Focus on the Family

Guest (Female): This program is sponsored by Focus on the Family, helping families thrive in Christ for more than 40 years.

John Fuller: This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Larry McCall: I think a lot of couples don't realize how the Lord wants our marriages to flourish. God designed marriage to be a reflection of Christ and his love for his bride, the church. He wants our marriages to be a beautiful, living reenactment of the greatest love story ever.

John Fuller: That's Larry McCall. He's with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. He'll be sharing some thoughtful ways that you can strengthen your marriage in the second half of life together. We're so glad you're joining us. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, this season of life doesn't get nearly the attention it should because there're still rocks in the road. You think of a married couple who's been married 20 years, 30 years, they've got everything ironed out, all those bumps and wrinkles in the road, right?

But there are other things that pop up. Things can get a little dry. You can have to deal with in-laws, elderly parents, whatever it might be. Things aren't going to go exactly according to plan even though you feel like you're comfortable and you're set in the way of the marriage.

Jean and I are going to hit 40 years next August. 40, that's big. I'm feeling like, "Do we have it down perfectly?" If Jean were here to be honest, she'd say, "No, you don't have it down perfectly." I do. No, I'm kidding. It's so much fun. We enjoy it.

What a great opportunity to think about that second half, especially for those of you at 20, 25 years. We're really encouraging you to tip in here and listen because it's going to be important.

John Fuller: Larry McCall is the director of Walking Like Jesus Ministries, and he's the long-time pastor at Christ's Covenant Church in Winona Lake, Indiana. He and his high school sweetheart, Gladine, have celebrated 50 years of marriage together. Congratulations.

Jim Daly: 50? Let's stop there. That's pretty good. I'm only coming up to 40.

Larry McCall: The more you get to know me, the more you respect her.

Jim Daly: We're going to hear stories from your life and insights that you've got from that pastoral perspective. A lot of that is captured in a terrific book called *A Seasoned Marriage: Living the Gospel in the Middle Years and Beyond*. Larry, welcome to Focus on the Family. Good to have you here.

Larry McCall: Thanks for having me.

Jim Daly: Congratulations on 50 years of marriage.

Larry McCall: The Lord has been kind.

Jim Daly: Gladine, it sounds like, has been very patient.

Larry McCall: She has been. It's an evidence of God's grace in her life.

Jim Daly: There's a good place to start. That opening question. If you're talking to a younger couple, like I mentioned, someone who's been married 15, 20, 25 years, what do you say to them? This is the reason or the way to make it to 50 years and beyond.

Larry McCall: The short answer, Jim, is God's grace. It's only by God's grace applied to everyday life. In the subtitle of the book, *Living the Gospel in the Middle Years and Beyond*, we've had to learn that along the way. As we've journeyed together in our marriage, we've had to learn what that means to live out the gospel and not just grit our teeth and tolerate one another.

Jim Daly: Not long ago, we did some marriage research. It points to this very fact. What it delineated is those that are convictional Christians, not what I would call "light Christians." We work with Ipsos out of DC. It's a journal-ready kind of research study, so it's very professional.

We didn't tilt it. We interviewed 4,000 couples. It's statistically very sound. But here's the deal. In a more Christian light experience, they had the highest divorce rate. Higher than the world's in our study. Those that had the most satisfied marriages in every category—physical, emotional, spiritual—were the convictional Christians.

It led me to the conclusion that it's one thing to say I love Jesus, but when you apply the Word of God, especially read the Word, pray together, go to church together, the benefits of that convictional Christian attitude are going to be there. It's less so for what I would call a social Christian or somebody that's made a confession of Christ, but you don't really live it. Would you agree with that?

Larry McCall: I agree with it very much. I've been a pastor in a Christian college town for 40-some years. When you're a pastor in a Christian college town, a small town, you end up doing a lot of premarital counseling.

