Ron + Hope: Unfiltered - Don't Despise the Day of Small Beginnings

Hey, guys. Welcome to Ron and Hope. Did I say that right? Is it Filter with Unfiltered With Ron.

And Hope, It's Ron and Hope Unfiltered.

Ron and Hope Unfiltered. Okay, do your little line. Do your line. That thing you said you was going to say, Ronald.

Real, raw, relevant.

Welcome to Unfiltered with Ron and Hope.

He did it wrong again. No.

Ron and Hope Unfiltered.

Yes.

Welcome to Ron and Hope Unfiltered. Real, raw and relevant. Did I get it right?

It's so hard dealing with him anyway. Yes, it is.

First ever episode.

This is our first.

First ever episode.

We'll do better next time.

Yeah. Done podcasts before of, like, my teaching and things, but never done anything with me and Hope together really, outside of marriage conferences. So we figured since we now are in our late 30s, early 40s, that we needed to take some. Yeah, it went right over the head. Yeah. Take some time and maybe just allow some people to see what life is like, what our personal life is like. Don't know how many people are interested, but we're going to talk a lot about interesting things, so tell them some things they look forward to.

We're going to talk about everything that touches your life. You know, marriage, ministry, finance, children, money, investments.

Yeah, money, investments, knowledge, forgiveness, love, failure.

Success, spanking, not spanking. All those good things.

All of them. And excuse me, I'm just getting over a little head cold, so I may have to put a little cough drop in my mouth here and there. I think we have. Let's take a minute and let's talk. Let's tell them about us. I don't know how many people want to hear our story, but I can't assume that people that for whatever reason may be watching this have been following along our ministry. 5, 10, 20 years. 30 years. Can you believe it?

30 years.

There may be. Some people said, I don't even know who these guys are. And I just figured we would take the first podcast and let everybody inside a little bit know how this Run and Hope redemption thing came to be. Because it's an amazing people that God has brought together now that spans the globe.

Right.

But it started with two teenage dreamers, and I just. Yeah, I just wanted to. I wanted you to have about an hour to tell everybody how you chased me.

Oh, a whole hour.

Okay.

About how I chased you. Got it.

Go ahead.

All right. We met in college at Emanuel College in Franklin Springs, Georgia. I mean, literally 18 years old, fell in love, and you chased me for several Years. And, you know, asked me to marry you.

Okay. I'm gonna tell any truth, I'm have to do this.

Then we got married. We moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, to help another pastor.

Let's back all the way back up. Let's back all the way back up. I was a freshman.

Here we go.

In college. She was a senior in high school. And she visited, okay? She visited. They had this concert whenever the seniors from high school who are checking out their college, they had this concert and this big weekend. Ball games, everything else. I had a ball game that weekend. I played basketball. And then they had this big concert. And how many of you remember the 80s? How many of you old enough to remember the 80s? 80s was big hair. Big hair days. Big hair days. And Hope was the poster child.

Yes.

For big hair. I looked down in the concert. I was sitting in the stands. I looked on the floor. They had seats all over the floor. And I saw this gigantic head of bleach blonde hair with a perm. Gigantic head of hair. I mean, like a lion. I mean, just big head of hair, light blue sweater, dress, little bit of beige mixed in.

Score points. Remember all the points.

White hose and white pumps. Wow.

Pumps.

I remember that. I remember everything quite well. And I remember I told my roommate who was sitting beside me, I said, I'm gonna walk around this campus tonight till I find out who that is. And walked around that campus that night, went from dorm to dorm until finally I came to one called Jackson Hall. And when I came to the one in Jackson Hall, I walked in, and this is real raw and relevant, right? So I walked in and I saw this blue dress bending over the back of a couch. And for some of you who think that, you know, I just glow in the dark all the time, let me tell you my first thought. I looked at my roommate and said, if she looks half that good when she turns around, I said, I'm gonna marry her.

Ron Carpenter, you just told it all. I mean, we're just starting out.

