Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 80 Rebekah and Gabe Lyons

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Gabe and Rebekah Lyons join us this week on Couple Things! Rebekah is a national speaker and best-selling author. Gabe is the founder of Q Ideas, a movement designed for building and sustaining a vision for restoring the credibility of the Christian faith in Western culture for new generations. They are a Christ-centered, family-focused couple with 4 beautiful children. They are proud spokesparents for downsyndrome and adoption!  Here are a few topics that we cover: 3:37 how gabe and rebekah met 6:27 the decision to date 13:10 gaining the courage to have the break-up conversion  17:14 building their visions and life together 22:44 balance between drive and contentment 31:35 how stress has effected their relationship 36:33 raising a child with special needs 43:16 how the trauma of childbirth affected wanting a second child 47:26 rhythms of renewal and Q ideas 50:15 one piece of advice You can follow them on Instagram here ▶ Rebekah's Instagram and Gabe's Instagram Their websites here ▶ Rebekah's website Gabe's website Rebekah's newest book is available for preorder ▶here! ANDD....WE ARE GOING ON TOUR!! Check out the link below to see if we are coming to a city near you in 2022! Click here to get your tickets now ▶ https://www.couplethingspod.com/ We are sponsored by these companies that we love. Check them out below:  SlingTV ▶ Go to SlingTV.com/EASTFAM to sign up now and get your first month for just $10!  If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething... And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe for more! http://bit.ly/3rnOdNo Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I really do believe that that humanity flourishes when family flourishes. Come back to the drawing board of like, why did you fall in love with this person in the first place? Ask each other that question. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. What's Sean and Andrew? A podcast all about couples.

And the things they go through. We have a special guest. Yeah, that's right. You'll probably hear him. A little six-week-old jet here with us. Yes. How you doing, buddy? If you hear any weird noises, that is him.

Anyways, today we have a treat for you. We have Rebecca and Gabe Lyons. That's right. Again, a couple from Nashville. So we did this episode in person. And it was an absolute pleasure. We have a ton of mutual friends with the lions. So to sit down with them for an hour, hour and a half,

and have this conversation was a real treat. So to tell you a little about the lions, they're both serial authors. And we had the pleasure sit down with Rebecca, as she just launched a new book called Rhythms of Renewal. Both Gabe and Rebecca have a passion to see young people thrive through life. And so this new book, Rhythms of Renewal, is all about how you can defeat, worry, stress, and anxiety in your everyday life.

So we really look up to both Gabe and Rebecca. Gabe actually himself is an author. He served as a vice president in John Maxwell's organization and also founded an organization himself called Q Ideas, which is kind of like a Christian version of TED Talks, I think might be a fair way to describe it. Anyway, we'll link information on both of them down below if you want to find out more information on them. But Gabe, Rebecca, thank you so much for taking the time.

And before we start, please, if you haven't yet, give the show a rating, subscribe to it on whatever platform you're listening on. Now it's time for the comment of the week. Yes. You ready for this? Yes. Actually, from one of our previous guests, this was from the Miller fam, which that's, episode was a hit so you can go back and check that out. But the Miller fam said so loved being a part of this with you guys. You're the best, which is great. I'll give another one from Kelly de Planch, who says the fact that the Millers do not show their kids struggling or when they're upset is one of the main reasons I subscribe to their channel. I love the respect they have for their kids. And it's exactly why their kids are respectful, confident, compassionate, and loving people. Stephen Amanda lived those qualities. I feel like that's ironic. He is going after.

He's getting hungry. It is an interesting world that we influencers or creators live in, and I do think that we have a lot to learn from Stephen and Amanda. So anyway, that's all we have. We're honored to bring you, Gabe and Rebecca Lyons. Excited to hear your thoughts without further ado. Gabe, Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us today. It's good to finally meet in person.

Yes. We have a lot of mutual friends, Josh and Chelsea Axe, Ben, Crane, and his family. Ben was actually telling me, before the interview, he said that you recently hit your own house with a golf ball game. That's true. I want to hear this story. Well, Ben and I were practicing as he does because, you know, as a PGA guy, I'm always trying to get a tip out of him.

So he was over and we were on our front porch, you know, hitting balls down, down like 100 yards. And so he's like, I want you to try this new swing path. I'm down near the driveway and I'm basically hitting up towards him. And as I do, I hit it off the roof of the house. I have not heard this story. There were kids around, but we try not to alarm anybody. That's probably why I haven't heard about it.

Everybody was fine. I hope I didn't just get you in trouble with that situation. That's awesome. You guys have such an awesome story, and I'm really just honored that you guys took the time to sit down with us. Now we're happy. We love to hear starting off the story of how you two first met. First met, not romantically, but I want to hear. Yeah.

Okay, so I'm a graduate out of high school, get invited with some friends to go to Florida for a wedding of a friend of mine. And sure, that sounded like a good week. week. I'm 18 years old. Let's go to Florida with some buds and go to this wedding of this person I barely knew. So I was literally just along for the ride. And Rebecca happened to be at that wedding as well. I know because I was friends with a bride and I was a camp counselor because I lived in Florida and that summer I was a camp counselor nearby. And I think it was like in Sarasota or Bradenton where the wedding was, the reception was. And someone introduced us. So it was quick. It was kind of like he's cute. And then I went back to college for my sophomore year the next that fall like a month later.

and he was starting his freshman year, and we wound up at the same party. I was like, didn't I just meet you like a month ago in Florida? It was kind of weird, like, I was trying to disorienting, like, how did I meet you? And then we wound up at that party talking so long that, do you remember, Kay? Yeah, we ended up on a couch together. All night. You might be imagining where the story's about to go, but it's going somewhere different. Yeah.

