Parent Compass Radio

Cass: He walked in. That's my man. I'm going to marry him.

Kevin: I hate to say it, but we met at a nightclub.

Cass: Such low self-esteem. Binge eater. Body dysmorphia is a real thing.

Kevin: Church was condemnation, the wrath of God.

Cass: Wherever I could find attention or fulfillment to feel pretty for even just a moment. You're actually living in bondage. The Lord's heart is to always heal, to always save.

Kevin: I've always wanted to be a dad.

Cass: I never wanted to be a mom. All of a sudden, I'm pregnant. So scared.

Host: You're not good enough to be a mom. You don't know how to love. You don't even love yourself. The Lord brought Kevin and I together. He's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. He is the greatest gift. If we're both together, it's real balance, but if it's just me, the vibe is crazy. And if it's just him, the vibe is stoic. Him always trying to reel me back in because I'm always out here. I wake them up, get them dressed. Kevin takes them to school. He goes to work.

Kevin: I'm a financial advisor.

Cass: Kevin, he just turned nine. Next-level Kevin. He always takes things to the next level because his brain works like that.

Kevin: He's very analytical. He's the type of kid that, when we're sitting in an emergency room, he's asking about anesthesia, what it does, and what's the chemical compound. And then next thing you know, we're talking about black holes.

Cass: He's also really tender-hearted. Paxton will be seven in March. Really creative, very quick-witted, got a great sense of humor, very naturally athletic, can pick up anything really quickly.

Paxton: I like playing football. And I play with my brother almost every day.

Kevin: She always wants to see the best in people. Benefit of the doubt, maybe even to the fault, but why would you have it any other way? Very spiritual, very positive. She's just a great person.

Cass: He's just very analytical, stable, just really solid, pretty much the same all the time. And I'm all like this. The Lord really used him to love me and set me free.

I was a binge eater, and then I would just make myself puke over and over and over again. Body dysmorphia is a real thing. I grew up in a super small town, 1,200 people. My dad grew up there, my uncle did. I had the same teachers as my dad.

Kevin: I grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Single mom. Grew up a huge sports fan. Played football, basketball, track, mostly football.

Cass: We didn't start going to church until I was about 11. My friend had invited me, got saved, and I told my mom and dad, "Hey, I want to go to church."

Kevin: I didn't go to church much in high school. Church was all about the law and condemnation, fire and brimstone, the wrath of God.

Cass: There was a lot of pressure that was placed on me, maybe by myself. If your faith is big enough, then the blessings of the Lord will manifest in your life, which actually ended up in some destruction.

Kevin: I had early deaths in my family, things that were even unnatural. Like my uncle dying when he was in his 30s. At that time, I started going back to church. I started praying a lot with him and believing in his miracle, and it didn't come to pass. Consciously or unconsciously, I feel like that really deterred me from going to church.

Cass: I had a lot of talent in softball, to pitch, and I was awarded a lot of awards even whenever I was young. I didn't want my parents to have to pay for school, and so I put that pressure on myself—not for the Lord to provide for that, but for myself to provide for that. I said, "Thank you for this talent. Now I'm going to get a scholarship and I'm going to play in college."

But every time a recruiter would come watch me play, I would do so awful. I just couldn't handle the pressure. I couldn't let go of it. My confidence was so low. This is what I want to do, I can't get there, and I didn't know how to get there. I didn't think that I was pretty. I thought I was too fat. I got straight A's, but I didn't consider myself smart.

I would make myself starve for four days, and then I would just eat everything I could to the point where I would puke again. Just a total unhealthy relationship with food. I had such low self-esteem. You turn to other things to try to fill that void, and that leads just to more destruction.

The first place of destruction was sexual immorality for me. Wherever I could find attention or fulfillment to make me feel pretty for even just a moment. Obviously, there's more destruction when you go down that line. There's diseases, there's sickness that the Lord saved me from, that the Lord has healed me from, even physically. That's just a testimony to His goodness.

