Leading a Stubborn Wife, Kids Say the Darndest Things, & Other Listener Questions

Join us here in Ogden this June for our annual new Christmas conference. This year's theme, the War for Normal, features a great lineup of speakers as well as a whole bunch of fun events to make new friends with like-minded saints. Tickets are more affordable than ever this year with a brand new family pass covering your entire household for one low price. Head to newcrissonempress.com/20206 for tickets and more information. This episode is brought to you by Indigo's Sundry Soap Company. Clean soap, cleaner body. Welcome back to BrightHearth everybody and in this episode we are opening up the mailbag to answer your questions. We got some great thoughtful listen or questions this week that led to some really meaty discussion and I think it's going to be helpful for you guys. We talked about everything from correcting a stubborn wife to dealing with those awkward questions or those awkward things that kids say in public and how to deal with that. We talked about being a young woman getting ready for marriage and things like college and career versus homemaking and how to prepare in that season before marriage to be a virtuous and godly woman and even one of our listeners actually called me fat. So you have that to look forward to in this episode of BrightHearth. As always our mailbag is open and you can use this send us a text button in the description on all the podcast versions of this. I don't think it's on the YouTube video but all the podcast versions Apple podcast Spotify etc. Tap that button and you can send us your question. Just as a reminder we cannot answer those we can't text you back in the system. It's just a male delivery thing but we do look at all those and every month or so we try to open up the mailbag and pick some of the questions that come up on the most and then take them up in a full episode. So we hope you enjoy what follows and we'd encourage you to continue sending us these great questions and we appreciate all of you for listening to the show and hope it's enjoyable. Welcome back to BrightHearth everybody we are here to answer some more of your questions this week. Yes we are. And I think the first thing we can agree on is that everybody without exception appreciated my British accent in the last episode. They did every single person. They're all fans of British Brian. Yeah. I mean it would be hard not to me quite frankly because it was so spot on British people listening British people who were listening. They once again they probably appreciated it as a perfectly accurate representation of their culture. Right Penny? Huge fan of daddy huh dad jokes. Splendiferous penny. All right well we are excited to be back here. Hey with this episode is coming out April 6th so first of all happy Easter. Hope you had a great Easter. And secondly there should be some news about my next album. Check a link in the description. I'm gonna be mysterious so that you all have to go check out the link in the description to go find out what that news is. And maybe here a little bit of a preview of what's been cooking. I don't know maybe maybe not. We'll see. I'm really calling my shot here recording this in early March that this will be all done. Hoping up there. And if not no it's gonna be there. It'll be there. It's focused. It'll be there. Oh it's focused. Okay we have got a bunch of great questions here. To take up last time we had some that ended up spending more time than usual. So this time we're gonna get right into it and answer your question. So the first one is from a Roman Catholic listener in Florida and I like that I guess this isn't a question they wrote in with this note of encouragement. They said as lent season continues my pastor reminded us that every Sunday is a feast day. Brian mentioned wait I don't actually know if this is a Roman Catholic. What are you saying? Brian mentioned this a few episodes back as well. However I think he meant every day as a feast day for himself because he is all caps is still a fatty. Thank you. I wish every day were a feast day for that note of encouragement snacking on my own. I think what the people are asking is could you give us an update on your cut? Okay that's what I heard. Lexi how's my cut going? Great. Yeah would you say that I'm like on a scale of nine to 10 how attractive would you say I am now? You're just as attractive as you've always been. So what so in nine the bottom? No. First of all I would just like to point out that I have been on a cut for a long time and I don't even I couldn't even spell the word feast anymore. Okay I told him he has to reread the supper of the lamb when he's done. Will he do it? No I know this already. I know well but I feel like he should. What are you doing your husband? What read books that you tell him to? Okay anyway. I just subtly dropped the hints on podcast for years. It's true. Okay well we have a listener from Delaware who did write in a real question. That was a real note that we received of encouragement calling me a fatty. But I told all my friends to call me a fatty every day until I was done with my cut. Where was the Roman Catholic part though? Well they said lent and then but then they said I think they were actually not as you just import that. I just like when I was translating it got it. Okay a listener from Delaware wrote in they said dear Brian and Lexi thanks so much for your ministry. It's been a huge blessing to me and my wife as we build our family and seek to grow in love for one another. Thank you for listening said I the husband have been listening through Brian sermon series on Proverbs and was especially convicted by his sermon on words in the weaving of worlds. I have been sinning against my wife by omission not blessing or encouraging her enough. I know how I can encourage her better but in terms of blessing I have no experience with how that works. Could you walk through practically how I should bless her and our children. What do I say and when? Thank you again for your ministry to us through your podcast. That's an OG that sermon's actually pretty long. Wow. Like years and years ago. Probably eight years ago. So thanks for listening to that. I hope it was helpful. I'm trying to remember if I said anything stupid eight years ago. Oh apparently not. Hopefully not. So I think the most important thing with words. There's a few categories for Penny's here joining us just absolutely living her best life. Right Penny? She gets quiet only when I ask her a question. Other than that she thinks she's having a conversation with us. A few few things on words. One of them you're talking about the category of blessing. I think this is the category of like praying and family worship. I tried to pray for Lexi every time we have family worship and pray for the children and particularly ask that God would bless her and bless them and that he would help us to be virtuous and that he would help us to enjoy our work and have joy in our duties and that sort of thing. With children this works really well too before bed. I think praying that God would bless them every single time you pray for them is a great practice because you want God to bless your children. And he says that you don't have things because you don't ask for them. So ask for them. So I was like well I should probably ask for this. More positively though I think as well words are one of the most neglected tools for men. We can tend not to talk enough. Yeah. And so it should be like everyone in your household especially your wife should know what you're aiming for what your household is aiming for what you what success looks like for your household for their jobs. They should know where they're going. What you expect of them like you should be encouraging them and building them up. Like there's just a million ways that we can fail to use words as leaders in our home and leave just a lot of meat on the bone in terms of blessing and instructing and all of this. But yes definitely bless. I even you know I wrote that song a mighty host particularly to be in just a word of blessing and encouragement over my wife all the time. And then I also wrote the songs for my daughters, Daphne sung and Winnie song. Penny hadn't been born yet. She'll get a song at some point Lord willing. To be just ongoing the blessings over their lives. You know may you become the mother of 10,000s and may your descendants possess the gates of your enemies. There's biblical blessing. Anything that you would add to that husband's blessing. Fant wives, children. Um, I mean, you just regularly tell me this and I don't know if other husbands do that. You did it last night even. Remember I'm writing these for you. And it doesn't have to be songs. Yeah. But it's like, Hey, remember this is for you. I'm going to work for you. Yeah. And I think husband's want wives to say that. Like thank you for going to work. But I think it's important for