Looking Back, Moving Forward: Our Journey Through 2024

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As we took the time to look back on 2024, and look forward to the new year ahead, we were filled with a mix of emotions—gratitude, growth, and lessons learned. This past year was marked by unexpected challenges, joyful milestones, and countless opportunities to trust God.

1. Navigating Unmet Expectations​

Life rarely goes as planned. This past year, we faced significant shifts, including navigating a new addition to our family, unexpected medical situations, and financial challenges. Proverbs 16:9 reminds us, “In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

These experiences taught us to lean into God’s sovereignty. Whether it was the unanticipated C-section delivery of our sixth child, or the emotional weight of financial investments that didn’t go as planned, we saw God’s hand guiding us. We learned to surrender our expectations and trust His perfect plan.

2. Gratitude Changes Everything​

In seasons of disappointment, gratitude has been a lifeline. We have often asked ourselves, “What can we be grateful for right now?” This simple question shifts our perspective and helps us focus on the countless blessings around us. From the laughter of our children, to the support of our church community, God’s goodness has been evident in every corner of our lives.

Philippians 4:6-7 encourages us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Gratitude not only guards our hearts, but also allows us to rejoice even in trials.

3. The Importance of Community​

This year deepened our appreciation for the body of Christ. Our home church has been a source of strength and encouragement. Through shared meals, heartfelt prayers, and celebrations, we experienced the power of unity. Hebrews 10:24-25 reminds us, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.”

Hosting events and creating memories with our church family brings joy and reminds us of the eternal value of relationships rooted in Christ.

4. Looking Forward with Hope​

As we enter 2025, our hearts are full of hope and resolve. This year, we’re focusing on consistency in family Bible time, strengthening our marriage, and pursuing God’s will with greater boldness. We’re reminded of Galatians 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

2024 may have been challenging in certain ways, but it was also beautiful. It helped us to remember to trust in the Lord, practice gratitude, and lean into community. Our prayer for you as you journey into 2025 is that you would find joy in the midst of challenges, gratitude in all things, and a renewed desire to chase boldly after God’s will.

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READ TRANSCRIPT​

Aaron Smith (00:01):

Hey, Marriage After God family. I wanted to take a quick moment to tell you about Samaritan Ministries Biblical Healthcare that puts your family first. See, we’re so excited about this because my family and I, we’ve been using Samaritan Ministries for years for our family healthcare, and we truly love it. If you’ve never heard of them, Samaritan Ministries is a biblical solution to healthcare. It’s a community of believers who share each other’s medical needs through prayer, encouragement, and direct financial support. You’ll actually get money directly from another believer to help pay for your bills. And every month you’ll pay directly to another believer to help pay their bills. And not only do you get to send this directly to them, but you also get to pray for them and send them a message of encouragement. We love it and you’ll love it. We get to have the freedom to choose our own doctors while participating in a ministry that prioritizes Christian values. Plus, it could be more affordable than what you’re currently paying right now. So if you’re interested in finding out more about Samaritan Ministries and what they could do for your family and your medical needs, please go to Marriage after god.com/s. That’s the letters s, marriage after god.com/sm and find out more about Samaritan Ministries and see if it’s got a good fit for your family. Hey, I’m Aaron.

Jennifer Smith (01:11):

And I’m Jennifer.

Aaron Smith (01:11):

And we’re the hosts of the Marriage God Podcast. Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage at Chases boldly after God’s will for your life together.

Jennifer Smith (01:18):

We want to invite you to subscribe to our show wherever you watch or listen.

Aaron Smith (01:21):

We are so glad you’re here and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you and your marriage.

Jennifer Smith (01:26):

Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

Aaron Smith (01:33):

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. I’m here with my wife, Jennifer. Hello. You haven’t been here in a while.

Jennifer Smith (01:39):

Yeah, I was going to say. And our newest edition, this is Emin Daisy Marie,

Aaron Smith (01:44):

I like to call her Emina. Ballerina.

Jennifer Smith (01:48):

Yeah. So I thought we would have her on here just for a quick minute. I don’t think she’ll make it through the whole episode with all of her little noises, but

Aaron Smith (01:56):

You’ll get to see her for a little bit.

Jennifer Smith (01:58):

Yeah, just wanted to say hi everyone.

Aaron Smith (02:00):

Yeah, actually, so I’ve been doing, if you’ve been following our podcast, I’ve been doing interviews for the last several, like eight or nine weeks now already. It’s been

Jennifer Smith (02:08):

Awesome.

Aaron Smith (02:08):

It was nice. It has been awesome.

Jennifer Smith (02:10):

It was a nice transition knowing that I was going to be having her and postpartum and all of that.

Aaron Smith (02:16):

So that was actually one of the reasons I started doing the interviews was Jennifer needed some time to herself time to little baby Emerin, which she’s had.

Jennifer Smith (02:23):

We’d also been talking about how interviews would add a different depth layer to the podcast for you guys. And so hopefully you guys have been enjoying that.

Aaron Smith (02:33):

I feel like I’ve been getting some pretty good feedback on the interviews. People have been enjoying them, but I have also got feedback that people miss you. Thank

Jennifer Smith (02:41):

You. That means a lot to me.

Aaron Smith (02:42):

So what we’re going to be doing actually is I think either once or twice a month, it’ll, we’ll do a podcast together on the Mary I God podcast and then I’ll continue doing the interviews with new people. And by the way, if you have suggestions of people you’d like me to interview, you should send to us. You can send it to us on our Instagram or email it to us at support@marriageaftergod.com, and I’ll consider those and reach out to those people. But yeah, so we’re here.

Jennifer Smith (03:08):

Yeah, we’re here beginning of the new year. It feels good to be here. And so we thought that as I come on here about once a month we would give you guys an update on our family, what’s going on, things that we’re learning, things that we’re experiencing, get

Aaron Smith (03:22):

Into marriage topics, faith topics.

Jennifer Smith (03:26):

Do you like that

Aaron Smith (03:26):

Idea? Yes.

Jennifer Smith (03:28):

Also, if you’re watching on YouTube and the camera seems a little bit shaky, I just realized I was shaking my leg to entertainer and keep her.

Aaron Smith (03:35):

Is it shaking the table?

Jennifer Smith (03:36):

I don’t know. I think it was,

Aaron Smith (03:37):

I think the camera’s fine. Sorry. They’re probably like, I don’t notice, but you can bounce her.

Jennifer Smith (03:43):

Okay. So we had Emerin September 14th, and why don’t we just start there. Does it feel weird to go back that far?

Aaron Smith (03:51):

No.

Jennifer Smith (03:52):

Weird.

Aaron Smith (03:52):

No, because it’s been that long

Jennifer Smith (03:54):

Since you’ve been on here. It’s weird because I feel like I just had her, I feel like we were just going into, Hey, we’re about to have a baby,

Jennifer Smith (04:00):

Which

Jennifer Smith (04:01):

Was a lot different this time around for me than past experiences. So this is number six for us and all the other ones, I was able to go into labor naturally and we had shared with you guys I believe, but I had to have a C-section and

Aaron Smith (04:19):

First one of those out of six.

Jennifer Smith (04:20):

Yeah,

Aaron Smith (04:20):

That’s pretty good odds. One out of six.

