TEACHABLE WOMAN

REV. MICHELE OWES AND TAMARA JOHNSON

ABOUT MARRIAGE

[00:00:00]

Rev. Michele Owes: Welcome, welcome back to the Teachable Woman Podcast. I am so excited to be with you today. I am honored to have a special guest with us. I am Reverend Michele Owes, and today I am with Sister Tamara Johnson, a comedian Tam-I am who is going to share with us from a very unique perspective, not only the gift that God has blessed her with, but also we're just going to talk.

Marriage today. Tamara, would you say hello to our podcast?

Tamara Johnson: Hello everyone. How are y'all doing? It's Tammy here.

Rev. Michele Owes: If you have been to our retreats or heard any of the recordings, Tamara is the comedian who was there and kept us in stitches the whole time, so we're excited to be with her today. All right, Tamara, start us off. Tell us where you need us to be.

Tamara Johnson: Okay, sis, [00:01:00] listen. You know, I value you as a wealth of wisdom, number one. I know the pastor has been telling us we need to broaden our understanding of the scriptures and other things like that. And I know that I am no spring chicken by any means. I am old.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah.

Tamara Johnson: I just want to bounce a few things off of you.

I have a lot of friends who are married. Everyone has their own perspective on marriage. Every household is run differently and different things like that. So we get together and talk. There are some similarities that I see.

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Tamara Johnson: Marriages that are, are godly marriages, or let's just say the union of, of husband and wife that worship together and, raising their [00:02:00] children up in the nurturing admonition of the Lord, do better. Someone shared something with me a couple of days ago that kind of broke my heart, and so I wanted to share it with you to kind of get your perspective on it. And then, also, just to get some guidance as I navigate, uh, being a wife, being a mother, and helping my husband stay aligned with whatever God has called him to do. He knows what God has called him to do, and so I don't want to be a hindrance to that. I want to kind of. You start to try to, uh, do the things that I know God has called me to do, so that I can be in position to help him fulfill his assignment that God has called him to do. So that's kind of why I wanted to speak with you, and I thank you for inviting me to the podcast to speak. I thought we was just gonna like chop it up outside the, you know, something like that. But then you like record. I'm like, girl, I'm on the podcast. You know,

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, listen,

Tamara Johnson: [00:03:00] teach.

Rev. Michele Owes: I believe that if God wants us to share on this level, that whatever it is we're talking about can be of benefit to anyone else who has a heart, an ear to hear, and a heart to receive, right? It's not even confined to the state of marriage. For unmarried women who desire to be married, you need to know what to prepare for.

Amen. So I think.

Tamara Johnson: Amen.

Rev. Michele Owes: The best place to start is always at the beginning. And Genesis tells us how God perceives marriage. Genesis chapter two, verse number 24, it says, therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh. And verse number 25 says, and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

When we talk about [00:04:00] leaving in Cleveland, you know we're leaving Mama's and Daddy's house and you are setting up a godly household together, husband and wife. Now, that doesn't mean you don't ever go see mama and daddy, or help them out, or invite them over.

It just means you recognize that this relationship between a man and a woman is now submitted to a Holy God. So if there is a challenge in the marriage, both of you should go to God in prayer to get your answers. Mama and Daddy won't always have the answers and they won't always have the right answers, you know.

Um, funny thing, uh, my mom attends the church. My mom is older. And my mom is actually in her nineties. And so when some of the young women would come to her and tell her some things, she says, " Honey, I would've packed my bag, and he would've never seen me anymore. Uh, and so I said, mom, you've got to stop telling people in the church your opinion on things because this.

It's not God's [00:05:00] word. This is your opinion. And I say without knowing it, I, you're just having a conversation with the girls, but you could be undermining what your pastor is teaching. And so, you know, we have conversations, you know, I wouldn't put up with that or I would've kicked him to the curb.

Tamara Johnson: I like your mama.

Rev. Michele Owes: I like my mama too. I love my mama, but.