husbands to also remind them so that part of it is so that a wife doesn't complain that a husband is working a lot. Right. But part of it is also just genuine encouragement of he loves me. That's why he's doing this. It's not because he's greedy. It's not because he's all about himself. Right. Like it's not that at all. So I think that's encouraging. And I have been very encouraged in just like our home life and family life the last couple of months. And it was interesting in hearing you who consistently pray for me to be encouraged at home, at family worship, because in some weird way, I was feeling guilty about it. I don't know, it's just my disposition. I felt bad about liking to be home and doing things at home and things going well at home. - That is a very like, I feel guilty about it. - But I was like, no, the Lord is answering my husband's prayer and I can be encouraged that I'm encouraged. - Yeah, it's a good thing. So yeah, I think those are just really, I think husbands really can overlook that because they do work hard and isn't that enough and I put dinner on the table, why do you want more? But I saw someone tweet this just a few days ago where she simply said like, women want to be useful and know that they have been useful. - Yes, and everybody really wants somebody to notice, especially the people that you're doing things for, you want them to notice that you're doing it and honor you and respect you and, you know, and so part of the golden rule of loving one another as we would be loved is that. - Yeah, and I can't imagine how deprived, like our daughters would be not having a dad that does that, that prays for them every night and that I think sometimes we feel like we have to make up our own special blessings in our own liturgies and it's like, no, actually they're all there in scripture, like that's enough. - Yeah, and it's like they're very practical. I mean, even like when you think of the blessings in Genesis, they're very practical. They're recorded for us in a very poetic manner, but they're like, will you prosper them? Will you make them strong? Will you give them through very practical? - Yeah, very practical. - Okay. Anything else on that one before we move? - No, I don't think so. - Why is it that most soaps in cleaning products ironically don't contain clean ingredients? Indigo sundry soap company is helping families stay clean and healthy by starting with the most important step in cleanliness. Soap, they're cold pressed soap bars, including clay bars and talo bars are made from all natural ingredients that don't have any harmful chemicals and they smell great. Visit indigo sundrys soap.com in order today and hey, subscribe for regular shipments and get 10% off every time. You know how they say they don't make things like they used to? Well, now we do. Edwin's heirlooms is a family run business that provides handmade wooden toys for all ages. From stick horses and push pull toys to tabletop board games for the whole family, all crafted from sturdy materials that ensure heirloom quality and vintage feel. 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Another listener wrote in, they said, "Hi, Brian and Lexi love the podcast and just constantly bolstered by it." Thanks for listening. Said, "My husband and I are still newlyweds one year in and now we have a little baby boy." My husband struggled with a porn addiction before we got married and still struggles occasionally. He is a faithful Christian and repentant of his sin, but it doesn't ever seem to fully go away. He has sought counsel for older men in the church and diligently studied scripture with them and confesses to both me and them when he falls into sin. Sorry for the long paragraph. The long and short of it is, I would like to know how I can best support him and encourage him in his struggle with this temptation. This isn't the type of sin that you can share with everyone. So it makes finding any kind of support or counsel sometimes kind of tricky. Anyways, thanks for what you do and God bless you. Thank you for writing in. That's unfortunately just a very common struggle today and very common partly because there's no sin and temptation that overtakes us that isn't common to man. And so of course, one of the biggest categories of lust is going to be commonly experienced by people, by human beings, but then also when you pour the gasoline on the fire of availability and flooding the world with the dangled temptation to lust. Like, hey, why don't you lust here? Oh, look, another lust opportunity. Like you're driving down the street and you think you'd be safe. No, there's a lusty billboard and then you're just trying to tweet memes at your friends. You know, there's a lusty tweet and then you're, you know, just trying to like see what Instagram video your friend Ben sent you and probably there's some lusty stuff there on Instagram and the world is lusty. The world is full of lustiness and it's constantly trying to tempt Christians to lust just like all the other sins. The world is full of opportunities to be frustrated. Like this is the world we live in. Some general advice first that I would give is it is very good when you're dealing with the sin of another person who is, I'm just narrowed into a spouse. Like let's say you're dealing with the sin of your spouse is to always remember your own sinfulness and that though their sin is probably going to look different than yours just by virtue of maleness and femaleness that you are a great sinner too and that they are a great sinner and you both need a great savior. The Lord Jesus Christ. It's good to remember that because this is how the Lord teaches us constantly to forgive as you have been forgiven. So you also must forgive in Colossians it says, the Lord's prayer teaches us to pray. Lord forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who have trespassed against me. It's easy for us to categorize the sin of the other sex often as the more severe. Like oh, a man might think yeah, lust is kind of run of the mill everybody, all men deal with it. But man, her nagging is just out of control and then he's like minimizing his own sin which is a category of adultery in the heart and that's by the way a very serious thing. That's what I was gonna say. And then magnifying hers and the reality is actually both of them are really bad. Both of them are bad. So that's important to remember. That said, sexual sin is particularly pernicious. It's a sin against your own body and it's a sin against your marriage covenant in a very direct and central way because the marriage bed sexual intimacy is like the sine qua non of the marital relationship. It's the consummation of it. It is the one flesh unity of it. It is the thing that separates it from other relationships. They're not sexual relationships. It is the sexual relationship in your life. So it is a very serious thing. It's I'm glad to hear that it sounds like he is taking it very seriously. And any men who are caught in the same sins should take it seriously. I want to say in this specific case, he struggled occasionally. It seems like it doesn't ever fully go away. It is possible for him to have victory over this sin such that it is no longer a routine part of his life. And I mean such that he might go a long time without even experiencing a really strong temptation to the sin and have that kind of victory. Don't assume like you've been married for a year. I'm assuming you're young that, yeah, they're one year in, they have a little baby boy. You're still in the very beginnings of becoming men and women, becoming a man and a woman, both of you are. The Lord is going to use your marriage over the next decade, two decades, three decades, four decades, Lord willing to greatly mature both of you. So I want to just kind of highlight that because it's a discordant note in the question that it's not that you can ever let your guard down with sin or like stop watching, but like I mean stop having a watchman on the wall for that kind of sin. But this doesn't need to be something that 10 years into your marriage. You're still like, yeah, it's just a normal thing. And I want him to hear that and I want you to hear that because it can feel hopeless when you're dealing with sins. Just like, yeah, it's pretty normal in the first year of marriage for a woman all of a sudden to be like, man, I am like really tempted to be naggy and manipulative. And like harsh and all these things. And they're coming out because you've never lived with a man before you've been married. Like you. So I would say that in terms of how to particularly support him in helping him have victory over this sin, pray for him regularly. I'm sure you are. You should obviously do everything you can to make the home in the marriage bed, warm and inviting. And like I say all the time, both spouses should be saying with their words and their words and their deeds. I want to be the only source of sexual satisfaction for