August 4, 2025 • 45 mins
This episode of Fed by the Fruit KB welcomes Melissa Landon as she shares her story of the exploration of personal resilience and the transformative power of forgiveness.
Melissa shares her journey through infertility, marital strife and the path to reconciliation through the role of faith in her life. She share with KB the challenges faces and the strength that comes from a commitment to personal growth and faith-based practices.
KB and Melissa talk about the significance of placing God at the center of one’s life and relationships which serves as a foundation for healing and renewal.
This episode serves as both an informative guide to embrace a healthier, more balanced lifestyle, encouraging listeners to embark on their journeys with renewed vigor and compassion.
Reach out to KB on Instagram and share your thoughts.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Sam Foreign.
(00:33):
Hello, friends.
Happy Monday.
Welcome to Fed by the Fruit.
I'm so happy that you're here.
I'm also so excited to have myfriend Melissa Landon on the podcast
today.
Welcome, Melissa.
Hi.
Thanks for having me.
Of course.
I'm really excited.
I think it's been actuallyreally, really fun to have, you know,
(00:54):
friends reaching out to me,like, hey, I want to share my testimony.
I think, you know, God givesus a story and he wants us to share
it.
So I'm just really.
I'm really proud of you,number one, for being willing to
share it and vulnerable andjust real grateful that you're here.
I.
Well, thanks for having me.
I listened to.
I've listened to your advocateactivate ones before, and when you
(01:15):
switched over, I listened tothe very first one and felt.
And I was walking.
Well, you'd be super proud of me.
I was getting my steps in.
I was listening to it.
And I felt very moved whileyou were talking that I reached out
and texted you and I said,hey, I listened to your first.
If you'll have me, I wouldlove to be on.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm sure somebody canrelate to my story.
(01:36):
I think we can relate to allthe stories in some way.
So I thought I was like, Ijust want to tell my story again.
I feel like I've told my storya lot, but every time I tell it,
it reaches somebody different.
It does.
And that's.
That's the thing.
Like, again, God gives usthese hard things that we go through
in our lives, and if we don'tshare how he, you know, swooped in
(01:57):
and saved us through all ofit, then what was it for?
Yeah, I.
That's.
That is my.
Been.
One of my biggest things iseveryone's like, oh, you're an oversharer.
That's so embarrassing.
People don't want to know.
People don't want to hear.
And I'm always like, thendon't listen.
Right.
It's not.
It's not meant for you.
I've had lot.
Yeah.
Lots of, you know, theovershare thing was quite a bit for
(02:17):
me.
But we can back up.
I can kind of back up.
Some of it is.
I'll go back to like 2019ish,give or take.
Was when we moved out toNokesville and we were kind of restarting
with our life.
We had.
I had two kids from a previousmarriage and then we had one together.
And we were.
We were, you know, all too well.
We were trying to have anotherbaby and it was very stressful and
(02:40):
hard and lots of infertility,unexplained infertility.
And my package got deliveredat your house.
I didn't know you from Adam,and I'm very.
This is gonna be veryemotional for me just because I can
see your face.
So I didn't know you.
I just.
In one of the Nokesvillepages, you know, I was like, hey,
I have Melissa Landon,whatever, blah, Blah's package.
(03:01):
And so to go.
It's mine.
I came over and got it.
We became friends.
We chatted a little bit in Messenger.
I started following you, yourhealth stuff, all the different things,
you know, that.
That you do.
And you were doing a lot oflife coaching at the time.
And there was something in methat was, like.
At first, I was very jealousof you.
You're such a beautiful.
You were such a beautiful person.
You're very intimidating, butyou get on and you're raw and you
(03:24):
tell your story, and it was so relatable.
And I.
So I reached out and I said, Iwould love to do this coaching.
I've.
I'm going through some stuff.
And I felt very much that Godwas pushing me towards you, like,
every day.
Your stuff was in my feed, andso I felt like just a need.
And we did, and we became goodfriends from it.
I learned a lot.
You helped me reconnect mywalk with God in my faith, because
(03:45):
it was very much.
I mean, we've.
I've been believers since.
I've been a believer since Iwas little.
Right.
We did the church.
We did the mission trip.
We did all this stuff growingup, but it had kind of lagged over
the years, which I thinkhappens not to everybody, but it
happened to us.
Just different things in my life.
And anyway, so you helped me reconnect.
I was doing my journaling inthe morning and starting every morning,
(04:05):
you know, with God and talkingto God in my faith, and I was trying
to share that with my family.
And.
Anyways, so we'll fast forwarda little bit.
And then the infertilityreally, really took a toll and took
a hit on my husband and I andour marriage and our struggle.
And it was the pandemic, too.
And.
And constantly I would reachout to you, and you always had just
(04:29):
great advice or a Bible verseor a book, or you would send, you
know, your daily journals thathave the dates on the top.
You would screenshot and sendone of those and, like, highlight
and be like, this is for you, friend.
This is for you.
And we walked and talked and Iput all my.
You know, we put all my faithin God, and we did.
We had a little angel baby,and she's amazing, and she's.
(04:49):
She just turned three.
So.
What was that?
20.
Gosh.
2022.
Yep.
Right.
And so now we had this miraclebaby that we had prayed for, and
everything was great.
Until it wasn't.
Yeah.
And then the downfall of mymarriage started, and I couldn't
understand why.
Right.
We had prayed and prayed forthis beautiful little baby, and we
(05:11):
get this little baby, and nowour marriage is falling apart and
lack of communication and.
And alcohol and just.
It was terrible.
And again, Once again, Ireached out to you, my friend, and,
you know, we.
You helped me and you talkedand gave guidance, and it proceeded
to just get worse and worse.