In the Lord's graciousness, I did end up getting a full ride. My junior year, I let a guy stay the night with me, and you can't do that. My roommates went and told my coach, and I got kicked off the softball team, and she took away my scholarship. What am I going to do? Do I finish school here? Do I leave and go someplace else? Destructive.

I went and lived in Houston for that next semester with my grandma. My grandma gave me a disc of teaching, and I would listen to that CD driving back and forth to Oklahoma. I had a ton of questions to the Lord in regards to this big faith type thing. Like, if you're good enough or if you have the faith that you need, God will do this and God will do that.

One CD answered every single question and more. My spirit was jumping. This is it, this is the true God. This is the Father that loves me and takes care of me. I was just so enamored by the love of God in regards to the grace of God, that it's nothing that we can do on our own, that while we were still sinners, He endured the cross.

So the more that I heard about the goodness of God and the love of God, that transformation started to happen gradually, the more I learned about who He was. I wanted to graduate from the place that I started. Very humbling experience to have to go back to a place where now everybody knows who you are, the girl who got kicked off the softball team. And when I came back, that's when I met Kevin.

Kevin: I went through a death in my family. I went to a funeral that day, didn't want to go anywhere. I just wanted to hang out, but my buddy needed me. He was going through a really bad relationship situation, so I invited him over. He wanted to meet a new girl, "Can you be my wingman?" My heart and my head were not in the right place for that right then, but we did go, and I met Cass that night. A bad day turned into one of the best days of my life. I hate to say it, but we met at a nightclub.

Cass: I was going to meet a different guy. I saw him when he walked in. I turned to my best friend and I said, "That's my man. I'm going to marry him." And it was like there was a beam of light on him. He was the only person I could see. He was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. He had on these red pants, this white polo button-up with his earrings. He was so beautiful. My best friend is like, "Yeah, you go get him, girl," and I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to get him."

Kevin: She walked up to me, and I thought she was absolutely crazy. I was not looking for any kind of relationship or anything like that, but we exchanged numbers, didn't think anything of it. The following week, I invited her on a date, and we just sat there and talked for hours. There was just that instant connection, so it was pretty beautiful.

Cass: Two weeks later, I drank too much. He actually bailed me out of jail, took care of me, and he said that was the moment he knew I was the one for him. I had a steady boyfriend my whole life, but I cheated on him all the time. I was never faithful in any relationship before Kevin. I was actually in a relationship when I met Kevin. I was going out to meet another guy that wasn't even my boyfriend. Just all sorts of destruction.

The Lord's heart is to always heal, to always save. However, when we don't allow Him or expose those places to Him, He's just like, "Are you going to let me in? I have everything you need." This feels great, I'm hanging out with my girlfriends, I'm getting all this attention from the guys—this feels so great. But you don't realize that you're actually living in bondage.

Could it be better on the other side of that? In this constant state of being up and being down, and being condemned and shamed and guilty... because when you're saved, you feel it on the inside. There may be a moment where you're having a great time, but later you feel it on the inside: "That is not me. Why did I do that?"

When I learned about the scripture that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that scripture started setting me free. You can't help but give thanks to the Lord when you experience that sort of transformation where it's not even of yourself. Even in the midst of my sin, still doing the things you used to do, but now you're learning more and more about who you are.

I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. "Lord, that is not me, but I thank You that I'm forgiven." And then you start saying, "Actually, that is not that fun." It starts to separate more and more as you learn about who you are in Christ.

Kevin: I wasn't going to church at the time. There were things that upset me about my church, and I never had a great experience going to church. The best thing that Cass ever provided for me was she was the one that said, "Listen, we've got to go hear the word." And that's something that she was really passionate about even then. We started going to church more frequently. That made a radical change in my life and how I believed.

Cass: I've never talked to any other guy besides Kevin. Kevin was a huge gift to me. I was 190 pounds at the time when he met me. You're only pretty if you're a size four, size two. I think I struggled with that probably until three years ago. That is when I feel like I was really set free from that. It's not until I realized how precious I was in God's eyes.

