Cultivate a Healthy Marriage and Family

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Collin Hansen
All right, welcome, everyone. breakout session around number two you are in our session on marriage principles for building loving homes. What a wonderful topic. I’m glad that everybody is out here. My name is Colin Hanson. I serve as Vice President for content and editor in chief of the gospel coalition. Well, in our topic here today, we got about 45 minutes to dive in here on this topic marriage principles for building loving homes. Marriage is a blessing created by God for the good of his people. However, as two people live side by side, it’s difficult to navigate hardships. In this breakout, we’re going to explore healthy principles and help couples support encourage one another throughout various seasons of life together. Go ahead and introduce our wonderful panelists who are grateful to kind of come under the examination, this topic and in this session. First guest here Jackie Hill Perry and author Bible teacher poet, hip hop artists. That’d be clear. You got cut for everyone now. Okay, we know we love Jackie but you got to make sure you clap for everybody. Now all right, uses our teaching and speaking gifts to share the light of the gospel of God as as authentically as she can. Author of gay girl good god the story of who I was and what God has always been, and holier than thou how God’s holiness helps us to trust him. Next, we have Preston Perry, let’s hear from a poet a performance artist teacher and apologist love inspires him to pair transparency and vulnerability was creativity in a way that promotes freedom. President pursues engagement with people from various faith backgrounds, and stands on biblical truth amid study of other religions. Together, they have four children, wonderful for children. Glad you guys are here together. All right, next, we’ve got Melissa Krueger, let’s hear from our director of women’s initiatives for the gospel coalition authored many books just this year, but her catalogue over time includes the envy of Eve, finding contentment in a covetous world, walking with God in the season of motherhood, and growing together taking mentoring beyond small talk, and prayer requests. I’m Melissa and finally, Mike Kruger, let’s hear it. Mike is president and professor of New Testament and early Christianity at reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, author of numerous books, one of his most recent surviving religion 101, and he is a past president of the Evangelical Theological Society. Together, they have just just three, three children. And we know one of your children’s here so if there’s anything you say, in this panel, we can go ask her, we can go check. Here, we’re going to talk to Dr.

Melissa Kruger
Teller. Yeah, she’ll

Collin Hansen
be the truth teller. All right. Give a thumbs up or a thumbs down over here. Okay. Let’s start this off here. I’m going to start with the some of the Kruegers down here. All of your work in you know, all of you are working in ministry in some way or another. You’re all in the public eye. We’re all sitting up here together. What would you like people watching and listening to know about your marriage? Start with the Cougars?

Melissa Kruger
I would say the thing I would want everyone to know is it’s a normal marriage. I think sometimes, you know, you see people in Christian ministry, and they can seem super spiritual. And oh, you think I bet you know, they pray before everything they do. I bet they pray before they walk into the other room. I mean, we’re just normal people. And like that we’re selfish people and we can we are sinful people. And so even though we live in the public eye, we deal with the reality of sin just like anybody audios and it’s hard. And sometimes I think we can expect more of the other because we are in ministry. And sometimes that’s a false expectation. Everybody needs a moment where they can just be home with someone and not be the pastor or not be the women’s director or whatever. So our marriages are really normal, I think.

Mike Kruger
I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things we would love people to know about our marriage is that it’s a blessing to do ministry together. I think not everybody has to do ministry in a super public way. But there really is something rich about serving Christ together in active ways. I’m sure that Jackie and Preston will say something similar to that, which is that that really does unite you together, you have a common vision and a common goal. I mean, there’s marriage isn’t successful when you just focus on each other the whole time and say, meet my needs, meet my needs. Marriage thrives when you together, look at some third thing, namely Christ and pursue him and I think that’s what makes it such a blessing.

Collin Hansen
Parents, what would you guys like, like everybody to know about your marriage?

Preston Perry
I say did not like the same thing. They said, really? We’re just normal people. I think sometimes we live in the public eye. People think that you’re not. But yeah, I think I always want to make people know them as normal, just as you you know, I mean, so

Jackie Hill Perry
if I had to add anything, it would be that we are always working on our marriage. I think, because we’ve been so transparent about certain struggles or certain issues. It could seem as if the work is past tense. When it’s like no, this we are actively always having to process and challenge each other and grow and repent and do all the things and we might be for the rest of our lives. But it’s made our marriage better. So

Preston Perry
she’s always challenging me. It’s not true. I just tell him

Collin Hansen
Point proven point depressed. This is the topic that we have here. What is a loving home look like?