Jennifer Smith (04:22):

It was definitely a unique experience and birth story for her. And I remember knowing that I had to meet the doctor that was going to do it, and I thought once I met him that he was going to give me a set of dates a week or two or even three out. I knew I had to have her early, but I just wasn’t thinking, okay, how early.

Jennifer Smith (04:46):

And

Jennifer Smith (04:46):

At this point I was 36 weeks and some change and I go in there and so this was a Thursday and he goes, well, I really think you should come in Friday or Saturday. How do you feel about that?

Aaron Smith (04:59):

He was like, right away

Jennifer Smith (05:01):

My emotions flooded me. You wouldn’t believe. And I was like, my mom’s not even here yet because she was going to come watch the kids while we had her. And so they hooked me up for a stress test. And while I’m in there, I’m calling texting my mom. I’m like, this is what they’re thinking. Is there any way you can come out sooner? And she was like, of course. And so even that, just when things start falling into place in a serious situation, it’s like, thank you Lord. I just was so grateful. And so my mom came out the very next day and we had her on Saturday and it was just a whirlwind of new experience around birth. And for all the mamas out there who have had a C-section or maybe you’re pregnant right now and you have been told that you have to have one. It was a beautiful experience, although different,

Aaron Smith (05:49):

Very different,

Jennifer Smith (05:50):

Very

Aaron Smith (05:50):

Different experience.

Jennifer Smith (05:51):

I just remember, and still to this day feeling so grateful that there was a team of people and there’s knowledge and efforts made to help people in situations that need that. And so I was just feeling super grateful and I prayed and I said, God, even though she’s coming early, please let her be healthy. I just didn’t know. So she came up right at 37. I turned 37 weeks the day she was born. And when they took her out, which was, it felt like in seconds, I feel like you had barely even gotten in there.

Aaron Smith (06:21):

Yeah, I think it took five minutes to, it

Jennifer Smith (06:24):

Felt like less than that to

Aaron Smith (06:24):

Get the baby out, which I would not trade. I mean, I don’t have to go through any of it, but I wouldn’t trade the natural thing for that. But I’m glad that By

Jennifer Smith (06:33):

Choice.

Aaron Smith (06:33):

Yeah, by choice. But I’m so glad that that is a possibility that they’re able to do that. It’s pretty crazy.

Jennifer Smith (06:40):

What a wild thing that was so cool to see and experience. So the moment she came out, she started crying right away. And I could tell she wasn’t chubby or anything. She was actually very

Aaron Smith (06:49):

Small. She was our smallest for sure. But

Jennifer Smith (06:51):

She looked so healthy and she was so good and I was good and and

Aaron Smith (06:57):

She’s getting real chunky now.

Jennifer Smith (06:59):

And then as far as physically postpartum, that was also different just because I had to be careful of my scar and moving was different. And so I just think of all the moms who have been through C-sections. I have a friend who walked me through hers a few days before, and you guys are brave. That was,

Aaron Smith (07:18):

Well, you are brave because you did it now too,

Jennifer Smith (07:20):

I guess so. But

Aaron Smith (07:21):

It was really cool that you had friends that have gone through them. We’ve had friends that had several, and so you actually were able to pick their brains and they were able to encourage you and pray for you and say, Hey, here’s what to expect. Here’s what’s going to happen. I remember them even talking to me and saying, okay,

Jennifer Smith (07:36):

This is what you need to

Aaron Smith (07:37):

Know. You got to help out and you got to be there for her. So I thought it was definitely a best case scenario in a scenario that we had no control over. So I’m very happy. And look at this baby,

Jennifer Smith (07:48):

She doesn’t care.

Aaron Smith (07:50):

She has no idea

Jennifer Smith (07:50):

She’s here and she’s happy as far as, oh, we love you. Don’t be sad. We’ll probably have to get her out of here shortly so we can finish the episode. But I will say that this time around, I did experience some heightened emotional mental, physical changes in postpartum. And the reason that I’m sharing it is because one, I’ve noticed, it makes me feel lighter talking about it. And then I would hope that if anyone out there is listening right now, and if you’re in that season or if you’ve experienced that season and you feel heavy because of it, whether it’s postpartum, anxiety, depression, what they call the blues, I don’t know. I want you to know that talking about it really has helped me. And

Aaron Smith (08:41):

Talking with friends and

Jennifer Smith (08:42):

Talking with friends about it and just bringing to light, I called it confession, but really it’s bringing to light the things that you’re walking through and experiencing, even if there’s really no reason. Part of the frustration and hardship that I had in sharing it with the people closest to me was everything went so smooth and perfect. It was like, there should be no reason why I’m feeling I’m having a hard time, why I’m struggling in my emotions, why?

Aaron Smith (09:08):

But you often do have, not every single time, but there’s been those hormonal changes that drastically affect you. But even in those moments when you feel that way, you may know that you’re like, okay, I know this is probably hormones, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels so much more real and hard than just trying to verbally tell yourself, well, this is just my hormones. I need to get over it because it doesn’t work that way. So there was a lot of encouraging along the way,

Jennifer Smith (09:43):

And without trying to minimize it, I don’t feel like looking back now wasn’t, I wouldn’t say it was severe or anything, but it was enough to affect me, affect the relationships around me. And I went into a ladies’ night telling them how I was feeling and they prayed for me and they encouraged me and it felt really good and I felt lighter ever since then. Yeah. Alright, I’m going to go pass her off and I’ll be right back. Okay. So I passed off and now I feel like I can actually focus. Sometimes I get easily distracted. Something that was on my mind that I also wanted to share about in regards to having her was just my capacity and also bringing it up because I know that there’s people who are listening who are in that stage of maybe it’s their first baby or like us, they’re six or somewhere in between that every time you have a baby, you get stretched and there’s that tension of, oh, I feel like I’m out of control. And I felt that a little bit with just my capacity. It’s like you have a lot on your plate on top of trying to recover and figuring out this new person. And it was just a lot. And so maybe you could share a little bit Erin on how knowing that because voiced it to you, but I think you can also tell when I feel at my capacity, how have we walked through helping each other?

Aaron Smith (11:13):

Yeah. This has been something that I think we’ve almost like every child we’ve had, we go through a season of this is hard. Sometimes even feels too hard, can’t do this anymore. And having to be reminded that it is hard and that’s okay. And we’re going to go through seasons that feel more difficult than others. And to be honest, every single time we have a child, in reality it is a stretching of our flesh because it’s more of our flesh dying. It’s more of us realizing like, oh, we get to have less of ourselves and more of this new thing.

Jennifer Smith (11:49):

And then on a physical level, you’re not sleeping as much. You

Aaron Smith (11:53):

You’re tired all the time. Yeah, I’ve been thinking about, we’re going to talk about, because today’s January 1st, it’s a new year. We’re going to talk about some of the things that happened over the year, but I just was thinking, man, I’ve been tired all year and I’m realizing I’ve been tired for the last 12 years having children, but it is, it’s having children, whether one or two or six, we have friends that have eight, nine, it’s a stretch. It’s your flesh saying it, recognizing it gets less of it itself. And that doesn’t feel good ever in hurts experiencing then, especially when it’s not a choice we’ve made. As in I’m not choosing for my flesh to die right now. This is just being forced to die because I have more children than I need to give more of myself to

Jennifer Smith (12:41):

As an encouragement, I will say somewhere in between that two to three month postpartum, and I say postpartum not just to the woman who had the baby, but to the whole family that in that season there is a shift of finding a rhythm, figuring it out, everybody kind of responding to what’s new.