I just started putting all the demand on the Lord. I've been working on this for 30 years, and I can't get it right. Is it okay to involve You in this journey of what my body looks like? Allowing the Lord to heal the way I view myself, that my body has nothing to do with how beautiful I am and how clean I am on the inside. There is unhealthy weight, it has nothing to do with my beauty, which was what my focus was on.

Okay, Lord, You love me at 200 pounds, which was me at my heaviest. You love me at 140 pounds. You love me at my lightest. I started just asking for wisdom on what to eat, that He would guide me with His peace. As I started involving Him, I found the promise that says, "As Jesus is, so am I in this world."

As I declared that and partook of the Holy Communion and just allowed His thoughts about me to replace my thoughts, I wasn't thinking about it anymore. And just one day, I woke up and I was like, "Man, I'm really set free from being so obsessed with what my body looks like." And I'm actually more happy now than I ever have been, and I'm not even thinking about it.

I graduated in May, and instead of coming home, I moved in with Kevin. I was actually paying for another apartment for my parents because they didn't want me living with him. It sat there for nine months. I paid for it, I never stayed one night there. This facade. But the Lord did tell me—He told me twice—He was like, "You need to move out, or you need to get married, or your life is going to change."

I'm living my best life with my man. He's wonderful, we're going to get married. I ignored it. Then all of a sudden, I'm pregnant. What in the world? This is why the Lord was warning me.

Kevin: It was a big-time surprise, for sure. Not something we were planning on.

Cass: I had never wanted to be a mom.

Kevin: It was one of the best days of my life. I was really excited because I always wanted to be a dad. My mom was so excited.

Cass: I'm already condemning myself, feeling sad for my oldest: "I'm so sorry you have me as your mom. I'm so sorry this isn't the way I wanted it to be. You're out of wedlock, you're born into sin." I called my mom. We got in a fight. And at the end of the conversation, I said, "Mom, we're getting married in July. We're having a baby in December. You're either going to be involved and be happy, or you're not going to be involved at all."

There was a long silence, and she goes, "I guess it's going to be nice to have a baby running around." I was like, "That's the right answer." I'm still struggling with inadequacies the whole pregnancy, so scared. You're not good enough to be a mom. You don't know how to be a mom. You don't know how to love. You don't even love yourself.

Feeling inadequate rolled over into motherhood. We had Kevin, our oldest, and then we planned Paxton, our second. The idea of success was to be like a successful businesswoman. "I'm successful only if I do this: build this business, go out there and make a lot of money and do all the things." I wanted to open a restaurant. I hadn't quite understood how much of a blessing it is to submit to your husband.

Kevin: I'm very analytical, so it just didn't feel like the right time. The timing of it just didn't make a lot of sense to me. A lot of restaurants don't work out. That was something that weighed heavy on me. I wanted to make sure that if we're going to give it the best go, since it's already challenged, that we need to be in the best financial situation possible. Kids needed to be older.

Cass: I had just had Paxton, so he was two. And he didn't want to get in any debt. And I was like, "Let's do all the debt! I hear from the Lord. I've seen in the Word: everything my hand touches, it prospers in the name of Jesus. I don't know what you're concerned about."

Kevin: How do you argue with that?

Cass: Really disrespectful, actually, to him. Kevin just really didn't want me to do it, but I did it anyways. It was a restaurant, made from scratch, healthy food—salads, wraps, quinoa bowls, and sandwiches. We opened in 2019, a couple months before COVID.

Kevin: Perfect timing. 50% of all small business restaurants have failed post-COVID, so we were living that experience. Two parents working full-time. Sometimes you step into the house and you don't know if it's been a good day or bad day. It's mostly bad days, and so you tread lightly. Wasn't a lot of times of good news.

Cass: I just kept pushing through. I never paid myself anything. I went to work every day. Since day one, we were not profitable.

Kevin: I remember one time I was getting ready for work in the morning, and as challenging as my day can possibly be, I was thinking about how challenging her day is going to be. This doesn't seem like good success, like holistic success. I wanted more for her.

Cass: And then we got pregnant, and we lost a baby.