Jackie Hill Perry
Jesus.

Collin Hansen
Okay, thank you for the Sunday school. Jesus, God,

Jackie Hill Perry
Jesus, um, one I think it looks authentic in so I think there are some kind of like, in authentic ways of loving one another and even loving our children that is actually controlling, or weird or legalistic? Or, you know, like, I think a loving home for us is how do we be ourselves while at the same time leaning into what the Spirit is having us do with it with each other with our children, even how do we even use our home and our living room and the the rooms we have in our kitchen to serve the community or the church or our friends? Like, I think that’s what love is, it’s like, what would God have me do with this body in this marriage with these children in this house today?

Preston Perry
So I think also to, like literally, like, like always hearing hearing each other. Like even with my children, and sometimes I have to remind myself, even though their children, they’re still people, right made in the image of God. And so like when my seven year old comes to me with it with an issue, not to just write her off as a seven year old, but like to like to listen to her her heart and her mind and her thoughts. And so I think, I think we try to do a good job of respecting one another, respecting each other’s emotions and feelings and talking. Sometimes I get tired of talking because I live with a lot of women, right? But you need to talk, you know, and say, hear one another. And so I think we tried to do a good job with that as well.

Collin Hansen
Let’s talk Kruger’s on this, what’s the first thing that comes to mind, you think of a loving home? First thing that comes to mind?

Melissa Kruger
I would say warmth. I heard someone one time say light up when your kids walk in the room. And I think it applies for your spouse too. I think it’s really easy to take our families for granted. And you know, somebody walks in the room and you’re like, I was doing something important. And I realize how that they need us. And I need him to light up when I walk in the room like to take the time to greet him when he comes home, to take the time when my kids walk in to stop my work and say, Hey, how are you doing just the simple things, but I think warmth that just shows I think you matter. And I’m not tired of you. So I would say warm?

Mike Kruger
Yeah, one of the our kids are getting older and older now. So we have one who’s a senior in college and one about to start college and one still in high school and I keep waiting for the moment. Maybe I’m bracing as a father like when are they going to not want to be around us anymore? And I keep thinking any day now. You know, I’m like pretty soon they’re gonna not want to be here but we’ve been so encouraged to see how much they want to spend time with their siblings want to spend time with us want us to all be together and when I see that kind of cohesion, I think okay, God has really done something great here because As you know, just enjoying being together is a sign of a healthy family. And that’s one of the marks I would point to.

Collin Hansen
When you guys look back, your kids are older than my kids and your kids. Can you pinpoint anything a decision, a value you implement that they feel has allowed your kids to be able to, to feel that way and for your home to feel that way. I’m thinking, for example, that I would say through the COVID shutdown in 2020, specifically, my, my kids got closer to each other, because they couldn’t, they couldn’t hang out with anybody else. They weren’t seeing anybody else. And, and I see them just as they continue to grow older, a boy and a girl, they love each other. And they just love being best friends with each other. Can you look back on anything? And you see that was something we did? I’m glad we did.

Mike Kruger
Yeah, when I think about a family, I think one of the things we tried to really work on is this concept of tone in a family. Like there’s every family has rules, every family has boundaries, and that should be there and parents have to, to put those in place. But there’s a field to a home that is sometimes intangible. And I think one of things we really tried to do. And I hope we did a good job at it was make a home that was warm, gracious, kind, and in willing to Yes, uphold the standards of the Bible, but in a way that was kind and gracious to our children. And I think that I think that bears fruit in the long run because that’s how God is with us. God is kind and gracious and patient with us. How can I be less kind and gracious to my kids and God is with me.