Aaron Smith (13:00):

Well, it’s a no thing

Jennifer Smith (13:02):

And you kind of become more familiar with it. And I think that stretch on your capacity becomes more acceptable.

Aaron Smith (13:11):

Well, and I was just talking to our male lady and she was just saying, congratulations on the baby. And I was talking about how she said, it’s got to be so cool that you have kids that are older and can help.

Jennifer Smith (13:24):

It is different.

Aaron Smith (13:25):

It’s so different as we shift into a world where our kids, they fight over holding her, not really fight, but they’re like, I want older, I want older, I want older. And that’s really cool because we’re in a season now, we can actually hand the baby off to our children and they get to love on her. And so we were just sitting this morning and I was like, it’s so weird that some of our kids, like Elliot had no one around him but me and you. And then now Emerin has seven people

Jennifer Smith (13:51):

Around it. She wakes up to a lot of faces looking at her,

Aaron Smith (13:53):

But that’s normal to her. That’s her life. And it’s really cool being in that new season where we have children that our participating in our daughter. So I dunno, I’m really excited about it even though it’s been really hard with all of our kids and learning to be parents all over again.

Jennifer Smith (14:13):

Going back to the question I asked, what are some ways that we’ve helped each other in that tension on our capacity? Just to encourage husbands and wives listening in ways that they can either be thinking about how am I going to help my spouse during the season or maybe they’re in the midst of it right now.

Aaron Smith (14:30):

Something that I’ve encouraged, well, for husbands encouraging your wives over and over and over again reminding ’em like, Hey, this is good. Children are blessings. I know this. You’re tired and this feels hard right now, but we’ll get past this and this is a good thing.

Jennifer Smith (14:43):

So words of encouragement.

Aaron Smith (14:44):

Yeah, words of encouragement, constantly encouraging, bringing up scripture to each other. I was just reminding you the other day of the truth and the word of like, Hey, that’s what we need to dwell on because in the midst of all these hard things lies pop in and we start to hear them and sometimes they come out of our mouths too, how we feel. And we want that. We feel like that’s the reality and we need someone in our corner to be like, no, actually this is what the Bible says. This is what’s actually true. So let’s dwell on those things.

Jennifer Smith (15:12):

When you said someone in our corner, I got the picture of Moses holding up his staff and Aaron holding up his arm. And

Aaron Smith (15:17):

It’s like you

Jennifer Smith (15:18):

Have to have people around you to support you in that way. Definitely your closest,

Aaron Smith (15:23):

Your spouse,

Jennifer Smith (15:23):

Immediate family, your spouse and your immediate family. But also even just your church family and your friends and people in your life that care about you. We were so blessed with a mail train and people constantly asking, Hey, what do you need? What can I drop off? And it’s just

Aaron Smith (15:40):

The mail train thing was awesome,

Jennifer Smith (15:42):

By

Aaron Smith (15:42):

The way. I just want to take a minute for that. The other day I was literally thinking about this. You asked someone if we could set up a mail train for them. And I thought to myself, whoever invented the mail train was a genius. This is such a cool thing.

Jennifer Smith (15:51):

It was awesome.

Aaron Smith (15:52):

It was so good. I don’t think we had to cook anything for

Jennifer Smith (15:55):

Weeks.

Aaron Smith (15:56):

Weeks

Jennifer Smith (15:56):

Maybe two months. I mean

Aaron Smith (15:58):

It was so awesome.

Jennifer Smith (15:59):

I’m not kidding. It felt like it went forever.

Aaron Smith (16:01):

People brought some good food, we ate really good. It inspired me. We ate really good. So that was really good. And another thing is for mothers, something that you got to also just internally, this is not easy to do is have grace for yourself because there were so many times that you’re like, I can’t get to all of the other things we have.

Jennifer Smith (16:22):

I think it’s because there’s this five

Aaron Smith (16:23):

Other kids that you have to,

Jennifer Smith (16:24):

There’s there’s thing inside of us that we want to do it all. We want to control. We want to make everything feel pretty and look nice and everybody have good hearts and attitudes and we want everything to be the way we idealize it in our minds.

Jennifer Smith (16:38):

And

Jennifer Smith (16:39):

When we hit that wall with our capacity, we quickly realize, oh, I actually can’t. I can’t physically get up right now. I can’t do that thing I wanted to do. I can’t

Aaron Smith (16:47):

Give the attention to the other kids that

Jennifer Smith (16:48):

You want to give. And so

Aaron Smith (16:50):

Your encouragement which side helped? Sorry. It’s okay. Side note is something to recognize it, we tend to think that we’re in charge of every aspect of our children’s growth and maturity, but we have to realize that some of our inadequacies is a vital part of their growth and maturity

Jennifer Smith (17:08):

Because then they get to step up.

Aaron Smith (17:10):

So the fact that you going through a season cannot give them all the attention that you want to give them, you can’t give the time that you want to give to them is actually necessary for them. They need to recognize that there’s going to be times that they have to not get what they

Jennifer Smith (17:25):

Want,

Aaron Smith (17:25):

Not get from you what they need because you need to give that attention to someone

Jennifer Smith (17:28):

Else. Would you say the same is true for a spouse? That they also need to have a heart of acceptance? Because there’s times that you or I wanted something and it’s like, well, we’ve had a very long day. We can’t or fill in the blank of why

Aaron Smith (17:41):

Having patience with each other and recognizing that we can’t get everything we want and that’s life. And so having grace for yourself and recognizing that your absence in one place so that you can be present in another is good and the reality. And you can’t be in every place at once.

Jennifer Smith (18:03):

And my encouragement to the person listening right now that wants to, wants that ideal life situation to be happening and maybe you can’t fulfill all the things that you want to is to remember that you can’t do anything apart from Christ. He is our strength. He is our source of peace. He is even our source of creativity in the way that we pour into the things that we do. We have to rely on him. And when we hit that wall in our capacity, let that be a cue to pray and to remind ourselves of what is our source and where do we get the things that we need to be able to do the things that we do. And that goes for anybody, not just in a season of postpartum but throughout our life existence.

Aaron Smith (18:47):

I actually just encouraged you with this, the other because you were feeling like, I feel like I can’t do everything. I feel like I can’t get to everything. I feel like this is too hard. And I got to encourage you. And I said, some of the smartest, wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, people in the world that have accomplished amazing things, failed in some

Jennifer Smith (19:08):

Area,

Aaron Smith (19:09):

Some area in their marriages and in their families. And I was explaining, I was like, what we’re doing is the most difficult thing in the world to do, to have a family, to raise a family and to some extent do it well, it is the most difficult thing. It’s more difficult than starting a business. It’s more difficult than keeping a multimillion dollar company and having lots of employees and accomplishing all these amazing things. Keeping a family is the most difficult thing. And so I was encouraging. I was like, so it’s okay that you feel this way. This is a very hard thing we’re doing, but it’s the most valuable thing we can do. At the end of the day, people are the only thing that are going to heaven or not. There’s nothing else, nothing else that we produce in life goes with us. I was just encouraging you and I want to encourage everyone else that it’s okay that this feels difficult because it absolutely is. But it’s a good difficult, it’s a good thing to fight for and to keep working toward and to, like you said, recognize you can’t do it on your own.