Kevin: It didn't make sense because of how we believe.

Cass: There's no words for someone who has lost a child. It's just really, really difficult.

Kevin: Strange time for us. A lot was going on with my wife starting her own business. It was a chaotic time.

Cass: I'm blaming myself. "You should have done this, you should have done that. Why were you this way?"

Kevin: It was very painful, very hurtful, very confusing. The response is, anything other than in a moment of crisis coming together, then it's the wrong response. That was something that we were able to share with our pastors and people we're close to. What we found is that we're not alone. One of our pastors actually lost a child as well. To share those testimonies and be there for support was very helpful. Keep the eyes on the Lord during the storm.

Cass: I'd be really high and happy and be okay, and then all of a sudden, I would be so low that not one good thought would even come in my head about myself. Sometimes that my family would be better without me. Just really dark, evil thoughts. Kevin had started to see these patterns that I would go through. And I can see those patterns in my mom. And he said, "You know what? I think this is just generational. And this is going to stop. This stops now."

Kevin: There is something to breaking cycles. I just wanted to take a step in faith. Opportunity to be the head of household and to come together and pray about something that definitely had been a form of bondage for her for many years.

Cass: We came together, we prayed together, and I haven't had an episode since then. Just completely set free from getting that low and having those sort of thoughts.

Kevin: To see that lifted, it's night and day. That can be applied to other situations in our life.

Cass: When something is so impulsive and you can't get out of it, it is definitely spiritual. It is deliverance. After we lost that baby, I started looking at my boys differently, more of, "Gosh, you're such a blessing to me. You're here. The Lord has blessed me with you." I started having this transformation of just seeing them differently in the face of that loss.

And I told the Lord after that, I don't want any more kids. That's it. I'm happy with my two boys. Being a mom, trying to raise the babies, trying to build this business at the same time... the amount of stress that incurred destruction in those relationships with the babies because there was so much stress on me. I was taking it out on them. I wasn't spending the time to pray over them, pray with them.

If you read my notes, it's all about my business. There's nothing about my marriage, nothing about my babies. That's destructive.

Paxton: She has been working a lot. She was always on her laptop and stuff and making calls. So we didn't really get to ask her our questions that much.

Cass: And I wasn't even thinking about my kids. I wasn't thinking about what craft I'm going to do with them. I was thinking about how am I going to make my restaurant work.

Kevin Jr: We weren't able to ride our bikes that much because she was working a lot.

Cass: They went to a daycare.

Kevin: We had multiple nannies throughout this journey. We had daycare.

Cass: I wasn't making any money. The business was just taking money, but yet I was having to pay someone to keep my kids so I could continue working in the business. Four whole years of no profitability. Towards the end, every day we were open was excruciating to me. Just very stressful.

Then I randomly get pregnant. We know how you get pregnant, but we both still don't know when or how we got pregnant. I'm telling the Lord, "Why did You let this happen to me? I told You, I don't want any more kids. Do You remember what just happened to me? What if the same thing happens to me again? I don't know if I can handle that. I have my two boys."

There's a risk that this one's going to be a girl, and that would be even more awful, just seeing generational things within my family of the relationships between the daughter and the mom. I didn't want to be a mom, and I definitely didn't want to be a mom of girls.

My pastor says in his sermon, "Do not fear. The things that have happened to you in the past will not happen to you this year." And I was just like, "Okay. Okay, Lord, then You're going to have to protect this baby because I'm scared and I didn't want this."

The Lord started giving me little visions here and there of me holding a baby, me nursing a baby, me taking care of a baby. And the baby was always a little girl. The more He would give me these glimpses, the softer my heart would be. That is when I started thinking I don't know that I want to continue going with the store.

I was at the end of myself again. I was involving Kevin a lot more. "Would you pray with me about this? I'm fine with whatever, but let's seek the Lord together on what to do with our restaurant." We started involving our pastor, praying about it, asking for wisdom. He really helped guide us in our prayers of just letting go and letting God show us what He wanted to do in that season.