I said, she looked half that good. So she turned around and she did, actually. You didn't feel good that night.

I was sick.

You didn't feel good that night. And I went. Got down on my knees and introduced myself.

Do you want me to tell them the rest? Which, you know, Go ahead.

Go ahead.

That you didn't bring me back the French fries and all that.

Okay, I'm gonna tell you what I thought. Go your stuff.

So he met me. He said, aren't you Hope Hilly? And I said, yes.

I'd already Found out her name.

Yeah. I said, aren't you Ron Carpenter? I'd already found out his name. And he said, you find out my name? Because I thought you were cute.

When did you see me at the concert? You was looking up.

Yeah, yeah. Sherry, my roommate, remember? And so he said, are you coming to Emmanuel next year? And I said, I am now. So, yeah, I sure did, didn't I? And then he said, we talked a little bit. Then he said, I'm gonna go run to McDonald's with my friends. He said, you want anything? And I thought, you know, this is a way to get to talk to him later.

She's already trying to put her hooks in. Go ahead, go ahead.

And so I said, sure. Bring me back some French fries. Well, we were at a Christmas store.

Let me stop. I had been saved.

Oh, Lord. Here's the disclosure. The disclosure.

Closure weeks. I've just been saved. You got to understand, salvation is progressive.

Oh, my God, here we go.

Salvation is spirit. It's soul.

Let me finish.

Body and spiritually. I had been born again. Soulish part had not been touched much. Go ahead.

So we. We're at this Christian school and we have a curfew. It's 11 o'. Clock.

We did.

And I'm sitting there waiting and waiting for him to come back this Sunday, like 10. So I'm like, okay, I got an hour to wait. He never came. He never brought me the French fries.

I let you drive my car.

Never.

So but the next day, the next.

Day I'm like, dude, where's my French fries? And he, you know, blah, blah, blah, all these excuses. But anyway. But I saw him by his side.

The line was long in the drive through, and I couldn't get back.

Okay, excuse me.

I couldn't get back.

The Lord's gonna get you.

I couldn't get back with the fries in town.

So anyway, I saw him standing by his car and he had this little sports car, and I thought it was so cute.

I thought, well, Nissan 280 ZX gold package.

Okay?

So I love that car.

I thought, well, strike one. We didn't get to do the french fry thing. So maybe here he is by his car. I can just drive his car and we can spend some time together. So I said, hey. I said, can I drive car? Oh, he got all. Been out of shape. You were like, I don't.

I didn't let anybody drive my car. I didn't even let my roommate drive my car. My mama had never.

He was backpedaling. He was like, I Loved that car. Well. Well, you probably don't know how to drive a stick.

Shit. That was one of those cars, like when a guy washes it, he stands there for about an hour, just looks at it after he gets dealt. That was my car back then. Go ahead.

So you looked at me and said, oh, well, you probably don't know how to drive a stick shift. And I said, oh, yeah, I do. My car's a stick shift. And he was like, okay. So we get in the car and we start driving. Why don't you want to drive my car? Because I thought that would help me get closer to you. It's a plan. It worked. So we're driving down this little bitty road, this little bitty town, exiting the campus. Exiting the campus. And we're talking and carrying on. And so here comes this car over the hill. And this car is just the girls waving like this. So I'm driving his car. So I wave. I'm like, hey. And I see Ron going like this. So he had told me he wasn't dating anybody.

That was his girlfriend is progressive.

That was his girlfriend.

Salvation Progressive. His spirit, his soul and its body. So I had not gone far in my journey with the Lord. I had been born again. And you just happened to catch me at an early stage of salvation. Yes.

But anyway, it helped to break them up. So here we are. It worked.

So after she driving my car, waved at my girlfriend that I told her that you didn't. That I told her that I didn't have that relationship did not last, I don't think, through the rest of the weekend. So I wanted to go back and go to the prom with her. She went with this other guy, whoever he is, and he did not, or.

He would have called me. He never called me after that.

We had to wait till the next year. So she came back.

We started off rocky.

