaries are easy to see. Relational boundaries are usually invisible.

It's hard.

They're invisible. Let me give you some of mine. Okay. These are just Ron Carpenter boundaries to show you what they look like. To give somebody who says, all right, I'm following you, but, yeah, that's great. Put it in context. I'm never by Myself with a woman. If anybody enters my office area for whatever reason, all the doors are open. If they're not open, I will go open them.

Yeah.

I'm just not by myself. If a woman stops me in a church, you will immediately see security come and stand near me. Not because I'm scared she's going to.

Hurt me, because they're scared I'm going.

To hurt her because. But because the fact is somebody can walk away from that conversation and accuse me of anything, and I have no defense. So I want people to be there in that setting. These are some things that I do me and hope. Our phones never face down. Never our phones face up. That's a boundary we have set. I can almost feel it getting tense. Even though we're just talking to people virtually, I can almost feel it getting tense. My best friend will never be someone of the opposite.

So good, Ron.

Never. Well, we're just friends. Yeah, but you light up when he walks in the room. You're not just friends. You're not just friends. My best friend will never be someone who's opposite. My best friend's my wife. But I'm just saying for those. We're just friends because we're the three.

Best friends that anyone could.

So, you know, if the violation has been with money, there's got to be new boundaries with money.

That's right.

If the violation has been with in laws, there's got to be boundaries with in laws. How far. How far into your home can your in laws invade? I had to do that with ministry. I was raised in a house where ministry had no boundary. It could run up on dinner, it could run up on lunch, it could run up on sleep. They could call my daddy on vacation. He'd leave and come. It had no boundaries, and I had to set boundaries in ministry or I was going to destroy my family. Ministry can come right here and it stops because Ezekiel 47 talks about a river and a swamp. What is a swamp? A swamp is water without boundaries.

No boundaries.

And the Bible says nothing can live in the swamp. But the Bible says that on the banks of the river that flowed out of the throne of God, the trees grew that were the healing. The leaves on it were the healing for nations. So when you have boundaries, that's where the fruit of life comes. The fruit doesn't come in the water. The fruit comes on the banks. It comes on the boundaries. If you want your life to bear fruit, you're going to have to build the proper boundaries to let the water flow and let the Fruit be produced.

Ron, I'm about to give you an offering.

I'm preaching a good message right here.

I'm going to give you an offering right now.

These things, these are very real and very tough issues. And like I said, they're not visible. They're not like that. That's their yard. This is my yard. When it's relational and you know how I am. I think maybe one thing you've taught me is to be more adventurous. And you've taught me to learn how to settle down. You've taught me to learn how to be calm, go to bed earlier. You've trusted me and my anxiety. Yeah, you're cracking jokes, but I'm trying to have a moment here. You've taught me how to be adventurous. You've taught me how to, how to get away. You've taught me those things. I think one of the things I probably taught you is how to draw more defined lines.

More discipline.

More discipline and more defined lines in your life. Having said that, you say, pastor, I'm listening to what you say. And that sounds like the most boring. Let me tell you. Never has it been so good. Right. Since these boundaries have been so defined. Never has it been so good. We got a little bit more to say, but we have someone else.

Our last sponsor for the day and I'm so excited about this one.

Love these guys.

Love these guys. Yeah, we love noom. I'm sure you've probably seen it on the Internet, but it. Have you ever struggled with weight loss? And all.

The first time ever, my genetics really worked for me. But Something happened at 50, especially the.

Older you get and women with our.

Hormones or the lack of men have testosterone.

You know, it's just so frustrating. And what worked 10 years ago doesn't work now. But we have found such a great method and it's called NOOM Listen. Unlike other restrictive diets. And listen, we don't want. Nobody restricted our diet. Right. And programs NOOM Wait. Uses psychology. Psychology to empower you with practical knowledge to build smarter long term habits and behaviors so that you can sustain your health journey and you get an off day.

Look, let me stop right here in the middle of this. We had a friend who was morbidly obese and went and had the surgery and lost a lot, a lot, a lot of weight. And about a year and a half later was back to the same size. And he was talking to me about it with remorse.

Yeah.

And I said, well, what do you think did it? He said, I didn't change my thinking.