Collin Hansen
I Preston, want to ask you this question. What’s the best marriage advice advice you’ve received? It could be in premarital counseling. It could have been last week, what is the best marriage advice you’ve received? That’s a really

Preston Perry
good question. So I first year marriage, we didn’t like each other that much we love each other. I’m just being 100. I mean, real. We didn’t like each other that much. I think we were friends for three years. And then I automatically assumed that the transition into marriage would be an easy one because we were such close friends. But I had to learn her in a different way. And it was hard and it was tough. We came in, in marriage with our own baggage on issues. And my disciple had told me one time if God gave me a spouse that met my every condition, I would never learn how to love unconditionally. And that just challenged me to know that this life, this Christian walk is about sanctification, you know, being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. And a lot of times God is going to use marriage to do that. I’m in a, I’m in a relationship with a person which has such like close proximity with me, who knows all my flaws, who sees all my mess up close and personal. And God is going to use this, this this relationship to challenge me and to grow me. And so I think that that advice helped me to see that even in those moments when it’s really, really hard, that if I if I seek humility, if I don’t have a pity party about how hard our relationship is, at the moment, when I get out of this, God is going to use this to make me a better husband, a better human, a better disciple. And it has. So Jackie.

Jackie Hill Perry
I don’t know who said it, but I think somebody helped me to see how the way I loved Preston, is a good reflection of how I’m loving God. Because I think it’s so easy to feel like, if President irritates me or makes me mad or whatever, like that I can speak crazy to him. And that isn’t actually proof that something is off with me in the Lord. And so I’ve kind of started to develop this kind of thing where it’s like, okay, if I’m dealing with impatience, or if I’m dealing with fear, or bitterness or anger, I don’t fix it by trying to do better I fix it by worship, fix it with God, what is going on with what do I need to believe about you that will inform how I can love him better? And so I think that’s been transformative

Preston Perry
for talking good wife. Thank you.

Collin Hansen
Melissa best marriage advice.

Melissa Kruger
I’m gonna switch up what I was gonna say which might make you nervous.

Unknown Speaker
Yes, it does.

Melissa Kruger
This actually came around longer it was in Tim Keller’s a meaning of marriage book. And what I love that he said and I’m gonna paraphrase, you know, Tim Keller, so it’s going to be lesser than the way he said it. But he said, Marry someone who when you look at them, you see their glory self. You see the person that when you get to heaven, you’ll look at them and say, I always knew you could be like this. Like you’re Wait, you’re so for them. And I just thought that That was a great way to look at your spouse. And, and I can say, you know, like, I look at Mike and I feel that like, I’m like, I’m so excited about the person God is making you to be. So rather than it’s really easy a marriage to look at faults, rather than to say, Okay, what God’s doing in you and through you. And I’m so excited that he’s going to continue that. So.

Mike Kruger
Yeah, I mean, kind of riffing off that. Because I mean, I think I have, I heard similar advice, as someone said it a little differently, which is, when you marry someone, obviously, you really like many things about them. And let’s imagine that you like 90%, of what you see in that person, but there’s 10%, you wish were different. Some people enter marriage, and they spend the next 50 years on the 10%. And not that there’s not need for change. And not that you don’t recognize that growth has to happen and should happen. But there’s a sense in which people will spend their whole marriages irritated and frustrated about the 10% rather than celebrating and rejoicing over the 90% that God is doing in this person’s life. And I just think that’s great. marriage advice. Now, some of you may be thinking, I don’t know if my spouse is 1910. Maybe it’s more like 6040. I don’t know. And I think about Melissa marry me is like 50, maybe 5050 At best, but either way, focusing on what God is up to in their lives can be a great way to bring that optimism into your marriage.

Melissa Kruger
And that was Elizabeth Elliot. Okay, so he quotes Elizabeth illiac quick to

Collin Hansen
make sense. Was there anything starting with the Cougars that you saw growing up, that made your home loving that you wanted to carry through?

Melissa Kruger
One thing I’m thankful for. My parents were not pressured. They encouraged us to love learning, they encouraged us. I mean, my mom took me the library all the time. And let me check out like 10 books, but I never felt pressured by grades or by sports, or to be anything really other than me. I mean, of course, like, not me in the simple way, like, they discipline me and stuff like that. But they were very just, they just, I would say, my dad delighted in me. And it was the greatest gift I could ever have. He just delighted who I was not who they wanted me to be in this mold. I guess I would say it this way, I didn’t feel like my parents base their self worth on who I was. They let me be me and just delighted me being me. And that was a huge gift.