So she came back. I was gone a summer. She was gone a summer was longer than that. The spring and the summer. And she came back, and I was an RA the next year.

Ron, you're screaming.

And I was helping to move people in. Am I too loud?

Yes, you're screaming. Geez.

My ears a little stopped up because my head cold. And so she came back and I tell some of my friends, I said, I got this girl that I've met. I said, I want to see if she came this. I didn't know where she was coming.

Yeah, because you didn't call.

I want to see if she had enrolled and was going to come to school there. So I went into the dorm, and actually, I found her. I found her pretty cool. And when I found her, she had this shrine. I mean, like, candles burning at the bottom of it and all these pictures she had of this boy she was gonna marry.

And you are not evangelizing right now.

You know, she was dating off someone elaborate like this. I looked at it, and I'm like, okay, well, I guess that ain't gonna happen. And I just greeted her, and I walked on back out and started doing my thing. Well, then the pursuit began.

You just chased me, baby.

You need to tell the truth before lightning hits. This little podcast right here.

I did chase him. I just positioned myself. It wasn't a big campus, but I positioned myself wherever he was, baby. At the gym, in the library, in the cafeteria, anywhere.

She all of a sudden became a workout girl. She all of a sudden became highly interested in basketball. She all of a sudden started liking the classes that I took. Now I'm gonna tell you.

Now look at us, though.

Look, I'll tell you something, bubba.

It worked.

It worked. Let me tell you something, though.

It worked.

I was scared of her. I was scared of her.

Be afraid.

Yep. I was scared because I knew that if I ever started dating her, she'd be the last person I ever dated. Don't tell me how I knew that, because I was not super spiritual, but I just knew if I started dating this girl, that she would be the last one that I ever dated. And I got to be honest with you, baby, even, you know, at that point in my life, when I was 19, yep, that was. That freaked me out a little bit.

Let me ask them. Do y' all believe in love? In first. At love at first sight?

I do. I do. I believe it can happen. But this is where I was going with that. You say, why did you take 10 minutes and tell us all that? Because I actually want to go somewhere, and I wanted Me and you just have a discussion about it, people to get married like that. I've always told people the first law is the law of attraction. And you don't skip that one. I heard you talking about it to some people this weekend. We had some of our staff together and some of the girls that were single. And I was like, you need to be attracted to this person. There is nothing wrong, there's nothing carnal about physical attraction. And I'm going to tell you, the first attraction I had to hope was not that we prayed together. I didn't fall in love with her relationship with God. I mean, I liked What I saw. And so I was extremely attracted to you physically, as a person. But a lot of people, if they feel that right there, sweetheart, that is all they need to begin pulling the next series of events. And I've always said after the law of attraction, you need that one. There's a second law to me that's higher. That's the law of compatibility. And there's a lot of people that are attracted to each other that are not compatible in any way, shape, form or fashion. What's wrong?

Talk about that. Like for instance, say family background. Does that matter?

Oh, gosh. So can we tell our own? Can we tell our own? We say real raw and relevant. Let's tell our own. I came from a family where I didn't have a lot of oversight. That was mainly because of trust. It wasn't because you know so much my mom and dad were clueless. It was the fact they just trusted me. Should they have? Probably not. But they did. My dad was a one man gang as a pastor. My mom worked to help support the family. And so we were pretty much on our own. We had jobs, we were very independent. And so I kind of came and go as I pleased. I don't ever remember having a curfew. I don't ever remember being reined in. I could call at 11 o' clock and say, hey, I'm going to spend the night with so and so.

Boy, ours was amazing.

Okay, so I'm dating this girl. Tell your side.

Yeah, totally different.

I mean, five minutes late.

No. No freedom.

No gross.

No grace. Just, you know, rules, rules, rules. You have to be in at this time. You can't do this unless everything's. I mean, you know, just complete oversight. Not, not bad, but just very defined. Yes.

Boundaries.

Very, very.