(20:13)
You need Jesus.

Jennifer Smith (20:14):

Totally. Okay, so some practicals for helping each other when your capacity is low. That I was just thinking of when you were talking is communication.

Jennifer Smith (20:24):

Because

Jennifer Smith (20:25):

When I held back and I was just wrestling, that’s when there was tension in our marriage. That’s when there was tension in our home because I was just feeling it and not actually verbalizing, Hey, could someone do this? Or Erin, could you step up in this area? And so the times that I was able to communicate to you, you were able to respond with yes, no maybe or whatever the response was. It was you were capable of doing that and that was super helpful. When you’re in a certain season, I’m thinking about a friend right now who’s about to go into surgery and just what his spouse is going to need in order to help him. And so this could go for any type of season where one or both of you guys are down and resting is taking up the extra load and doing it with joy

Aaron Smith (21:10):

Of laundry,

Jennifer Smith (21:11):

With everything. That was a big one with everything.

Aaron Smith (21:13):

We have a lot of laundry.

Jennifer Smith (21:14):

We have a lot of people in our family. So yes, laundry was a big one, dishes was a big one. Making sure after the meal train ended that meals were being prepped and going. And so there’s just, when you’re running a home, like you said, it’s hard but good. There’s just a lot of parts moving that need to make it happen. And so when a spouse is down, you got to be communicating, but also willfully helping.

Aaron Smith (21:36):

It’d be a huge one for our friends. Go grocery shopping for them.

Jennifer Smith (21:39):

Yeah, no, totally not

Aaron Smith (21:40):

You, but let’s go grocery shopping. I was just realizing that’s a good thing. That’s something that happened actually quite a few times in the midst of this postpartum season. We would go in there and be like, when’s the last time we’ve been to this grocery store and our refrigerator is totally empty? Not that it’s just on Jennifer, we just weren’t doing it. We were forgetting, and so we’d have to go and load up and so we should go grocery shopping.

Jennifer Smith (22:00):

That’s a good idea. I’ll note that.

Aaron Smith (22:03):

Hey, mayor Jeff, God, family. I wanted to take a quick moment to tell you about Samaritan Ministries Biblical healthcare that puts your family first. See, we’re so excited about this because my family and I, we’ve been using Samaritan Ministries for years for our family healthcare and we truly love it. If you’ve never heard of them, Samaritan Ministries is a biblical solution to healthcare. It’s a community of believers who share each other’s medical needs through prayer, encouragement, and direct financial support. You’ll actually get money directly from another believer to help pay for your bills. And every month you’ll pay directly to another believer to help pay their bills. And not only do you get to send this directly to them, but you also get to pray for them and send them a message of encouragement. We love it and you’ll love it. We get to have the freedom to choose our own doctors while participating in a ministry that prioritizes Christian values. Plus it could be more affordable than what you’re currently paying right now. So if you’re interested in finding out more about Samaritan Ministries and what they could do for your family and your medical needs, please go to marriage after god.com/s. That’s the letters S, marriage after god.com/sm and find out more about Samaritan Ministries and see if it’s got a good fit for your family.

Jennifer Smith (23:11):

And so I just want to encourage you, Erin, that you really stepped up when we had Emran to be a help to me and I really appreciate that.

Aaron Smith (23:20):

Thank you.

Jennifer Smith (23:20):

That was awesome.

Aaron Smith (23:21):

I appreciate that too.

Jennifer Smith (23:25):

We can move on from capacity.

Aaron Smith (23:26):

So this episode’s when you’re viewing this next week will be our 18 year anniversary, which blows my mind, which means

Jennifer Smith (23:37):

Our marriage is an adult now, which I think is funny because a couple years back I remember it turning 16 and I’m like, oh, our marriage can drive now.

Aaron Smith (23:44):

Now we’re an adult now we’ve made it to adulthood and marriage. So that’s pretty exciting. So we’re celebrating that next week. You just celebrated your birthday yesterday, so how old are you now?

Jennifer Smith (23:55):

I’m 39.

Aaron Smith (23:56):

39. Almost at 29.

Jennifer Smith (23:58):

Weird. Say 30. I still 29

Aaron Smith (24:00):

Almost over the hill with me. You got to,

Jennifer Smith (24:03):

I’m going to chase you down the hill.

Aaron Smith (24:04):

Yeah, you got to join me down the

Jennifer Smith (24:05):

Hill or roll down the hill too, you

Aaron Smith (24:06):

Yeah, but we’re super excited about that. It’s so weird to think 18 years has already gone by and it’s also weird to think if we would’ve had kids right away, we’d have an adult right now.

Jennifer Smith (24:17):

Yeah,

Aaron Smith (24:18):

That blows my mind. But we’re only a few years away from that.

Jennifer Smith (24:21):

I know. I’ve been thinking about that a lot

Aaron Smith (24:22):

Lately. Elliot just turned 12, man. Oh man. We talked about a handful of episodes ago that this next 10 years is going to be a roller coaster. Roller coaster. Speaking of

Jennifer Smith (24:34):

Roller coasters, let’s get into the meat of the message today.

Aaron Smith (24:40):

So in light of it being a new year, and everyone always does this, we’re like, okay, we tend to look forward. We tend to look forward like, okay, what’s next? What are we going to do this next year?

Jennifer Smith (24:48):

I’m definitely that person

Aaron Smith (24:49):

And we do this and we’re not going to not do that. We kind of already been talking about it and I hate making resolutions. We’ve talked about this in the past. Instead, I’d just rather what

Jennifer Smith (25:02):

You’re the type of person that’s like, what am I going to change today to make my life

Aaron Smith (25:05):

Better,

Jennifer Smith (25:06):

Make my life better?

Aaron Smith (25:07):

I’m more like,

Jennifer Smith (25:08):

What can I start on Monday or I missed January 1st. Okay, let’s wait until next year.

Aaron Smith (25:15):

Let’s go to the next

Jennifer Smith (25:16):

Year. It’s harder for me. Okay,

Aaron Smith (25:17):

So something that we were just thinking about is sometimes it’s good to just take a look back and be like, okay, what were some expectations we had and what were some disappointments we had and how can we look at those and shape those and use those to point us into the new year? I dunno. I would say

Jennifer Smith (25:35):

The easy answer is not to go into the next year without expectations.

Aaron Smith (25:39):

That’s true.

Jennifer Smith (25:40):

That help

Aaron Smith (25:41):

Lower our expectations. What is that under over promise? No and over deliver. That’s what we should be doing. It’s

Jennifer Smith (25:48):

Funny because we wrote the Unveiled Wife years ago, the beginning of our marriage. You

Aaron Smith (25:55):

Mostly

Jennifer Smith (25:55):

Wrote that one.

Jennifer Smith (25:57):

We wrote that in the fifth year of our marriage back in 2012. And I remember talking about expectations in that book and I remember getting to the end of it and kind of wrapping up what God was teaching me and all this stuff. And since then, every time I hit a hard spot with expectation and disappointment and setting you up for failure, because I do that in marriage, I have these expectations of Erin and then something doesn’t happen. They’re never

Aaron Smith (26:25):

Voiced by the

Jennifer Smith (26:25):

Way. Yeah, okay. That’s where I

Aaron Smith (26:27):

Felt they’re all up here. She has a conversation with me in her head and then she,

Jennifer Smith (26:30):

But I think about how, I don’t if you guys do this, but I think I thought I already conquered this one. Why is this back in my life? Why am I still struggling? And so I just wanted to say, if you are in that place where you’ve experienced something hard and you think that you overcame it or you think that you’re better now or

Aaron Smith (26:49):

You’re right back there again,

Jennifer Smith (26:50):

And you’re right back there again, it’s okay because it’s part of the growing process. We are growing and we’re learning and we are going to mess up and we’re going to do things like set high expectations for our spouse and then get disappointed. It’s going to happen.