A lot of times when I'm counseling a couple, premarital counseling, I'll ask, "Why do you want to marry this person?" If I turn to him first and say, "Why do you want to marry this gal?" he'll say something like, "She just makes me so happy. I just love her so much. She laughs at my jokes. She watches sports with me. She makes me so happy. I just want to marry her and give her the opportunity of making me happy for the rest of her life."

Jim Daly: A guy has said that?

Larry McCall: That's the implication. That's what they mean. She'll say something similar if I ask her. He makes me so happy. I think almost all of us get married because we think this person has the capacity of making me happy for the rest of their life.

Jim Daly: Sometimes that's conscious, and sometimes it's very unconscious, that we're requiring that or expecting that. You mentioned in the book how you and Gladine reached a low point in your marriage. You weren't feeling happy anymore.

First of all, thank you for that vulnerability. I think you're speaking for just about every couple, if we're honest. There will be somebody who's watching go, "We were never unhappy. We've been married 50 years and it was all bliss." God bless you. You're the exception.

But for the most part, that other 99.9 percent of us are going to hit some lulls in our marriage. You and Gladine did. What was going on and how did you arrest that? How did you get a hold of that and say, "This isn't going to be the way to go?"

Larry McCall: We were about 20 years into our marriage, so about 30 years ago. I would summarize our marriage at that point and say we were committed to one another. Neither of us was calling a divorce attorney, but neither of us was happy.

I look back on it now, and I can see more clearly what we were doing. I expected her to make me happy. My analysis, correct or not, was, "You're not doing a very good job in making me happy." She didn't verbalize that, but she could have, had I the humility to ask her. She probably would have said the same thing.

It was like, "If you just poured enough love into me, I would have some love to give back into you." There was a stalemate. I was a pastor for years by that point. I taught marriage seminars, and here we were, unhappy in our marriage.

Jim Daly: Larry, this is the problem. I think this is the core of it all, when you talk about the selfishness that we have as human beings. It's almost like we expect something different, but we're in this life, in this world. This is the ankle chain that exists for most of humanity.

We are selfish creatures. We live in sin. We're in a sinful world. Jesus died for those sins and for our eternal life. But it is a process to find the key to take that ankle chain off. It's that epiphany where we've got to get to that place where being selfless is the whole goal of this institution of marriage, to make us more like Christ. But in that context, that's a tough journey because we are selfish. How do we begin to work on that?

Larry McCall: Jim, you used the word "epiphany" a while ago, and when you said that, my heart resonated. It was like the Holy Spirit turned the lights on when we were in that bottoming-out era. I hope it was a bottom-out. I never want to go back there.

At that time, we met an older gentleman in our community whose wife was in the latter stages of Alzheimer's and lived in a nursing home just up the street from our home. Every day, Bob would go to the nursing home. He would help the staff spoon-feed his wife. He would help change her diaper. He would wash her, care for her. And then he would sing love songs to her.

This is when we're at our low point. Here's a gentleman in his 80s, and I'm watching him, listening to him love his wife sacrificially. It dawned on me he's not getting anything from his wife. Gladine was still loving me. I just, in my pride, didn't think it was enough. But his wife wasn't doing anything for him. She wasn't serving him practically. She wasn't serving him through her words. She didn't even remember his name.

At that same time, that epiphany, the Holy Spirit brought 1 John 4:19 to this hard heart: "We love because He first loved us." The lights came on. The way Bob can love his wife is he's not depending on her to pour love into him. He's leaning on God's love, which is super-abundant, overflowing love.

The Holy Spirit broke my heart. It was a gradual change, but he began to blow fresh air into us. The balloon of our marriage began to rise again. Gladine came with me on that journey. That was 30 years ago. It's not that we don't have any ups and downs now, but that was a turning point. It was seeing that our love for our spouse is not dependent on our spouse. Our love for our spouse is depending on God's love for us.

Jim Daly: You have been married 50 years. You've lived through all the seasons, maybe except the very last season here that is going to face each and every one of us. In that regard, what would you say is the most important thing to navigate life's seasons? If you break it in first half and second half, speaking to the married couples listening, what's the thing to remember about life?