I was brushing my teeth, and I heard the Lord say, "Close your restaurant. And for an entire year, I want you to seek Me, be in My Word, be a wife and be a mom. And that's all I want you to do for an entire year." What in the world? That is totally opposite than me. Be a mom? Like, I'm still learning to be a mom. That's the last thing I would ever choose for myself. I want to be a restaurant owner.

I'm a go-getter. In my head, I'm already thinking of what I'm going to do next after I close Cool Greens. So I prayed about it, and I just couldn't escape it. We went on an anniversary trip, and I said, "Babe, the Lord shared something with me, and I need to tell you. He wants me for an entire year just to be a wife and just to be a mom and to close the store."

Kevin: I said, "The Spirit confirms that, I feel that." It felt like that was the way to go. And it's something that I've been having in my heart for a while. For sure, relief.

The time we spent praying in the Spirit led us to confidently come to a decision with the business. we felt a lot of peace with the decision, like supernatural peace.

Cass: When we made the decision to close, everything happened so fast. We stepped into the favor of the Lord, and it didn't look how I thought it was going to look. I had so much favor with the landlord. He just let us out of our lease, and he forgave us for a year's worth of back rent.

Kevin: Even her peers said they never heard anything like that ever happen before.

Cass: My team, they packed up and cleaned the entire store for me. I didn't ask them to. My equipment sold, buyers were coming to me.

Kevin: She's just a genuinely sweet person, very empathetic. She was worried a lot about her employees. The blessing was already there for them. They already had career opportunities. Everyone had a safe, soft landing. So He was definitely going ahead of the situation.

Cass: I'm in a lot of debt. Once I realized this isn't looking that great, the debt that we needed for the capital to stay open, I just kept accumulating on my name. I know that this does not hinder our future because it's in the Lord's hands. The Lord can use all avenues that He wants to. And we have open hands.

It's a blessing to honor your husband. In hindsight, he was definitely right in all areas. And it would have been such an easier journey for me if I had just said, "You know what? You're right. Let's wait for a better time when the babies are older."

Kevin: But that was also me not taking ahold of my obligation to be the head of household. If I felt really strongly about something, to stick to my guns, so to speak.

Cass: In all the bad consequences that come with it, praise the Lord for His protection over our marriage. Because a lot of marriages don't end well with a wife like that and also with debt and financial problems, especially when it was the wife who did it all.

We did this whole bet thing, the gender reveal. Is it a boy or a girl? And I was like, "The Lord showed me it's a girl." And sure enough, she's a girl. She's the most amazing thing to me, and I get to spend all day with her. She's fascinating, and she's hilarious. I love her, and she loves me.

Kevin: She would never envision herself as being a mother because of certain relationship things in the past. She did not want a daughter. The beautiful full circle of it was that the promise is 120% restoration. And that's what we feel like we got with Olivia.

She has a daughter now, and she can't even picture herself not having a daughter. And she has a beautiful relationship with her daughter. That was the Lord's way of blessing us in a situation that you can have a lot of self-doubt and condemnation and some insecurity and vulnerability in. She's the best mom. It's been beautiful to see that kind of transformation.

Cass: Libby's a restoration baby. The Lord, He has restored what we lost. The Lord's faithful to do that in all families that have experienced loss.

Once I made that decision to step out of the restaurant and into this place where the Lord was calling me to receive His grace in my weakest area as a mom—just be a mom, hang out with Libby all day—that's so not me, but I love it. I'm so happy and I'm so fulfilled. The Lord will take you through the journey gently and lovingly, and He'll take care of even your mistakes.

Kevin: As far as the house now, it's just night and day. You step into a household and the vibes are very positive and uplifting. There's not that level of anxiety about tiptoeing around certain conversations. It's been really good, been refreshing.

Paxton: It feels good now that she's able to watch us ride our bikes and stuff.

Kevin Jr: Yeah. Because we have all these tricks we know how to do.

Paxton: My mom loves building with me and stuff.

Kevin Jr: And we play football, and we draw. We have a little schedule after school and stuff. Sometimes we ride our bikes, do crafts, or go to the library or something.