Aaron Smith (27:01):

Yeah.

Jennifer Smith (27:01):

That’s not all we’re talking about today, but I just want to encourage people. We’re still growing.

Aaron Smith (27:06):

We looked at the whole year, 2024 and back in 2023, we had some really high exciting, high expectations. We’re like, okay, we were getting motivated. We had some plans and ideas and things that we wanted to move forward with. And then December comes around, my dad gets sick, my brother dies. That

Jennifer Smith (27:30):

Derailed

Aaron Smith (27:31):

Our whole year. It felt like,

Jennifer Smith (27:32):

I was going to say it went well into spring, but really it went well into summer just with keeping up with your family and emotional stuff.

Aaron Smith (27:40):

But us being gone for so long and we have our home church and that put our home church in a different place and there was just all year.

Jennifer Smith (27:48):

Well, because it wasn’t just our family, it felt like everybody was going through,

Aaron Smith (27:51):

Everyone was going through stuff. And so it felt like 2024 was like

Jennifer Smith (27:56):

Whiplash.

Aaron Smith (27:57):

Yeah, it felt like a little bit of whiplash. So we just wanted to talk about that. We want to talk about how we can have one idea of something and experience a whole different thing and still come on the other side and be like, okay, Lord, thank you.

Jennifer Smith (28:12):

I was talking about with the C-section, I actually got a midwife and I was really excited to do a home birth.

Aaron Smith (28:17):

Oh, we were already Edith.

Jennifer Smith (28:18):

Our last was a home birth and that was the first home birth that we had had, and Olive got to be a part of that. So this time I was like, Olive’s going to be there and Edith’s going to be there and it’s going to be great. And then I had to have a C-section. At the end of the day, I am grateful. And I look back and I go, oh man. But I’ll be honest, those first two weeks of after having the C-section, I was disappointed. I had some wrestling to do because it didn’t turn out the way that I wanted.

Aaron Smith (28:42):

I think periodically you still do, you look back and you’re like, I wished that didn’t have to happen. And because it’s something you had no control over, we had one expectation we were so excited for. And that’s what’s crazy is because we went the route with the home birth, we still had to pay a portion of that and then we had to pay.

Jennifer Smith (28:59):

They saw me throughout my

Aaron Smith (29:01):

Right. It’s not wrong, it’s just our plan didn’t play out the way we had

Jennifer Smith (29:06):

Financially. We ended up

Aaron Smith (29:08):

In

Jennifer Smith (29:08):

A much different spot

Aaron Smith (29:09):

In the hospital with the C-section and the doctors. We were expecting to pay this little amount and now we have this huge bill.

Jennifer Smith (29:16):

No, it wasn’t a little amount. They told us up front what it would be.

Aaron Smith (29:19):

No, I’m saying that with the home birth,

Jennifer Smith (29:21):

Yes,

Aaron Smith (29:22):

Was be significantly cheaper than the hospital. But I’ll say this, and I just want to make a little plug here. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, we’ve been being sponsored by Samari Ministries. That’s not why we’re with them. We want them as a sponsor because we love using them. They’ve been huge for us. By the way, Samari Ministries is our health share program. It’s not health insurance, it’s different. It’s where Christians help other Christians pay their medical bills. And

Jennifer Smith (29:46):

Can I just share my favorite part, which I didn’t know was a thing until

Aaron Smith (29:49):

Recently?

Jennifer Smith (29:49):

Well, because how

Aaron Smith (29:50):

Did you not know that? I thought you knew this.

Jennifer Smith (29:51):

I don’t know, because Aaron takes care of all of that stuff, especially when I’m having a baby. So Aaron’s been into the finances actually for

Aaron Smith (29:58):

Oh forever,

Jennifer Smith (30:02):

Which is okay, I, it’s easier for me. But as the way that Samaritan works is people support your need. And so we were getting these pieces of mail that had

Aaron Smith (30:13):

A check in it,

Jennifer Smith (30:14):

A check in it that would reimburse to cover costs, but it came with a note. And every single one that he opened, I was reading handwritten notes from people or typed out that were encouraging us, congratulating us, saying that they’re praying for us. I was amazed. I was like, Aaron, do we do this? And he goes, yes. And I was like, oh, I didn’t realize you had been taking on that for us on behalf of us. And I just thought, how beautiful that I never thought I would appreciate that type of, it’s not insurance like you said, but it’s like

Aaron Smith (30:45):

No care. I think it’s better than insurance. That

Jennifer Smith (30:48):

Should be their tagline.

Aaron Smith (30:50):

Christians helping Christians pay their medical bills. So every month we help pay someone, some other Christian’s medical, but actually I send money directly to them. We do. And I also send them a prayer with that, whatever that medical need is.

Jennifer Smith (31:01):

I just remembered we were driving in the car somewhere and we had everyone in the car, all the kids, you had a phone call from them because you had a question on the hospital billing me, but also billing emerin separate and you’re kind of clarifying with them. And then right at the end of the conversation, the guy goes, so can I pray for you guys? And you’re on speakerphone. All the kids got really quiet and they were amazed that they preach

Aaron Smith (31:26):

For us. He prayed for us right there

Jennifer Smith (31:27):

And it was a long care. I I’m just appreciative. I think that stuff is so cool.

Aaron Smith (31:31):

I just wanted to do that side note because we’ve been with them for years and it’s been so, even though we have this unexpected large bill, very large, much larger than we were expecting, it’s being taken care of by other believers. So praise God for that.

Jennifer Smith (31:45):

Yeah. Also, you don’t have to keep saying side note because really this whole episode is a bunch of side notes.

Aaron Smith (31:50):

It’s true. Actually

Jennifer Smith (31:51):

We’ve been building up for three months side notes.

Aaron Smith (31:53):

These are the expectation things. So again, last year, another expectation over the years we’ve tried to be financially wise, we try and make sure that we stay as much out of that as possible. We try and make sure that we take care of our home and we are trying to invest in the future, not just so we can have a bunch of money so that we can prepare for our children.

Jennifer Smith (32:16):

This is say for our kids, have a bunch of money.

Aaron Smith (32:19):

No, we’re trying to build something to hand to our children one day. And so in 2024 we were like, okay, for our first time we tried doing an investment in a flip house.

Jennifer Smith (32:32):

This was actually at the end of 23 right before your

Aaron Smith (32:34):

Dad got sick. Yeah, it was right before my dad gets sick and we had started it and we were getting into this and it was our first time ever experiencing this. And it had on paper looked amazing, but I can’t get into all the details about it, but I’ll just say this. It’s not turning out the way we were expecting. It’s still not going to be the worst thing ever. We’re not in a bad place, but it just makes us look at, in the beginning we’re like, oh, we have this opportunity and it looks so amazing. It’s going to be so perfect. And I’m sure that some of you guys listening have been into investing before or have been doing it for a long time are like, well, it’s never what you think it’s going to be. It’s always going to be harder than it sounds. And we’re learning that on the back end of this.