All our friends are sleeping. We hadn't started yet. So people were just staying late, talking, talking, talking, then all of a sudden I looked at my watch it's like three in the morning and we are laughing hysterically like we're trying to not like so we're on a couch just laughing at each and talking all night everybody else is asleep yes no physical contact no this is just fun like friends literally less like getting to know each other laughing having a great time that was the beginning of that was the beginning of our friendship and so in college we never dated after that we both dated different people for the next couple years we were kind of in like

a mutual friend group that we'd see each other but it was kind of like weird Like I feel like I really know you really well But like at that point it wasn't attraction It was more just like he's super fun And we connected really easily And then it wasn't until about three years later That we started dating after Things took a turn

Wow I'm curious Which hair style was Gabe rocking at this point Because I've gone through the archives Have you? Oh he has them It's really impressive He even had a Twitter feed at one point

Gabe Lyons hair Yeah I didn't know that Somebody started for him And every once in a while Because we leave these events nationally and every April, it would like the Twitter feed would get revived. And his hair would be talking on behalf of him in the event. But yeah, I remember you just had like a lot of a swoop when you wore all the Obey T-shirts in the 20s when you were in your 20s. What's an Obey T-shirt?

It's like a surfer brand. Oh, Obey, Obey. I thought it was like a fabric. But no, it's like they always said Obey and then he had different versions of it. And then he always had his hair like way down. Wow. Yeah. Sweet.

So going down the dating story, when did you decide to date? And then how long did you date before you got engaged? So I had a serious relationship coming out of high school with the girl that I'd grown up with. And we were in love and headed towards marriage. And it was close to that moment where I was going to need to make that decision. Are we going to get married? Am I going to do this? You know, it's my junior year of college.

And Rebecca, catch up on your story at this point. Yeah. So after that, you know, know, started my sophomore year, I met a guy probably a month after I had, like, Gabe and I had that night. And we started dating for the next two years. And the thing with you and your girlfriend, I think you were on and off for about seven years. So it was very serious. And this guy and I got engaged. But there was this sense of, I think, I was about to be a senior and we'd been dating for so long. And we went forward with the engagement, but I kept pushing the date off.

Like I felt, you know, I finished a little early. I was finishing my senior year early. And I then knew all my friends were going back for their final year. And I was kind of like, maybe I'll get a double minor. I'm going to go back in business and psych. Like I could just tell that I was kind of running from something without really acknowledging the fact that, like, I think you might be hedging because you're not positive that this one is the one. But we'd been dating for so long and it felt like the natural progression.

And I loved his family. And so I went back that fall. We were still engaged. I just made sure he was cool with me doing that. And he's like, yeah, I guess, you know. And I went back and I kept stalling on buying my wedding dress. I kept stalling, stalling, stalling, well, back at college with all my bridesmaids, we finally went to Greensboro.

I had a big day, a big weekend. I bought my wedding dress and was like, we're doing this. Like, I've just, like, almost, like, needed that, like, umph of solidarity. And that night, I remember just being again at another party. We meet up at another party. Partiers. Partiers. And this is a party number three or more.

This is the best foundation for a solid marriage guys. So everyone knows. He's showing up at the same parties. And then Gabe walks up. I'll never forget. And he goes, how do you know that you know that you know that you know that you are getting married to the one? And I was like, how in the world would he know that I had ever had any doubts for five months? Because we didn't, we didn't talk.

Like we weren't like close friends at all. And I was like, why are you asking? I felt like he was like searching through my soul. And it really wasn't. You've been asking me for me. He was asking me for his own kind of doubts or questioning. Right. So I'm deciding, am I going to get engaged in the coming months?

And you were looking for reimbursement. And I wanted to know, like, how did you know? Because I had these little doubts like I was 95% there. But there was a part of me that just didn't feel like it was all there. And so she'd been a friend of mine for years. So she'd just bought her wedding dress. I'm like, did you ever have doubts? Like, how did you know?

And, you know, she kind of played it off that night. I'm like, oh, you just know. And I'm like, well, I don't know. So it was three weeks later, her and her fiance. He had come up to visit. Come to college. We see each other not at a party, actually a school. During class.

And I tell her that I'd broken up with my girlfriend, that I made the decision to break up. He asked, he's like, how is so-and-so? And you said, oh, we actually just broke up. And I was thinking he actually had the courage to do something that I think I'd been wavering in for about six months. And so in some ways, it was a convict. for me, like, am I just making this decision out of fear of being alone? Because honestly, I really do think sometimes we can pressure ourselves into a scenario that's not ideal because

we don't, you know, we're about to graduate and college seemed to be the best time to meet the person and walking away from that experience, you know, back then in 92, I'm telling how old I am, or 96, I guess, was when I was graduating. It was still very much like you meet your person in college. There was a pressure there on some level. And I just, just, I saw him being willing to do that and it forced me to go, am I really being honest with my heart? Am I, am I being true to kind of the angst that I've been carrying? So you were a challenge, just an antagonist in my life just by following what you felt. Yeah. So she, she goes back basically over the next couple weeks and decides to break off her engagement. Oh, man. And her and I aren't even