That's something he said. Really?

And I didn't change my thinking.

What this whole company is founded, it's founded on psychology. And I love the fact that they give you an off day because, you know, sometimes you just want some french fries. Sometimes you just want a donut. A piece of pizza. Yeah, or a piece of pizza. So. And the app, it will guide you. It has an app and it will guide you. You have a personal coach, which is huge. I mean, you know, you think you can't get a personal coach unless you go to the gym, but they give you a personal coach. It really helps you live healthier and has already helped millions to lose tons of weight and live healthier. So start building better habits for healthier long term results. Say long term results.

Long term results.

Yes. Long term results. Sign up listen for your trial@noom.com ronandhope let's do it again. That's N-O-O-M.com ronanhope so we talked about.

Forgiveness being the doorway to begin rebuilding trust. We've talked about the fact that restitution, which I think is the hardest part. And we've talked about allowing yourself to be over scrutinized in the area where you hurt somebody. And we've talked about restoration, the building of new structures in your life. And then we've talked about the placement of boundaries because you don't want it to repeat itself and you don't want it to happen again. I've said all that. I don't know that we've ever done it, but I want to pray for people. Yeah, I don't know that we've done it on a podcast because it's kind of been. We've tried not to make it church. We tried to let it be biblical information, but we've tried not to make it a church service. But when we both said we understand we've got a lot to overcome but we're going to take a run at it. I remember this coming out of my mouth, going to take a shot at the road less traveled.

It is the road less traveled. Because you know what, the truth is, most people don't want to do the hard work. They just want it to happen and just trust me and let's just get.

On with the program. We're so bad, let's just get it. I don't want to do that.

I don't want to look at them anymore.

I want to move on till next. And we always think the greener, there's grass greener somewhere else. And there are a lot of people that had great second marriages. Don't get me wrong, but sometimes you think the grass is greener and you go there and ain't no grass at all. And just because it's a different person don't mean it's a better person. And so most of the people, I think it was 91%. I got my statistics in my marriage conference notes. 91% of people that had multiple failed marriages, multiple, said if they had it to do over, they would go back. They would go back and do everything in their power to make their first one work.

Yes. Isn't that crazy thing they said if I could do it over?

And this is after people who've been married to several different people.

They said I would go back to my very first marriage and do everything.

I can to make it work. And that's not. I didn't get that out of the Bible. That's a national statistic.

And two, if you've not read my book, which is about our whole journey, and it is a whole, I mean, just a map, a roadmap of how to ask for forgiveness, to be forgiven, to rebuild trust and to rebuild your life. It's called the Most Beautiful Disaster. You can get it anywhere books are sold. Go to hopecarpenter.com, amazon, Everywhere Books are sold. It's even on audible. So I would love it. I mean, it has helped so many people rebuild their lives.

It has. So, Father, right now we just ask that you would touch some. Yes, God, some people who are saying I'm looking at a daunting task. I'm looking at a mountain that does not seem like it can be scaled. I'm looking at a hill I don't like I can climb. I've broken trust so badly. It don't like it can ever be rebuilt. But yes, it can. In Jesus name.

In Jesus name.

And I just ask that you give people the grace and the perseverance and give people the heart to try again. Give some people who may be on the verge of calling it quits, give them some time to reflect and think, what could it be? I don't want to give the best portion of my spouse away to somebody else. I want to enjoy every good thing that you've given them, every good thing that you've put in them. So I'm asking God that a grace go out from this podcast today to touch people in a very real way who have had very strong, very important relationships violated by distrust. And I pray God that the grace would be there to start the rebuilding process.

And I pray right now for the person who's listening right now, who knows that they are the guilty party. Lord, I just pray that they would lay their pride down, that they would lay their pride down at the altar. And God, you would give them grace to do the hard work, to be over scrutinized, to be willing to let whoever it is check their phone or check their bank records, or to do whatever it takes to perform restitution so that they can be a trustworthy person again. God, I know you've done it in my life, and you've done it in so many people's lives. So we just speak life to every person listening to us. And may their next days be their best days. In Jesus name, amen. We love you.

We love you guys. Until next time, Be blessed.