Jennifer Smith (33:17):

What would you say to a couple right now listening where they’re in the midst of that, where they’ve invested

Jennifer Smith (33:23):

No

Jennifer Smith (33:23):

Matter what amount, and there’s turning, I don’t want to say hard feelings, but there’s some emotions going on because it’s not turning out the way that they want. How do they come alongside each other and help get through it versus other ways of

Aaron Smith (33:39):

Dealing?

Jennifer Smith (33:39):

That kind of disappointment

Aaron Smith (33:41):

Thing is I think a part of investing is the learning it, it’s all risk management, it’s all

Jennifer Smith (33:46):

So it’s kind giving grace to each other for when decisions are made that, hey, we knew that this was a risk and it’s going to be okay.

Aaron Smith (33:53):

But just

Jennifer Smith (33:53):

Verbalizing that.

Aaron Smith (33:54):

Well, and even if maybe they didn’t because I’m sure some people don’t even think there’s no risk involved at all.

Jennifer Smith (33:59):

There’s

Aaron Smith (34:00):

Always risk. There’s always risk. That’s what investing is, is yeah, recognizing, okay, what can we learn from this? And then secondly, this probably should be the first thing is we got to trust the Lord for everything.

Jennifer Smith (34:13):

Oh, for sure.

Aaron Smith (34:14):

We’re not chasing wealth, we’re not chasing these ideals. We’re trying to be wise. We’re trying to make choices that will benefit our home and our family and our church and our futures to the best of our ability. And we got to trust God. And so along this journey has been okay. I don’t know how this is going to turn out. We did our best. There’s been times with you that you’re like, what are we doing? I’m like, well, at this point, I don’t know. I’m just waiting. And we got to be patient. We got to trust the Lord. And lots of prayer.

Jennifer Smith (34:44):

Lots of prayer.

Aaron Smith (34:45):

Yeah,

Jennifer Smith (34:45):

Prayer. And also I encourage you to take notes, write down, do I like how this type of investment is going? How do you feel? Because you could feel one way in the midst of it, but then when it turns out and everything’s good, maybe you think differently. So it’s good to remind yourself along the way, what was the cost emotionally, mentally, with your relationship with your spouse,

Aaron Smith (35:04):

And were those

Jennifer Smith (35:05):

Worth it? All those things. Yeah. Was it worth it?

Aaron Smith (35:06):

Because maybe they’re to some people, we’re actually evaluating how if we’re going to invest again and how we’re going to invest in the future based off of this current situation. And at the end of the day, we got to open our hands up and be like, okay, Lord, what are we doing? What are you doing? What do you want to want us to get out this? And so yeah, that was one thing.

Jennifer Smith (35:30):

I have a note here. It’s superficial, but because I’m like the mom traditions who plans everything. I like tradition. I like having fun. Our trip to Hood River was supposed to be the same weekend that we were having Emerin and Hood River is just this really beautiful, I want to say country, hillside, orchard where all the apple picking and berries happen. So every fall we take the family down there. We’ve been doing it for years and I was super fast.

Aaron Smith (35:58):

We usually do it with friends instead. Our friends went because they also go every year.

Jennifer Smith (36:02):

And

Aaron Smith (36:02):

We were

Jennifer Smith (36:03):

Home. It’s okay though.

(36:05)
The real kicker was we decided to go apple picking still, and we were like, even if there’s no apples on the tree, it’s going to be okay. Okay. Last Emerin was probably about a month old. So this was late October. And because we chose that, we ended up not going to a pumpkin patch at all, which is you got to give yourself grace. You can only do so much after you have a baby. Which I keep telling myself, but I’m like, man, these traditions, these things that we normally do didn’t happen. And I know that things like that, an annual trip or whatever can be taken away for a lot of different reasons. Someone gets sick or whatever, but we just have to deal with it. And is it just something you just kind of bag up and put aside and go

Aaron Smith (36:47):

Again? Like we were talking before, there’s a lot of dying to self. We have these ideals for our lives, these expectations for our lives. And I might just think of that scripture that says, if you want to save your life, you got to lose it. And if you try to save your life, you’re going to lose it. We want to control everything. We want to shape our own lives. And at the end of the day, there’s so little that we actually have control over.

Jennifer Smith (37:10):

But you know what? We are shaping our kids’ lives and our kids’ perspective and our kids’ way of responding to things. And I think this would be a good little

Aaron Smith (37:18):

Note to make.

Jennifer Smith (37:20):

I was say

(37:20)
Point no. A little opportunity to talk about how parents in their disappointment or in their emotional response to a situation not coming out the way that you want it to remember the kids. That’s good point. And that we are shaping them. And so I remember specifically one of my kids asking, aren’t we going to go to the pumpkin patch? And I felt crushed, but I had to encourage them and remind them it’s okay that we didn’t chose Apple picking instead. And so this is just, what’d I say? Oh, an opportunity to share with you guys that when we’re wrestling, we can still encourage the kids and share the truth with the kids so that when they’re older and they’re adults, they will have everything that they need to be able to respond to disappointment in a positive way. I’m sure it won’t be perfect because they’re made of flesh as well. But just to remember that we’re shaping them, we’re helping them. We’re building up a foundation in them on how they’re going to respond to things happening or not happening.

Aaron Smith (38:23):

Again, one of the hardest things we’re going to do is we’re building a family and teaching our kids how to deal with these things. Unmet expectations, which I feel like children deal with a lot because their world is so small and very close to themselves, especially when you have more than one child, they’re going to bump against each other a lot. And so we’re realizing that and they have an expectation of how something should go and then, but their brother or sister has also an expectation on their opposite of each other. So we’re teaching them something for myself that I look back on. And for years I feel like I was really diligent with daily Bible time with the family. And this last year I feel like I dropped the ball pretty hard on that.

Jennifer Smith (39:11):

I wouldn’t say drop the ball. I would say that was intermittent,

Aaron Smith (39:14):

Very intermittent,

(39:16)
Not as consistent as it would’ve been nice to have been. But that’s something I get to look back on and be like, okay, that’s something I would love to do better this year. I would love to be more consistent with family bible time. Getting back into the word, getting more consistent with it. Something that you actually stepped up with when I was not being as consistent. You were filling in a lot of those gaps and I’m really thankful for that. And it’s something that we can move forward doing. I actually enjoyed you doing it and we can take turns doing it. That might make it be way more consistent this year. But an encouragement for you husbands out there. If you haven’t started doing a family bible time with your children, your wife, or if you have been intermittent, I just want to encourage you that it’s okay to start now. You don’t have to wait for a specific time or

Jennifer Smith (40:04):

Pick up where you left off, just

Aaron Smith (40:05):

Pick up where you left off and dust the dust off your pants from whatever Off the Bible. Yeah, off the Bible. Hopefully not the Bible, but it happens. And just get back into it. So that’s something that I look back on and I realize I had one expectation and turned out quite a bit different. But

Jennifer Smith (40:26):

I will say that with the, it’s always weird how the homeschool year starts differently than the new year starts.

Aaron Smith (40:32):

Than the actual year. Yeah, than the actual year. I actually never understood that either,

Jennifer Smith (40:35):

But

Aaron Smith (40:35):

Kind of get it.