you. Meaning I want you to be filled up with my love. Both the man and the woman should be thinking that. That doesn't mean that if a spouse sends sexually though, that it was because you didn't do something you should have. I'm just saying this is a good positive practice I would say for anybody. And the reason is that lust doesn't satisfy, marital sex does not satisfy the same thing lust does because lust satisfies or doesn't really, but it promises to satisfy the flesh. And the flesh wants to sin. Yeah. So where when you weren't married, the flesh really did want to engage in pre-marital fornication. Now that you're married, the flesh will not be satisfied with sexual with this sex in the marriage bed. Yeah. It will seek to sin. So it will try to divert to something else. That's just how lust works. Um, so do pursue, you know, I want to say a vigorous, zealous, I'm trying to use words that aren't those kinds of words. Warm, root, regular, open, like love your husband be inviting to him. Of course, do have a heart of charity and forgiveness as you would want him to forgive you for all your sins. Um, do pray for him. Um, that doesn't mean though that you have to like act like it, it doesn't, that it's not a serious sin that it doesn't. That's what I was thinking is partly like discord in the fellowship. Part of what might help him to is you having to be honest so that he has to reckon with that. Yeah. Just because I think I've talked to young wives, I've gotten this question a lot where they want to help, but they don't ever want to bring it up, but they are really suffering emotionally and mentally. And I've had to say like, look, you guys need to bring it up so that he understands what he's doing, the harm he's doing, but also so he can pastor you through that because it doesn't help that you're over here suffering, like it's a double, that's why it's so we need to think of as a category of adultery. That's why it is like this double wound that's happening. So communication, even though it doesn't solve everything, yeah, communicating about it does solve a lot of it though. Absolutely. So yes, be forgiving and yes, be joyful and yes, be sexually available and brave as a wife, even in that sense, but also when you are having an issue, be willing to talk about it. Yep. Yeah. And that's not contrary to having a heart of and spirit of forgiveness and charity saying, no, this deeply wounds me. This is, I hate this. And it should because it is a deep wounding sin. Yes. And he needs to make, make war with it completely. There's practical things too, but on those, I would say that's more the pastors working with them should be taking some practical steps as well. And just to deal with like the trickiness of it, like you don't want to share with everyone, you don't want to uncover, you know, dishonor your husband. I think it's okay to ask him like, who do you feel comfortable with me sharing this information? Can I talk with about it? Yeah. Who is an older woman that I can talk to about this? Yeah. So seek counsel and advise. Okay. Next question. Wait, let me make sure I'm not skipping one. Yep. Next question. Okay. A young lady from New Jersey had a great question here about navigating career and college and work as a soon to be married woman. She said, Hi, Brian and Lexi wanted to thank you for doing God's work, been a blessing to me in my fiance. I recently listened to your podcast on vocations. Before I listened to it, I had felt that God was leading me to go to school and work in the veterinary field for this season of life. I had been questioning whether it was my feelings or not. Since I understand my biblical calling is to build the home and prepare to be a homemaker and stay at home mom for my future children. I really desire to be a homemaker, but it's hard when I feel like right now it isn't what I'm supposed to do. Currently, I'm working because my dad wants me to and I also have bills to pay me and my fiancee are about to get married in October. And I just don't know what to do in regards to school and work. My fiance is just about to graduate college and as a new business owner, being able to financially live off of one source of income will be hard. I love my job and I really believe that God is using me in this field, especially since everyone is woking. And against the Bible at the end, I just want to do God's will, but sometimes it's hard to tell what to do in a situation like this. That was a great thoughtful question. A lot of people are wrestling with it because we live in the world that is not set up for biblical fidelity. Yeah, there are huge obstacles to living out the normal mode of the family. As God designed it. And even as it was commonly practiced historically in Christian societies. Today that there are unusual new, some of them are downstream of things like the industrial revolution, but also feminism egalitarianism, global capitalism. A lot of these things have just brought challenges in flation. I mean, man, right now, if you make $100,000 a year, it's the equivalent in terms of buying power of what $70,000 a year was like less than 10 years ago. That's the pace of inflation. So all of us growing up, if you're a millennial of roughly our age, like mid 30s, then you think of 60 or $70,000 a year and you're like, man, that's a great salary. Like you're really killing it. If you make $60,000, $70,000 a year. That's how I grew up thinking. Just, well, now you have to adjust and be like, okay, that's about $100,000 now. And in 10 years, it's going to be $150,000 now. So I get it. It's really difficult. To just you want to live on one income or you want to be working together where she's assisting you and like there are many, it wasn't that the woman we're going to do an episode on this actually one of the next two or three episodes of bright Arthur will be focused on that question of the woman and work and income. How does she relate to the income of the house? And spoiler because it was common for her to be related to it. Like she didn't in, you know, the 1800s. The blacksmith's wife didn't just say, well, he's blacksmith and I've got nothing to do with that. I don't know why she's like Scottish or whatever, but no, like she assisted. She was probably helping with various aspects of his business. She the household was probably related more closely to the business. Then we have much more artificially or it, I don't know if artificially is the right term because it is real. We've more cleanly separated the home from work from income from investment from, you know, all these things from food from a million different things. In this specific situation, my conviction isn't that a young woman prior to marriage should have nothing to do with making any income or should never have any kind of job at all at any point. It's, it's not that those things are unlawful. It's not that even in an early marriage situation that she might be involved in making income somewhere that helps. Really though, my question is always practically the goal is going to be that especially when children are born. That she's home. And that even if she's related to his income at that point somehow like like he has a business, let's say that you help in scheduling clients or answering phones or doing. There's a ton of stuff you can help with when your husband owns a business. And you're making money for the company like absolutely you are. You're helping him keep the books. Whatever your skill set is. When children come, that can't be your first thing anymore, the way that it could before. So how can we set up your life so that when that transition happens and Lord willing, if you get married in October, may the Lord bless you with children in the first year of your marriage. How great would that be? Okay, but that's not a long time to recoup the investment of something like a veterinary degree. Yeah. In business. So how can we, is there something else we could do to set a young woman's life up to where she didn't have a bunch of debt. Didn't have a career specialty that would require really full-time attention to make anyone eat all. Yeah. And maybe more, more closely assist your husband and his business. So those are some of my initial just framing thoughts. What would you say to a young woman? Like my got reaction to and maybe it's just my season of life. But like you said, you're working in environment where they're woke and you don't and they don't love the Bible. My husband wouldn't send me as the great bulwark into a situation. To try and fix that. No. So I would be getting myself out of that situation, not looking at myself as the last great hope of that situation. Yeah, you want to make a difference wherever you are, but generally speaking, sending our women into an industry to fix its anti-biblical character isn't the strategy. And I only say that because our piotistic evangelical world wants to hold that as a great virtue. Like this is why I'm doing it. And I