really talking much through that time. It just, all this was just happening. It was like our stories individually were kind of going down this path where we were both almost on the same path, not pursuing a relationship, but just being friends, wanting to make sure we were making the right decision. And so it was over the next months after she had resolved her relationship, I'd resolve mine, that we then, as friends, just started to even take a look at, wait, is this possible that you and I should think about dating? And we both liked each other a lot as friends and did not want to beat each other's rebound because you know like if you're the person that dates the person after a very serious relationship it's never going to work and so i think we're

both like yeah no we don't we don't want to jump into anything like that but within about six to eight months i think started to become a little more obvious so yeah so we got married like a year and a half after that really yeah so this wasn't a situation quick story my dad and my mom dated they were high school sweethearts dated for like 10 years and she kept thinking that he was going to propose he didn't after a long enough time so they ended up breaking up because she was frustrated she goes on another date with another guy and he my dad shows up at that date and proposes to my mom so you're saying when you had this conversation when rebecca came up it wasn't like a hey i just broke it with my girlfriend so are we yeah yeah not like no no no but i think

what we did know from that initial meeting each other four years prior is like we had a lot in common with vision personality. I mean, even the way we saw life and just optimistic kids, I remember like when we were dating finally or kind of dating, like we would go off our ice cream, like, you know, whatever you could afford in college. And we would like write dreams on napkins. Like we were kind of just futurists in the way we looked at the world. And, you know, when you're kind of ready to charge hell with a water pistol, you feel like all that that energy and momentum. in those college years, and we shared that, I think. We both had mutual visions for what we wanted, you know, the next few decades to look

like and what God might want to do in and through us or the people that, or the places that he put the people in our lives or whatever. So I think with that shared vision, I think we kept coming back to that. It's a lot of times hard to find a great alignment in that way of like, how do you see the world and what are your hopes and dreams for what to do with whatever days you have, that kind of idea. I don't know if it's too sensitive to talk about, but I would be curious to hear how you summon the courage

to have like the breakup conversation. Because critical conversations, I feel like some people are more prone to have them than others, but like me personally get a huge pit of my stomach, my palm start sweating, even if it's like, you know. Well, and I feel like you hear that a lot of people getting engaged and then just going through with it because they're too afraid to call it off. Well, there's a lot of.

lot of guilt that you'll carry of like hurting the other I I tried to have that conversation actually about three or four times over the course of six months and there was a lot of tears involved like I would be like I don't know what it is but I'm just I don't have like a like a piece like a perfect piece about this this is a big decision you know even if like he said if it's if you're 97% there but there's something that's just in your in your gut that you just can't settle with I remember I would call my mom and I'm just crying and just trying to process it and everyone loved him. Like it made no logical sense beyond the fact that I remember this thought. I was doing an internship at the time in like hospitality management. So we lived in Hilton Head. That's where his family

is from. I'm like, I feel like, in other words, how to host a party. Yeah, basically. Yeah. So basically I was like interning and that was like my last few credits I needed. And I remember thinking one day. I was like, so this is my, the rest of my life. This picture of what today look like. I'm going to go to work all day, work at whatever hotel. We will go unnamed. And then I'm going to come home and we're going to like fix dinner and then we're going to watch a movie and then we're going to go to bed. Like something about the future looking like my life was ending as far as like adventure, the unknown uncharted. It's almost like I needed risk and it was too buttoned up. Again, I was only 21. We got married. That's still true for you today, though.

It's still the true. I mean, it's still true that you need the adventure. I need to, I'm a life of routine. So I needed a partner that was also a little bit of a risk adrenaline junkie. And that was not the case in that scenario. So all that to say, I tried breaking up like on three different walks. And I would always be talked back into it like, it's going to be okay. And then I, and so finally when I, when I broke up, I was supposed to go fall break. we took another walk. I tried to break up. And it was unsuccessful. So then here's the actual story. I go back to college the next Monday. And I'm working at Applebee's. And I'm like, ding, ding, ding, ding, apple bees. Clubhouse grill. A lot of rice.

I can eat ribs on Tuesday night. It's a college town. Like I would just work and wait tables and serve ribs. But all that to say, I was like rolling silver at the end of the shift. And I just could not stop crying like so frustrated that I didn't actually have the courage to just say I can't do this and and I just carried a lot of like guilt with it because I just didn't want to hurt the other person and so that night the end of rolling silverware I went home I'm like I'm just going to call I have to actually call on the phone and do this this person was very persuasive and so when the other party is very very persuasive and logical you almost lose your voice a little bit you're almost like, I'm not, I'm not saying that it's intentionally manipulating, but that's actually

what it did. It manipulated me back into going, oh, you're right, you're right. Logic, logic, logic, logic. And so that night, I remember being like, I can't do this. It still took two hours on the phone to end the conversation, to which he said, I'm going to come get the ring this weekend, because I knew that would be another attempt to, and I was like, okay. And then I left it at my apartment and left town because it was partly just because I do think we will stay in some things out of guilt and especially sticking with it because what will happen is you'll end that relationship and then you're still lonely and you still feel tempted to go back and that's true right there. Wow. I appreciate you sharing that. I feel like that's like really important information

whether you're ending a relationship that's romantic or otherwise like just you got to have the courage to do what you're called to do. I am curious if you could talk about the vision that you guys have spoken about previously. I think that's so important in a relationship. I think in a lot of ways, Sean and I are fortunate to work together, although there's pros and cons for sure, but being able to like dream together and ask each other frequently, like, are we doing what we're called to do? Is this what, like, is this where our, like, what our talents are? I feel like, though, you guys have this grand vision it's somewhat easier to have like a our dream is to buy you know an acre in Nashville and then couples end up achieving that goal and it's like oh wait you know it took us 10