Kevin: She's very present. The kids definitely love having her, especially as our oldest. His mind's going a thousand miles per hour all the time. He could tell when she was distracted. Those activities that we have, our daily routine, that was not the case before. There's not enough time in the day. We're experiencing more good success.

Cass: I didn't realize how broken everything was because I was so focused on the business. I didn't see the things that were going on. And just being more present, I could see all the broken areas. My relationship with Paxton, our six-year-old, has just really been healed and repaired.

We were fighting every day. He would blame me for weird things. You just don't see the brokenness when you're so veiled and focused on something you shouldn't be focused on. I feel really good.

I've learned more about what prosperity to God looks like and allowing the Lord to reteach the way that I think. Our focus cannot just be on material and on money. We're not just talking about financial prosperity. Number one, He wants your family prosperous. He wants our marriage to prosper in every area.

He wants the relationships with my kids to be prosperous. This is what is important to Him. "Even in your failures, I love you. I'm still here for you." And if you're ready to step into what I have for you in this season, it's still waiting for you. We're just free. Free just being a mom, which is insane to me.

Kevin: We couldn't have predicted a pandemic, but we stayed together through that storm. I feel like we came out better for it. There's not a promise that there won't be trials, it's just a promise that if you keep your eyes focused on the Lord, He'll deliver you out of it. Coming together as one, praying about the situations, praying in the Spirit about really difficult situations, like opening a business.

Cass: Yeah. And He moved all these things in the way to try to get me here. And I'm so hard-headed that I was just like, "Nope, I heard from You." And He's like, "Yeah, actually you heard Me a little wrong, but that's okay. I still love you."

Kevin: You're going to make mistakes. Things are going to happen. But what you don't need to do is point fingers or develop a rift because that's what the enemy would want. The enemy would want you to start condemning each other to where you guys have that separation, but we stayed together through the fire.

Cass: God's idea of success is so much different than what we view success as. And it's so much better. Even in your mistakes, He can still supply everything you need to fix the mistake. When you just let go of things, His power really moves, and He really operates.

He created you. He knew how fulfilled I would be by just taking care of my children. When everything fails in your life that you think was a priority, and you still find the Lord loving you so gently, that's transformative. It's really hard not to worry.

Kevin: He suffered from encopresis.

Cass: Miserable disease from hell. Bullying at school. He didn't have very many friends.

Kevin: Every marriage needs a third party. His name is Jesus. Pride is not great for a marriage at all. "Lord, can You work this situation out?"

Cass: We went to like five doctors. I'm at the end of myself. Lord, this is my baby. Show me. What do we need to do? We take Holy Communion together. A lot of people like to eat and have dinner together. It's not really something we can do. We call them drive-by eaters. They just go, nibble, and then they're out the door again. But Holy Communion, we come together and we do it together.

Coming together in the way that you correct your kids, I think, is really important. The disciplinary aspect of raising the babies, probably a lot of parents fight about. Definitely, I think, a conversation that needs to happen: "This is how we're going to do it." That way, the parents are on the same page and they're not arguing about it. That way, the wife can honor the husband.

Our marriage got stronger and continued to grow and be more fulfilling for me when I actually started honoring Kevin in his decisions that he was making with the kids. Whereas before, I was like, "This is the way you need to do this," or "You were wrong," and I would do it in front of the kids. I'd put him down in front of the kids. I've learned to not do that. It's much more fulfilling and much more fruitful. Have the conversation beforehand and honor your husband. And I'm working on it still.

If you can't be patient with your three-year-old, there's no condemnation. He has the patience for you to give to him. And even when I feel like losing it, He leads me by still waters, and He's my patience for the babies. But you have to make space for that. You have to involve the Lord. Just make space for grace. Take a quick second. "Father, I thank You that You are my patience. You are patient with my baby through me. I can't do it." And when you lay it down, His strength is made perfect in that area. Everything you need, He has and He's constantly supplying that to you.