And they could not be crossed whatsoever. Or the penalty and the consequences were fairly high. We won't go into all that. We'll save those until later dates. Not in the initial one. Excuse me. But here I come with this blanket of freedom. Here you came with a no freedom. With no freedom whatsoever. And then we get married. There's two things that can happen. Those can either be differences that create a great partnership or they can be points where we clash everywhere. Where you and somebody that you're dating, you're in a serious relationship with married. Every place you're different can be a place where you understand the partnership of the marriage will be a place where you grind each other to power.

And it's usually both. Honestly. I mean, it's like you're Achilles Heel. It's your blessing and your curse.

You got somebody raised by a single parent, and mama worked two or three jobs and was a bartender all night and this and that and other just to pay the bills. And so this person, you know, was extremely independent with no oversight. You got another person came from the Cleaver family. That's back in the 50s, if you don't know what that is. And it's just the perfect family at the house.

Everybody sits around.

Everybody sits around the table. Two cars, garage, you know. And the fact is, these differences and the way people are raised when they come together can be almost nuclear if they're not viewed properly. You got. You got one who came from maybe a very permissive background sexually. You have somebody else that was almost a prude and was raised almost as a pilgrim, you know, and had a skewed view of how healthy sex was supposed to be in the first place. And then they come together and then all of a sudden, boom, man. I mean, you've got a nuclear explosion about to take place, baby. I've always said marriages have to have these two things. They have to have the friendship and they have to have partnership. If you don't have those two things, you probably do not need to be getting married. Friendships are created out of likenesses, things you enjoy to get commonalities, common ground. You and I love to travel.

Yeah. We love the beach.

You and I love new things. We love the beach. We love the water. We love conversation. We like chick flicks. I just lost my man card. I just totally lost my car.

Yeah. But you know what? I love war movies. I really do.

Sit down and watch Rambo with me in a minute.

Love them.

And we have so many commonalities. We both love seafood. We love seafood. We will come into a beach town and just ask all the locals where the best seafood is. Those are things we love. So those are the things that create this amazing friendship. I'd rather be with her than anybody in the whole world. Aw. Then we've got these areas where we are so different. Hope you accused me this past week of being an introvert.

Yeah, you are.

I bet you nobody out there because they don't know you. Look at Ron Carpenter, say, he's an introvert.

You're an extroverted introvert. You're very good this way. And you're good in the pulpit. But one on one, I mean, honestly, he's not the best. He's not the best. Sorry, he's not the best. One on one, he's not Very good. Even counseling. And you know that because I am a fantastic couch. No, he's not. And I mean, like, we have, like, in November, we had a leadership retreat with 36 of our staff members. And Ron would do this. It was so funny to watch. Like, everybody's over in this area and Ron would just peruse in and be there for like 10 minutes. But then he would peruse out and you would see him over on the couch by himself for 30 minutes. Like, he can take it a little bit, but he can't take it a whole bunch. And me, I'm in the middle of the whole.

I was running a worldwide ministry anyway. I had work to do.

Anyway, the differences.

Excuse me. The differences. The difference is I'm a night person.

Oh, and I am not. Absolutely.

No, I didn't make a sleep. She's a sleep person. She's not nights or morning. She's just a sleep person.

I'm like 10 to 10, you know, 10am to 10pm I'm good. But before 10am and after 10pm.

Not.

Too good, not too good.

Differences, differences.

And it makes me so mad if I'm like in the bed at midnight, already asleep, already got into, like a mild coma, you know, slobber coming out of your mouth. And here he comes. Boom, bam, bam, bam, bam in there. Flip it on, lights.

I don't do that. I don't do that.

Differences, differences.

Differences. As in I've told people in the beginning. I think we've kind of hit in the middle now, over 30 years.

Yeah, we've been there for one years.