Mike Kruger
One of the things that is not magical, or, or anything about my family growing up, which I appreciate that as we really enjoy doing activities together. And you know, families relate in different ways. Some families sit down and have long, extensive conversations. And that’s, that’s wonderful. My family haven’t made the kind of family where we would, we would do things together. So we had like family, sports and family activities that we really loved. And I appreciate the way that can bring a family together because you have something in common that you you enjoy, the whole family is engaged in that activity, and it makes your family fun at times. You know, it doesn’t mean it’s always that way. There’s times of seriousness, but I appreciate it, but appreciate that growing up and we’ve tried our best to try to inculcate some of that, I think, in our home too.

Collin Hansen
Let me ask this, I’m gonna go back let’s go back to premarital counseling, and turn to the parents. I don’t know if you did premarital counseling. Okay, if you could be on the other side of yourself in premarital counseling. What would you have said to yourself, then?

Jackie Hill Perry
I’m gonna be honest, all I remember they gave like, they set him aside and set me aside and had the sex talk. And it was just the most awkward thing in the world, because we did it with our pastors. And it’s like, I really don’t even want to know that you know what that is.

Collin Hansen
But I don’t think you should talk about that part. I’m

Jackie Hill Perry
not today. I just had to say it, we probably don’t need that. It was in my spirit. Maybe I think it would have been helpful if there was some emphasis about getting therapy. Because I think we spent time in Ephesians five we spent time you know talking through how to obey God and love our spouse and sex and all the things but I think it would have been helpful to see how my woundedness and my trauma will affect how I’m able to obey all of these tags. And so that would have been great.

Collin Hansen
I’ll second to you on that one. Shout out for your Jesus plus therapy shirt. Thank you

Jackie Hill Perry
both bold apparel dot shop.

Preston Perry
I think for me, like I would have said Preston, you don’t have to figure everything out in a year. You don’t have to learn how to be the best husband you know you want to be with In a first year, like God has given you this relationship for the rest of your life, and so you have a lifetime to learn a person, and also have a lifetime to learn yourself. Like, I didn’t even really know who I was really, really when I first got married. And so giving myself more grace, I think when I first got married, I was so anxious, and I was so nervous. And in some ways, I started to be like a Pharisee to my wife instead of Jesus, because I was so fixated on trying to make our marriage the best marriage possible in the first year instead of just learning and her and enjoying her. And so when I just to be honest, I just had to relax, you know, and just let God do his thing. And I think it helped me when I realized that

Collin Hansen
I love premarital counseling. I wonder though, why we don’t think that we that should continue, or that there should be like, Let’s check back in six months after the wedding or a year after the wedding. That would be very valuable to do. Okay. Kruger’s you could go back premarital counseling. Did you do premarital counseling? Okay, you could go back now you’re counseling yourselves? What do you say?

Melissa Kruger
I would say, pray more. And do not try to be the Holy Spirit for your spouse. I mean, I’ve worked. I think sometimes, you know, you kind of feel like, Oh, I’m supposed to change him. Well, you know, God’s gonna change him, I need to be praying for him. It doesn’t mean you don’t confront. I mean, all of us need, we’d love you. But that’s fine to confront your spouse and say, Hey, this isn’t working. But I just think I would pray I would say just be praying for them every day. Pray for them every day.

Mike Kruger
Yeah, I wish someone had pulled me aside and just said, you know, you don’t have to win every disagreement in your marriage. I know you’re not married yet. You’re gonna get married. And somewhere in your head, you think if there’s a disagreement, I’ve got to sort of quote unquote, win this, this argument or discussion? And what? What if you didn’t try to do that? What if you tried to listen? What if you tried to, to understand what if you actually quote unquote, lost a few of these discussions, you might find that that actually makes your marriage a lot more healthy? And I think, you know, if I wish someone could have grabbed me by the collar and shook me a little bit and gave me that advice.

Preston Perry
You convict in his balls you convicted?