years to get here and it's not as exciting or fun or fulfilling as I thought it would be tell tell me about your vision that you guys have together and how you've been intentional and building that yeah well I think you know it started for us not having clarity on where the vision would go it was more a sense of, we feel like God's called both of us to serve him in some way over our lifetimes. And we want to be surrendered, abandoned, and just available to do that. And that can play itself out in the sense probably when I was 22 of, hey, I want to own my own company one day. Or for her, you know, it was a bed and breakfast in New England. I think at the time. It was like, I just want to have a New England home and a bed and breakfast. And like, that was the dream. And I

wanted to be entrepreneurs from the beginning. Yeah. And I don't know that it was about the specifics of the dream at that point. As much as it was about, we were partnered in such a way that like we would stir that in one another and we would push each other to dream big and to actually believe in faith. Like this could happen and this will happen. And let's just walk into that life. And let's be wise. Let's be good stewards of the season we're in.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. But I think in our relationship, that was huge. And I remember, I mean, I think I had a college class on relationships one time. where they were talking about a lot of people get married at that, I think at that time it was called like Level 2. And I can't remember all the levels, but I just remember Level 2 was romantic relationships. And it was the idea of romance where you meet maybe two people

that live in different parts of the country or you just kind of see each other. And you have fun together. It's a great experience, maybe travel together. But you're not necessarily aligned on like this common vision for your life and what your values are and what's most important. And those marriages tend to end in divorce rather quickly. But like this level four, and again, I can't remember level three, but level four was like the marriages where you've total alignment of your values as well as just vision for the future.

Like we want to have a family. We're Christians. We want to, that's a big part of our lives. We want to make sure our faith is core to how we're going to live our life, how we're going to make decisions. We don't want divorce to be an option in our conversation. So from the beginning, it was always this conversation of we're going to center ourselves around those values.

And we know we'll go through some difficult times. But no matter what the dream is next year, we know that with that foundation, there's a strength to go after it. And so we've had to, the vision has shifted. I mean, every five years, we're dreaming. And when we're not dreaming, that's when we know we're in trouble. Yeah, exactly. It's always, it's almost like one dream springboards onto another, onto another, onto another.

So his first job was with John Maxwell. So he got like thrust in the leadership space, but the church space and every denomination space. And that was your only job for five years. He became VP. And then three years in, we had our first child. And then six hours after he was born, the doctor said they saw signs of Down syndrome. So they confirmed that within a week with geneticist testing. And that trajectory at 26 to be entree to motherhood, you know, special needs son.

I think just it's like when life kind of does that, because we were already dreamers and doers and kind of going. It was almost like the things we valued kind of took back. burner and the things we might have overlooked became front and center. So in some ways, God, I believe, used Cade in our lives to go like, you can go really far if you want with like grit and hard work and, you know, muscle. But do you want to surrender kind of all that energy almost in a way that that allows me to kind of like propel you? And I think God used Cade's life to grow our faith that year in particular because he was failure to thrive. I mean, he was four and a half pounds full term. He was, had no fluid the last trimester. I almost died on the table with two

epidurals. It went a high block up into my brain. So I couldn't, had to almost stop breathing. And so it was kind of like a very traumatic moment early in our 20s to go like, wow, we want to just be surrendered to whatever. This is, this is obviously something that you have allowed for reasons we have yet to really see. But we know you're going to use it for good and you're going to grow us in it. And that's really became the birth of your, you know, your vacation and then slowly mine over the years. So this is something else I've been struggling with. We're, Sean and I are fortunate to be around a lot of ambitious, successful people building businesses, et cetera, like yourselves. What is the balance between having that ambition, that dream, and that vision and being content?

You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know. And it's so hard because sometimes you just want to be like, oh, maybe we should just. We have these conversations a lot about biblically even. Yeah. I feel like there's a debate there of contentment versus drive. Yeah. When are you greedy?

When are you following God's call? And when are you supposed to just be content with what you have? Yeah. And how do you guys balance that between the two of you? Well, there's that passage that everyone quotes that that verse says, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. And everyone thinks that that's a verse about ability and achievement. But if you read the context of that passage,

it comes right after the verse that says, I can be content with little and I can be content with much. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. And it's really a verse about, it's a passage about contentment that I can, he very just, you know, I like Paul. He's so candid in the way he talks. And I feel like I resonate with that.

He's just like, I can be happy with the people that you've given me, whether we live in a band down by the river or we're, you know, in an RV traveling around the country, which a lot of people are doing in 2020. I want to do that, by the way. We've got to talk about that. I've been trying to get him to do that. So maybe you guys should talk. Or if you bless us and you and you have us in this particular spot for this season, we want to steward that well too, but we hold it so loosely because we know that it doesn't bring happiness. Like a wealth or achievement in the end does not bring the fulfillment that intimacy, closeness, surrender, sacrifice, obedience brings. We know that. And so sometimes

we have to be reminded of that. And then we achieve and we succeed in certain things. And then we're like, oh, wait, that didn't actually fix the thing that I was hoping it would fix. So, you know, idols. Timothy Keller writes about this, but the idea that, you know, and I know I'm using some religious jargon here. So this might not be familiar to everybody. But the idea of pursuing these things that can be ambitious that are these goals, but when it becomes an idol, it's something you worship, something you thinks can actually deliver to you more than it ever could, that's when it becomes a falsehood because idols can never deliver what they promise. So when something in the object of ambition becomes, it means so much to you, you'd be willing to sacrifice family, you'd be willing