I was very structured, very, very disciplined. Extremely disciplined. Always have been. A lot of that came out of my athletic background. You had to be. And I met Hope, who was this unbelievable free spirit. When I say free spirit made me feel like a million dollars. I told people, I said it wasn't so much how beautiful she was, it's how she made me feel. She had this ability when I was around her to make everything else mean very little. And I told her about every other person became boring when she became in the room. When she came in the room, I said, I'd never experienced that before, but you've got this very rigid here again, partnerships. Very rigid, very disciplined person with this free spirit. So I'm sitting here and I'm going to theology class, and she's saying, let's go to park.

Not go park.

Go to the park. No, let's go to the park. I won't uncover you on the other park. But anyway, she'd say, let's go to the park. Let's go out deep. Take me to so and so.

I did. I told you.

Let's drive to Atlanta today. Let's drive to Atlanta today. Come on, let's go to the lake.

How many times have you missed this?

You haven't missed any class. So I tell people, I said, now, now it's a little different. But in the beginning, I said, if I hadn't had Hope, there would never been any fun. I said, if Hope wouldn't have me, she probably wouldn't have got anything done. So, you know, here again. But I think we even have.

But now we're.

Yeah, well, we're very much in the middle sometimes.

I think that's of kind. Kind of like becoming one.

Why don't you just talk about that?

Becoming one. I don't think that you maybe spiritually. Spiritually in God's eyes, yes. But I think it is a long way.

Like, salvation is progressive. The rest of it has demerged.

Right. It's a lifelong process. So if you throw in the towel and you give up too early, man, all that work that you've put in, you know, you're going to just miss the benefit of all the work you've put in. Over time to become one, it does get easier. It does get better. The longer you're married, the older you get.

That got serious real quick when you turn a little corner right there. Here, again, what were we talking about? The fact that a true lifelong relationship has to have common ground. Has to have common ground, but at the same time has to have polar opposites. But when we're, you know, you and I did a thing in the pulpit one time. I remember way back when, I did. I do. I did. And we did a thing in the pulpit where we put our backs to each other. And you have 180 vision, and my back was to you. And I had 180 vision. You put us together.

360.

We had 360. I got your back, you got mine. And I think that's where the opposite comes in. Some people are horrible with money. If you marry somebody horrible with money, guess what? Y' all are going to be horrible with money.

Yeah.

See what I'm talking about?

Somebody's got to be good.

Yeah. Somebody's got to be good with money. And that other person who's horrible with.

Money is going to grate your nerve. So it's going to be a point of contention.

Because they always want to hold everything accountable.

Right.

They want to hold everything Accountable. The person who's administrative in that thing, they're going to be. Hold the free spirit accountable. And it's a point of contention. But you need to view it. You know, I heard Bishop Jake say one time, he said. He said, I got one foot bigger than the other. I do, too. You know me, everybody does. My left shoe is always. I have. I can't buy a pair of shoes until it goes on my left foot. I'm the opposite because my left foot's bigger. Actually, significantly, I can get a shoe on my right that feels great. And left foot, I can't hardly get my foot in it. So it's an irregularity. And Bishop said, wherever you have these irregularities, that's where ministry comes in. And he said, why are we so quick to minister to people we don't know? Minister to strangers, minister to people at an altar, minister to phone call, minister to somebody who hits us up. But the ones that have given their life to each other, we fail to minister to them. Why is that? I don't know. So anyway, that's the friendship, that's the partnership side of things.

That's where unconditional love kicks in, right? God's love.

We dated three and a half years. Three and a half years. I don't know if any of you studied Revelation, but three and a half years, you have the tribulation. The other three and a half, the great tribulation. Our three and a half years of dating was the great tribulation period. Why? Because I'm in Bible school. I love Jesus with all my heart. I love Jesus with all my heart. Was. I was serious about the Lord. I love the Lord with all my heart. But then here we are at our peak testosterone and estrogen years. And at this place we were at was so small, we spent all this time together.

Bottom line, we're trying not to have sex before we get married.

So then Hope went in to trying to get me to marry her every day. You even want to secretly do it?

I did. I said, let's just go get married. Nobody will know. And then what did you say? You said, hope, you will end up pregnant.