Larry McCall: One thing to remember is that life continues to change. A lot of us don't always welcome change. Some change is good, but some change is hard. I think of the seasons of marriage. A turning point for a lot of couples is when the last of their kids leaves home.

All of a sudden, they just see the two of them now. They're just looking at each other. A lot of couples get to the point where they're empty nesters and they're thinking, "Who is this person?" And they have a decision to make. Are we going to regroup here? Are we going to reconnect as a couple, or are we going to continue to live parallel lives that are committed but not full of joy? I think that's a marking point for the seasoned marriage, as I would call it.

Jim Daly: I read this article years ago in the *Washington Post*, but it resurfaced in another newspaper, maybe the *New York Times*. They refer to it as the "graying of divorce." This is the phenomenon best described by saying couples—the husband pursues a career, maybe the wife too, they have children, the kids are now out of the home, they're through college, and she looks at him and says, "I really don't love you anymore. I don't know you anymore."

It's a high number of wives filing for divorce in that graying of divorce situation. Speak to that disconnection. It feels very transactional. We got together, we created children, we've raised these children, and now we don't need to be together anymore. That's not God's intention for marriage.

Larry McCall: It's not at all. But it happens so easily, so naively. A couple gets married, and they have this season of joy in their honeymoon season. Then the children come, financial struggles, caring for that house, and the career is more demanding. They just don't work on their marriage. They don't focus on their marriage. Whether they realize it or not, they're gradually drifting apart.

The last of the kids leaves home, and they come to that realization: "We hardly know each other anymore." Now the question is what decision are you going to make? What action steps are you going to take to draw back together?

Jim Daly: What would be some of those action steps that you could do in the busy time of life to make sure that the second half is set up? Think of how we plan for retirement. You're putting something away, you're meeting with your financial advisor, and they're telling you 10 percent of this, 5 percent of that. But we don't do that in our marriage to say, "Okay, once we hit 25 years, what should the next 25 years look like?" What would you say to them?

Larry McCall: In those situations, if a couple comes to that place where they realize they've drifted apart, there should be a leaning into God's grace to humbly confess, "I've contributed to the distance." Especially us men, we need to humble ourselves and realize we've contributed to the distance.

The man's focused on his job, focused on his hobbies, and he'd be happy to keep on going for a while. But the wife's saying, "What about us?" For a man to realize his security in Christ, the safety of the gospel, that he doesn't have to be proud and defensive—I speak for us men—but to lean in and say, "Sweetheart, I've contributed to the distance. Will you forgive me for not pouring more into you as your husband?"

Then you take that to the Lord, confessing we need your help, we want to come together. It's God-oriented, grace-saturated, but then it gets real practical. Let's spend more time together. Let's do things together. Let's pray together, learn together, do chores together, where you're beginning to bond again like you did in the early days.

John Fuller: Our guest today on Focus on the Family is Larry McCall. He's got this terrific book, *A Seasoned Marriage: Living the Gospel in the Middle Years and Beyond*. You can get a copy of this terrific resource at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: One of the concepts that you mention in your book is to look for friends that are ahead of us and to pull from their wisdom. Wrap that whole concept up in your response.

Larry McCall: Certainly, there's value in having friends that are more mature in Christ than we are. If we're struggling in our marriage, have the humility to go to our friends and say, "We want to grow in our marriage. We're struggling right now. Will you pray for us? Will you help us?" Lord willing, in the local church especially, you can find friends like that.

Jim, you mentioned trying to see this from a wife's perspective, and here we are, three men talking about this. As much as we can, what I do when I counsel couples pastorally, when I hear those kinds of stories, my mind goes back to what Paul said in Ephesians 5. Husbands love your wives and then he connects it to Christ, just as Christ loved the church. Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

He ties everything in that whole section vertically to who Christ is, what he has done—children, parents, employers, employees. Everything ties vertically. I tell a wife in that situation, when you're looking at your husband, you're saying, "I want to love him again," and she's looking at her husband and seeing his inadequacy, I say, "Look over his shoulder. Who do you see? You see Christ."