want to remove that from you so you don't feel false guilt of continuing to do that. Yeah. So okay. So I said that. Second of all, yeah, like why not rethink what you're doing? I wish, I mean, actually, I do use my degree, but I wish I had had more practical hands-on skill sets that I would have thought to cultivate like, like do or like some sort of a technical training with nutrition or not with the or something like that. - Well, it's easier to focus on some of those things. - Yes. - 'Cause there's fewer competing. - Because, and the reason why is like you said, with that sort of a job in the veteran community, you have to leave the home to do that. You don't have to do that, though, with other types of work. And I'm really thankful, I do get to use my degree as in creative writing. I do obviously that's an overflow of our home, duh. But I think some women will often go to something like, what is another good example? Maybe even like a, yeah, nursing is a good one. You have to be out of the home for something like that. Not that those skills can still attribute to the household and be a huge help in blessing to the local community. But just make sure, like, I really ask yourself, is this a type of job, though, that I have to be out of the home consistently to be working or to even keep up with your credentials? - Yes. I would really be, I don't know your husband's business. I would really be trying to find something in that world. And right now, you said your dad wants you to work. It sounds like you're living with your dad, which is great, until you're married. You have bills to pay. That's great. Listen to your dad. If he's like, here's a job, I want you to work. And you're gonna, it's good to have some income to get prepared for marriage. That's all good. Assuming your dad's giving you good counsel, and you should listen to him, obviously. But looking towards the marriage situation, I would say the veterinary route is probably not a good idea. In fact, I would say it's not a good idea. I would not encourage my daughter to do that. I wouldn't permit her to do it, honestly. But the husband's business is the big thing. What is he going to do and thinking, how can you help now in getting that set up, what skills can you bring and contribute? Because man, there are ways, even once your children are in the home, John Moody talks about a lot about this. Like the way that a productive Christian household is set up isn't that there's a clean break between the way the household makes income and the role of the husband and the wife. It's not so clean that like, oh, she just contributed a dollar. She's no longer a proper tradwife. That's not actually the thing. That's historically certainly not what it meant. Women have deeply involved in the economy of the home and in the economy of their husband's work. Meaning he literally couldn't do it without her, not just because his home was being managed by her, but also oftentimes the work itself. Yeah. So find ways that you can be involved in his work. Lexi is involved in many appropriate ways in the work that I do quite clearly, as both a pastor and a business owner with new Christian impressed. And I don't just mean bright-Arthur. It's an obvious example, but it's kind of a unique one. I'm more talking about in a million ways that my wife is involved in, yeah, I'm going to, there are situations in a church pastoring where I might say, what would you, is there a book that this lady could read? Is there who should talk to her in the church? What do you think about this situation? Because we're, she's grown more and more as I have into my world. She's joined my mission in vision of the household, the Sovae household, and she's the helper in that. So she's going to become an expert in the mission of the Sovae household. You're going to become an expert, Lord willing, in the household of your fiance and his business. And so it's going to be unique to that, but that's what I would say. Though very last thing I would say is it would be unwise to delay children because of any of this, selling or paying of bills. It's better to have bills that you have to pay for and not have the job to do it and have the kids than the opposite. And we have many friends who have gone down that route who have just said, you know what, we're just going to deal with the bills for longer than ideal. We'd rather have the kids. I am so happy. I know women who have a quarter million dollars in debt because of their specialized training that said though, and then delayed children because of it. And then even then, even delaying it five to ten years in some cases didn't pay off the debt. Yeah. And have to now bear that. So you're in a position where you can avoid making one of the biggest mistakes of your life. And I would encourage you to do it. I'm not your dad and I'm not your pastor. So I don't want you to be taking this as a command from. Yeah. So this is counsel. This is not, I don't know you. I'm not telling you to undermine your dad. I want to be clear on that. Talk to your fiance. Talk to your dad. Talk to your pastors. You know the wisdom to in those worlds better than I do. So the general counsel. That sounded like a legal like this is not investment advice. But it's kind of necessary. Okay. A listener from Florida wrote in the following said, "Hi, 23 year old lady here at a big fan of the show. I feel like I'm content in my singleness. But I do also at the same time long to be married and have a family. How do I prepare myself now? I do work full time and live alone currently. And most of the men in my church aren't interested or are already married. So common situation in the world we live in today. What would you say, Lexi? I would say a novel conference and early summer with a single. With a single single's mixer. I would say you better start booking some flights all around the country. Genuinely go fish in the ponds where the men grow that you're interested. Get a Twitter account. Start posting on there. Preferably without typos. We can move past this though. We can move past it. I don't know what you're talking about. But you can, like, that is legit what I would do is I would go be visiting churches, emailing pastors beforehand and going on Twitter and just saying, like, hey, I would like to be married. Here's my resume. If you don't have an impressive one, get an impressive one. Yeah. Be biblically content with the Lord's provision for you where he is. It's good to start, like you said, with contentment. I am in God's Providence. This is the cup that he poured for me right now. I'm going to be content with it. Thank God for it. And I'm also at the same time going to seek for this lawfully good gift of marriage. And so do what you can to improve yourself. And what I mean by that, this whole series on being human has been really about this question. But ask yourself what kind of woman would a really great guy want to marry? Like a godly man, I'm a sure man, one that I would find attractive. What would like, who would that guy want to marry? And you go, well, she would be kind. She would be gentle. She would be a hard worker and not lazy. She would have skills that would contribute to the household and to building a household. She would be probably fit and attractive. That's what I was going to say to you is. I mean, for real though, I forgot about this. Okay, one of my friends told me her husband like, okay, this is going to be funny. Maybe yes. Okay. Get like style advice from somebody, even if you need to go pay some fashion used to somewhere to help you get a different wardrobe. I do think in this season it is worth it. It is worth it to go on a cut. It is worth it to get a gym membership, get some you can do. You could probably get some tens, 15s and 25s dumbbells in your room. And you could totally get jacked just from that as a woman. Use that, don't forget about that aspect. Don't just go for canning and baking and interior design. You also have a really good opportunity right now to improve yourself. Yep. And the thing about it is, if you do get married, you'll have those habits down. Yes. You won't have to be getting those habits 15 years down the road where you, where you just feel terrible about yourself. In a season of like pregnancy, pregnancy. Where it's way harder to do it. You have the time now, get that down. Yeah. Be as fit, attractive and feminine as you can. Yes. Think of yourself in terms of all those, the physical, the spiritual, the social and the vocational, those four categories we've been working through. And try to seek plotting, not like crash dieting and weird random guru courses online. I'm talking about stable, good plotting, good habits, putting down good roots. And yeah, if you're 50 pounds overweight today, you're not going to be to a goal weight in eight weeks. You don't even try because you'll probably just have really bad habits that won't, that will rebound you. But in all those different