to, I mean, ultimately idols can cause you to sacrifice your children. If you really go back into these historic archetype stories, you don't want to pursue something to the degree that you're giving up. And we've all seen those stories career-wise where people have achieved some goal, but they lost a lot along the way. And so for Rebecca and I, I mean, the conversations we are trying to always hold each other accountable to is ambition driven by what has God up to in the world. How can we be a part of it? How can he use the gifts he's given us and the resources he's given us to further what he's doing, not just for ourselves, and to shut all the doors that could possibly lead us down some pathways that get us distracted from that. So even this,

week we're praying about some future decisions and the prayer is consistently like hey we really want that but will you please not let us have it if this is in any way going to detract from what you really want to do with our lives or our family and that's a really safe place we have found to live in our walk in faith is just to trust him to help us in that and it keeps us i think in the right posture of like a real open-handedness to like just calling it out we want that but we know that could be ambition and not necessarily godly ambition. It could be very personally driven. And we just want to keep those things in check. There's a, there's a Quaker proverb that says when way closes that has the same guiding effect. This idea of like, we don't always know what doors to, what path to choose

and what to follow. And we think all the doors opening is the way to know. And Parker Palmer wrote this book, Let Your Life Speak. It's all about listening to the voice of vocation, like how to know what the next right step is. And basically this idea of when the door closes like I look at 2020 it's very much of like it has closed in a lot of different ways for different ways of doing industry or business or and what that has done is it's allowed you to go oh okay we that's shut that's done that that chapter's done that that's the end of an era it's like you you obviously are going to do something new here and I want to pay attention to that so I like actually as much as I don't love if I really wanted something for it to be like

we're done. I pay so much attention to that because I know it always precedes new life, new, new adventure, new journey. And sometimes it's hard to see the next thing if you can't release the old thing or the current thing. Some of that for us is 20, we're coming up on 23 years of marriage. So it's not like we understood that early on. You know, and I know you guys are earlier in your marriage and it's like you'd learn these things through the process, through time, through the story. And you start to look back and all of a sudden it's, you start to gain a confidence. in trusting God in that and trusting each other and how he's Rebecca will very much be a person that can throw up the stop sign in anything I'm pursuing that she has a sense like I don't think

you should be doing this or I don't think we have time like our marriage counselors have talked to us about capacities like you guys in all the things you're doing in your life you're like trying to eat in a 10 pound cheeseburger he says you've bitten off a 10 pound cheeseburger and you're trying not to choke on it and it's just too much like no human being can eat a 10 pound cheeseburger. So you need to, you need to actually start. Bet me, Gabe. Game on. That's next. The cheeseburger challenge. You just can't choke on it. But I think that's been a conversation for us too is there's real capacity in life. If you want to honor the people God's put in your life and your children and family and friends

and church and all your commitments, that ambition again can get you out, you know, kind of over your skis on that. And you want to be really careful not to let that happen. I like that word surrender. I've been listening and reading to a bunch of material. I don't know if you've ever heard the book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. The One Thing is another one, essentialism. And then I was listening to this speech by Josh Geryl's, who's my all-time favorite artist.

And he's talking about his creative process. And he's so talented, but he got to a point where he hated creating music because it was just like this torturous process of, he just didn't enjoy it. And he was like, all right, this is the end of me. And if there's any more music that's going to come out of me, it's going to be from God. Yeah.

And I was just thinking about my football career and like me hanging on too tightly to what I thought that dream was going to be like and where I thought I should be and when, ultimately strangled. Like I literally prevented myself from achieving what was right in front of me because I was like trying to hold on too tightly, whereas if you have this attitude of like, all right, Let's just, I don't want to say like hands off, but you're just along for the ride, I guess. Like, Winnie the Pooh, you know, I think has a really good approach to life. Or he's just like, all right, let's just see how this kind of, you've given me certain talents and skills. Let's see how this pans out.

But you still move forward. You just, you do pay attention more to the doors that are closing. Yeah. And opening. And you do it with a gratefulness because you know, he knows better. Yeah. What this next season should look like than we do. Yeah, yeah.

kind of shifting topics a little bit going into family you started bringing it up earlier but we've talked to a lot of couples who have talked through experience of how traumatic experiences have either hurt the relationship or brought them closer the birth of your son i i didn't know the extent of that you know experience but how did first having a kid change your relationship which i feel like it changes everyone's relationship for us having drew you said it perfectly of like it made priority so easy for us and there were so many things in our life that didn't matter instantly I was like I don't care anymore I don't care about work I don't care about our baby so how did that affect you guys and having kade and the trauma and the joy just everything yeah goodness it was honestly a year of grief because I think we were just so blindsided by it and No. And we didn't really know anybody well with a Down syndrome baby or like I've wound up being like the person in my county to call if you got, you know, I was like, oh, we don't have anybody filling that role. Do you want to do that? And I don't know. And it was before this, he's almost 20. He'll be 20 in February. So this was before even the advocacy for Down syndrome or was is near what it is today, which I'm so thankful for. So I felt very alone in it. I would say we. We agree very differently, and it's important to kind of know that in your spouse because, you know, I could think, like, are you going to cry? What right now? Or what? You know? And I think it's really important to honor each other in that process of how we walk through painful things and to not take it out on each other. I would say because he was our first, we had a lot of energy for that challenge. We had a community. It was amazing. We were both. was still working full time and I had planned on staying in that role, but after about eight months,