Kevin: Everything kind of goes back to trust. Putting on the armor of God and not just picking and choosing what that looks like. When you go through certain situations like the storms and the fires and stuff like that, and you come out on top of it, that builds your faith.

Most people probably don't know what this is. It's actually pretty rare. He suffered from encopresis. There was bullying at school because it's a gut issue, and there's just not a lot of information out there. There's only a couple specialists in it.

Cass: It's a bowel disorder where you can't go to the bathroom. And so he was in pull-ups his whole life, even in second grade. And that's why the kids would bully him. He didn't have very many friends.

Kevin: And when you battle something for so long, trust me, it's not like we're just bystanders to all this. We're doing Holy Communion throughout this whole time. She's doing all kinds of research. Finding doctors, we went to like five doctors.

There's a lot of people that are going through this silently because they don't have a lot of data on this. There's not even any data to support how many people are actually truly going through something like this. What was interesting is the blogs she went to, all the people that were going through this.

All the testimonies were that this is what the doctor's going to do. They're going to give you all these laxatives. They work short-term, but they have long-term negative effects. And we tried all those things.

Cass: And it was really sad in the blogs. The moms would open up about how they just got a divorce because the parents couldn't get on the same page. The dad wants to discipline the kid, and then the mom has a more gentle heart. I'm at the end of myself, I've done all I can do, we've done all we can do. It's just a miserable, miserable disease from hell.

I've bound it up, I've rebuked it, I've declared over him, and nothing's happening. One day in my prayer time—I think this was part of my winding down Cool Greens, I had more time to commit as a mom and a wife—"Lord, this is my baby, it's Your baby. Show me. What is it? What do we need to do?"

He showed me that he was condemning himself for the disease. And I immediately felt like this is what's hindering the healing of God flowing, is because he thinks he deserves this disease. And that scripture came back up: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

We decided that we would just declare over him every day, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." After six years, literally within a week, he went to the bathroom. No more sickness, no more disease. It wasn't a progression thing, it was like literally overnight.

Kevin: The way the disease works is when kids are healed of it—if they ever do get healed of it—then it takes years for your organs to go back to the right size. Muscles aren't working correctly, so they're not strong anymore. They have to have surgery. So in that healing process, it just happens over and over and over again. Now they're backed up again. And none of that happened to him. It was insane. The grace of God is so powerful. Even after six years, the Lord is faithful to His promises. He wants your babies healthy. He wants us healthy.

Kevin Jr: I was riding my bike and I was trying to go to the stop sign all the way over there. While I do that, I go really, really, really fast. That's the fastest I've ever gone before. So I looked at my feet.

Kevin: He was so impressed by his foot speed, like his pedal speed, that he looked down for a second.

Kevin Jr: I accidentally turned.

Kevin: And he ran into a parked car.

Kevin Jr: I just crashed into the car. I flipped over the handlebars and my nose hit the handlebar, then the rest of my face hit the car.

Cass: He can't even talk, and there's blood everywhere.

Kevin: Paxton, he's the more dramatic of the two. I learned a lot about him that day. I learned he's a lot like his mom. He hyperventilated. He legit had a panic attack.

Kevin Jr: He asked if I was going to survive. I thought it was the end.

Kevin: My proudest moment was he looked at him, face just covered in blood, he said, "It's okay, little buddy. It's just a little blood." In my head, I'm like, "Okay, big brother's in action."

Kevin Jr: Right here, there's one layer and there's two layers behind it, and I broke all those layers of bone. I broke this bone right here, all the bones around my eyes. I couldn't really see well because this eye was shut, and I could only see like this. It was all swelling up. I didn't even look like myself because of the swelling.

Kevin: We had no control of this situation. We're not doctors. We can't heal them out of our own ability. We just started praying in the Spirit. He was in a lot of pain when I was out there. She came in to relieve me and I went to go get some towels.

Cass: He waited for Paxton to leave, and then he goes, "It hurts so bad, Mom. It hurts so bad."

Kevin: And she said, "Well, baby, let's just pray about it." So they pray in the Spirit.