areas, think, yeah, what would a really great godly man? And also, we're obviously just trying to please the Lord. Yeah. These things are two train tracks that go parallel, trying to please the Lord and then also thinking, I want to be worthy of a godly man. Well, godly man will want me to please the Lord. So like, yeah, they go in parallel. And I would say to like find some either like Instagram accounts or like fashion accounts or YouTube channels. I like justine le Kant. She's French and more classic in her style. She's not going to be as trendy. A lot of the Instagram stuff is going to be super trendy and I don't usually like that. Yes. Well, she's justine in some ways. It's kind of part. I don't know of one that isn't. I'll just put it that way right now. Don't be a modest. They're not slutty, but they're definitely not 100% ideal. But what I'm trying to say is if she's going to say a timeless wardrobe always has these three styles of skirts, these three styles of tops, then go find those and put them on. on at the store and see which ones you like. And start there. Start with timeless, not trendy, because that's gonna give you an eye. People always ask me this, "Where do you shop? Where do you shop?" It's a hard thing to answer because I'd not trendy. I don't like malls, I don't like stores. But what I do like is the timeless capsule wardrobe. And so that makes it so much easier to look feminine through all of these trends. You're not just stuck dressing in 2026, 10 years down the road. You know how to continue to dress like a woman. And I think that's the difference. - Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's a, these are skills. Like give yourself permission to go and be, come something that maybe you don't feel like you are yet. To go and larp a little bit. Like put on-- - Yeah. - Maybe you were the, maybe you were the like, I've never been that fit. And I'm, we're not assuming that you're like really overweight or something, just, we're just talking to a general. The average person in America, they is overweight. So that's who I'm talking to. Maybe you've always been that. I've just kind of been, yeah, I'm overweight. Don't just accept that. It's like, yeah, this is just who I have. It's like my personality. I'm just over, no, larp. I'm now the person who has good eating habits and good fitness habits. So I'm gonna become that person. - Yeah. - And I'm gonna have bad days and maybe bad weeks, but I'm gonna consistently do it. Trust me, I'm on a cut right now. I can-- - I'm really hungry right now. - I've been hungry since November 30th. - 2025. It's not even the same year. - I've been hungry for two hours. (laughing) - Okay, I think that's enough there for our 23 year old listener. Yeah, the singles mixers are great. Opportunity as well. It's like a dollar for the ladies' ticket. So there you go. - Mm-hmm. - A war for normal.com. (bell dings) - Home and Harth started simply with a mom dad and their two kids making clean natural alternatives for women who went into something better. Through that process came the creation of the cycle support tincture set. For herbal blends, one for each phase of your cycle designed to help you reconnect with your body's natural rhythm. Handcrafted with organic herbs that ease cramps, balance mood, support hormones, and bring calm throughout the month. Every bottle is handmade with care with high quality ingredients. Get the cycle tincture set at shophomeandharth.com/bright and use code Bright for 15% off your order this Christmas. (upbeat music) - When you have a busy house, the immediate demands of activities, events, and never ending to-do lists can overshadow critical long-term decisions. Life insurance, financial planning, education savings, and retirement are continually backburnered. Joe Garasi and his team from backwards planning financial will help you maximize financial tools, management, and strategies so you can focus on your home and have confidence for your financial future. Visit backwardsplanningfinancial.com that is backwardsplanningfinancial.com or call 615-767-2555 to speak with Joe to develop a plan for the future. (upbeat music) (bell ringing) A listener from the Western US had a great question about leading a stubborn wife. So let's move to that one. Said, "Hello, Sovey Household. "Thanks for making yourself available to listeners "in these Q and A episodes." I wanted to ask if you would have any advice for a husband that desires to lead in his family and marriage with a wife who is in various ways opposed to following his leadership. Of course, I understand that you all are very busy so any council is very much appreciated. I just started listening to BrightHearth, I've been listening to other NCP shows for a number of years and it has all been very helpful to me in my spiritual development. So thank you for all that you and your church does and God bless you. Thank you, that's encouraging. We are glad to hear that the other shows and everything that we're doing has been of value to you. And thanks for listening. This is a tough question. It's because of the phenomenon that we talked about with the Reviling Wife, that whole trend, it makes it just normal. Like you have to assume two things. Like you can almost assume two things. One, that the average man in the world has some exposure to pornography and that the average woman has some exposure to boss bathing feminist, uncorrectable, unletable tendencies. It's just the world, the water that we swim in. It's the air that we breathe. It's all around us. It takes self-conscious, active resistance to say, I am not going to go with the flow of sexual sin in my culture or of feminist boss bathing in my culture or of whatever else. On the one hand that does help us because it gives us a little bit of, charity should be easier for us when we're dealing with other people who have those sins. Because it's like, of course they do. Of course my wife is going to be difficult to lead. She's not the seventh in line of generations of gentle and quiet women who learned from the cradle how to be feminine and strong and dignified and but not bossy and not rude. And then in addition to this, this is no temptation to overcome you. That's not common in men. Read a pride and prejudice. Women in those days, this is just a common sin. It shows itself in different times in society differently and to different degrees. But it's a common sin and we see it a lot today. So you need to start with your wife with a charity towards her. And as Peter says, dealing with her in an understanding way, living with her in a gentle way, an understanding way, treating her as the weaker vessel. Now that said, you need to be a strong leader and you need to grow in the skills of leadership and in the virtues of leadership. There's a whole section on, I'm writing a book right now on how to love your wife, basically. And one of the whole second section of the book, it's like five or six chapters is all on headship. It's on headship and mission and vision, headship and leadership, headship and correcting your wife, headship and a million different aspects of headship. This is one of them. But to boil it down, really this comes down to those two aspects of leadership, the skills of leadership, which are one thing and the virtues of leadership. You can actually have the virtues and not have the skills yet and you can have the skills and not the virtues. There are good leaders who are totally scumbags. They just have really good skills of leadership. They sell courses on Gumroad and they do, like they're actually pretty good and they do self-help stuff. And then there are people of the virtues, like they're actually worthy of following and they're good leaders. But they struggle with some of the skills, like maybe they're not as good at communicating yet. They're not as good at control, which I don't mean being controlling. I mean, control is an aspect of management where you are maintaining control on the resources under your leadership to make sure that they're not veering off like in a business sense and a business control includes making sure that the dollars in the business are doing what the dollars are supposed to do. Yeah. Instead of what they're not supposed to do. You have bad control of the money in your business. If you lost 40% of your money to things that did nothing last month for the business. So there are skills and there are virtues that you need to work on. We can't in this answer give all of them, but I would just be thinking in those two categories. A, am I a man who's worthy of being led and I'm gonna grow in that every day of my life till I die? Because following a man is a really big deal and it's scary and it's hard. And so I'm gonna make it as easy as possible for her by being a man worthy of following. And then skills are things like, am I being clear and where we're going? Have I given a sufficiently clear explanation of the mission and vision of our home? And have I