- So, have you ever thought God took too long
to answer something and you--
(ladies laughing)
- [Holly] Are we voting?
- [DeeDee] Are we voting?
And this is the thing,
and you felt like you had to help Him out?
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yes.
- Like, you knew you wanted something
and you knew you were entitled to it,
or you knew you were gonna get it,
but yet, it was taking too long so you you--
- You had to help Jesus.
- [DeeDee] Yeah, you had to help Jesus.
(women laughing)
- Kinda how Sarah and Abraham with Hagar like--
- Absolutely, but not that deep though.
(ladies laughing)
- But almost, really,
because I knew I was supposed to get married,
but yet, I didn't wait
until the proper time to get married.
So, I eloped.
I eloped.
Nobody knew until after, what?
34 years of being married. - Wow!
- I told everybody then, but I knew it was God for me--
- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute!
- [DeeDee] I know, I know.
- Okay, so your parents didn't know that you--
- No, not until after I was married for 34 years.
- So, what did they think happened?
They had a wedding for you
and they thought it was the real one?
- Yes, they thought it was the real one.
- Wow.
- [DeeDee] So, I went to the Justice of the Peace
- You sneaky thing.
(ladies laughing) - I know!
- I hope my young adults are not listening to this--
(laughing)
- You can't, that's against the law!
(laughing)
- It was so wrong.
I was 20. - [Holly] Okay.
- I was 20 and he was 21 or 22.
He was 22 and, you know, we wanted to live right.
We wanted to do things right and he talked me into it.
- You wanted to be doing a wild thing.
- Yes! (women laughing)
- I get it.
- I didn't want to have to keep repentin'.
(laughter)
And I was determined that I was gonna do it right, you know?
- Yeah.
- I knew he was called into Ministry.
I knew God had called him to pastor,
because he asked me before we got married,
did I believe that I could be a pastor's wife?
And I'm saying sure, I mean they don't do much.
(ladies laughing)
- Oh my God. (smacking sound)
- [DeeDee] Well that's what I thought.
Exactly, so that's what I thought.
So I'm like, yeah we can do this.
But after getting married, the first seven or eight years
of our relationship was so horrible.
You know, you begin to look back over the process
that you took to get in it, like God did I miss you?
- Wow, yeah.
- Did I mess things up?
And why is this suffering going on?
Is it because I sinned?
You know, because even though you didn't outright lie,
deception is a lie because I deceived so many
to make them believe that,
okay the wedding was the actual date.
And so, you know, I had to go back and look over some things
and I see now that,
okay I did do it out of time,
but God's desire is not for us
to have to go through to get to.
- Mmhmm.
- And I know some people teach like the suffering to victory
and I know we go through things
because the Bible talks about,
because we're here on this earth
we're gonna have trials and tribulations.
But, that was something to me that I bought on myself.
- Ah, yes, okay.
- And I realized that after all of that
I just had to repent, get myself back on track
and now see the victory in all of my decisions.
And so, now I realize that being a pastor's wife
is more than just sitting on the second row
and smiling and, you know, doing church announcements.
So it didn't mess up what God called me to do,
but I felt like maybe I did.
- Maybe there was something in the waiting for you.
- It was something--
- That maybe didn't happen at that time.
You had to learn that maybe.
- Yeah 'cause I saw--
- Now you wanna go back--
(women chittering and laughing)
- Then I wanna skip forward 34 years.
(women laughing)
- So you didn't say anything for 34 years?
So what made you finally say something?
- Mike actually said something.
It was something because I always celebrated June the 8th,
that was our wedding date.
But April the 4th was our actually wedding date
the year prior--
- Oh! A year before!
- [DeeDee] Yeah the year prior.
- This gets better and better.
(women laughing loudly)
- And I stayed at home with my mom,
and we bought a little townhouse
and he said in the townhouse, you know?
And nobody ever knew.
I never spent the night there.
I never stayed.
You know, I always came back home.
But, he would celebrate having a Christmas in April,
and it never dawned on me
that he was celebrating our anniversary
because I had become so deceived myself
- That you believed--
- that June 8th was our actual anniversary.
I would just say, oh this is so sweet you're doing this.
It was like, no, this is our actual anniversary.
So, he said, of course two years ago, a couple years ago
that he wanted all of his credit.
And so, he invited my mom and my sister and kids
and everybody in the room.
And, oh my, Christmas in April.
(women laughing)
And he said, I have something that I want to share.
(mimics bell ringing)
- Oh my Gosh!
- And I said, oh, are we doing that now?
Is that what we're doing?
(women laughing) - Wow!
- And my mother looked at him and said,
ya nasty thing!
(ladies laughing)
- But, it was fun.
Nobody, you know, it wasn't a bad thing, you know?
It wasn't like, ahh, looked down on,
but it was just interesting he decided to tell everybody.
I don't if, his parents never knew.
Well, his mom never knew.
So that's what we did.
We just decided that we would tell everybody then.
- So if you had to do it now would you have done that?
- No, I would've waited.
I would've been more prepared.
I wasn't mentally prepared to be a wife.
I wasn't.
I didn't understand what it all meant, you know?
I came out of a home that was quite dysfunctional.
To me, I mean, being in it I thought it was perfect,
this is what marriage is, you know?
This is how we act.
But, I realized after I said I do,
that wasn't a good way because I bought who I was
into my relationship.
And he's come from a different environment totally.
He come from a Christian home.
And so, when we got together
we both were trying to break each other
to make each other be what we saw coming up.
- Yeah. - Right.
- You know, so I wasn't, you know, ready for that.
But now it's amazing how God can use my testimony
to hold it up in his hand and say,
this is what I intended for marriage to look like.
- Yup.
- And so I think it's a powerful testimony
to be able to use your life and your story, you know,
to be a blessing to somebody else.
To say, don't do this-
- [Women Together] Yeah.
- Or, do this.
- Hi everybody, I hope you enjoyed this video.
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