(05:32):
Um, and it.
What was it?
Summertime of.
Of 2023.
So she was a little over ayear old.
She was born 2022.
So by summer of 23, it was.
It was disastrous.
It was just.
There was not.
My marriage was destroyed, andall I could do at the time was point
(05:53):
fingers and point blame.
And he did this, and he doesthis and then.
And he left.
And you very much.
You very much taught me thatyou have to dig deep in yourself.
Right?
There are two.
It's two.
Two people are married together.
It.
It.
It come.
(06:13):
You come together with God andfalls apart.
And God was missing.
Was a big part of our marriagethat was missing.
There was other factors.
Right.
There were other things thatwere wrong.
But it took me looking atmyself, and I would pray constantly.
Like, I would pray to God,like, have him come home.
Let him see.
Let him see the errors of his ways.
Like, I was praying for all ofthe wrong things, but I couldn't
(06:36):
see that.
So then I just started prayingfor, okay, this is now my situation.
This is where I'm at.
Give me the strength to, youknow, raise children by myself, to
keep a career by myself.
And then that wasn't working.
I was like, what is wrong?
And.
And then I switched my prayersagain and I started praying for him
and I started praying that hewould find God and God would find
(06:59):
him and help him through thestruggles he was going through and
the things that were goingthrough his head, because I can only
tell my side, right?
I mean, I can't tell.
Share what was going throughhis mind.
And I would pray that he wouldovercome the things that he was going
through.
I'd pray that he could.
Would be the good father thatI know he could, can be and could
be.
That had been lacking becauseof the demons he was fighting in
(07:21):
his head for loss of bitter words.
And I was praying for that andpraying for that.
And in the midst of prayingfor that, I somehow was able to forgive
him and see past.
So when he would come and seethe kids, him and I were cordial.
We were no longer at ourthroat, at each other's throat.
(07:46):
And I remember, like, just like.
And he was like, one day Isaid something and he was like, oh,
I can come over and see thegirls after church.
And I was like, wait, what?
And I was like, this can't be.
And then I was mad.
Then I was, dare I say, mad atGod, because that's terrible.
And I was like, why couldn'tthese things all happen before everything
(08:07):
had gone down, right beforethe things had been said and things
had been done and the movingout and the, you know.
Cause some things you cannever take back, Leah.
Right.
Things that are said.
And then I was mad.
And then I was just, I.
To say you're mad at God issuch a terrible thing to say, but
I was just so upset because Iwas like, now here he is, you know,
(08:30):
sobriety has come in and, youknow, he's actively going to church,
and when he comes here, we'reable to interact with each other
and there was no hateful, youknow, hateful things to say.
And so then I pray and then Istarted praying again.
And there is a. I know theshort version of the Bible verse,
but it's Psalm 56, three forthree, three through 11 or three
(08:51):
through four.
And I say it in my brain overand over when, like, it could be
anything.
When I'm afraid, I trust in you.
When I'm afraid, I trust inyou is like the short version that
I say.
But it's when I'm afraid, Iput my trust in you and God whose
word I praise.
In God I trust I shall not be afraid.
And this was something that Irepeatedly, every night when I would
go to bed or I was having amoment and I would say a prayer for
(09:13):
my kids, you know, to getthrough what we were going through
selfishly, for myself or forhim, I would always just, I trust
in you.
I, you know, you, you know howthis is going to play out, you know
how this is going to end.
And fast forward, we are.
Gosh, are we.
He's been.
He's been back a year and change.
(09:34):
We both have been sober for ayear and change.
There's been a lot offorgiveness, which I never thought
I could ever do.
I mean, always outside Lookingin at other people's marriages when
there was infidelities andhateful, you know, all stuff that
had gone, I'm like, oh, gosh,no, that's terrible.
But I think because God hadreally helped me forgive, I forgave
(09:54):
before I even thought that himand I were ever going to be able
to reconcile a marriage.
And I was like, I'm going tohave to forgive him.
I'm going to have to raisebabies with him.
Like, we're going to have tobe able to come together, united
in some front.
So I really prayed for God tohelp me to just forgive the situation.
Not thinking there would everbe reconciliation between us or ever
(10:16):
getting an apology or anexplanation of why things had gone
the way they had gone.
I'm rambling.
No, you're not.
You're sharing your story.
So anyways, I kind of got offtangent, but we.
When we were able to finallycome back together, he.
(10:37):
A whole light, you know, awhole lifetime of terrible choices
and actions was come to lightfor him.
And I'm not gonna tell his story.
I would love for him to tellhis story.
I know he really wants to, buthe's trying to figure out how and
when he wants to do that.
And God is in the front ofeverything we do now.
Everything we do.
(10:57):
And I.
Sometimes I do pray.
I'm like, God, why did all ofthat go down the way it went down?
But I. I think deep down therewas no other way.
Right.
My behavior was never going to stop.
My flaws that I was bringingto the table, that's the stuff he
was bringing.
We were never going to be able.
Without it, you know, hittingthe fan, imploding.
Yeah.
I don't think we would haveever been able to.
(11:19):
It would have just continue.
Would have imploded.
We were never going to see ourown error.
We were never going to be ableto come together as one.
I had a lot of growing andmaturing to do.
I had kids from a priormarriage, and those kids always took
precedence to him.
Like, I thought that's howthat was supposed to go.
That's not.
For those that are listening,that's not.
Your spouse is supposed toalways be your number one.
(11:40):
You guys come together andthen your kids and then your life
and then your work.
And that was something that wehad never done before.
We didn't know how to do that.
Yes, we really reset our whole life.
We.
We just had to come to theconclusion that the old marriage
was over and done.
