FamilyLife Today®

Ron Deal: There was a little window of time where we were struggling and working on some things. She started making some changes, and I came to her one day and said, "I just want to let you know I've noticed you doing this and this, and I just want to thank you for that." She said, "Yeah, I knew you'd applaud that just as soon as you figured it out."

I realized she was faking. She was just putting on airs. Right then, I made a decision. I'm not really trusting her.

Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I’m Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: We’ve been on quite a journey with Ron and Nan Deal.

Ann Wilson: We love them so much and they've been sharing their story. It's been raw and intimate.

Dave Wilson: It's beautiful and unknown. Ron is the director of our FamilyLife Blended ministry. He's a hero, and you would never know behind the scenes there was this journey that they were on in their marriage. Yesterday, Nan at the end of our program was at this crucial moment where she was broken.

God meets her in this moment and what He does is a miracle. We get to hear that part of the story today. So here's Nan.

Nan Deal: Ron comes home from that trip and the look he gave me was, "I don't know who you are." I thought it was over. That next morning, as school teachers, we didn't know what we were supposed to do. We didn't have Zoom yet, so they said to just stay at home.

I didn't have a job or anything. Ron gets up and says, "I have to figure out work online. I have to figure this out with my team." I'm left sitting there and I just didn't know what to do. I knew I didn't have him. I knew I didn't have myself. I've apologized to both of them and they both said there's nothing that you could do to make us not love you. I was saying, "I'm so sorry, please forgive me."

That day I felt I had to do something. I thought I would go in my room and do yoga to help me feel better. I went into our guest bedroom and I laid on my yoga mat on my back. I couldn't get up. I was just saying, "I can't do this anymore. I can't be angry anymore. I can't hurt anymore. I can't live like this anymore. I need your help, God. I need you. If you'll have me, I want to do it your way."

I cried for two hours and I said, "I know I haven't gotten this right. I've never felt like I knew enough about you or trusted you with anything in my life. I always looked to other things or myself, but if you'd have me..." I got up that day, but I felt so different. Literally that night, I didn't have anything to drink. I didn't take any of those pills and I had not one withdrawal.

I knew that that was God's grace and mercy on my life. I started thanking Him. I went to bed thinking I was done, and He just said, "Okay." It was really as if He picked me up off that mat and He just took His hand and wiped all of that black, everything, just wiped it all off and He said, "Okay, let's go."

It was like God took a fire hose of His grace and mercy. It was like Bible 101 and I couldn't get enough of what He was trying to teach me and tell me. Every single podcast and sermon was about a clean heart and His grace and mercy and love. About two months in, He said, "It's time for you to tell Ron. You need to start confessing."

I went in and I told you everything. During that time, I researched what alcohol and certain drugs did to each other and I figured out why I'd had some memory lapses. There were some things that were so hard for Ron. I would get up and scream at him in the night and get so angry and I didn't even know I'd done some of those things. It is not an excuse. God was just leading me by the hand into redemption.

Dave Wilson: Ron, so you probably see Nan having this turn. Tell us what's going on in your mind.

Ron Deal: Well, I did see it. I think I did the same thing she did 14 years earlier when I was convicted and when I came to the end of myself. I liked what I saw and I didn't trust it. There were so many triggers in my heart. A few years before Nan's miracle on the yoga mat, there was a little window of time where we were struggling and working on some things and she started making some changes.

I came to her one day and said I've noticed her doing this and this and I wanted to thank her for that. She said, "Yeah, I knew you'd applaud that as soon as you figured it out." I realized she was faking. She was just putting on airs. Right then, I made a decision that I'm not really trusting her.

Fast forward now, the miracle on the yoga mat happens and I'm saying, "Yeah, right. How long is this going to last?" I was trying to be as godly as I could be, but I would not trust her.

Nan Deal: God kept saying to me, "Stay in your lane. Stay with me. Stay in this lane with me."

Ron Deal: And that's what she did. She just kept walking that road of confession and...

Nan Deal: It doesn't matter what he thinks. Just you and God. You and me. I got a book by Linda Dillow about prayer and I started praying those prayers and learning how to pray to God. I started memorizing scripture and letting the light back in. I started figuring out how God wanted me to transform my mind and my heart.

I started confessing like nobody's business to anyone I could tell. I told the boys first, then my daughter-in-law, friends, family, and anyone I felt I had hurt.

Ron Deal: Somewhere in the middle of all of this journey for her, I finally began to lean into what I noticed. Instead of her running to me like how our marriage started where I was her savior and whatever I wanted, she would try to do to make me happy, she was not living for Ron anymore. She was living for God.

Ann Wilson: That’s what I was going to say, Nan.