You end up pregnant and everybody will think we weren't married. I said, that would be our luck doing that. But we did it because we did what? You know, I always told you, what did we do? We made it through that three and a half period, right? And we were able to do our best to stay pure during that period. But I remember during that, one of the things that allowed us to do is Another thing I talk about in relationships is before you make a commitment, you need to be able to see the person that you're with in several different seasons.

That's good.

You can't see somebody in one season and make a commitment because that only reveals one part of their person.

Right. You need to see them sick.

You need to see them sick.

Throwing up.

Yeah. You need to see them, how they respond to that. How are they when they're overwhelmed? How are they when they're stressed? How are they when they have a lot of money? How are they when they have no money? How do they handle their other relationships? How do they manage their friendships?

How do they manage their family?

How do they balance their family, balance their time? How do they manage their family? Is there controlling elements that are going on? And one thing that three and a half years did for me and you, that I'm grateful for, and I'll be honest with you, I don't think I would do it again. One thing I enjoyed is that we.

You don't think you'd do it again?

I don't think I would change it. I'm sorry. I don't think I would change anything about it. Is that it allowed me and you to see each other in about every way. We dated while we were apart for an internship. And then a year we dated while we were right across the campus from each other. We went and washed clothes together. We did all these things. We went on dates.

When I got your clothes, they were all gray. Cause he had been there a year before me. So he's having to wash his own clothes.

Pull that up. I'm trying to be all serious.

He put everything in the same thing. He put his dark clothes, his white clothes. And by the time I got to them, they were all gray.

My mama did that for me. I gotta be honest with you. Now. I had a lot of chores. I knew how to clean house. I knew how to wash dishes. I knew how to cut grass, wash daddy's cars, clean out gutters. I was a farm boy. I knew it all. But I don't ever remember one single time washing my own clothes. Ever.

No, your mom and dad.

So when I got to college, it was, go get the stuff that didn't have a name brand because you didn't have no money. It just said powder on it. Just a yellow box and had powder written in black. And take everything and throw it in there and pour powder in there and just wait. So I hope, soon as she met me, everything on was great.

It was awful.

And. But you helped me with that.

I did?

You did. You helped me.

Still washing those drawers?

Still washing them even to this day. I wash them sometime, but she does most of it. What would you tell somebody? Let me ask you this, baby. What would you do different?

Gosh, I'd get married earlier.

Really?

Yeah. I'd get married in college.

I've gone back and thought about that because it was difficult. We laugh about it and we cut up about it. It was very difficult.

I just didn't understand. I mean, I knew I was gonna get married to you. Yes. We didn't have any money. We didn't have anything. But we didn't have no money and have anything when we got married. So what would have been the difference?

That's true.

We could have enjoyed college, being married.

You know, I always told you I would watch those people that got married in college and lived in married housing and they just didn't look like they were having fun.

Maybe we shouldn't have got married. Maybe they weren't for each other, but we were.

They looked like they were just struggling, not having fun. We would have had fun and I didn't. It would have helped me in one area, I know that for sure. But I don't know, I just looked at it. I've gone back in and would I get married a little bit quicker because it was so long and so drawn out. And then that last year when we were apart, it was very difficult, quite honestly, because she had finished school at the school that we both attended. And so I had one more year and she had to move on to another school and move back in with her mom and dad. Now you might want to hit that. You said that was one of the most difficult years of your life.

It was very difficult because I had already been out of school and established independence two years out of my parents home.

But your mom and dad don't do independence.

No. So. And then when I moved back in, it was like I was still a teenager living in their house. I still had curfew. I'm engaged, about to be married and I'm having curfew. Have to ask permission to go places. It was such a tough year. But we made it through it, right?

Yeah, we did.

What advice would you give someone right now?

We didn't plan on going here. We just. I said, let's don't. I said, let's don't script this thing. I said, let's just go.

So what advice could we give somebody? What's the greatest advice in picking a mate? Me personally, they would have to. The looks are great, the life rhythms are great. Compatibility is great. But, you know, if they don't love.