he was up to eight hours of therapy a week. And so all the people I was leading was telling me what was going on. And I was, it was very clear that I needed to probably just like for the season indefinitely step down. And so it was for the next decade that I really supported you with some stuff and kind of was home. But I would say what that did created some stress for us. But I would say even now, 20 years in, 23 years in, so he's almost 20, and we now have a seven-year-old girl that we adopted from China who also has a Down syndrome diagnosis, and she's been with us not quite two years, so there are bookends. And I would say that we are still in the thick, the thick of it, like as of last night. That's right. This is vulnerability. Vulnerability is sharing where you are.

Like as of last night on a road trip back home from Florida, he is leaning over the seat like a thousand and times, you know, wanting to know when he can have the phone before bed so he can play two songs because we are really trying to wien him off of all technology because it's addicting for everybody, but especially if you're limited verbally, it just becomes kind of your thing. So it's a stressful thing, 23 years into marriage where we're still kind of like... We're pulling the car over like three times and working this out. I mean, so this is with our whole family, but, you know, one of the challenges I was reminded of this, you know, recently with another couple I was talking with that parents that have children with special needs,

the divorce rates really high. There's like in marriage, when you start adding stressors in, you know, you could almost go, hey, without all this stress, we were great. But once the stress gets involved, the way we react to each other, the way we handle things differently, have different perspectives on what to do, starts to create even more conflict. So I would say for, you know, that's something now over these last 20 years, we just have to always keep working through is knowing we've got a bunch of extra stress. I mean, even the

decision to adopt was where our marriage counselor said, now it's an 11 pound cheeseburger. You're like, are you sure? Maybe 12. And are you sure you want to do it? And we're like, 21 hours of marriage counseling. And we're like, I mean, we've already said we're doing it. So we're doing it. So we have to eliminate. So for Rebecca and I, part of the discussion around ambition, around family is actually eliminating a lot of the stressors and eliminating things that we don't need. So she's trying to talk me right now into getting rid of the eight chickens that we've had for three years. We live in Franklin on land. I take care of. But it's like one extra stressor in our life, right, that I've got to take care of the chickens or the kids aren't doing it. And so we really

are having those conversations. Well, maybe it's worth not having chickens because that would eliminate like 30 minutes every couple days. And every minute matters in our life right now. Yeah, right. Eight chickens might add up to about 11 pounds of meat. Yeah. That's true. Chicken burger. I didn't like that.

So to be fully honest with you, last June, we were doing, we were going through pregnancy. Sean was 22 weeks pregnant, and we did like the checkup. And they did the diagnosis, the genetic, whatever. And Sean was a high risk. pregnancy there's a couple indicators that we might have a down syndrome baby and when we didn't and we found out that I don't know that it was a typical I don't know I still don't know how to talk about it but there was a fair degree of backlash because we did we posted a video of I guess you know we were hugging and I don't want to say celebrating but that was kind of what the video look like I don't know how to

properly view that yeah I don't know how to properly talk about it um well too can I weigh in on I mean, I love you that you're sharing that. And thank you. You know, 91% of children when the mom or dad find out in utero that their child might have Down syndrome like you guys did terminate that pregnancy, nine out of ten. So when you find, when you see a little child with Down syndrome first recognize this is like a survivor, like one out of ten of these little kids making into the world, you know. So just the fact that that was like.

Testing is earlier and earlier. You can do a nukelefold test now at. seven to 11 weeks so you can know then if your your child has a genetic abnormality and terminate without any kind of anything like no you won't feel anything so i just love that you guys knew that was a risk and you're like okay we're moving forward like this is the child we are about to have i met a guy last week named matt 20 years old college student who said to me i was diagnosed with down syndrome i was that child no like that could have been aborted.

We had a test and it was negative. So we were a false negative. Yeah. And some people are false positives. Like it's just so crazy that how much testing happens now because it heightens so much. And in the end, it doesn't,

you have to go through a lot of like trauma during pregnancy to even process that. It does. That's exactly what the result is where it's like. That's how we were so shocked that day because we had had that done early in the pregnancy and nobody, nobody picked it up.

Well, and even going back to when we got tested, we got tested because we had an abnormality show up on an ultrasound where I only had like a two vessel cord. So it made, there was basically they had to do a test to see if the baby was, you know, if they needed help, if you needed help. And then it was through that that they said we had the diagnosis. And I remember talking to my mom and my mom just without even blinking. she said don't get the test done she said there's no reason to know she said this is your baby it's it's the baby god has given you there's no there's no need for the knowledge now because he'll equip you with everything that you need when your baby comes smart mom and i remember even when we got the test results she was like don't read them there's no need and yeah it just gives me goosebumps

to hear that statistic which is crazy yeah well that's i'm glad i didn't know person um until i already knew him because at that point like that was secondary the diagnosis is always secondary to the fact that he's here he's here he's alive we're fighting for his life like we he was in the niki for the first week before he could he had to be five pounds before he could come home so we were just like we just want him to be alive we want that's all we care about one day at a time he didn't nurse for nine weeks literally i would like pump and then i know it's too much information but you know for because the tongue is the only muscle you can see. And if you have low tone, you can't latch on.