Your love for your husband is not based on the worthiness of your husband. Your love for your husband is based on the worthiness of Christ. Look at who he is, look at what he has done for you as a Christian woman. Lean on his grace. It's going to maybe be a rough road, but Christ is able to give you the grace to renew your love for your husband.

Jim Daly: It's one thing to look for that couple ahead of us in church or wherever you might find that connection. It's another thing for a younger couple to see you as the older couple. But for that younger couple to say, "Hey, would you guys like to mentor us?" That happened to you, and how did that make you feel?

Larry McCall: We've been asked this several times, but one time in particular, there was a young couple in our church who wanted us to walk with them through the premarital process. Our pastors, there's six of us, most of them are a lot younger than I am. I thought, "Why didn't you attach yourself to one of these younger couples closer to your age?" They said, "We wanted to meet with an older couple, learn from maybe your more years of experience, your more years of processing problems."

One thing Gladine and I realize is a lot of older people—and we spend a lot of our time these days ministering to our peers because of the *Seasoned Marriage* book, I do a lot of grandparenting ministry—a lot of older couples feel like younger couples don't want to hang with old fogies. Just the opposite is true. Most young couples would love to get time with an older couple.

I would encourage older couples to actually initiate if possible. Approach a younger couple and say, "We'd love for you to come over for dinner and just talk. We'd like to get to know you and see where it goes." Gladine and I have Zoom calls with some younger couples in other places and mentor them long-distance. Pour into them by God's grace.

Jim Daly: You challenge the cultural idea that retirement is all about leisure. You're popping my bubble because I've got my goals. It's golf and other fun things to do with Jean. Why do you believe it's more important to retire *to* something than retire *from* something?

Larry McCall: Most people want to retire from. I want to leave this job, leave the stress, the deadlines, the pressures. I want to breathe. That's understandable. It's a fallen world, and there's a lot to daily life that is difficult. But to retire *to* something.

I like to tell people to look at the beginning and end of the Bible. Literally the beginning and the end. What do you read in the first couple of chapters? What do you read in the last couple of chapters? God designed us as image-bearers to be fruitful, to work in a good way. We tend to think of work as negative.

Work came about before the fall, and work will continue after the curse is removed. We're going to have productivity in eternity. For us to think even if life is changing, I can still be fruitful. We can still be fruitful in our older years. Retiring to something. God, what are you calling us to in this season that we can bring you delight as we serve other people?

Jim Daly: Plenty of volunteer opportunities.

John Fuller: I was really struck, Larry, by the story you had of a Sunday school teacher that you visited. I've known some people that hit that spot where they're really confined. They can't do a whole lot. They can't produce like they used to. I heard one older relative say, "I'm no good anymore." But this Sunday school teacher really inspired you.

Larry McCall: Gladine and I grew up in the same church. We've known each other almost our whole life. We were blessed with a Sunday school teacher who was very fruitful in her middle season of years and very active in teaching children, very evangelistic, a godly woman. When we were married for a while, we were back in our hometown and we went to visit her in the nursing home. There she is in a wheelchair.

She was not complaining. She realized that she could still be fruitful even if she was hindered through immobility. She couldn't get out and about much anymore. But she devoted herself to a ministry of prayer hours a day. She told Gladine and me, "I prayed for you two every day for years."

Gladine and I looked at each other as we left that place, and we began to wonder is some of the fruit of our ministry the fruit of her ministry in praying for us? Even some of the listeners today are struggling with immobility, can't do what they used to do, but they can still have a fruitful ministry in other ways through prayer, through writing notes of encouragement. We always have opportunities until the Lord calls us home or truly, fully disables us. We always have the opportunity to be fruitful for him.

Jim Daly: We don't mention this, but we have a wonderful volunteer ministry here at Focus. I'm thinking of couples that come and help serve at banquets and do filing for us. It's been such a blessing. Some of these folks have worked 50,000 hours. Elaine was top of the heap when it came to volunteer hours. That's just part of it. If you're interested in that, get in touch with us.