Kevin Jr: And my mom prayed. And I just said, "Okay, in the name of Jesus. You've already taken this pain on the cross for us right now. You've already taken it." After the prayer, my face wasn't really hurting at all.

Kevin: From that point forward, he was never in any pain. It was amazing to see the Lord work like that. I thought that we're going to be out there for a while, and they were just walking in nonchalantly. And I'm like, "What the heck? Do we call an ambulance? Do we go to the doctor? What are we doing?"

We go to Urgent Care first, and they're like, "This is beyond us."

Cass: They're like, "Why are y'all at Urgent Care? You need to go to the ER now."

Kevin: We're at the hospital. When you break your nose like he did, it's supposed to be one of the most excruciating pains. The nurse doesn't believe that he's not in any pain, even though he's telling her that he's not in pain. And I said, "He's not a liar. He wouldn't lie about that."

We were seeing healing in real time, like swelling going down. I even chronicled it; I took pictures throughout. And then we went to Children's Medical Center. They were dumbfounded. Professionals were befuddled. He wasn't taking any pain medicine. They kept saying the pain's going to come, and we're like, "No, it's not, in Jesus' name."

Cass: We rebuked that in Jesus' name. And they kept saying the swelling was going to get worse, while we're like, "The swelling is getting a lot better in real time."

Kevin Jr: The swelling started going down, and now I look like myself because the swelling is down.

Cass: The Lord's protection was in a different way than I had thought. He protected him from all the pain.

Kevin: If you expect something to go a certain kind of way and it doesn't meet the mark because you visioned it to be that way, then you can inherently be disappointed. When I had a more childlike faith of just having a God-like hope, you have a hope for good, and the outcome's going to be good, but you're not necessarily pigeonholed into what that journey looks like.

Outcomes will be turned around for our favor. The only way He's going to get the glory is if He turns around situations for our good, and that's a promise that we can stand on. That has been very impactful for me, and I think it's very much blessed our marriage.

Cass: Involve Jesus. Every marriage needs a third party. His name is Jesus. Don't focus on the faults of your spouse. Focus on Jesus and how much He loves you, how much He's for you.

Kevin: Realistically, no one's perfect, right? And we're all fallible. Part of that worldly message of divorce and "it's okay and not get married" and all these things is that we expect something out of someone. Everything has become very transactional. "I do this for you, you do this for me."

If that's not a fair, equitable exchange, then I'm not at fault in being upset or thinking that there's grass greener on the other side. Love your spouse like Christ loves the church. That's pretty big love. Just the humility, to humble yourself. Pride is not great for a marriage at all.

Sometimes when I see her a certain way that's negative—usually those are probably from the enemy as well—I look back and think about, "Well, do I always have it together? Or am I fallible just like her?" I have strengths, she has weaknesses, and vice versa. And that's where we're able to come and meet each other.

I don't remember any situation where the Lord decided to bless me based on how great I was because if that's the case, I never would have got blessed in the first place. The Lord doesn't expect us to come all just well-prepared and buttoned-up and clean before we can pray to Him.

But I think a lot of people have this impression that you have to. I think that's why a lot of people are put off by church because they think that they have to be perfect going in. The Word doesn't say that at all. Our Lord is the one that congregated around with people that were destitute and everything else. Those people didn't have it together, but they're in a perfect place for a blessing.

Trust Him, trust in His love for you. He's got you and He's not condemning you. He loves you. In my darkest—because there are times, right, when I'm like, "What's up with this?"—look to the Lord. You don't have to solve the problem. Just say, "Hey, Lord, can You work this situation out?"

Cass: It's really hard not to worry about your babies, about this, about your finances, about that. But when we worry, it constrains the power of God. It says, "Cast all your cares and anxieties on Him for He cares for you." First know that He cares for you.

And His hands are so much bigger to take care of all the things that need to be taken care of. So just get out of His way and let Him lead you. The grace of God will take you places that you've never even thought of, and they're way better than you could ever think of. Put Him in the center of everything, and it's a beautiful journey.

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