Collin Hansen
Is it? Is it even possible to win an argument against your spouse? I mean,

Mike Kruger
well, that’s exactly the point. It made to me, You cannot win. Even if you think you win, you’ve lost.

Collin Hansen
Exactly. The only way to win is by not playing. is by not playing. Let’s Let’s just stay on a positive theme here. How does your spouse point you to God? Let’s start with Mike. I’m sorry. How does your spouse point you to God?

Mike Kruger
Oh, wow. I’m so blessed with a spouse that points me to God all the time and ways sometimes I don’t even know that I need I mean, I think she people sometimes say, I’ll pray for you, I have prayed for you. And they don’t really mean it or don’t really didn’t really do it. She she she does it. I know that she is for me, lifted me up for the Lord all the time in a really genuine way. And that’s both encouraging and convicting, right. It’s encouraging because I know she’s praying for me and convicting, like, wow, I need to do better in praying for her. And so that always points me back to what matters. Melissa,

Melissa Kruger
more than any person in my life, my husband example of God’s love for me. I’ve never felt a day that even when we’re fighting, and even we’re mad at each other. I, he’s so loyal and so loving to me. And I just always feel that he’s for me. And it really is a picture of just the Lord’s love. Like no matter how far you run, no matter what you do, I’m gonna love you. And he just chose to do that. And if he chooses to do that he does. It’s not because I’m lovable. He chooses to just say I love you. And that teaches me a lot about God’s love. Preston

Preston Perry
says she’s ready. Most most people that’s in Jackie, like will tell you, I’m aghast for a little bit that she is literally the most thoughtful person that they know. She’s very thoughtful. She pays attention to the to the little things and so in areas that I’m struggling, I will always get a text from her that will remind me to look at Jesus in this way. Even when I first got married, and you know, I would lose my temper at times that she was pressing. Think about God, you know, that was the she’s always do that to me. But yeah, she’s thoughtful. And so I think the way she the way that she loves me, often makes me think about how intentional God is that He gave me somebody who was so intentional, like if I have a wife that this, she’s this intentional, how much more intentional. It’s got, you know, who cares for me even more. And so she’s just a great wife in a way.

Jackie Hill Perry
Thanks. A lot of ways. I’m gonna say two things quickly. One is, I think it’s really good to have a spouse that I can banter theologically with, honestly, like, if, if he just was like, if All he knew was John 316, as beautiful is still inspired by the Holy Ghost. But so like the fact that we can have these kind of high level conversations really does stir me up to good works. But I think also, precedent is just really good to me. And I think him being good to me makes me grateful, but it also humbles me. Because when somebody is good to you, it kind of it shows you a mirror when you’re not being good. And so I just have to respond a different way when he over here being like Jesus.

Collin Hansen
I should have set this up so that each one of you was talking to the other person directly with this, instead of talking to me should have had you turn failed, say it to your spouse,

Mike Kruger
you’re becoming a marriage counselor here, I know, supposed to be counseling on the stage.

Collin Hansen
All right, Melissa, next question. I’m only going to ask to you, okay, only asking you this question. You don’t just marry a spouse, you marry your spouse’s family, we’ve heard a little bit about Mike’s family. What does it mean to honor your spouse’s father and mother, or brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, and the whole truth or claim?

Melissa Kruger
One advice that I was given by our pastor in premarital counseling was love the ones your loved one loves. And that has been a nugget that I have held on to. So it’s, it’s his family, but it’s also his friends. It’s also that what he loves, like, be apart. And sometimes it’s really hard. I mean, we all know. loving families are hard in general. And so then when you add two families together, and sometimes what can be frustrating about the other person’s family is actually what you’re frustrated about your spouse, because you’re like, This is coming from your side of the family, and you know, whatever. And so you’re almost frustrated with them, because you’re actually frustrated with each other. So I would just say, and we, we both experienced this. So really, really seeking to love the ones your loved one loves, and that’s going to require sacrifice, and that’s going to require maybe doing things that, you know, like, thankfully, they’ve never made me go camping. Like, like, I mean, you know, his family is a big skiing family. And so I learned to ski. And yeah, you go along with what their families doing, and try to be a part of their family too, because he’s doing the same with my family and trying to be a part of my family.