You've said one of the greatest ministries older couples can offer is the legacy of a long-term marriage. Explain why that's so important.

Larry McCall: A lot of younger couples value committed relationships. But interestingly, they don't necessarily see the value of what the old-timers called holy matrimony. They're content with seeing people live together and never have the bond of marriage, the covenant bond of marriage.

To give them a living picture in our long-term marriages that this is a beautiful thing, this is a reflection of Christ and his love for his bride. Long marriages have a mission of reflecting Christ in a way that the younger generation can see and aspire to.

Jim Daly: One of the good points that you've made in the book is you encourage couples to prepare not just for their legal and financial documents, but for their spiritual will. Explain what it is to prepare a spiritual will.

Larry McCall: A spiritual will has the idea of what am I wanting to gift to our children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren that's not necessarily tangible monetary, but shows them the value of Christ, the treasure of knowing him and serving him? In written form, tell our story of how much we've enjoyed Christ, how we've benefited from his grace, but also encourage them to seek him as well. It could even just be one sheet of paper.

Jim Daly: Something I did, I encourage parents to do. I kept journals for the boys from the time they were conceived. Both journals are 400 pages. I was able to travel internationally. I'd fill in family history, spiritual background, those things that the Lord did as key milestones in our family's lives.

They've enjoyed it. Trent keeps it right at his bedside and reads it every night, which I think is really cool. But that's an expanded version of that will, and it's a great way to communicate to your kids the things that are important to you.

Larry, we're right at the end here, and I think one of the most important questions is for the couple that's listening. They've gone through the hard grind of work and vocation and raising the kids, and now they're just at a lull. They don't have the spark for each other anymore. Obviously get a copy of Larry's book. There are ways that the Lord will intervene on your behalf if you lean into him. What should a couple practically do to get to a better place?

Larry McCall: There're probably more than one step to that, but I would encourage couples to first focus on the hope we have in the Lord. I think a lot of couples don't realize how the Lord wants our marriages to flourish. God designed marriage to be a reflection of Christ and his love for his bride, the church. He wants our marriages to be a beautiful, living reenactment of the greatest love story ever.

If we're in that lull, lean into him and say, "Lord, we know you can resurrect our marriage. You resurrected Lazarus from the dead and others. You can resurrect our marriage from the dead. Lord, we know you want that. Please help us." Ask his help and don't be surprised when you begin to see him working in your lives. But also be humble enough to seek help. I encourage people to get pastoral counseling, talk to your friends that are stable in Christ and ask for their prayer support. Don't feel like it's hopeless. It's not hopeless.

Jim Daly: Focus on the Family is here for you. We want your marriage to be the best it can be. We have lots of great resources to help you. You can take our marriage assessment. It's an online quiz. It's free. It'll point out your strengths and your weaknesses, the areas to work on. That's something Jean and I need to do. I'm going to do that this week.

Over a million people have taken that quiz. Also, you can get a copy of Larry's book, *A Seasoned Marriage*. To make this a good thing, if you can make a gift of any amount, that'll be great. We will use those resources to help other marriages. Be part of the team, get a great resource, take the free quiz, and hopefully get into a position where your marriage is stronger and healthier in Christ.

John Fuller: Take that assessment, get a copy of this book when you donate. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. Or you'll find all the details online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Have a great weekend and plan on joining us on Monday as Pastor Ted Cunningham offers some encouragement for every marriage, even if you're not a perfect match.

Ted Cunningham: Here's the bottom line. You will never find compatibility. You'll never discover it. There's not an algorithm in the world that can put you with someone compatible. Compatibility is something you choose. It's something you create.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.

Guest (Male): Is your marriage struggling? Communication breaking down? Trust fading? Conflict that never seems to resolve? There's still hope. Hope Restored Marriage Intensives by Focus on the Family help couples step away from daily life and focus fully on rebuilding their relationship. And right now, through the Marriage Investment Initiative, Hope Restored is investing $1,000 toward marriage intensives. Visit hoperestored.com/invest.