The Lord, that's a deal breaker.

That is. That is a complete deal breaker.

Because we've made a lot of people mad right there who think they're dating a wonderful person that just don't know the Lord. Let's explain that. And I know we might be getting ready to run out of time on this one, but let me hit that for just a minute. Most girls go into a relationship saying, I can change him. Most guys go into a relationship saying, my God, I hope she don't change. Let me say that again. Most girls say, mama, I can change him. Because your mama sees all that stuff that you don't pay no attention to.

And she tells you.

Yep. And then about 10 years later, you go out and say, mama, you were right. But the guy is scared of change. He wants her to remain just like that. And so I would say, watch out. If initially, right off the bat, there are things where you're taking this person on as a project. You don't marry a project. Everybody is a project in a way. We grow, we grow, we mature, we evolve as people. But what I'm talking about.

But you don't marry a drug addict saying, oh, well, I just believe I can change it.

Somebody who does it. Share your values. Somebody who doesn't share your values, but I can change them. You don't ever make a covenant with somebody that is supposed to be an eternal covenant saying, I can change them. So one of the things I think I would look for, the relationship with God, that's just a given. It's just a relationship. You have to have the same life rhythms and two different faiths. You're kind of doomed from the beginning, right from the gate. So they would have to love the God that I love. I think. You know, I don't know that I've ever even asked myself this before. I think it would have to be, life is better with them than when I. When I'm with that person, it's always better than when I'm not. When you see that intangible, me and you were better together. I preach better when you went with me. I laughed more when you were there. Going out with friends was more fun when you were by my side. Do you see what I'm talking about? Walking to class was better when you were on my arm going to breakfast. Breakfast tasted better when I got to eat it with you.

And when you were sick, I Was there with you when I was sick on the singer's bus. You endured it.

That was right when we started dating.

Yes, right.

We started dating. I had to walk her through a stomach. A stomach virus. I mean, you're sitting right here beside me in a bag, throwing up in a bag, and we had just started dating. I'm going, how much do I like throwing up?

You know, none. Ron goes to the hospital.

I can't stand that she's sitting there puking. And. And I'm going to. You know, I'm like, man, God's testing this thing right out of the gate. Because one of my worst hated things, she's just sitting there, she's so sick. And I did. And I helped nurse you through that. I don't know that I'd ever nursed anybody through anything, but I remember nursing you through that. What ways have I changed the most?

Oh, my goodness.

Since you met.

Gracious.

Just pick out one or two things which I've changed the most from when you met me.

You probably are not as rigid.

I would agree with that, Ron.

You were very rigid.

I was. But I love Jesus. But I love Jesus. I was in holiness.

Yes. You came out of holiness. Holiness or hell.

I believe in holiness.

Turn or burn.

So I was rigid, but it had a conviction with it. I don't think I was legalistic. It was. I wanted to do the right thing. I had a great passion to do the right thing.

And you still do. But you are.

You're less religious. Yeah, you are less religious about it because a lot of. A lot of it. You changed in a lot of ways. You were much more disciplined and organized. Now, not even. Yeah, not even. It's not even in the same ballpark. And you always had that in you. But I think that free spirit drove everything. You brought that free spirit into everything you did. And in some ways, that's amazing. I don't want you to ever lose that because you still have that intangible. But since I met you, I'm going to tell you now. Hope Carpenter can get a thing done. She can get a project done. She can get something done. She can get a meeting done. This is a large ministry, and if there's something that needs to get done, the best thing I could do is hand it to Hope, because Hope will put that thing on a timeline. She will hold people accountable, and she will get that thing done. And it's amazing the pace you work out, and that is a sign of extreme discipline and organization. My office would have been the one organized when we got married, yours would have been a mess. Now if they walked in our offices, mine's a mess and yours is pristine. Isn't that crazy? Isn't it? Isn't that crazy?

But you know where everything is in yours.

I know where everything is. It's my. It's my order.

Yeah, it's your mess.