Tamara Johnson: And not just her though, I think that a lot of, lot of people, a lot of women have gotten to the point where they're not going to put up with almost anything, and they are so quick to pack the bag and leave. I know a lot of women like that now.

Rev. Michele Owes: and you know what? I've done plenty of them in my lifetime, but I will say this, as time has caused them to mature and as time has caused them to, uh, see some things differently, they wish [00:06:00] they had not been so quick to jump and roll. Because they've matured now, right? And they understand that some of the things that they were looking at the partner for as a problem to them, it wasn't even really the partner.

It was a perception. And you know, sometimes if you have been, let's say you are an only child, and you've married someone that's. That has been in a large family setting; your perspective is different on everything. The only child gets whatever they want because they're the only one. Right. But if mom and daddy have to feed five children, it's whatever is for dinner.

It is what's for dinner. We have cooked. You can eat if you want to or you don't eat. Well. That's, that's not the perspective that the only child has. The only child has. I said I want this for dinner, so why aren't we having this? But let's go back to God's word. God said to cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.

So that's why if something is not going well in your [00:07:00] husband's life, it affects the wife. Your heart hurts if his heart hurts. That's why if something is going wrong in your. His heart hurts for you. And so the two of you are one. And so it can seem some days like an emotional rollercoaster. You doing okay, but when you call him, something's not going well on his job.

Something's not going well with his family or something's not going well with his health. Vice versa. And so now we're, we're, we're working with the issues of the day because we're one. It cannot be that something is happening in your partner's life and it quote, doesn't affect you, or that's not my business, or I ain't gonna be trying to, that is not what being one is.

Right? That's not, that's not at all. And so, but he also said you were, they were both naked and not ashamed. And, and, and it's not just the physical naked that you get to be with one another, but it means that there's no more gaming in this. There is [00:08:00] open, honest, clean, and clear communication. I mean, but, and it is done so in a level of respect that the other,

Tamara Johnson: a lot of people don't understand Godly, um, communication. I, I think I had to read a book on, I had to literally pick up a book on how to communicate with my husband.

Rev. Michele Owes: yeah.

Tamara Johnson: A godly manner, and it had nothing to do with the words that I was saying. It was the intent of my heart and

Rev. Michele Owes: yes,

Tamara Johnson: this to the table and the way I was bringing it to the table.

My husband. It wasn't that he didn't care about the things that I was telling him about, you know, because he did, but it was the way I

Rev. Michele Owes: Mm-hmm. Understood.

Tamara Johnson: that I needed in my marriage. That kind of went over [00:09:00] his head and it never happened. But once I read this book, it changed my, my outlook on how I approach things. It wasn't a, a direct, this is what I want,

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Tamara Johnson: It was kind a way to a back doorway to get to these men in such a manner. To kind of get them to hear you. No

Rev. Michele Owes: Mm-hmm.

Tamara Johnson: you said, no trickery, really being open and honest about what your needs are, what your feelings are, so that we could come to a common ground.

So I, I got it out the booth.

Rev. Michele Owes: Understood.

Tamara Johnson: of the booth.

Rev. Michele Owes: And you know what the Bible tells us that we should encourage one another daily while it is yet called today, that that doesn't mean you don't do that for your spouse. That doesn't mean you forget your husband or the husband forgets the wife. You are to encourage them one another daily while it is yet called today.

And so if you, if we spend the time. [00:10:00] Encouraging and if we spend the time loving unconditionally, we don't have the time for all of the negative conversation. And, and you know, sometimes we see someone else with something or we saw something on television or somebody else said this happened. And it was like, well, nobody ever does that for me.

Different, different relationship, different time, different season, different situation. And we have to learn to focus on the. The household that God has given us to be responsible for. We gotta stay out of the Joneses. You know, the world calls it keeping up with the Joneses, but we have to focus on the household that God has given us.