Ron Deal: That was a radical change that was very clear to me. It took a long enough road for me to see that it was real and not phony. I saw there was something here and I needed to get on board. Then I was convicted that I hadn't been trusting her enough or supporting her. Bringing her my trust would be a statement of affirmation about her value and worth to me.

Then I had work to do. It wasn't just, "She's got to get her life together." No, it's always a two-person journey. That's what marriage is. That year, for Mother's Day, we went up to visit my mom.

Nan Deal: I said some things to my mom. I just said, "Mom, I just want to thank you for being my mom. Thank you for taking me to the library, my love of books, my love of teaching." My mom was a teacher. My sister looked at me and said that was cool. Ron looked at me and said, "Now I know something's changed in you." That was real. That was from the heart.

Dave Wilson: That was Holy Spirit right there.

Nan Deal: Then on our way home, we stopped at the cemetery. It had been 12 Mother's Days. I remember going to Connor's grave and I said, "Son, it's not good that you're not here for me to hug on Mother's Day, but God is good. God is good all the time."

Ron Deal: Since Connor's death, I hadn't heard her say anything like "God, I can trust you." I felt that God had done something here and I had to figure out what it was and try to join in the process. We tell people COVID was really good for us to help us lean into Him in ways that we just couldn't quite do together and then lean into one another in new and radical ways.

Nan Deal: Regeneration is a 12-step process and it's not just for addictions. I had a lady in my group who said she was just angry at everything. Her thing was anger, while some people come for pride. Inventory, the fourth step, busted me wide open. I thought Ron had cornered the market on pride and his family had, but I was right there with him.

I was a very prideful person in my hurt, pain, and loss. One thing I learned in my recovery is that I'm not the defender of my heart. I've been trying to do that for so long. Defending myself from pain, abandonment, words, overworking, and loss. Music's always been such a balm for me and a place to go.

I learned that God is the defender of my heart. There's a song called "Defender" and I love this line. This is the line that just floored me in this song. It says, "When I thought I'd lost me, you knew where you'd left me. You reintroduced me to your love. You picked up all my pieces and put them back together. You are the defender of my heart."

I can just see the Lord with that shield and that sword going, "Okay, fears, shame, anything." He's defending that now and I can rest in that. I can go to Him with my losses. Ron could overwork. All of that stuff could happen again. I could lose another child, but I know that God has never left me or forsaken me and that He never will.

Ron Deal: Even more, He's been chasing you down, chasing me down.

Nan Deal: He's been pursuing us and I just love how He tried to take care of our marriage two years before Connor left because I really honestly know we wouldn't have made it without His provision. Even though I was still a mess, it's kind of like He had to take turns working on us. I want to read Ephesians 2:1-10.

I hope and pray that I spend the rest of my days telling everybody that will listen how good God has been to me. If He could take a wretch like me and He can change that hardened heart, the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh. I have so much more work to do.

Ann Wilson: We all do.

Nan Deal: But I cannot thank Him enough for His grace and His mercy and His love. Ephesians 2:1-10. "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God..."

Ron Deal: But God.

Nan Deal: "...being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing."

I could not have stopped on my own. "It is a gift of God, not a result of works," because Nan cannot do anything here, "so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." I was knit together in my mother's womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Ann Wilson: You are.

Ron Deal: Our marriage is like everybody else's marriage. It is making us. It is making us more into the image of Jesus. If I have one frustration, it's that it seems to take a long time. Why can't it be shorter? Can we just get there? I just don't think it works that way.

Dave Wilson: Where's your marriage now?

Nan Deal: Oh man, so good. We are enjoying each other. We like each other.

Dave Wilson: Does it feel like a different marriage or a new marriage or a real marriage?

Nan Deal: Absolutely, it does.

Ron Deal: We sort of laugh that we have the passion and the energy and the drive that we had when we first fell in love, but now we actually have some maturity to go with it so we don't act like fools in the midst of our passion. We are so grateful. It's gratitude. We wake up grateful every day for that mercy. We remember who we were and we know what we can become.

Part of what we're teaching out of this these days is what I know about me. I can be prideful and I've got to manage that, and Lord help me because when I do these things, this is who I become and this is what it does to our marriage. Nan knows what I know about me is I can feel abandoned and I can run to something that's going to numb me.

Instead, I have to stay in the game and can't do that. All of these hard, hard lessons are teaching us how to somewhat reflect the image of Christ. I hesitate to even say that because I feel so far away, but at least I feel like we're closer. We're much, much more closer.

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Dave Wilson: What do you say to the couple who's got secrets that you had? Or it could be totally different secrets, but they've got pain, they've got darkness, and nobody knows. We didn't know about yours. They're listening right now and they're scared to death to say out loud to their spouse or to anybody what they are struggling with.