Right.
I mean, we never legally got divorced.
We Were separated for a while,but that marriage was done.
(12:02):
That was.
That was.
It was great till it wasn't.
And we had that.
It ended.
We renewed our vows withPastor Allen.
We.
We had new vows to each other.
We.
We actually bought new rings.
We got new rings we had in life.
They were blessed.
And we, we reset and startedover and we put God in the front
of everything we do.
(12:22):
We very much live our lifedifferently than we did before.
Sobriety is.
Is one of the biggest things,but just as a whole, we both come
together, you know, with theprayers with the kids, the prayers
before dinner.
All the things that, like, wewere doing separately but not together.
We.
We united.
And God has really, reallyjust changed the whole.
Our whole atmosphere in our.
(12:43):
In our house is completely different.
Everything we do now iscomplete is completely different
too.
I mean, when we would.
Him and I would go onvacations together, we would map
out the bars.
We were gonna.
The bars.
Like, which bars are we gonnago to first?
What shows are we gonna see?
What are what sightsees?
And we would never leave the bars.
Now we, you know, we planvacations and we went hiking on the
(13:04):
last vacation and looked atwaterfalls and, you know, the ones
with him and I, the ones withthe kids, I'm a huge Disney person.
We end up.
We end up seeing Mickey Mousequite a bit.
But I, It.
It's just like we look backand there are still lots of fond
memories of the, the priormarriage, right?
We.
We have children.
We have four children.
We've raised them together.
There's lots of that.
But it's just.
My kids are different.
(13:24):
My older two interact differently.
With him, we interact differently.
We just interact.
It's.
It's night and day difference.
And I thank God all the time.
It is hard work.
It is.
It is very hard because ofsome things that were done right
that we still.
Not as much as.
As the days go by as the years.
Gosh, we're, you know, a yearand a half in.
We don't think about all the bad.
And I know I've called you afew times and I'm like.
(13:45):
And you're like, nope, we'regoing this way.
We're looking forward.
We're no longer, you know,looking back.
So that's.
That's long winded.
There's.
I was just saying to someoneyesterday, you know that how they
say that the windshield isbigger than the rear view mirror
for a reason.
Like, we're not goingbackwards, we're going forwards.
(14:07):
And so much that you said,like, you know, People, a lot of
people can relate with beingmad at God.
And, you know, he can handle it.
God can handle it.
He can handle all of our feelings.
He gave us those feelings tohave and to feel.
And he can handle when you're upset.
And, you know, justultimately, as long as you keep coming
back to him in His Word, you will.
(14:27):
You will get to the truth.
And I just.
I mean, from the beginning ofjust us getting to know each other,
and it's so crazy, too,because I wouldn't have even remembered
that's how our story startedhad you not reminded me of the package
that showed up at my house.
Right.
And that these are just thingsthat, like, God will do in your life.
(14:47):
Like, he'll bring the people.
And that's something that's aprayer of mine all the time, like,
bring the people who need tohear this exact podcast or this exact
person.
And.
And God will do it.
And he'll do it even whenyou're not asking for it.
He'll find a way to manipulateeverything to get you into a room
or get you into contact withthis one person that somehow can
(15:08):
change your life and that heneeds to use for you.
And, you know, gosh, so manythings that you said, but the, the
hierarchy of how God wantsmarriage to look like.
And like, if God is first andthen our spouse and then our children.
And the water gets very murkywhen we've been divorced before.
And it's.
I always say this is why Godhates divorce, because it was never
(15:30):
meant to be like this.
We weren't supposed to beblending families and having step
parents and all of thesethings that make a marriage really,
really hard.
But.
But he still provides a way.
He still provides a way for usto, you know, get through those things.
And it always starts with himbeing number one.
(15:51):
And yes, marriage, our spouseis supposed to be number one.
But I think.
I don't know if you can relateto this, but I think for me, what
I always did is I was tryingto overcompensate for the fact that
my children had divorcedparents and they had to go back and
forth, and I had to always putthem first to, like, make up for
my bad choices that led totheir lives being where they were,
(16:11):
were.
And what I couldn't really seeis that their lives were great.
They were going through somethings, right.
But their lives were really good.
And I actually just made itmore difficult on them by always
trying to overcompensate anddo all these things.
And mine was I never let.
I Never let him.
I never let him.
Parents because I just.
The situation, you know, thedivorce situation they came from
(16:35):
was rough.
It was difficult.
Right.
We didn't like each other.
My cousin and I did not.
Like we get along now, but.
Because it's been a long time,but we didn't like each other.
And I really just wanted themto love Tyler and like, be.
You know, I wanted him to betheir best friend and a father figure
that they could trust and go to.
And I don't mean any illtowards my ex when I say that, but
because they lived with us andI didn't.
(16:56):
I didn't realize that I wasdoing that.
Right.
I didn't realize I didn'tallow him to punish them or I didn't
allow him to have argumentswith them.
I always stepped in.
And yes, like you said,overcompensate for.
For Ford and make it this big,great, wonderful, happy family.
And there are lots of those memories.
But I go to, like when.
When we gave Wyatt.
When Tyler gave Wyatt a truck.
(17:17):
And now, yes, we taught himhow to drive, right?
We taught him how to drive.
But we get.
We literally gave a death trapto a 7, 16, 17 year old boy and he
flipped it and he could havekilled himself and his friend, and
he didn't.
But instead of Tyler and Icoming together to parent, we parented
him separately because we just.
We had never done.
And that was a big.
(17:37):
That was during when all thisstarted too, right?
Like, that was a big explosion.
And I, We.
I realized, like, oh, my gosh,we're not even on the same page parenting
him.