Um, the. I'm gonna pause there for just one moment. I, I had another thought, but I'm gonna wait until we get there. But when we are open, clear, clearly open with our spouses, with our husbands, and our [00:11:00] husbands are open with us, and we have a conversation that A, allows us to be respectful, one with another, another word, our tone, our delivery.

We, we have a real intent to hear the other person. And you know, if you don't, 'cause you cutting them off and you making your point and you trying to, you know, nothing gets done in that kind of conversation. But if you have to have a passionate conversation with your husband, and I'm not talking about sexual passion.

I'm talking about one where you upset and he's upset, go to the father first and ask your heavenly father to.

And your heart, because as you said, intent.

Tamara Johnson: a lot of, I have never been one to shy away from hard conversations myself. I've, uh, crucial conversations are, are something that I never like strayed away from. [00:12:00] However, I only seen a difference when I sought the Lord

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Tamara Johnson: For conversation. I would see some ground with the conversations prior to, but I'm saying when I really started, and I'm gonna tell you, there was a shift in my head. To where I had to stop looking at my husband. So common, right? Because I think I got kind of comfortable. You know, we, we, you're 17 now. This my husband, I

Rev. Michele Owes: Right, right, right.

Tamara Johnson: just my husband

Rev. Michele Owes: Right.

Tamara Johnson: I, and I had to shift my mind because in my prayer time in doing that, God had to, not only is this your husband, this is your brother in Christ, and this is my child.

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Tamara Johnson: that kinda started to change the way I approached this man because the, the, the, the relationship here natural [00:13:00] on earth is husband and wife, but the greater

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Tamara Johnson: that this is my brother in Christ and I had to. him that way. It's not okay for you to talk to your brother like that.

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Tamara Johnson: that's your husband, but that, that's also child's God. I mean a child of

Rev. Michele Owes: There you go.

Tamara Johnson: right. The head. And so that also helped me, the book, I'm telling you, I even may, I had to get to, to just kind of even understand what all of this was about because yeah, we both were going to church, we both were hearing, you know, the word of God. And so I think that really helped me as to, um, how I approached the conversations and then just praying beforehand and really seeking God before these conversations. And it wasn't me seeking him one time and then have the conversation. No, I had to pray sometimes for weeks before God would even say, [00:14:00] now it is time to

Rev. Michele Owes: Consistency. Yes.

Tamara Johnson: I was ready to have it.

I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna have it tomorrow.

Rev. Michele Owes: Or tonight?

Tamara Johnson: Oh, like,

Rev. Michele Owes: We talking tonight?

Tamara Johnson: as soon as you get no brand, you going, but, but God halted me because he had not done the work that he needed to do on the other end so that the communication could even be received. So I had to wait on God to even get to him first, to, so when I, he could work, you

Rev. Michele Owes: and sometimes God is waiting on our hearts to change because we have a perspective and our perspectives are not well. The Bible is very clear. Our thoughts are not God's thoughts and our way. Are not God's ways, and

Tamara Johnson: At all.

Rev. Michele Owes: when we are ready to have a conversation, because we think we are right about a thing.

In nine times outta 10, we are wrong. If we think our [00:15:00] way is the best way and, and we all ammunition because our thoughts are really not his thoughts and our ways are not his ways. God is never operating in who's right, but he's operating always in what's right and you're gonna find God on the side of right.

So if you are in a argument to win it. You have already lost because your perspective

Tamara Johnson: Oh

Rev. Michele Owes: is not God's perspective, but you hit something there that's very important. Uh, Tamara, you said that you had to recognize that your husband was God's son as well, and. How you talk to him and how you treat him, God is holding you accountable for that.

Um, you also mentioned earlier about, you know, some businesses that you started and, and you are a strong woman who does a lot of different things and you have a lot of different talents. Well, so was the virtuous woman, she [00:16:00] had a vineyard, she sold. She did a lot of things. She helped the people in the community.

You know, some people don't even believe that she was just one woman because she did so many things.