given, does she know what she's even supposed to be doing? What would really serve? Have I communicated those things effectively? Does she have good ways of bringing feedback to me? Am I good at correcting someone who is supposed to be my subordinate who's being insubordinate? Like a wife who's genuinely not listening. Am I skilled in correcting that? Am I diligent in it or am I passive and abdicating? Or am I dominating and tyrannical? Do I have the skill of teaching and instructing to where I'm actually not just casting a vision but I'm instructing and helping my people achieve it? Am I skillfully encouraging and exhorting? Am I noticing the things that I should notice in praise? Great job. That was really helpful to me when you did that. I really appreciated that. Are you good at when there's a problem running right into the problem with the right attitude and spirit and fixing it? Like these are all leadership questions. Am I good at anticipating what problems my wife is facing and getting in her head enough to know like why this would be so challenging for her so that I can patiently understand her and not treat her like she's an idiot for not just getting it, right? Yeah. I'm rambling a little bit, but that's where I would start as a man, the skills of leadership and the virtues of leadership. What would you add to that from the perspective of a wife? My immediate gut reaction was that maybe, yeah, she just needs to be one to the vision a little bit more. And it could just be like you have been listening to two years worth of bright hearth and you expect her to get on board immediately when in reality maybe you need to go back and start listening to those with her and taking her out on a date and talking to her about it. Like, I mean, same things you're saying, everything you just said, but as a wife, I imagine it would be way easier to get on board with something like that. Yeah. Because you're bringing her through the whole thought process that you went through. Be cheerful. I think that a big help is in leadership is it has to come from love because a husband is leading his wife by loving her that Christ loved the church his bride. So people you're leading can tell if you don't love them. Yeah. Yes. People can tell if you don't actually care about them. Yes. So you have to cultivate affection, a love, a care, a concern. I'm seeking your earthly and heavenly good. Yes. And they know it. Now, none of this means you could do all of that right. And a wife could still be in subordinate. It doesn't mean it's your fault if she does still sin. Yeah. And man, I've seen husbands do some of this and their wife divorce them. Mm hmm. Even like where he was genuinely doing like imperfectly, but he was really trying and doing a good job of growing and yeah. And yet she was just recalcitrant in her sin. Be please God and then let the chips fall where they may in that. But make sure that you really love her and that she can tell that like people just know when you don't love them and when you're just serving yourself. That was something I that I forgot, but remember, um, I imagine as a wife who's already on board with this stuff, it can still be hard to get behind just the practical fleshing out of what this looks like in life. So I imagine somebody that might be hesitant might have a temptation to say something to herself like, Oh, so he wishes I was like those other wives. Okay. I see what is going. So I think what's really important and you've done a really good job over the years of this, of reminding me like, no, the way you do things is the good way. Not in the sense of not letting me off the hook, not like low standards, but like, no, I love you as a wife. The way God made you. I like my wife. Yes. Exactly. And communicating that like, I don't remember if this episode was the last one like saying it out loud. Yeah. The way you do this is the best way because it's the way you do it. And you're my wife. Actually telling me that, actually telling your wife that because that could be something right there. I've just like, um, in our culture, them in today, it's like all competitive. The holy ambition isn't necessarily there. I like the holy ambition side of things where we spur one another on to love and good works. But if you're not used to a culture of that, you just, your default will just be like a hopelessness, feeling really bad, assuming the worst, essentially, and everything. And I think sometimes that can come into play with this. Yeah. Where wives can be resistant because of that because you're like, well, great. Now you think I'm a totally, you wish I was a different person. That's right. And you, it's part of love. Yes. Exactly. Lead her the way that you would want to be led. That reminds me of the office quote, leave me when I'm in the mood to be led. No, um, lead her the way that you, if you switched it out, think how would I want? Okay. Yeah. I would want love and gentleness. And, and but also one common failure, this is an aspect of leadership skill is that husbands are often in, husband's in particular leaders in general are often they fail to be specific. And so they never give people enough information to know whether they're succeeding or failing in pleasing them or doing the thing that you want them to do. So when you say that your wife is opposed to following your leadership, I want you to get specific privately. Don't share this with her right now. I want you to write down particularly what you mean by that. What things is she not following you in? What act, what things is she doing that you want her not to be doing? What things is she not doing that you want her to be doing? A start stop list. Get that particular. This is going to help you realize where you've been fuzzy, even in your thinking where maybe you're vaguely annoyed and you feel like she's vaguely in subordinate. But, but you real, you might realize she I've never told her something particular enough here for her to know what it would look like. I'm just kind of going. Yes. Maybe it's sex in the marriage bed. We're not having sex enough. And I keep hinting I keep doing all the stuff, but she's not okay. Be specific. We're having sex once every 10 days on average. We should be having sex at least three times a week in a normal week when there's nobody sick and you know, et cetera. Okay. Great. So now how are you going to lead in your home to improve your marriage bed? Well, there's a million things you could then a good leader could think of with the skills and virtues of leadership to do. Have a conversation with your wife where you're particular and cheerful and kind and I'm really into you and it would serve me a lot and I want to have more sex with you because I'm into you. And so I'm going to be pursuing you in that and just be aware of what's going on. Are you up for that? So we're clear. And then what you've just done is you've given her something particular enough that she can say no to you and sin. Yeah. No, I'm not going to do that at once every 10 or she starts fussing and complaining safe. Well, now you have something you have a specific thing you could actually lead in. Yeah. It's not general or vague. And I think it's helpful to have those conversations outside of the context of it happening because she's able not even not just with sex, but she's able to mentally prepare herself for the next time that happens of like, Oh, this is this is what's happening. Told me this was going to happen. Here he is. And he's doing it because he's into me. What a great thing. Yeah. Right. A lot of the time men and women do this, but we assume that we actually talk about women doing this in our culture more than men, but men do it too. We assume that other people are mind readers. It's when the woman's like, he should know that I wanted roses on my birthday because I said it in June of 2013 that on my 28th birthday, I'd want roses. And he didn't he didn't remember because he doesn't love me. Well, come on, right? Like he's a human. He can't read your mind. Men do this too. She should know that I want to have sex with her more because I pout and I really want to have more sex. And I've hinted at it three times this week. Great. Maybe she didn't pick up those. Maybe she has sinning and she did. And she was like, I don't know. Maybe that behavior is a huge turn off. It can be. So there are skills and virtues of leadership. Everything specific is so helpful. Your wife is maybe she interrupts you a lot or she has very unfeminine speech things where you say like she's kind of brass. She's not she doesn't release. She's not respectful to me. Get specific and then leverage the skills of leadership to identify that problem and lead her into and make lead her into virtue and make sure that's what you're leading her into. You're leading her into virtue. You're making her glory. Christ washed his bride in the water of the word to present her to himself as a splendor. That's what you're trying