Jennifer Smith (40:36):

So in the new school year, I actually started early. I started at the beginning of August knowing that we were going to have emerin and just wanting that time to not feel behind or anything like that. And when I was building the curriculum out, I found answers in Genesis has a Bible curriculum and there’s actually four different sets because it goes through creation to Joseph. And then from there throughout the Bible. And I found a family devotional book that kind of goes along with it. It’s not perfect, but goes along with it.

Aaron Smith (41:06):

It’s been really cool though.

Jennifer Smith (41:07):

It’s been really cool. And so we started that with the new school year. And so Aaron, you’ll read chapter two out of the family devotional. And then later on that week, I’ll read out of the teacher’s manual for the

Aaron Smith (41:19):

Curriculum. They pretty closely coincide. So the family devotional seems very top level, like high level. And then during the

Jennifer Smith (41:27):

Week gets more,

Aaron Smith (41:28):

It gets deeper and deeper and deeper into those same concepts, ask

Jennifer Smith (41:31):

Questions and things like that. So if you are looking for something to guide your family bible time, I would say this is a really great option. And it did help us to become more consistent, which I appreciated

Aaron Smith (41:42):

And I really enjoyed it too. It’s really, really awesome. So where do you want to go from here,

Jennifer Smith (41:51):

Babe?

Aaron Smith (41:55):

Yeah, I don’t know if anyone else feels the way we feel but felt like it last year. Like you mentioned at the beginning of this was a rollercoaster. Lots of ups and downs, lots of good things. I feel like even though there was a lot of, we talked about this, there was a lot of unmet expectations, like missed expectations. I feel like a lot still happened. A lot of accomplishments, a lot of,

Jennifer Smith (42:18):

Lots of rejoicing.

Aaron Smith (42:18):

Rejoicing. I mean new babies. I know lots of new babies in our church. That’s been amazing. Seeing our kids really step up, seeing us deal with some hardships in really good ways. It’s been good. It’s been a good

Jennifer Smith (42:35):

Something that

Aaron Smith (42:35):

Good hard year.

Jennifer Smith (42:36):

Yeah. Something that I’ll share is that often, not often, but a handful of times throughout the year, I can hear your voice still say it and you say it the same way every time when I’m wrestling or when I’m faced with something unmet expectations or something that I can’t seem to get over, you say, what can you be grateful for? And it’s such a subtle reminder to have gratitude. So easy for us to look at the thing glaring right in front of us saying, oh, that’s not how it should be. And getting frustrated over that or spinning your wheels over, what can I do to fix that thing? But to your point, well what around that thing can you be grateful for? And I appreciated that it stops me in my tracks and it makes me go, oh yeah, life is good.

Aaron Smith (43:21):

So a good thing for us to do is the new year begins is to look back on all the things that we’re really grateful for. We were just talking about expectations, but in reality, the way we were looking back at it was not look how much we failed, but it was looking back at how different the year was than what we expected, but also how good it was. And figuring out what we can be grateful for and not what can we be grateful for. We have to dig for it. In reality, I told this the kids the other day, if we were to try and say everything we were thankful for, we wouldn’t have enough time to do it because we have way more than we ever deserve. I’m not just saying Jennifer and I like us as believers in Christ Jesus. What he offered to us is we can never earn it. It’s impossible. And yet he’s freely given it to us. And so that salvation we have is not just the icing on the cake, it is the cake and the icing and everything. And when we look at our whole life through the lens of salvation, it changes our perspective on all of the unlike expectations.

Jennifer Smith (44:29):

Amen.

(44:31)
So you said a few things, even though it was hard, it was good this last year, and maybe it was because of all the things you helped me understand that we are grateful for and asking me that prompting question that when I look back at the year, I go, oh man, we did go through a lot, but it was good. It was a good year and I felt productive in my family and in my homeschool journey and all of that, but I was in a different place than you. And I think that that can happen in marriage where one spouse can be experiencing something more difficult even though they’re experiencing

(45:03)
The same life, the same family life, the same culture. And it’s like, I think we should speak to that for a little bit. And so at the beginning of the year, you mentioned your dad got sick, your brother passed away, you turned 40, and there was just a lot of heaviness around who is Aaron and what is Aaron going through? And so I didn’t carry all of that, but I got to walk with you in it. And so I think that it would be good for just a little bit of time to share where you were at maybe emotionally, mentally, and how I wasn’t

Aaron Smith (45:38):

Prepared for this.

Jennifer Smith (45:38):

I know what got you through it. And be an encouragement as you shared to the other men who are listening who might be going through something similar. Women.

Aaron Smith (45:49):

Not only did I, so I turned 40 this last year and I never understood the idea of why someone might go through a midlife crisis. And I don’t even like to call it that because that has connotations that I don’t feel like match up with what I was going through. But in reality, I was challenged really in a major way in my identity this year. And it probably was supercharged by the loss of my brother, my dad getting sick.

Jennifer Smith (46:16):

Financial weight,

Aaron Smith (46:16):

Financial weight.

Jennifer Smith (46:18):

You’re pastoring our church. And I would say that that had a heaviness to it

Aaron Smith (46:24):

And how well I’m pastoring my church or not, well, I should say many times feeling like a failure in a lot of things. Feeling like a failure as a father, feeling like a failure as a husband, as a pastor, as a son, all these things. And almost like the Holy Spirit was like, okay, what you were before was fine for then, but it’s not going to be good for what’s coming or not enough I should say. And so I feel like this whole last year, and I don’t feel like I’m fully out of it to be honest. I feel like I’m in a better place for sure. But I feel like this year was a lot of introspective consideration, a lot of really having to go to God and be like, what am I doing? Who am I? Why am I doing this?

Jennifer Smith (47:15):

Moments of unknown?

Aaron Smith (47:16):

Yeah,

Jennifer Smith (47:17):

What’s next? What am I supposed to do?

Aaron Smith (47:18):

A lot of feeling of wanting to quit a lot and having to fight those feelings and having to go to God in prayer with those feelings of like, I want to quit. Should I quit? Is this the right thing? And quit in a lot of things. But being challenged, being encouraged by you, really not even knowing how to fully talk about how I feel and what’s going on in my heart, in my head,

Jennifer Smith (47:45):

Putting words

Aaron Smith (47:46):

To it. Yeah, it’s hard to put words to it. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I think a lot of men and women go through this and there’s a lot of things writing on who I am in my character. And we talked about my children becoming adults and launching them into this world and not dropping the ball on that. And Go ahead.

Jennifer Smith (48:14):

Oh, sorry. I just remembered a conversation I had with my 6-year-old son just recently. And I was affirming, I’ve been trying to affirm who the kids are lately and just what I see in them and our whole family really. But with him specifically, I said, Hey Truitt, I just want to encourage you. I said, I’ve been seeing a lot of initiative lately and you’ve been growing and maturing and being thoughtful. I just was really trying to build him up. And I said, I just want you to keep moving forward in that direction, and I just wanted to remind you that these things are good. And I said, it’s who you are. And he looks at me and he goes, it’s who I’m going to be. And I said, well, it’s who you are. And he goes, well,

Aaron Smith (48:59):

And who he’s going

Jennifer Smith (48:59):

To be. He goes, it’s who I am and who I’m going to be. And I just thought it was a really beautiful moment and I just wanted to share that.