Yeah, it's chaotic. Yeah, it's organized chaos. It's chaotic. It's. It's chaos if you see it. But I can take you right to the book I want to file. I can take you right to the file that I need to pull out and. But that's one of the ways I think that you have changed the most. How much time we got? We got five minutes left. I know we just want to have fun and we want to talk. Be real raw and velvet and a lot of subjects. Not preach, not be scripted, maybe sometimes answer questions that people have. But to be honest with you, before we leave, I'd like maybe take the last couple of minutes before we leave and pray for people.

Absolutely.

If we could just pray for people.

There's a lot of people who are older in their age, I'd say 30s, 40, 40s, even 50s, who. Who are listening to us, who desire relationship, you know, who've never had. Never met their soulmate.

Maybe given up on it.

Yeah. And given up on it. I'm sure it's painful, although it's funny and comical and. And, you know, good content. But at times it could be very painful to hear stories like ours. And my heart goes out to people like that who don't have that.

Just speak to them, prophesy to it.

Yeah. I just believe, you know, that God does have that person called that significant.

Person into their life.

He really does. And maybe you've been looking at the wrong place. Looking at the wrong place, trying to find it. You can't find a good man of God at the club.

You can't find the right person at the wrong place. Can't find the right person at the wrong place. Right people will be in right places. So if you're at the wrong place here, again, you're not going to find the right person. And so I do want to encourage some people, too, that God does have that person. You say, well, I've had one fail. Let me tell you something. That God always gives hope. God always is a God who restores. And God can let happiness circle all the way back around and revisit you. And I just want to encourage you. We got a lot of stories to Tell over our years doing these podcasts, and we're going to tell you about some of the most painful, most gut wrenching experiences any marriage can have, any people can have. And we're also going to tell you a pathway that we use to come out. And those may be some different type meetings. We've laughed a lot and smiled a lot. Those may be some tissues in here that we talk about those. But we're going to share those things with you because in this podcast, what we want to do was give you more than a pulpit. Thank God for the word of God in preaching. But there's another where you just kind of bring people in and say, all right, after you get backstage, how does it really work? The fact is, life is tough. You have to be intentional, you have to be patient. You have to believe in God. But there's no way around it, dude. You got to believe in people. And even if people have let you down, let you down, let you down, let you down, you can't make it without people. There's somebody you're going to have to trust. So, God, I just ask right now in the name of Jesus, Hallelujah. I just pray for the people right now that are loneliness. I pray for people that think that loneliness is a life sentence, that people think they are going to have the terminal illness of loneliness. I just pray for them right now that they would have a great visitation even while I'm praying, even while I'm speaking. I pray that they would just have a great visitation from the Holy Spirit where you would wrap your arms around them, love them, let them know their value, let them know their worth. And Lord, if they don't hear the words coming from anybody else telling them how amazing they are, let them get in the word and hear the words of their heavenly Father, tell them how amazing they are. I pray that you would let them be wise, wise in the picking of friends. I pray that they not let loneliness drive the decisions. I pray that they would be patient and let God do his perfect work. And I pray, God, in the name of Jesus, that this beautiful thing of common ground, friendships and differences that create partnerships. I pray that everyone under the sound of my voice would get to experience life like that. In Jesus. Lovely name I pray.

Amen. Listen, there's a lot of content we have.

Oh, my gosh.

So y' all need to go follow us. I have a YouTube page. Ron has a YouTube page. We're both on Facebook, we're on Instagram, on TikTok. We're on Riff. Just a lot of avenues.

Riff is a new social media platform that can have an unlimited amount of people.

That's right.

I know that there were some that do it by audio. This does it by video. An unlimited amount of people. And I'm getting ready to start. My RIF platform is going to be AMA Ask me.

Yes. So we're going to have right here, all of our handles for you to go. Follow us so we can connect. Share this podcast with somebody, let them know. We will join you every week. God bless you.

We're never going to have another first.

No, this is.

You were a part of the first. Thank you for being here with us and we look forward to doing this many more times with you. We'll see you later.