to do to present your wife as a splendor to God and man. Yeah, because I can imagine even an example like that going two ways where a husband is really frustrated at the end of the night. He's like, can you just please don't do that again? I felt really embarrassed by that and you move on and you go to bed and no one ever talks about it again or a husband who cheerfully the next day is like, hey babe, I just want to bring this up that kind of happened last night and I just really didn't like the way it happened. Can we can you just not do that next time? Okay, cool. By the way, where do you want to go for dinner tonight? Wherever you want to go, let's go. Like I that's a totally different situation where a husband is able to cheerfully correct and get back in fellowship real quick versus yeah, it's a bad interaction of correction. And then the fellowship is just vaguely left off until the next time they're forced to interact. Sometimes men are way too passive and indirect and they tend towards feminine modes of speech where they are mistaken in precision and indirectness for gentleness. Yes. Where they've never given a clear enough thing for the wife to know because they're kind of they're scared to some men tend to the to the ditch of their so direct and they have no skill in handling a woman that they don't know how to actually work with the grain of a woman because she's a woman. You have to figure out where to let this is the skill where you figure out how to be direct to where you're giving in enough information to where she could even be in subordinate because she's like literally ignoring you and not doing it. Okay. Now that's a sin and a different yeah, but not so blunt and indirect unless this is how your wife is some women can handle that but a lot of them can't. You know her in your your being the way that I think about it is like there are different leadership styles in you know in new Christian press me and Erica are leaders of the company in different seats both founders and leaders of the company and we're very different. We're very similar in some ways. We're also very different. Eric has skills and he will say things in ways I wouldn't have thought to say that are really effective but also I have leadership skills that are different from his and it's not that I have to become Erica Eric has to become me but each of us understanding our own weaknesses tenancies knowing yourself and then knowing your your people. How can you fix this problem and and do it in a way that if you were on the other side of it you would want to be led like that. And once you kind of get it into that. Oh, this is actually a skill. I think too. I mean, there's sometimes where I've just been clearly like emotional not just being a woman where you've only a side and been like, Hey, I really want to help you. But what what's going on? Like what in the head? This is not okay. What is going on, but starting the conversation with knowing. that you're in my court, I might even just be like, I don't know what's going on, please help me. Yeah. But again, starting the whole thing of he is for me, because the way I think of this biblically is you can leave a wife feeling like she is uncovered. Her sin has been uncovered and he's not there to cover it and help. Or it has been uncovered and it's a wound. It's he's trying to wound you as a friend, but he's there to be your covering still and to help. And he's in your court. That's totally different for you. Yes. If you don't love somebody that will be able to tell. Okay, now ladies, if this is you, you need to repent. You need to stop being insubordinate. You need to stop finding excuses not to listen to your husband. Oh, he's wrong or he's, I'm smarter than him at this or what? No, God commands you to submit to your husband. So you need to stop being an unsubmissive and insubmissive wife. If you're on the other side of this, if you're opposed to following his leadership, you're you're an unrepentant sin. It's a serious issue. You're harming your marriage on the level of a man who's looking at pornography all the time. Like it's that level of sin against the covenant. Think about it like if you were an employee, would you get fired? Yeah. Like because he's not going to fire you. No, I mean, he's not going to divorce you. He loves you. He's for you, but is your earth is an earthly boss? Anyone perfect? Like you could find a reason to never submit to anybody in authority. Oh, they never they didn't do this perfect. Well, yeah, no, but only Christ is perfect. Yeah. So you have to cultivate an attitude of submission and an attitude and a disposition of pliability to him that you are client into his leadership, responsive to it, that you're seeking for it, that you want it. Are you interrupting him? Are you always arguing with him? Do you ever just say, yes, sir, I'll take care of that. Do you ever like just honor him? Are you disrespectful? Are you caddy? Are you like are you naggy? Are you constantly changing it? If he says to do something, are you like changing it into something else? Because you thought it would be better. Just submit to your husband or you're sinning. So it real there's both sides of this. Yeah. Okay, we are we have one more question. We'll end with this one. It's a good one. I think it's kind of funny. Because I can identify with it. Is a listener from Texas? They wrote in about one of those awkward tendencies kids can sometimes have and what to do about it. So they said, I just finished the series in strength training. And I was wondering how you go about your own kids pointing out other fat kids around them. We're in a homeschool co-op and most are fit and healthy, but there is some overweight kids and both my kids talk with me about that. I told them never to discuss with the person, the other kid. And it's not a nice thing to say about someone. But I wondered if you guys had guidelines for addressing these things with our children. Mine are six and eight. So some young they're young children. We have kids in exactly this range and with exactly this issue before. Because the second you start talking about a standard and like kids, we're so raised, we're going to be fit. We're going to be virtuous. We're going to be self-controlled. We're going to you're going to be now like, what did you deadlift today? You get all this stuff pretty soon. And I tell them too, I use object lessons all the time in the real world. Hey kids, do you see that kid that just rolled by? Some people are going to be really offended that I do this, but I'm going to justify it. You see that kid that just rolled by on that electric scooter? And he was about 40% body fat and he's probably 13. That kid shouldn't have a motor. Who gave that kid a motor? He's fat. You do regularly. You should not have a motor. I've written a jingle about it. Like who's giving these kids electric motors under them? They're the motor back in my day. And then I kind of turn into a baby boomer a little bit and I fuss. But I'm doing that on purpose actually because like the father in proverbs, do you see the woman over here who's like this? Do you see the man who's like this? Do you see the lazy slugger and pass by his fields? Hey, you walk by that house. Do you see how they don't take care of anything? They're object lessons in the real world. So I'm teaching them those. But I also then you have to turn right around and teach them propriety. Yeah. And that's what we're talking about. Yeah, I don't shame them for that. I mean, I tell ladies this all the time. We're noticing it. It's not a bad thing to notice a pattern that God put in the world. That's no shame for that. As children, we often talk about them not knowing the right context yet for the use of words because they're just not mature enough yet. They don't know anything. Yeah. I told Mike that it's the other day that they have now achieved the level of intelligence of a of a of a small porpoise. And they thought that was pretty funny. But it was in context of like, because you know, especially young men, they're like they hit eight years old and they're like basically, I know, flipping everything. And they're teaching they're trying to teach you stuff and you're like, you everything you just said was wrong. They're going to kill me in the gym by accident. I know that they'll tell Lexi stuff and I'm like, boys, that is actively harmful, but they're 100% confident. So, so I'm, you know, I'm, I'm tempering that and like you guys, you just need to understand this. You don't know much at all. You're like a, you're like a chimp that learned sign language. You're at that level. And then they're like, yeah, well, dad, what about this Latin phrase that I know? What does that mean? And I'm like, I went to public school. I don't know, but you're still dumber than me. So you need to listen. You just talk all them dumb. For the record, sometimes you do. They know I'm affectionate. I'm not saying it. You are very affectionate. They