Tamara Johnson: I.

Rev. Michele Owes: But, but the bottom line is this, if you can do those things, first of all, in agreement with your husband, because her husband was able to sit in the gates, right? Uh,

Tamara Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: and he was known because of the value of his wife.

If you're able to do these things under the authority of your husband, if you're able to do these things, not thinking that because you can do them, you have been elevated to some position above his, because in the order of God man is above woman and this was your choice in life. Right? And if you can do this, you can, if you can.

Use the gifts and talents and abilities that God has [00:17:00] given you and not allow those gifts and talents and abilities to make you think that you are better than or smarter than, or make more money than the man that God has allowed to lead you. 'cause see, you made the choice.

Tamara Johnson: Yes, Lord. Yeah,

Rev. Michele Owes: those kinds of things, uh, is sometimes how the scales get off balance.

You know, if a woman thinks, well, you know, this is my business and I'm bringing in this and you know, this is what I'm doing, and, you know, and forgetting the fact that first of all he gave you his permission and not permission in terms of you're three years old, but can the family handle this kind of extra pre, you know, pressure or financial input or whatever?

Yes. If this is what God is instructing you to do, wife, let's go ahead and do it. But now that I, I have given you my okay. So that we can be one in this decision, it, I didn't, I didn't allow that to elevate you above me. I didn't allow [00:18:00] that so you could think that you don't need my counsel. Or that you don't have to talk to me about anything, or that you don't have to share what the earnings are and what the outgo is and what the profitability is.

Because if I'm trusting you to do this, I still need to be involved. But if now your new business has now come in and it is taking half of our income, now we gotta have a conversation. Way before it got to half. Right. But if we're not having that conversation and we keep coming up short, so these are the kinds of things where you have to.

Right. You just gotta be naked, honey. I know. I said I believe God was leading me in this direction and you supported me in this, but financially, I don't think we can make this investment right now. So this, I'm gonna have to pull back. We can sell off what we have or, or do you have another idea? Is there something that God has placed on your heart?

I, the family will not [00:19:00] fail because I'm trying to be successful. Family comes first, right?

Tamara Johnson: Right,

Rev. Michele Owes: I'm not gonna

Tamara Johnson: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: undo all that he's doing as a man to try to give us a life that glorifies God because I want to make a name for myself where, where is my heart in the matter. And so all of these things matter when we're, when we're just naked and not ashamed of who we are at the moment.

Honey, I made a mistake. Or I'm trying to do way too many things and I think I'm doing things that are a good idea, but may not be what God has instructed me to do. I may need to step back from some things, honey, tell me what you think these things are. What do what should.

Tamara Johnson: I was definitely, definitely within the last two years it has been, um, a shift in just me just that. Like actually there can't be two leaders in the home, right? And so [00:20:00] me being just. High capacity anyway, and so driven and just all of these things. I had had to realize that maybe he is not leading because you is. You in the way you trying to make all of these decisions and you do make 'em, and you ain't asked nobody about making them because you felt like you didn't have to,

Rev. Michele Owes: Right,

Tamara Johnson: to discuss that with him because you made this money. This your

Rev. Michele Owes: right, right,

Tamara Johnson: is it your money? You made this. Was he involved with the set?

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Tamara Johnson: up, did he do? And so I, and I had to get,

Rev. Michele Owes: Right.

Tamara Johnson: I had to open my eyes to see, and it wasn't until I made our family a horrible financial decision that I should not be leaving. was the big financial decision. Yeah,

Rev. Michele Owes: [00:21:00] costly one, right?

Tamara Johnson: decision that I made. To where I realized that you do not have this under control, like you thought you had it under

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Tamara Johnson: You are not capable of making these type of decisions on your

Rev. Michele Owes: On your own.

Tamara Johnson: your husband.

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, here's the other thing.