And we failed Wyatt, right, As a.
As a teenage boy who almostkilled himself and his friend by
the grace of God.
Like, I mean, when you look atthe truck and you look at the circumstances,
him and his friends shouldnever have walked away from that.
(17:57):
So that was, I feel like thebeginning of God's like, hello in
my eyes.
And it was very.
It was very much for all of us.
But it was also when Tyler andI realized, like, oh, my gosh, we're
not on the same page with alot of things.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, it tooka lot of reflecting on myself and
my bad behaviors and.
Why?
Because I come from, you know,divorced parents, which is fine.
(18:19):
I mean, but it's not fine.
But, you know, I mean, like,but I'm like, oh, gosh, like, I wonder
if I think it stems from that.
And I.
And he.
I never meant to step on histoes, but like, like I said, reflecting
was all of the things that Ibrought crummy to the table.
Realizing that we equallybrought stuff that just, it was creating
the perfect storm.
And we did.
We just allowed all thesethings to go down.
(18:39):
But yeah, my, my kids have inmy brain.
Right?
Your kids are your number one.
Like why wouldn't your kids beyour number one?
But the way the Bible teachesit and it's, it's absolutely.
You're raising them to go offand have their own family.
Right?
To go be something in life andthen find a husband, find a wife
and create a family and do allthe things.
Not until you're left withyour spouse.
And if you and your spousearen't on the same page or it wasn't
(19:03):
love.
We loved each other, but we just.
And we communicated terrible.
Everyone's like, marriage isso hard.
I do don't, I don't disagree.
But I think if my.
At least for me, I was alwayslistening to him to rebuttal him.
I was never him to actuallylisten to what his complaint or what
he was upset about or what is.
He was trying to express his feelings.
So that for us is different.
Right.
(19:23):
We now communicate better oryou know, we might just be having
a day and we're like, okay,I'm having a day and we don't, we
just let it eat.
We don't try to argue or tellthe other person that that's silly.
You shouldn't have a daybecause of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you know what?
I feel like I recognize thatI've always done and I think that
I feel like I didn't deservethis first Jonathan or this life
(19:48):
that he has blessed me with.
And I think because of that myprotective parts came out and what
I decided was that I had topoint out every flaw that he has
because it would bring himdown a little more to my level and
it would make it so that I dodeserve to be here or with him.
I'm, I'm.
He's just as bad as me or.
(20:09):
And it became this like selffulfilling prophecy.
Like all I did all day waslook for his flaws or if he messed
something.
I couldn't just let anything go.
I had to bring it up all the time.
Like I.
And I have to still catchmyself from doing it.
Like I, it is, it is.
I recognize why.
But when I try to explain itto him because I've told him like,
(20:29):
look, I feel like the reason Ido this is because I've never felt
like I deserve this.
And even having people over tomy house, I don't I don't have people
over here.
And I think it stems from Idon't feel like I even deserve to
live here sometimes.
Like, this doesn't feel likesomething I should get to have.
And so I've had to workthrough a lot of that.
(20:50):
And there's just so manythings that people, you know, like
you said, like initially I was jealous.
And it's like, I love that youadmit that because that's like so
many people feel that I feelthat about other people.
And you know, it just canreally get in the way of something
really great.
You know, if you're just.
Social media kills it.
Right?
(21:10):
Social media is great for, for businesses.
But again, we should have leftthat on LinkedIn.
That's really argument becauseI can't say, see, you're fabulous
when you go on vacation.
I would love to see yourvacation or what you're eating or
your kids or, you know, you,you, you have so many things that
like, I follow and you like.
But I, I, I agree with you on the.
It's a jealous thing becausewe see what people put out, if that
(21:33):
makes sense.
Right?
Like we put the fairy tale ofthe lives.
Sure.
My marriage crumble.
People are like, oh my gosh.
Because I was very open about it.
I was, you know, I, my podcastis not nearly as great as yours.
I do some videos and I did andI do some things and stuff, but I
was very much like, I was, washalf a contributor to the Fall of
it.
And everyone was like, oh, no.
He was xyz.
And I said, oh no.
(21:54):
And they're like, well, lookso great.
And I was like, well, becauseyou're only putting the great out
there for everybody to see, right?
People.
I don't.
And then because some peoplelove to see the downfall.
I did have a lot of, you know,you, like, that's, it's, it's the
pros and the cons.
But I, I was jealous of you.
Cause I was like, look at herand this fabulous life and the house.
I saw your house.
Your house is beautiful.
And then I got to know you andI was like, she's got this same struggles.
(22:16):
Different struggles, right?
But same struggles thateverybody else has.
I, I mean, that's again, your story.
Everyone knows your story.
But I, I was, I was moved byyou because I was like, I was such
a terrible.
And you didn't even know itwas in my head.
I'm like, oh my gosh, it'sperfect little ball.
And like when you are one ofthe most loving Caring, genuine people.
I mean, you, you really are.
And following your, your, yourwalk and your story and, and now
(22:40):
the switch of the podcast.
When I listened to the firstone, I was so moved.
I'm like, oh, my gosh, that isso your calling.
The name is perfect.
What you're doing is perfect.
The stories that you'resharing are perfect.
I mean, I fully believe mypackage got delivered to your house
on purpose because I was goingdown a path then with the fertility
stuff, then with theseparation and all of that, if I
(23:02):
didn't.
I mean, I had a couple offriends, too, but especially you
very.
Kept me very much like, Godhas a plan.
God has a purpose.
Stick with it.
Stick with your prayers, stickwith your journaling.
Stick with, Stick with him.
And I did.
And it was hard.
And there were days where Iwas like, this does not make sense.