So typically, you can't always nurse. And he had very low tone. And then one day, he just latched on it nine weeks when I was basically out of all milk. I was like kudos to Rebecca. She's stuck with it for nine weeks. That's hard to do. The fattest Down syndrome kid. He was just like.

Now he's super buff. Yeah, he's so buff. But the point, I mean, I think for you should, I mean, I understand why parents would be like, we thought we had this diagnosis. And we didn't. So there's a sense of relief. Like that's going to be a different life. There's going to be new challenges.

You shouldn't feel guilty about that, although I can imagine people shaming you for that or something. But I think what we found, I mean, Kate has added so much to our life, so much so we decided let's go adopt another child with Down syndrome because her name's Joy. And she's just beautiful. I mean, she had so much.

I know people hear that that don't have this experience. And they're like, yeah, yeah. I'm just telling you. It's added so much to our life. The stress of last night's drive is one part of that equation. The other equation is children who just look at you with such unconditional love. And smile. Cuddle.

Smile. Wake up with a smile on their face. Everything, relationships is the most important thing in their life. Not any of this other stuff, ambition. Anything else we're talking about? Could care less. And I just want to like when we're talking children and the stress that that affects, how that affects parenting, in this day and age, no matter.

typical abilities or unique abilities, learning abilities. Most of our kids in this generation have some sort of a unique need because of anxiety, depression, you know, ADHD, technology, addiction. I almost feel like it's like a neutral playing field. Like there are a lot of parents navigating, and we have navigated things with our typical children that we never have to think twice about with Kate and Joy because they don't they cognitively aren't even worried about you know like friends who are having

suicidal thoughts or you know addictions to whatever it is so in the end i mean raising other humans that you're responsible for regardless of their ability is going to be a level of stress and so part of it is just as parents going into it going whatever our kids you know struggle with throughout the years we need to know that we're going to be unified and how we are on their team and how we navigate certain things and each season will present itself and I feel like we have like a state of the union conversation probably quarterly we can't even go annually it's like okay right now this is what I'm seeing with this child or this child or that child okay let's like divide and conquer how do we how do we be a team and how to best serve them yeah we only have one child and

we do state of the union every month we do monthly checkups state of union yeah I do last question about like with not Cade, but the pregnancy and delivery, we've had other conversations with couples where you had a traumatic delivery, you had a traumatic experience in the hospital, that affects you so much, Gabe, and you, how did that affect going in for a second child? And even the conversation or the trauma that you had from Cade and not his not his special needs just the delivery of yeah how did the bond form differently how did that affect your relationship well there's several types of down syndrome there was but the two most popular are non-disjunction trisomy 21 and translocation trisomy 21 so the one we had which we

got tested was like our chances of our second child was one in a hundred um versus one in 800 which is typical or if you're over 40 I think it's like 45 it's like one in 40 so like the older you get those chances get a lot higher so we just were like we want to have more children and if you know if we have two down syndrome little boy we did find out he was a boy as well we're like they're just going to be buds I mean I'll probably push them both in a stroller to like three you know hopefully they'll go the bathroom you know like it was funny because either way we knew that we wanted k to have siblings and if they did not have a down syndrome diagnosis they would help push him. And if they did, they would just, you know, just be more fun. So more, just more joy in the

home. But I do think the trauma from that delivery day, though, affected me a decade later when we moved to New York City. And within about four months, I had my first panic attack. And it was literally, it started on a flight, but then was planes, trains, elevator, subways, crowds. So that's kind of what started my writing career around mental health. And what I would get often was rooted in claustrophobia feeling of being trapped and I remember feeling that on the table but then also like a smothering so a lot of people have anxiety attacks it's like a shallow breathing like you can't get a deep breath it's like and I would I feel like I'd be walking around the streets of the city and I'd be at the playground I'm like I just can't and Gabe's like you're doing that breathing thing again and it literally

was how it was on the table that day where I was like I can't breathe I think I'm dying and the doctor says if you stop breathing we can breathe for you so it almost took New York this pressure cooker of 8 million people in the span of 11 miles to kind of push that to the surface. I didn't really have that, you know, the whole time we were in Atlanta when the kids were young. And so I had to deal with that a decade later and resolve it. And, you know, I'm not in that season at all. That only lasted about a year. But in general, it did, I think people don't always get the counseling or understand

medically how that can impact trauma in mentally down the road. It's like the body keeps the score book. Yes, as everyone has read. Such a good book on really going back into past traumas and how much they're affecting us. I know for me being in that experience with Rebecca where there was a moment of concern for her life in the middle of a pregnancy at a young age is a very hard thing to walk through and experience. And there's just a lot of gratefulness when you realize she's going to be okay. But it did take a lot of courage in the second round because we knew that was a really horrible experience. but we've got to go back and go through this.

So her courage to walk through that and have another epidural. I think we were at a movie theater or something when I started crying out. It was probably some emotional movie. But I was like, we have to do this. We have to try again. It's time. You know? Like, I don't know.