know that I only reason you can get away with it. I'm joking with them to an extent, but they get that I'm telling them something serious. Anyway, it's providing. Yeah. You just, you're right. Don't you don't shame them for noticing. Oh, you, that was so rude that you know there. If they tell you like, yeah, mom, I saw someone. So it's a part, they were super fat. Okay. Yep, son, they were, they were overweight. And that was, you know, and so, hey, you know, though, right? Like, it wouldn't be kind to make fun of them or to say, I think, sorry, go ahead. So let's, let's make sure that we understand. It's okay to notice something like that, even in the real world. And then, but don't be proud. Mm-hmm. Think, yep, I'm going to be, and let's say it's your friend. And your friend has some issue. Wouldn't you want to help your friend? Yeah. Yeah. And men, we can rib each other a little bit. Women, it's a little bit different. You have to contextualize things. But yeah, it's okay. Like, the boys in the gym, they make fun of each other all the time. Mm-hmm. But they really love each other. Next you want one another to succeed. Yes. I also would probably try to help them understand, especially if it's another child. Like, maybe their mom and dad just haven't taught them that. Like helping them see that there's more than just that person's fat. I'm better than them. Exactly. Like, there's a lot more at play there. And this is why too. Like, this is why mom and dad just, why we just hang out in the family gym together on Saturdays. Because we just, we really love it. Aren't you thankful that mommy and daddy have made a way for you to do that? And we get to do it as a family and we have yummy food at night. Yeah. I think it just helps them be both grateful and understanding of other people. And one inoculation against the arrogance. First of all, call it out when you see it and you're like, it's a sin. And we have to do it all the time. Like, because again, young boys, girls too, but young men, they're just wildly arrogant. Creatures. They are so overconfident. At least some of them fall in the other ditch and they're like, "Mousey, you need to call them up." Yeah. You know, your kid and work with the grain of them. I constantly talk about my own faults, constantly, to my children. Like, they can- You have none. You're not helping me, babe. She's giving me the eyes of love, guys. This episode needs to end. Okay, anyway, I will tell them- That's your awkwardness. Sorry. You like to- I'll tell you like, hey, it's, you know how easy it is to be fat? It's super easy to be fat. Yeah. Daddy could be fat immediately. Daddy's had to go on. I'm on a cut right now. Am I not because I had a couple years where I let it get too far. And I was like, it's hard now. And I've got to do hard work to overcome that. And so they need to understand that you're looking out in the world and seeing those things. But you're also looking in the mirror. Yes. And seeing the same- Even it- maybe you're not morbidly obese. Yeah, but are you 26% body fat? That's too high. Yeah. For a man. And let you're like, are you- Unless you're in your 80s, you have some medicalish, if you're a normal healthy guy, you're 20, 26, 28, 29, 30% body fat. It's too much. Something I- I fix it. Talked to the kids about. And I like to think about it in terms of is like, it's good human work to just take care of your body in that way. Yeah. You don't just because you're 10 and have a six pack, that's not going to be natural your whole life. So you need a category for this is good work to pursue when I don't want to. And I don't feel good at it anymore. And that- that cultivation of a look in the mirror, whenever you're looking in the world and see something bad look in the mirror, it helps you have compassion for people. Yes, exactly. Because then you do what you did and you say, ah, that actually, like I've made a funny jingle because I want it to be normal in our family for them to think fitness is good. Self control is good. And it's kind of shameful if one of us gets fat. Like it's not a good thing. We should be kind of embarrassed by it and fix it. We did have this happen recently where there were three morbidly obese little kids at the park with my kids. and one of the kids noted it. And later on, we all talked about it. But at one point, like the kids, all the kids were bickering. They were actively spitting in each other at the park. And these were from like probably six up to 11 year old children. And then at one point, the mom got out of the car with her pink Mohawk and her skeleton hoodie that she had on and just start screaming at the kids. And multiple times one of the children had pointed out how fat they are. Can you believe how fat they were? And I told them I was like, guys, do you think they were happy about any of that? No. Would you like to be in a family like that? Like, let's think they probably don't they obviously didn't have a mom that was very happy to be around them who was teaching them things, who was making them homemade food. Like, these are things we can be thankful for and we can actually even pray for people like that and just say, man, I'm so bummed that they don't get to have the move to compassion is important. Like, and this is the challenge is that in our long house, feminized culture, we don't like standards. And we don't like some of the social mechanisms that enforce standards. Like it is kind of shameful to be morbidly obese. You should be kind of ashamed of that. And that pressure should drive you to virtue. That's how God designed it. That feeling of like, oh, there's something wrong and I feel bad about it. We all want to go, no, no, everybody is beautiful. Actually, no. Like, there is such thing as that's a lack of virtue. There's a problem there. But it should drive you to change. Now, on the other hand, in masculine cultures, you can tend to the to a failure of compassion where you genuinely are being arrogant and vain, glorious. And you, yeah, yeah, you're ripped and it was hard work and you're, you worked really hard. But guess what? You're a peacock and you look down on everybody else around you and you think you're so great. But you know what? Is a harder virtue than fitness, humility. So maybe you're actually a baby when it comes to humility and you should be embarrassed about it. And you should work to change that because everybody knows there goes that arrogant peacock that can't shut up about himself. Yeah. Well, great. That's not a virtue either. So we have to recognize that when we see a flaw in someone else and it's a lack of a standard, there's a good instinct to go, that's bad. That's wrong. I should want to not do that. But then also that look in the mirror helps you go, maybe I don't struggle in that area. But I actually need to cultivate the virtue of compassion and humility and love so that I'm not a huge jerk. And then which is worse, being fat or being a huge jerk, being a huge jerk is way worse. I would rather be a in every other way, virtuous guy who was overweight than to be a guy who was had that virtue in none of the other ones. Yeah. And I will tell my boys that when I see them being zealous over a good thing that they as little boys in be zealous over, I will remind them of that feeling and say, this is the feeling to take to the dinner table when you're tempted to get in a fight with your sibling. Yep. This is the same strength that needs to be exerted in a hard moment of testing, not just something that you're having fun doing, to connect those virtues for them. All right, guys, well, we are out of time for this episode. Lexi is going to be putting together a short in the kitchen episode for our supporters of the show over a Patreon that will come out every Tuesday morning. We drop a new episode of in the kitchen there on Patreon every Monday. We drop an early and ad-free episode of BrightHearth a week ahead of the main schedule, at least. And so if you'd like to support the show and you like what we're doing here at BrightHearth and New Kristen Impress, that is a great way to chip in a few bucks a month and help us continue to make it possible. Again, check out the war for normal.com to join us this June here in Ogden for our annual New Kristen Impressed conference. We would love to have you join us on the golf course for our golf scramble tournament. We're going to be having a new Christian of games, family hang out, barbecue in the park. We're going to be doing, there's a business mixer, there's a singles mixer, there is a concert I'll be putting on on Friday night. Talks from some great guys, just a lot of really great ways to get to know other people from across the country and last year, even around the world. So thanks for listening, guys. We hope that this was helpful to you and we'll catch you next time on BrightHearth. If you like our podcasts, we think you'll love our books. 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