And now, you know, what are wein 20, 25, three years later?
Two.
Yeah.
I'm like, oh, my gosh.
(23:24):
Okay.
Well, I just love that youcan, you're able to see, you know,
hindsight's 20 20, they say, right?
So coming out of it, like, inthe midst of all that, none of that
could have made sense.
It was so painful for you.
I, I mean, I remember the lapswe made around the pond, and you
were just so broken and so sad.
(23:45):
And to think that, you know, Ithink sometimes we just think, well,
if God's good, we're not goingto go through hard things.
And the truth is the Bibletells us we will go through hard
things, but there's purpose inour pain.
And you can see now, I mean,even just, you know, the alcohol,
like, what an absolute blessing.
You guys weren't going to havea healthy, you know, forever marriage
(24:09):
if just that, even, just thatone thing continued, you know, and,
like, for someone to try to belike, a mentally healthy human and
have be altered by alcoholevery day of their life or whatever,
I don't, you know, don't claimto know, but, like, that's just a
demon that had to be dealt with.
And what an amazing thing toshow your children now.
(24:31):
Like, look, we don't, we don'tneed this for fun.
And I used to, I grew upthinking, like, if people don't drink,
what do they do?
How boring.
Like, what the heck?
And now I haven't had a sip ofalcohol since finding out about my
heart stuff, and it's justlike, you know, this is, I kind of
love this.
Like, I, I, I love to have aclear mind.
And the Bible called, calls usto be sober minded.
(24:54):
Like it's one of those thingsthat's culturally so accepted but
it's very clear in the Biblethat it's not okay.
It's so.
It's such poison too.
I mean, not to go down, youknow, the sit on the soapbox.
Because I, you know, I lovedto drink, I'll be very honest.
But I drank and I smoked and Iacted a fool.
Yes.
Say inappropriate things andI, I would, I mean I had no shame.
(25:17):
I mean I would just say and dowhatever and blame it on alcohol
and lived that life andpandemic made it worse for us or
two.
I mean I think it did for alot of people.
We just, I just sat on mycomputer and you know, did loans
and mortgages and drank allday 247 and as did he.
And we ignored real life.
And Yeah, I mean it's, it'sfunny too.
(25:38):
I don't miss it.
Someone said the other day, doyou miss it?
I said look, I love a goodBloody Mary, but I can still have
the bloody Mary.
Like it's the tomato juice andall the things in it.
Like I don't, I don't miss itat all.
And I kept asking him, I was like.
Because initially his was likeI'm gonna go year sober just to prove
he could do it.
And then as he kept going,he's like, yeah, no, I have no desire
to, to, to do that.
And so here we are.
(25:59):
And it's.
And I mean thank God, thankGod he took that desire from him.
Yeah, yeah.
I really, I mean really nightand day difference with him, you
know, with just God in general.
Like I would love for him totell a story.
He really does need to tell astory and I think he will in due
time but.
Cause he's the only one thatcan explain it.
I mean he's explained it to me.
(26:20):
We, you know, we've talked atnauseam of how our marriage got to
where it got and how it endedup imploding.
And then like I said, by thegrace of God somehow, because I was
like never going to forgive him.
Like in my head I was justgoing to hate him forever.
I was never going to co parent.
I was never going to.
And then like one night in myprayers I switched, excuse me, and
(26:42):
started praying for him.
And I was like this isridiculous, but here we go.
And it was almost like asecond I did that.
It's somewhere in my brain andI full believe the devil wanted me
to hate him forever.
Wait was me in my head andSome days he's still there.
Like, I literally was drivingon the other day, some song came
on the road and I was like,oh, not today.
Satan literally didn't changeit because I was like, had I listened
to that song, it would havebrought me back.
(27:02):
It would have sent me down therabbit hole.
Then it would have just been a disaster.
And I, I, I, I switched it andI did my when I'm afraid I'll trust
in you prayer.
And I was like, no, we're not,we're, we're looking forward.
I have a, I have a littlething that I do like that too.
And mine is always, holyspirit, control my thoughts.
Because sometimes when I startto spiral, I'm just like, holy spirit,
control my thoughts.
(27:22):
I know this isn't what youwant me thinking and this isn't where
you want my mind to be, sojust please control my thoughts.
And it stops it really, really quickly.
I use that little, that's likemy little hack I use all the time
when my mind starts to gosomewhere I don't want it to go.
But do you have, like, whatwould you say to someone who was
going through like, infidelityor their marriage falling apart?
(27:43):
Like, whether it's like whatyou do in the moment, in the pain
of it all, or how you come to forgiveness?
Because I think that's a lotof people would look at your story
just like you looked at otherpeople's and thought, oh, no, I could
never.
I think it does depend onthis, the situation.
Right?
I mean, I can't speak.
I mean, again, I don't wantto, I don't want, I don't want to
(28:05):
go too far down.
I mean, obviously you can, youcan guess what went down.
I do think it depends on the situation.
Uh, for me, I do believe thatthe, the quicker one can come to
forgiveness, it's, and it'snot for the other person.
Right?
I, I came to the forgivenessbecause I was very bitter about the
situation.
I knew my faults, but Icouldn't understand why it couldn't
(28:28):
be fixed.
Why, why it was, why it wasthe way it was.
And I had to come to theconclusion that this was now my life.
And I had to get up every dayand go to work.
I had to raise children, and Ihad to raise children in a non.
I hate to be pet of and usebitter, but I had to do it without
any hateful thoughts ortowards, towards him.
So more I was like, you know what?
(28:50):
This is my life.
This is the situation.
The quicker I was able toforgive for something.
An apology I was never goingto get for action that never.
That didn't seem.
Were wrong.
Right.