Collin Hansen
I like that. That’s great. Okay, I’ll start with the parents on this question. Do you practice anything in particular to protect your marriage? I’m not thinking about just one narrow slice of protecting just anything or everything? Is there anything particular that you do to protect your marriage?

Jackie Hill Perry
Um, I know one thing, and we said this on social media one time and got some flack for it, but we we confess quickly. And so if he is struggling or being tempted in a particular way, he will tell me and let me in on that. If I’m struggling or being tempted in a particular way, I will tell him and let him in on that. And I think it’s just created this safe space for us. Now, I think the way to temper that is I cannot be I am a kind of accountability partner for him and vice versa, but I cannot be the only one. So at the point that he is always confessing everything to me, that becomes a burdensome thing, because I’m your wife, right? And so there have been times where it’s like, okay, you need to go with your friends and like, play basketball, and then talk to them about all your struggles because I can’t handle all of them. But I do appreciate the fact that you are vulnerable and open enough and love me enough to tell me that this is what’s happening so that I can be praying for you.

Preston Perry
That’s probably the one of the main things I’ll say as well. I think another thing that protects my marriage as well is that I don’t I try not to have any relationships that I feel like it’s been fruitful to my marriage. And if or if I’m you know, friends with young ladies, I don’t I don’t really have a lot of friendships with young ladies outside of none. Yeah. Only because

Jackie Hill Perry
we’re friends.

Preston Perry
I’m just being real like a guy you know? Recently in my, my city asked me like how to how to how to stay pure and, and I tell them all the time, I’m just always with my wife. I’m just always with her. And so I don’t, I don’t even want to put myself in the position where I’m going to be tempted. And so I’m always just with my wife and I’m always with my kids. And so, you know, it kind of just helps me eliminate that temptation. So I think that’s one way good way to protect. We’re gonna start bantering.

Jackie Hill Perry
Because I love this question. Well, another thing that Preston does that is really wise to me is that he has really healthy male friendships with other husbands that love their wives. Because Because I’ve seen when men, our husbands, but they have some raggedy, just ratchet friends. It doesn’t serve that man. And so I think the fact that he has friends that like love and honor their wives, it just creates this community. That is really good.

Preston Perry
Okay, I’ll say one more thing. Yeah. I told somebody recently, that as I started to mature as a Christian, I was not gravitated towards men who did not celebrate their wives publicly. Like, it’s something about seeing a man that celebrates his wife publicly and loves his wife publicly. Like if I come around you and I’ve been around you a year, you’ve never mentioned your wife. I ain’t judging you. But I’m kind of judging you, you know. And so I think, I think because I’ve started to mature, I started to gravitate towards men like that. I just saw that men helped me to be a better husband. Good husbands helped me to be a better husband. And so the more I surrounded myself around men like that, I think God has helped my marriage in so many different ways.

Collin Hansen
And if you’re ever around a woman who was complaining to you about her husband, I mean,

Preston Perry
I feel like the lady’s got to deal with that, you know, I’m saying, run,

Collin Hansen
run, run. Alright, triggers, protecting things you need to protect here, but

Mike Kruger
this? Yeah, I mean, I don’t I don’t know if we have any sort of rule or concrete. Okay, here’s our policy. I mean, a lot of what you all said we resonate with. I mean, I think one of the things that blessed our marriage is we get, we do get to spend a lot of time together, particularly now that that we’re able to do more travel together. That’s a real blessing. I think that really is a guard on any marriage. I mean, one of the things we tried to implement, it’s not really that, that much of a rule or a policy that I think is a way to keep your marriage healthy is to have other married couples, you guys hinted at this other married couples that you can be with together so that you’re not, it’s not like the husband’s off with the guys. And the wife’s off with the girls all the time. And then it’s kind of two separate lives. But there’s people that can look at your marriage, watch your marriage See you in action. I think that can be really healthy to sort of make sure you’re seeing your blind spots, having those other couples in your life.