Tamara Johnson: had to fall back.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah. The, uh, you said something that's very important, which is sometimes he's not leading because we're not following. It's not that he's not trying to lead, we just not following,

Tamara Johnson: Oh yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: because we have, we have come to a place in our minds that we've got this and we know we can do this, and I can make that.

I don't have to ask nobody, you know.

Tamara Johnson: don't trust you. I don't trust you. I don't trust you enough to follow you. I've heard your ideas and I heard your thoughts. You ain't

Rev. Michele Owes: And look, and yours are not,

Tamara Johnson: capable.

Rev. Michele Owes: as good as mine, but obviously it was not so because there was a decision [00:22:00] that was made that was costly.

Tamara Johnson: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: Uh, I can remember once, uh, my daughter and I were in the car together and, and I had just gotten a, another phone and we were listening to all the voicemail messages that had been loaded on it, and most of them were my husband.

And, uh, he was saying, hi honey, this is your husband. And so my daughter said, why does he have to tell you? He's your husband. You all have been together for 35 years. You know who he's right.

Tamara Johnson: funny.

Rev. Michele Owes: And so and so, we were, we were out and I was contemplating buying something, right? And so I said to her, I said, you know what?

I said, gimme a minute. I said, I'm gonna call your dad and I'm gonna see what he thinks about it. And she said, what? She said, you make your own money. You got your own job. Why are you checking with him? I said, because your father has a plan for this family and it's to be debt free. I said, and I would not dare derail what he's doing for some cheap little something in a store that I [00:23:00] may not even really need.

I said, and he's gonna say one of two things to me. It's gonna be not now, or do you really need it? And so if I really need it, it's a yes. If it's a need, it's a yes. If it is, uh, if I don't need it, then it's a definitely a not now, which is, can be translated to a no. Right?

Tamara Johnson: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: I told her, I said, listen, I said, if you still think this way.

I said, you're, you're not ready for marriage. Right? I said, and you're still a young adult woman, and, and it's okay not to be ready. I said, but you cannot walk into a marriage when the two of you have a plan. And he's working that plan. And you just want to go off and do what you want to do, which could derail the entire family.

So you are not quite ready to be one yet, right? Because if you're one, you're not gonna do anything to [00:24:00] cause harm to the other. If you've sat down together and you have a plan together, you don't go off the plan, right?

Tamara Johnson: I know. I know, I know, I know. Look, sister, oh look, I gotta say this though. Your husband was a pastor. He was seeking the Lord. We talking about what about us? Who, who husbands may not just be, you know, deep in it, don't, don't have the calling yet, may not understand what God has them to do, or you, you know, it's some young girls out here right now that are married and they are seeking the Lord.

They are going to church, they are hearing it, but their husbands. Don't seem to be here now. I ain't talking about me now y'all. Let me just tell you this. Last two years ago, I been good. I don't want y'all to be looking at Ka We all got gonna do, but I'm just telling you, I, I was there. I was there when I was, you know, I was like, he don't even really just go to church like that.

I was raised in church. He was not. So when you have a [00:25:00] husband that may not under. Stand, um, what God has called him to do just yet or may not even be having a plan like your husband say, ain't no plan in place.

Rev. Michele Owes: Listen. Let me tell you something. When I met my husband, he was not. Involved in the church. He did not have a call on his life. He didn't know he had one. And so all of that happened during the course of the marriage. So, and he was not going to church every Sunday. He was not deep in the word, but here's what I learned.

If God cannot use a woman in her marriage so that her husband can see Christ, then how will he see him?

Tamara Johnson: My God. See, I knew they were coming. I knew it would

Rev. Michele Owes: if in fact we're going to church, we are hearing the word, is he seeing a change in us [00:26:00] that will cause him to want to know the God that we serve?

Tamara Johnson: For real

Rev. Michele Owes: real because you know, when we meet a man, oftentimes, you know, we're just thinking about if he can be a man for us. But God's plan is can you through your witness, convert him?

Which should be before you say, I do.