This.
They were my fault, quote, unquote.
The quicker you can get tothat, you'll have more peace.
Because I got there before.
Like I said, I never thoughtin a million years we would be able
to reconcile that I would beable to forget things that were said
(29:12):
and done and vice versa.
I mean, I. I said really cruelthings along, you know, the six,
eight months of the separationor however long it went.
But someone that's goingthrough it.
I think that you have to finda way to forgive the betrayal and
you have to do it for yourself.
And it really.
And then.
And some days.
And I would get a therapist.
Yeah.
(29:33):
Someone that can help you walk.
Walk through.
Walk through the thoughts inyour head.
Um, but there were.
Especially in the beginning,there were times I had to forgive.
Several times, like again inmy head.
And like, no, again.
You know, Satan loves to remind.
Loves to remind.
And I was like, we're notgoing there.
We're not doing that.
So that was when I came to aplace of, this is it.
This is my life.
(29:53):
This is what we're doing.
We're moving forward this way.
I felt a sense of peace.
I know that sounds reallyweird, given it this situation, but.
Cause, I mean, I had little.
Little kids and he was goingto be around for forever.
As much as I wanted him tojust go away, that was not going
to happen.
So that was how I was able to,at least in the beginning.
Right.
If you take thereconciliation, because a lot of
(30:15):
people can't reconcile afterinfidelity and a marriage falls apart,
that's just hard to do.
But we were able to.
We talked through it at nauseam.
He will say at nauseam.
We talked through and walkedthrough it and how we got there and
how we're going to get out ofit and get out of it together.
And like I said, we put God first.
Yeah, we both did.
(30:35):
And we just reset andrestarted and we just try.
It's more so me that will.
Well, not.
It's been a long time.
And even this conversation isgreat because I'm like, I don't have
that feeling I had in the pitof my stomach.
Normally if I talk about it, I get.
I get that pit.
That feeling.
And like, I relive it.
Yep.
God's not letting me relive it.
I'm telling it to help otherpeople, but it's not that same reliving
(30:55):
it that it used to be.
Yeah.
So I think what I'm hearingyou say is you just had to.
It's like radical acceptanceof where you were.
You had to just accept whereyou were in life because nothing
you could do could change it.
And then you just had tochoose to forgive someone else's
actions, even in the midst ofdeep, excruciating pain, to set yourself
(31:16):
free.
Yeah.
Because you could see that youwere just drowning in it until you
chose.
And it really is.
It is a choice you have to make.
And I love that you said, I'vehad to make it more than once.
I've had to make that choice,same choice over and over.
And I will give your husbandcredit in that I know there were
times that you needed to talkabout it when the last thing he wanted
(31:37):
to do was talk about it.
And you guys had to get intothose really, really hard, like,
into the mud and the muck ofall of it when he felt for sure like,
oh, no, do I have to do this again?
Because he knows he's havingto come back to these bad decisions
that he made that really hurt you.
And it was a very rock bottomfor him too.
So he also didn't like torelive it.
(31:58):
Exactly.
Talk about it.
I'm reliving something that Iwish I didn't do or I wish I could
take back, or I wish we couldhave found a way to come together
before it imploded.
And I very much am.
Like, I think.
And I'm thinking, right,because I don't know God.
I.
My assumption is that that wasGod's plan the entire time.
I know that sounds.
I feel like God wouldn't want,but I don't think there was any other
way him or I were ever goingto see.
(32:19):
Right.
The path that we were on was.
Was separate.
And I think at some point itwas going to implode.
And it.
And it did.
Yeah.
And it's.
I don't know, It's.
It's crazy.
It's, it's.
It reminds me of my story.
Like, he used a really hardthing to save your life, to save
your marriage.
You know, to save.
To save it.
He had to break it all down.
(32:40):
And my kids have such a betterrelationship now with their stepfather.
I mean, they, you know,because it was.
Alcohol was such a huge parthere too, in the house.
And like now, like, they cansee, like, what it did.
What.
You know, and they said thenight and day difference is a night
and day difference.
I mean, they have such greatrelationships now that they weren't
Having before.
(33:01):
So I mean, it's unfortunate and.
But yeah, I think you justhave to.
And you.
And this is one piece ofadvice I do is you can forgive it,
right?
You.
You have to forgive itsometimes multiple times.
You.
For you'll forgive it.
You don't ever really forgetit, if that makes sense.
It's there.
You lived it.
It's a part of your life.
But if you decide to forgiveit and you're going to move forward
(33:23):
other than the initial, therewere questions that I annoyingly
had to have answered.
Yeah.
And so he begrudgingly answered.
We, you know, like I said,talked about everything at nauseam
and the ones that is was okaythen that was it.
If I, I had to really come toGod and be like, okay, I got my answers.
I really, I need helpforgiving and quote unquote forgetting,
(33:45):
if that makes sense.
Like, you never reallytechnically forget.
But I don't need the constant reminder.
We're really trying to rebuild.
And so it was a constant withGod, like, okay, we, we're going
to do this.
We're doing this with you.
I need your help to continueto move forward and rebuild our marriage
and rebuild our life and showthese kids love and show these kids
God.
Because my, My kids came frombroken and I didn't want them to
(34:05):
have broken again.
And so.
Yeah.
So once you've make thedecision that that's what you're
going to do, you, you.
You can't go backwards.
Right?
Exactly.
And I just do want to justacknowledge like how many times then
I would start to see you atchurch and like, all of you, like
your family, you were coming, your.
The girls, everybody's comingto church together.
(34:26):
You know, Tyler would come tochurch when you were gone.
When you were gone for aweekend, we would see him sitting
in church.
And it just, you could telllike that someone who.