Melissa Kruger
One thing I will say, and I think y’all do a good job of this, because I’m always jealous on Instagram when I see your vacations. Like I want to go with Preston and Jackie to wherever they long. But is I think I think there were seasons when we had young kids that we forgot to have fun with each other. And, you know, life becomes, are you going to change the diaper? Or am I going to change the diaper? You know, it just it becomes almost like, are you going to take out the trash? Or am I going to take out the trash. And we had a season where we actually lived overseas. And during that time, we got to go out on a date night every week. And we just realized, Oh, this is so nice, because I was wrongly using our date nights is the time to work on our marriage, which meant I was telling him everything he needed to work on. So

Mike Kruger
that’s why we had so few date nights.

Melissa Kruger
So that’s not a great use of your date night. And so just to I think one positive way you protect your marriage is by working on it, but to have fun together to remember why you like each other to be together to have conversations not about your kids, but to have conversations about the world about God and about life. And that’s, that’s a positive way we protect

Collin Hansen
you guys took this in the direction that I was wanting to go of we’ve got different seasons of ages of children and therefore different seasons of marriage. And it’s you can just see the the data shows that with young kids it’s hard a lot of things are very difficult during that season. So let’s let’s think it forward you guys that triggers your further down the line. How would you like your children to describe your marriage and home when they grow up?

Mike Kruger
Well, we’ve hit on some of these themes, which is you know, as our kids have gotten older, I hope when they have a family they can look back really fondly and think you know our family really love being together. So, you know, I think about prior generations in America and every generation is different. But I grew up in the 1980s, which has its own issues. But in the 80s, everything was about parental angst. If you watch any 80s movie, it’s all about how I can’t stand my parents and the parent can’t stand the teenager, you just waiting to get out of the house. And that’s sort of the dominant theme in the 80s. What we wanted to build in our family was, was a theme that was like, No, yeah, there’s always challenges that we we want you to enjoy being together. And I hope that someday, when our kids are out of the house, they can look back and say, if there’s a big takeaway is that we had something in common, namely Christ, and that we want to get together as a family.

Melissa Kruger
And just to add to that, I hope they will see we delighted in God’s word, and that his commands are delightful, not burdensome, we tried to show the goodness of obeying God rather than your miserable failure burden, you know, type thing, like we wanted to show the loveliness of Christ in our home. And I think in ministry, families, sometimes our kids can wrongly bear the burden burden of representing us. And so if they make mistakes, we’re harder on them. Because we’re like, you gotta, you gotta be okay, because he’s the pastor or whatever. And we really tried not to do that, but to, to let them to hopefully show that following Christ was a joy, and not a burden on them.

Preston Perry
So hard question, man. I think for me, I want my daughters in particular, I want them to have a standard of how, you know, they will like to be treated by their husbands, by the way I treated their mother, you know, early on, in my Christian walk, somebody told me that, you know, give your children now I’m not going to only look at you as a good father about the way you treated them, but how you respect and love that their mother and so I mean, I’m not perfect, and I’m far from it, but I do when they get older, I want them to say, now my my parents marriage was in was in perfect. And I always saw them working through hard issues I always saw my father pursuing my mother always saw, you know, my mother, respecting my father. And I, you know, and mainly because I didn’t, I didn’t have it, I grew up in a broken home and always saw dysfunctional relationships growing up, and so I don’t know, I just I want them to have a standard of how they should be treated, you know, when they get older. So

Jackie Hill Perry
yeah, I guess I feel the same. I don’t know what I would say. I don’t know how I would categorize it. But I guess for me being fatherless, not growing up seeing a man and a woman love each other well, but also kind of being an only child. I think all of that together, made me someone who felt abandoned, often and lonely most days. And so I think for my children to not only have siblings, which isn’t say everybody has to have siblings, but for them to not only have siblings, but a mother and a father and even my mother lives with me. So to have this intergenerational kind of access. I think all of that together. I just kind of want them to be like, Man, my first community was a whole community. And that would bless me. So

Collin Hansen
let’s do one last question. And let’s stay stay positive on this. I had a question on here, what to grow as a spouse. But again, that felt like a counseling question. So I thought, let’s let’s reorient that and think God is faithful. He’s loving. He’s working everything to His glory and our good work and everything completion in our lives. Let’s imagine 20 years we were all to sit here together and looking back on loving homes, loving marriage. What would you want to have seen happened in those 20 years in your marriage? Looking back on that, well, you know, projected forward God’s faithfulness over the next 20 years. What would you like to have seen during that time?