Tamara Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: If you want to be equally yolked, but if you just got yoked, but you wasn't waiting on the equal, you still have the same assignment, which is so that they can see Christ in you so that the.

Tamara Johnson: Do not. I'm trying to tell you. For me, it took me so long because I was raised. You know, girl, you, let's not even get, we'll get probably later if you invite me back, if the people like me, if they like me and they say, get her back on there, then I get all of that. But girl, I used to hear my granny them time, just be a sanctified woman.

Make a [00:27:00] sanctified man. And I just, I used to hear that and I used to hear that, but it wasn't until I was in the thick of themes

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah.

Tamara Johnson: I realized that this. This desire and conversion that you want to see has to come from the Holy Spirit pouring love

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes,

Tamara Johnson: your heart being shed abroad,

Rev. Michele Owes: yes,

Tamara Johnson: you actually showing that to your husband in such a way, not, oh, he ain't go to church this Sunday, so I ain't gonna be cooking this Sunday.

I. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Raise your hand. can't see you, but raise your hand if you done. Yeah, I

Rev. Michele Owes: Right,

Tamara Johnson: not gonna do all that. So you stopped because you were not getting the response from your husband that you thought you should have been getting from him. Here it is. I'm going to church. I'm trying to be a better woman.

I'm seeking the Lord, trying to be the best [00:28:00] woman of God I can be to him and he ain't doing nothing.

Rev. Michele Owes: if you're doing it.

Tamara Johnson: that

Rev. Michele Owes: That's right. If you are, if you're doing it, first of all, you are not talking to anybody about it, but God. 'cause it is nobody's business. The other thing we have to recognize is that we are not the Holy Spirit. We will not be able to take credit for the salvation of our husbands because some of us plant, some of us water and God.

Tamara Johnson: Oh.

Rev. Michele Owes: So you can't say that you got your husband saved. What you can say is that you lived a godly life before him. And when we talk about living a godly life before him, you know, when I, when my husband and I first, uh, got married, he was not going to church because we lived in a state that was not where his home church was.

So it's the whole try to find a church in your new environment thing.

Tamara Johnson: Okay.

Rev. Michele Owes: a Sunday with football, it's best just not to start, you know,

Tamara Johnson: Better. [00:29:00] You

Rev. Michele Owes: if the fellas are coming together, watching the game and whatever. But what I did was keep asking him where there were churches in the area that I could go and visit because I was not. And then my church was sending me, uh, the messages. In the mail because I was still paying my ties and I was listening.

Yeah, it was, and I was sitting and on every Tuesday night, he knew it was a Bible study for me. I don't care what was going on. And I listened to my CDs in the living room, took my notes, waited till my CDs were coming, uh, on, on for Sunday. I had church until we could find a church. I didn't let the church get out of me.

I let the church and then I would crank up the volume because I wanted him to hear what I was hearing, but he never came out of the room, right, because I was trying to save him. He never, he was already said. Here's the other thing I want to say, and [00:30:00] this is important right here. To say that somebody grew up in the church, which my husband did, does not mean the same thing, because if they're not in a Bible believing.

Bible teaching church where they are learning the plan of God for their lives. If they are not learning their role as a man, their role as a woman, their role as a child, if they are not learning those things from the word of God, growing up in the church is not created equal.

Tamara Johnson: I hear you. I heard you.

Rev. Michele Owes: It is just not.

Tamara Johnson: Okay.

Rev. Michele Owes: so we tend to judge people who say, oh, I grew up in a church all my life.

Uhuh. But it, but if you didn't hear the rightly divided word of God, you was just going somewhere on Sunday, just going somewhere on Sunday.

Tamara Johnson: it.

Rev. Michele Owes: that is was the case. That was the case for my husband and. Tell you how God fast forwarded it after my husband truly converted his life to Christ, Jesus received his call into ministry.