That's a family who is reallytaking this seriously and who cares
to.
For their lives to bedifferent going forward and to have
God at the center of it.
And it just like, I know that,you know, Alan and people in the
(34:49):
church rallied around you guysand that was, I'm sure, very helpful.
And I think that having achurch family, especially when you
go through something likethis, is so, so important because
it was.
I started going, I was goingsomewhere else and then you were
like, come and do you rememberthe very first service that I brought
you that you brought me to?
Yes, I do.
My eyes out.
Because he was talking aboutlove and marriage and I was like,
(35:10):
what did you do?
Like, I do remember I went to.
Several by myself, and thenhim and I started reconciling, and
I was like, he's going to come.
And then he came, and thennow, yeah, we're part of the family.
Like, he's good friends withPastor Allen.
And as Don, we donate music.
We he music equipment.
And we're active now.
Volleyball takes us away a loton weekends, but we watch online.
We're there, we're active.
(35:30):
We did the chili cook off.
Like, it's, It's.
It's.
It's great.
We.
I don't know.
Like I said, it's.
It's just been.
It's been a wild ride.
And it.
I just continuing.
Every morning when I open myeyes, I thank God for.
For the life, for the forgiveness.
Some people ask, how'd you do it?
And I'm like, God, sobrietyand forgiveness.
Those are the three.
(35:50):
Repeat on repeat.
Yeah, and.
And I don't.
It's.
I don't know.
Like, I just.
Knowing.
Knowing that you can't do anyof it in your own strength, you know,
like, if you had tried to doall of that in your own strength,
if you had thought, like, oh,I can just forgive.
My flesh can just forgive.
No.
Yeah, it's.
It's.
It's darn near impossible todo without God.
(36:12):
And like, you mentioned, peacethat made no sense.
Well, that's literally what he does.
Peace that surpasses understanding.
Like, you think that you cannever get to a place of peace from
a circumstance.
And like, same with me.
And somehow I could be layingin my bed at night not knowing if
I was going to live or die andsee my children grow.
And yet there was this peacearound me.
(36:33):
I could go to sleep and feellike I was literally sleeping in
the arms of Jesus.
And it's like, man, thank God.
I love when you say that, too.
Oh, man.
So.
He's so good.
So.
Well, this was amazing.
I think you're right.
So many people are going to beable to relate.
Unfortunately, a lot of peoplego through a similar, you know, marriage
(36:55):
is.
It's not easy.
But he never said it's goingto be easy.
So stop thinking it's supposedto be easy and, you know, like, do
the work.
And that's also a part of,like, maybe if you can see areas
in your own marriage where,like, oh, we're sliding here a little,
or we seem to have a lot ofconflict around this thing, or, you
know, we are drinking or, youknow, whatever it is, like, start
(37:17):
to get a handle on Thosethings as soon as you start to recognize
them, because they'll just getaway from you so quickly.
Life is, you know, life is busy.
We have.
We're.
We're bad.
We'll do really well at thedate nights or the, you know, trying
once a quarter to get away.
I mean, we have four kids, soit's crazy.
We both work full time, andthat's wild.
But we.
I also have noticed when wedon't make time for just each other,
(37:40):
we get on each other's nerves 100.
It makes no sense, right?
You're like, I'm asking you tospend time, but we don't spend the
quality time and, you know, goother than sitting scrolling on our
phones, watching tv.
Yes.
This is so relatable.
We watched the majority of ourshows, which is.
Which is crazy.
But spending the timetogether, bringing the family together
and, you know, we lost a lotof friends through all this, and
(38:03):
that's okay.
Yeah.
And our little family is really.
We decide that's all we really need.
Right.
We have.
God, our little family and.
And that this.
We're okay with it.
But it is hard.
But embrace the hard.
I mean, absolutely.
If you're not gonna.
I mean, if you don't embracethe suck.
I mean, sometimes that's allthere is.
Right?
And I think too, like, just onthat last note, to your point, spending
(38:26):
time with your spouse, awayfrom your children and away from
your home, because for us, nomatter what it is, we can spend time
together in our house.
But it.
I do not get the connectionthat I get when we take the time
to actually go away for theweekend or even.
I was about ready to murderJonathan last Saturday.
Friday.
Last Friday.
Like, I was just mad at his existence.
(38:49):
And he's like, oh, man, thisis bad.
And I'm like, yeah, it's bad.
And we.
He begrudgingly.
I got in the car with him togo to the gym in the morning, and
I.
He goes, okay, I can see thatyou're not going to work out with
me, so see you at the end ofthe workout.
And I was like, yes, do notspeak to me.
He hadn't done anything wrong.
We just were so disconnected.
And all we did.
(39:09):
We did a workout separately.
And then we went to Tremorsand had a cup of coffee, and then
we went to a bagel place andhad a bagel sandwich.
And by the time we were done,I couldn't have loved him more.
I was a completely different person.
And the rest of the day was wonderful.
Just from spending an hour oflike real time together away from
(39:31):
your children, away from yourhome and all the things around you
that need to be done or allthe distractions.
And he just said to me theother morning, oh, boy, I need to
take you somewhere.
I said, yes, we need to go somewhere.
It's just the most importantthing for.
Us, time together that not theintimate that we all think exactly.
Is like, you need to do thator, you know, like you said, go,
(39:51):
go away.
We go away all the time.
But we're in volleyball tournaments.
Right, Right.
Not the same Littles.
We're cheering on Sydney.
We're doing.
We're doing stuff or work trips.
And so, I mean, again, itdoesn't have to be a lavish way.
But yeah, like you said, evenjust a coffee and a bagel and just
some.
How are you?