Ron Deal: I would say a couple of things. Finding a safe person to tell is the good first start, and honestly, it might not be your spouse. It might not be at all.

Dave Wilson: And it may not be a counselor.

Ron Deal: Right, could be, but it could be a friend who is a safe person. Here's the thing. I can totally relate to what I'm about to say. There are moments where you just feel so overwhelmed that you cannot see the path out of this mess. Take the next right step. Whatever that next thing is you feel called to do.

How do I put on kindness in this moment? That feels so small compared to the size of the mountain you have to climb that you just think, "What's the point? It's not even worth it." But that is the next right thing to do. You never know what God is doing behind the scenes. You never know what the next step's going to be or what fruit that's going to bear. Just be faithful in the next step.

Nan Deal: I would say you've got to submit yourself to God. I love James 4:7. It may sound so simple, but I had not submitted myself to God. I wasn't resisting the enemy and I wasn't drawing near to God. I didn't want Him to draw near to me. I didn't feel worthy. I'd just say submit yourself to God and cry out to Him.

Ron Deal: That means submitting your pain and your anger and your animosity and whatever it is, the ugliness of it all. That has to be submitted too.

Dave Wilson: I've been crying the whole time. I feel like this studio has become a holy sanctuary because of your story and your honesty. Mainly because the hero of the story is not Ron Deal. The hero for me is not Dave Wilson. The hero is Jesus who died for us and He has redeemed us.

It's a miracle. As I listen, I'm like, we all need a miracle on the mat. I even think of the wrestling mat when you're down and you're pinned. What do you do? Tap three times when you surrender. It's like that surrender moment. It's not that your husband needs to be better or your wife needs to do this.

It's that our God is pursuing us and wooing us there every second of the day and He's longing for us to call upon His name. That's all you did, Nan. You just called out that you can't do it, and He said, "I'm right here." When I hear that, it's the Gospel.

Ron Deal: You said sanctuary. This place is that because that's what we do is worship. Our whole marriage, 36 years, we've heard the "do the devotional every day" thing and hit or miss, yes, no, seasons, sort of. We are doing that now and it is beautiful. It is fresh, it is genuine, and it is authentic.

Sometimes we're processing things that happened yesterday, sometimes three years ago or 20 years ago. We're all seeing it in a very different light and we're seeing God's work in the midst of all of it. We know this journey's not over. Please don't hear me say that it’s a great little tie a bow around it and it's done.

Dave Wilson: What year are you in for marriage?

Ron Deal: 36.

Dave Wilson: That's hopeful. There are so many couples at 20 or 30 years and they're just stale. They're going through the motions and they think the best is behind them. They had some great years but they'll just ride to the end. You're saying no, the best could be. But it requires total surrender.

Nan Deal: I will say this too: bring it into the light. Satan wants no more than to keep you isolated and to keep it in the darkness. In Psalm 139, if you read further down, the darkness is as light to Him. When I started confessing that and then letting a mentor speak into me, letting the light in and not hiding in the closet anymore... I literally was in my closet at night.

I have a cool story. Ron would fall asleep, and I would get mad because he had given to everybody and not to me and he'd fallen asleep. I'd do my thing and I'd be in the closet. I used to hide stuff in there because I didn't want anybody to know. I'd hide bottles.

In my recovery and in this redemption, I started going into my closet to pray and get on my knees. I got on my knees one day and I got on my face before God because I needed Him to restore my marriage. I knew how broken that bridge of trust was out. I'm on my face before God, I've got my hands up and I am just praying to Him, and out of the clothes comes an empty bottle in front of my face. Tink.

I had no idea it was still in there. He said, "Yeah, you know what? We're doing this in here now, not that. I am the God and you think I can't restore your marriage? I can because I am your God and I've got you." I didn't keep that bottle. I threw it away. I'm just so grateful. God is the God of your addiction. God is the God of your secrets.

Tell Him first and start confessing. Find a friend, find a community, and take that step. The enemy would want no more than for you to be trapped in that for the rest of your life. He wanted to seek and kill and destroy me, and God has come to give life.

Dave Wilson: You've been listening to FamilyLife Today. Ron and Nan Deal have shared an incredible story and journey that they've been on where God redeemed and restored their marriage. He could do the same thing for your marriage and I would really encourage you to pick up their book.

You can find it at FamilyLifeToday.com, just click on the link in the show notes. It's called *The Mindful Marriage*. Also something that Ron and Nan lead is our Blended ministry here at FamilyLife. Every year they do a Blended & Blessed conference that you can live stream from your home for free. You can actually go to it if you want.

You can register at FamilyLifeToday.com and click on that as well. It's at Crossings Church, Mayfair. Hey, thanks for being with us on FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry. 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.