Jackie Hill Perry
You can start your payment over here.

Collin Hansen
I was just waiting for the first person to make eye contact. I’m

Jackie Hill Perry
sorry, I’m gonna have to I’m gonna be negative first and they get positive. So probably I can be. I can be proud and arrogant and egotistical. There’s another word for it. But this is a Christian thing. And so I in 20 years, honestly, legitimately, I just want to be more humble. Like I just I just want to be a humble woman who don’t gotta get the final word who don’t gotta like critique your sentence structure. And like, you know, stuff like that. Like because you would love that right? It’d

Preston Perry
be great. Yeah, absolutely great.

Jackie Hill Perry
Like I’m in the elite class. Every day, I’m just saying

Preston Perry
man, I’m gonna pray for that.

Collin Hansen
Yoast is on video so we can we can play it back.

Preston Perry
That’s a good question. I don’t know, I think for me Okay, y’all go, I’ll come back to me. I’m still pondering on what she just did.

Melissa Kruger
I mean, the first thing in 20 years, I just hope we’re both still alive.

Collin Hansen
Zooming, you’re not in glory, with your resurrection. In return,

Melissa Kruger
I tell him a ton. Don’t you dare die on me now. It’s just gotten to the good part.

Mike Kruger
I fell out of breath like my heart isn’t?

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, you know, I’m really, I look forward for the next 20 years. I just hope I hope we get to do ministry together more and more. I mean, we’re moving into a different season. So maybe that’s what I’m, I’m kind of looking at. I just honestly, I just hope we’re both walking with Lord. I just want to hear well done good and faithful servant. not want that to be in our marriage? Just. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Kruger
I mean, you don’t want your hopes to be too modest. But I feel like my hopes are really modest in the sense that as well hopefully just faithfully finished the race. You know, my goal isn’t accomplishing what the world would see is great, amazing things necessarily. But, you know, I always say when I do a wedding, that, you know, marriages aren’t about marriages, marriages are about the wedding that’s coming with Christ and the church. So you’re really getting married, but you’re really just a picture of another wedding day yet to come. So I hope that when we’re done, we can say that we were really about that, that wedding day. And that people could look at our lives and see that we were really about a different wedding altogether.

Preston Perry
I’m sorry. I got it now just popped in my head. I’m sorry. I think I think it was sometimes it’s difficult for me to answer questions like this, because it’s hard for me to think so far ahead, ahead ahead. But I think in 20 years, oftentimes, when I talk about marriage, I feel like I’ve only been married eight years, you know, and so I’m still a baby at this. But in 20 years, I hope that we are in a place where God is brought us to enough stuff where we can sit down and counsel, young married couples, and be timid young married couples, in a lot of ways. I feel like when we didn’t have, and not even on a public platform, but more in a local context where we can sit down and like help people get through our things. I feel like man, I will hope we have a lot of wisdom. And yeah, it’s just a lot of knowledge to pour into young people.

Collin Hansen
Appreciate that now careers, you guys took it into depth direction, you could have taken it in the grandchildren direction. There were a lot of other options. Anyway, well, we’ll close in prayer. But let’s first thank everybody thanks for the Perry. Preston, would you pray to close this here? Resting you pray, can you pray? Go ahead. Yeah,

Preston Perry
I can. Man did great. Lord, we thank you. For this time. We thank you, God for this panel. We thank You, Father, for everybody that’s in the audience. I pray God that you would not just allow this to be a panel where we just talk about good things and marriage and stuff like that. But something that we can apply in our everyday lives. I pray for the people in the audience, the people who are married to people who are inspiring to be married the people who are struggling in their marriage, God I pray to God that you will be with them. I pray God that our marriages will continue to look like a picture of the gospel and how you pursued your church are in perfect church. But God you pursued us and loved us first. And so God I thank you for your grace, your mercy, Your favor, and all those good things in Jesus name, amen. Amen.