Fast [00:31:00] forward some 25 years later. Or maybe 20 years. My husband goes back to his hometown to do the homegoing service for his mother at his home church, and the people who taught him Sunday school and the quote pillars of the church got saved at his mother's funeral. And it was the first time the pastor told my husband that he had heard about the call to Christ, but had never seen it done.

This is why I say to you people who say, I grew up in a church, growing up in a church is not created equal, right? It should be because it is the word of God, but it is not. So let's take all of that off the backs of our spouses. If you are living with someone who does not celebrate Jesus the way that you do, let's just put it that way.

If they've not seen the example of being in the house of the Lord and seeing the [00:32:00] word of God, change the people who go, that's the key because

Tamara Johnson: what I'm saying.

Rev. Michele Owes: but if you ain't changing nothing.

Tamara Johnson: Come

Rev. Michele Owes: If you coming home after church and you know, you blowing the house up, nobody wants to go to church. 'cause now we're a hypocrite.

We did nothing to pastor sin.

Tamara Johnson: you right.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right? So

Tamara Johnson: You're right.

Rev. Michele Owes: you gotta come home and you gonna, you gotta make these changes and, and it's not that you're gonna do 'em all in one day. Because you didn't hear it all. You heard the part of the message that meant the most to you at that moment, that was the most urgent thing to you in your mind.

A 45 minute message. We may have all walked out with the same thing or with a different thing because we're in different places in our lives. So it's your spouse?

Tamara Johnson: was definitely, it was definitely me changing my

Rev. Michele Owes: Mm-hmm.

Tamara Johnson: in the whole manner of everything, because we both wanted the same thing. We both wanted, our [00:33:00] goal was to raise. Our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We knew He knew, and I knew that without Christ, we can't wake

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah,

Tamara Johnson: the same person

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Tamara Johnson: 50 something plus years without Jesus and, and it's no.

And it still be. And it

Rev. Michele Owes: Have some joy. Right.

Tamara Johnson: it's some folk that's still waking up 50 years

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah,

Tamara Johnson: they still is separate rooms. We know, you know, I, I knew people that was, you know, they literally were still married. This man still paid the bills at the

Rev. Michele Owes: yeah,

Tamara Johnson: but he and his wife did not sleep in the same room,

Rev. Michele Owes: That, that

Tamara Johnson: they had been married 40 something plus years, and I just didn't want. That to be

Rev. Michele Owes: understood.

Tamara Johnson: there it took, it took a real seeking on my behalf and my heart as to, um, because you can't punish your husband because [00:34:00] you feel like he's not growing as fast as he should be growing. Oh, we both been listening to the teachings. Um, for over 15 years, you should be further along. You, even Timothy said by now you ought to be teaching.

You know, and so you know, you No, I'm just

Rev. Michele Owes: who gets to place the time, who gets to place the time on another person's life, uh, that's not ours. To do that, that's God's to do, but ours to do is always our greatest work is always going to be on the person that God created you to be. Our greatest work is not on somebody else because.

Tamara Johnson: Yes,

Rev. Michele Owes: Truth first has to be lived, then it can be seen, and then we can proclaim. So.

Tamara Johnson: proclaim

Rev. Michele Owes: Our, our relationship with Jesus Christ. It's an inside job. It's always inside. God is working on you person, girl. I can tell, and even [00:35:00] not just in a marital state, but even in a, a parenting state of, of young adults or older children.

It, it's, they're still looking for the same Christian when they come home, when they come to visit, when they call you on the phone, they're not looking for you to have changed to something else because when they do make that call, what they're saying without saying it is, what would God have me to do in this moment?

And I know I need to go to the word for myself, but right now I'm too distraught to do that. So tell me what God would have me to do in this moment. Uh, and and you do so in not a judgmental tone, but you do so according to how God gives you utterance because sometimes he doesn't want you to tell them.

He wants you to show them where it is in the word make, go read it themselves. Because God's always looking for a relationship and we can't be the relationship for our children, and we cannot be the relationship for our spouse, but. One of the, one of the ways that my [00:36:00] husband, uh, got interested in coming to church because he had seen some terrible things in the church.