You just sometimes you know when you know it's time to do something. Like I think you can hold those two tensions, bravery and fear at the same time, as long as bravery is a little bit more than the fear. And that really is courage because you know that. there's a cost to it, but that's why it's courage. And I just think if it's like, for us, adoption was like sand in the shoe, you couldn't shake it. And I think if you want to have a second baby and you just can't shake it,

like you're supposed to step into it. Like you don't need to shrink back from it. And I do believe that God gives you the strength to endure that kind of risk. Well, you've shared so much of your journey in your book, Rhythms of Renewal, which has been sitting here with us. You've recently come out with a journal about that. You host a podcast called Rhythms of, life. So we will link all that down below, but it's really good stuff. And I would love to highlight

Q as well, Q ideas. I know you guys are hosting actually in the second week in November, like a roundtable post-presidency. I would love to hear about that. Yeah, we try to host events that get leaders together to think about the future and to not do that alone or in isolation, but with other leaders who are trying to navigate organizations, churches, different careers that they're leading. And so we're doing an event called Q. Q&A. And the whole point is to talk about eight big topics that we think are going to be important for Christian leaders who are trying to navigate the year ahead and we're doing it a few days after the election. It'll be a virtual event as well. So anybody can listen in on this conversation.

But we're talking about some of those things like mental health and suicide, which we've seen the increase in that during 2020. How do people of faith and faith leaders really navigate that in their own communities? We've seen it even amongst pastors and church leaders. But we're also talking about things like censorship, you know, and conspiracies, you know, which seems to be a conversation happening all over the place. So how do people of faith navigate a world where finding what is really true is not always that easy anymore. What is the truth on this matter?

So we're talking about, you know, racism and justice. So a lot of the difficult conversations, people of faith, sometimes maybe you're having one-on-one, the cue ideas idea has been, let's bring people of faith together to really deal with the complex issues of our society because we think our faith has something to offer to the conversation, but there's not always space to do that. So yeah, it's called Q&A. It's happening November 11th and 12th. Wow. And Q is all about kind of ideas that change culture. What was the inspo to start that? Well, it was really for me, it was understanding that as a person of faith, our faith should really impact the world around us, our neighborhood, our cities, our communities,

where we work, the cultural space we've been called into, versus just being about how do we escape this world and get to heaven, which a lot of people have thought about Christianity, I think, in the last century, a lot more about escaping this world than like, how do we make this world better? So we created this Q-I-Dia space to say, hey, we're going to have conversations about how our faith impacts every single societal issue going on in this world,

believing that one day we'll be together in heaven, but we've got a lot of work to do here. And so we try to invite experts and thought, leaders and pragmatic people who are trying to work through very different issues and educate Christian leaders on that so they can go better their own communities, their organizations, their churches. Wow. So last question.

I didn't even realize it has already been 45 minutes. I could ask you a million questions. The one question we ask every single couple is whether it's something you've been taught, told, or something you came up with, what's the one piece of advice you would give couples today? So I would say make sure you've planned in your annual calendar, a getaway for just you and your spouse without kids, minimum one time a year. And it doesn't have to be expensive. This isn't just for people who have a means to do it. It can be a camping trip.

It can be just a couple days, one night somewhere. But prioritize time away where it's just the two of you to reset, to reset vision, to have a chance to dream again, to remind each other of outside of all that stress of life. and work of children of why you love one another and what you see in each other. I'd say we made that commitment early on. We would hire babysitters we barely knew to watch our kids so we could have a getaway. It's not exactly true. I mean, we knew them a little bit, but we were willing. We were willing to do that.

And I found a lot of the other couples weren't. They were afraid to leave their children with somebody. And I get the wisdom and all that. But there's also wisdom in making sure you're prioritizing your marriage in the midst of the stress. And I think that foundation's been really helpful for us. I would say to the person who feels like they kind of want to bail, you know, just remember that your spouse is not the enemy at all.

It's easy to kind of put all the problems and the stress on the other person. Like if you didn't do this or you always do this or you never do this. But the truth is, you know, I really do believe that humanity flourishes when family flourishes. And so the breakdown of that is always going to be, there's always going to be attack on it. There's always going to be divisiveness that people tend to just walk separate ways. And then that affects, you know, generations upon generations. And so partly I just have to come back to like if there's a narrative in my brain that like

Gabe's always late or he says he'll do this and then he doesn't do this. And I build on that and I let it grow and I nurse it. Then all of a sudden I'm just, I'm kind of coming aggressively towards him instead of going like, actually who you really are, the person I fell in love. with is very thoughtful, sensitive, nurturing, all those things. Stylish. Yes, you like high tops. But over the years through just fatigue and a lot of stress, I then somehow changed that narrative.

So I would just say come back to the drawing board of like, why did you fall in love with this person in the first place? Ask each other that question. And then maybe just share with one another those beliefs that you've kind of just made agreement with like I hate to tell you this but like I think for us in 19 years I probably said some things that I should have said in year one two and three and I just let them grow and then when I did I was like I actually resent this and then I realize oh wow because I have kind of bought this narrative and this isn't about who you are it's like I've let something grow and so part of is just confronting

that coming back to center and doing that more regularly than not been told me that you guys are honest deep well of wisdom and fun and it's been cool to sit here and there's been sentences that you have said like briefly that when I actually think about what does that mean if I practice that like in Sean's marriage like oh what if I didn't what if I gave Sean the benefit that it out or however you phrase that uh as opposed to loading all this frustration it's like oh my gosh that's actually are you loading frustration right now we should talk about that there's like so much depth to that that it's powerful stuff so anyway I really really enjoyed today's conversation it was a pretty good range of topics I feel like I know I appreciate you guys making

the drive up and if you guys listening want to learn more about Gabe and Rebecca and what they're up to we'll link all their information in the show notes down below but it's a pleasure I think I think we could go on for a long time I know left to have round two yeah thank you guys for having Thank you, guys.