Aaron Smith (49:06):

And that’s kind of how I feel. I feel like God is trying to, he’s working in me to a new level of maturity

(49:16)
And faithfulness. And so my flesh is really fighting growing up. And that sounds like I’m not growing up at all. But this new phase, we all go through different seasons of life and from 10 to 20 and from 20 to 30 and then from 30 to 40, very unique things are happening in those timeframes. Like I said, this next 10 years from 40 to 50, now I have kids that most of them will become adults, be getting married, having children, trying to get homes of their own, trying to start careers of their own. I’m like, I’m just realizing I’m currently where I’m at, not adequate enough to accomplish that. And so put

Jennifer Smith (50:02):

Christ in you

Aaron Smith (50:02):

Exactly

Jennifer Smith (50:03):

Is,

Aaron Smith (50:04):

Yeah. But on top of that, what does God want for me and our church and what does God want for me and my marriage and what does God want for me and my parents that are getting older? And so there’s a lot of things, let alone all of my individual personal relationships with friends. And so I dunno, you guys can be praying for me for that. Not like I’ve answered all questions, but

Jennifer Smith (50:29):

I appreciate you sharing that. And I’m sorry I put you on the spot. I just felt

Jennifer Smith (50:32):

Like

Jennifer Smith (50:33):

It’ll add clarity to some of the phrases that you shared about this last year, being hard and stuff like that. Give them insight. And just to encourage the couples out there that from my perspective, there were times that you didn’t share anything with me, but I could tell that you were struggling and bearing the weight of things that I prayed for you about. And I tried to encourage you, but sometimes things are unspoken and you still walk hand in hand and

(51:00)
Be alongside them to support them. And so I just want to encourage you guys who might be going through some hardship. There might be moments that are left unspoken and there might be moments that there are words to how things are being felt. And no matter what, just being there for each other and reminding each other that you’re not going anywhere, reminding each other that you’re on the same team, reminding each other what scripture says of what’s true and what’s important, and prayer. So one more thing that I want to share about in light of expectation and disappointment and just wrestling in general. You had mentioned one of the things being church and everybody who is a believer has an experience with church some closer than others. We have been walking through different kinds of seasons over the last handful of years with our fellowship. We told you guys this before, but we have a home church, and it’s a very intimate thing because we sit together every Sunday looking at each other, participating. Everybody kind of has a hand in speaking up and

Aaron Smith (52:03):

Living life with each other,

Jennifer Smith (52:04):

Living life with each other, especially during the week. And no matter what hard things have come up in the past, even in just this last year, we have some changes that we’re going into in this next year. And so I’ve been putting together a special video just to highlight the experience that we’ve had with this specific fellowship. And it makes me tearful thinking about it. There have been so many events and moments that have been caught, captured, and I’m putting together this slideshow thinking about what we’ve experienced, what our kids have experienced, what together as a body we’ve experienced. And it’s such a cool thing to be able to look back over and see the highlights.

Aaron Smith (52:49):

Yeah. Well, it’s a really special thing that we even have the ability to have all these memories recorded because when you’re showing the slide that somewhat you have so far, I was like, those were good

Jennifer Smith (52:58):

Times. Such good. Those were good times. They were good times. But the thing is, is even up until the end, you guys we’re still making good times. Our Christmas party was a good

Aaron Smith (53:08):

Time, more good times

Jennifer Smith (53:08):

Ahead, and there’s going to be more good times ahead. And so I just wanted to bring that up because I think it’s important to remember when you are going through hard things, conflict, relational things, whatever it is, that there are good times and that God has blessed us and brought us together as a body. And there’s times that our body hurts. There’s times that our body has something that they need to take care of and it doesn’t diminish or devalue those good times. And so I’m really grateful for the people who have walked alongside us for the last six years and have been there. And I say all that to encourage you and your own church family and how you guys fellowship with them. And just to encourage you to take that time during the week to invite them over for dinner, to make that event for a holiday part of your gathering. And just find ways to host and have fun and build fun, cherishing memories with your kids and their kids. And just remember that we’re all part of the same body because those highlights matter.

Aaron Smith (54:10):

And that in closing makes me think of as we go into this new year, there’s a scripture I’ve been dwelling on lately. And it essentially, and it’s talking about the enzymes, it’s talking about as we get closer to the days of the Lord returning, that the hearts of many will grow cold and that their love will grow cold. And I just want to encourage us as believers to not allow our hearts to grow cold, not allow our love to harden off. And sometimes the grief and the hardship and the suffering and the issues of life can make us want to close off me. I just want, like I said, that giving up feeling of like, I just want to quit loving. This is too hard. Loving and keeping my heart open and keeping my expectations open.

Jennifer Smith (55:01):

What would you say is the key to that? Because I think you can say, I don’t want to close my heart off or I want to love others. Or you can even say, no, I do love others. But what’s the proof? What’s the thing that’s going to keep them from hardening?

Aaron Smith (55:15):

Well, we need to run to the Lord with those things and we need his help to keep our hearts soft. Lord, help me not harden my heart. Keep my heart soft. Fill me with your love. There’s a song, I can’t remember what it is, but it says, help me love others that you, I’m messing it up, but there’s a song I’m thinking about going to those in his love, going to those outside of us, near us in his love,

Jennifer Smith (55:46):

Even though you didn’t remember the lyrics. That’s a great point. It’s pursuit.

Aaron Smith (55:49):

It’s

Jennifer Smith (55:50):

To pursue each other, pursue relationship even when it’s hard because action is what keeps your heart from hardening. And you got to take that next step. You got to make that phone call. You got to choose the hard thing. Choose the good thing.

Aaron Smith (56:05):

Yeah. There’s another scripture.

Jennifer Smith (56:07):

When I say thing, it’s the thing. It’s what brings you guys together. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Aaron Smith (56:12):

To love, be unified, continue to move, fight to go closer together. Another scripture says, don’t grow. We in doing good for induced season, you’ll reap a harvest of righteousness. And so continuing to push into that and not allow our love to grow

Jennifer Smith (56:27):

Cold

Aaron Smith (56:29):

The world. That’s what their hearts are doing. But we have Jesus so we can go to him in prayer and ask him to keep our hearts soft and warm and pliable. So speaking of prayer, why don’t we pray for them for their new year?

Jennifer Smith (56:44):

Okay,

Aaron Smith (56:46):

You go ahead. Me, I can pray. Okay, Lord, we love you so much. We thank you that regardless of all of the heartache and hurt and pain and suffering and things that happen in 2024, God, it was full of your goodness still and you were with us, and we thank you for that. And I just pray that everyone listening would recognize that they would look back on their last year with gratitude, even in the midst of the hard things, Lord, and that they would’ve gratitude for you and their salvation in you. And Lord, I just pray that looking forward, we would pursue you more than ever, and we would get into your word more than ever, God, that we would trust you more than ever, and most importantly, that we would rejoice in our salvation in your son Jesus, more than ever. I pray that this year, the year 2025 would be a year of growth in our relationship with you and maturity, more prayer, more of your word, and that God, you would make us more bold with the gospel. And we thank you for all of our listeners. I just pray that their year would be filled with your blessings and filled with pursuit of you. And we love you, and we thank you for all of them. In Jesus’ name, amen.

(58:13)
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