Number one was he was listening to those messages. He just never came out of the room and told me until years later, everyone that I cranked up loud so he could hear on those Tuesdays. He was getting every one of the messages. And he didn't come out on the one that I thought he should come out on. He came out on, um, one that our founding Episcopal pastor was teaching about raising your children.

And I, I didn't even think he would come out on that, you know, because at the time he and I had no children together. So what brings you out on that? But my husband, uh, had an older daughter and he, that. He came out of the room, had his own notepad, sat down with me, and then when my stuff started coming in the mail every week, I couldn't find it.

'cause he had it in his vehicle. Right.

Tamara Johnson: The

Rev. Michele Owes: God was, God was [00:37:00] training him. And, and, and so

Tamara Johnson: you.

Rev. Michele Owes: just said, when you're done, make sure I get it. Just, just make sure I get it. But now, deep down I was mad. It's like I'm the member. They sent it to me. My name was on the package. Why did you take it? But no, see, I wanted my husband to be convert.

And so, I mean, fully converted, been in the church all of his life, but he still had not yet converted and God had to work the work. So I still had to be his Christian wife. I still had to do the things I knew I had to do. I still had to respect him, but I had to also be open and honest with him about the things I needed.

To be open and honest with, and needed to be naked and not ashamed of how I felt. This is what I'm feeling right now. My feelings don't have to be right. They don't have to be right, but this is how I'm feeling right now and this is why I'm feeling if, if my concept is wrong, if, if I miss some things, if there's some stuff I don't know.

This is a good time just to [00:38:00] tell because right now I'm feeling like this.

Tamara Johnson: that. I, I, I had an honest conversation where I sat down and I, and I laid out, um, where I saw that I was. Taking over where I did not give you space, and I apologize for always making these decisions without you and going ahead and being so headstrong because I had to be honest because the, the environment that I was raised in, it was so unpredictable to where I did not and could not put my life. And the decisions.

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Tamara Johnson: And the decisions in other people's

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Understood.

Tamara Johnson: single time

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes,

Tamara Johnson: I've done that, it has ended up wrong.

Rev. Michele Owes: yes,

Tamara Johnson: need to be able to control.

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Tamara Johnson: Control how things are going to go and flow. I don't like surprises

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Tamara Johnson: that. And so I think that it came [00:39:00] from just, uh, just that background, you know, and understanding that ain't no way I'm supposed to make let. Somebody else fully make decisions

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah.

Tamara Johnson: life. That's crazy.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right.

Tamara Johnson: sense to me, you know? And so I had to come clean about that. I had to come clean and apologize because I had not given you a, a space to do so, and let him know that at this moment and at this time, I am ready to follow. These are the words

Rev. Michele Owes: Right,

Tamara Johnson: am ready to follow, because. I recognize that our children. Need you to

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Tamara Johnson: not just me.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right.

Tamara Johnson: not the only one that needs you to lead.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right,

Tamara Johnson: children also need you to lead because it's not my job to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, even though I'm taking them and doing that. They need to see it in both of us, and I'm ready [00:40:00] to do what I need to do to help you become the leader.

Not that I want you to be, that you was designed to

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Tamara Johnson: no position. I didn't make

Rev. Michele Owes: Right.

Tamara Johnson: for you.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right.

Tamara Johnson: is your position. I can't take it from.

Rev. Michele Owes: And that's a daily decision. Now you made the decision, but it's a daily decision, right, to remember that you made that decision.

Tamara Johnson: All right. Thank

Rev. Michele Owes: You know what I mean? It's a daily decision to remember, you know, to be able to pause and say like, I did, you know what? I'm gonna call your dad and I want to check and see what he's thinking about this.

And if he

Tamara Johnson: Amen.

Rev. Michele Owes: time to talk to me right now, that means I do nothing. I don't just say, well, I think he.

Tamara Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Uh, okay.

Amen.