It changed everything, whichis so silly.
You would not think that.
And I don't even know whowould want to go to coffee and a
(40:12):
bagel with me, the way I was acting.
But thank God he's patient andwe went and then he.
To have the wife that he knowsand loves, you know, for the rest
of the weekend.
I'm working on it, Lord, I'mworking on it.
Well, okay.
The last thing I always ask myguests to share either a favorite
Bible verse or a book thatyou've read recently that you could
(40:34):
recommend.
So one of those two.
Oh, I don't necessarily have afavorite Bible verse, which I should.
I don't.
I like.
Well, you shared a great one.
Yeah.
The one I'm afraid I trust in you.
That's the version I say in myhead if I.
It doesn't matter what.
So powerful.
Yeah.
It calms me.
I used to have panic attackswhen I was younger and they tried
to medicate me and I was like,I don't want to do any of that.
(40:55):
So that's the mantra I sayover and over if anything's going
awry.
And the most recent book thatwasn't Mortgage Related Theory by
Mel Robbins.
Okay.
And I enjoyed it.
I think it.
I think you can take parts ofit for.
For me, it was.
I.
Well, I use it for businessaspects and I also use it in personal.
(41:16):
Just because when we decidedwe were going to reconnect, we did
lose friends because friendswanted to be a friend.
I don't know.
I think a lot of them werejust here for the tea.
They just want to know thedrama that my friend.
But very much just let them.
Right.
Because we.
We stopped getting invited to things.
They were doing stuff and Oneof her.
Her theories is let them.
Let them not invite you.
Let them think you're oversharing.
Let them.
(41:37):
But the two parted.
Then let me.
Right.
You're only responsible foryour own behavior and your action.
So for me I'm a very much.
If.
If you make me mad I'm goingto just word vomit and say things
I can't take back.
So hers has really helped mecontrol my own personal thoughts
of let them do that.
Because a lot of timeswhatever I'm concocting in my head
(41:57):
of why is has nothing to do.
Right.
Like they didn't so and thenyeah so the let them theory because
it's like them let me.
So it's really more so how youcan control your thoughts, your day
to day process.
Starting your morning.
She goes through lots of it inthe book it's not just about let
them but even putting yourphone down right.
Don't look at your phone firstthing in the morning, get up, think
of whatever your mantra is,whatever your powerful statement.
(42:18):
I was just thank God that heopened my eyes.
Amen.
Yeah.
I have another day with mychildren and, and life and so yeah
other than that and thenmortgage books but no one cares about
that.
Some people do.
Some people do.
Okay and then tell us wherecan people find you and the name
of your podcast.
Oh so you can find me all oversocial media.
Melissa Landon.
(42:38):
I'm also a licensed mortgageloan officer, so you can find that.
I'm at Sarah CMG Home Loansand I recently I took all of this
trauma drama and I created anown, my own little podcast video
series.
I initially had started itwhich is very much me on it, talking,
sharing.
I shared a lot about this andthen this past year we've turned
it a little bit and and I nowhave a producer.
(43:01):
Sounds so crazy to say.
And legit content stuff for me.
And we talk.
I interview lots of different people.
It's called Rate the DreamLife, Love and mortgages.
We talk about moving.
We did a military appreciation month.
Right now we're doing a movingseries where I've interviewed a moving
company, a interior designer,a stager, all things.
(43:21):
Most of it's housing related,life related, love related.
We go over all kinds of fun things.
I love it.
Well, thank you so much forbeing here and sharing your story.
I love you so much.
And if you didn't know,Kristen has a timer on her phone
where she prays for me andI've never had a friend do that.
2Pm 2pm Pray for Melissa.
Melissa.
(43:41):
Yes.
All right everybody.
Happy Monday.
Thanks for being here.
Later.
If this podcast blessed you,please share it with a friend and
hit the subscribe button soyou never miss an episode.
Leave a five star review onitunes and come hang out with me
on Instagram at Fed by the Fruit.
(44:02):
I'd love to connect with you,you there and most importantly, I'll
see you right here next week.
Come hungry, get fed.
Sam Foreign.
(00:33):
Hello, friends.
Happy Monday.
Welcome to Fed by the Fruit.
I'm so happy that you're here.
I'm also so excited to have myfriend Melissa Landon on the podcast
today.
Welcome, Melissa.
Hi.
Thanks for having me.
Of course.
I'm really excited.
I think it's been actuallyreally, really fun to have, you know,
(00:54):
friends reaching out to me,like, hey, I want to share my testimony.
I think, you know, God givesus a story and he wants us to share
it.
So I'm just really.
I'm really proud of you,number one, for being willing to
share it and vulnerable andjust real grateful that you're here.
I.
Well, thanks for having me.
I listened to.
I've listened to your advocateactivate ones before, and when you
(01:15):
switched over, I listened tothe very first one and felt.
And I was walking.
Well, you'd be super proud of me.
I was getting my steps in.
I was listening to it.
And I felt very moved whileyou were talking that I reached out
and texted you and I said,hey, I listened to your first.
If you'll have me, I wouldlove to be on.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm sure somebody canrelate to my story.
(01:36):
I think we can relate to allthe stories in some way.
So I thought I was like, Ijust want to tell my story again.
I feel like I've told my storya lot, but every time I tell it,
it reaches somebody different.
It does.
And that's.
That's the thing.
Like, again, God gives usthese hard things that we go through
in our lives, and if we don'tshare how he, you know, swooped in
(01:57):
and saved us through all ofit, then what was it for?
Yeah, I.
That's.
That is my.
Been.
One of my biggest things iseveryone's like, oh, you're an oversharer.
That's so embarrassing.
People don't want to know.
People don't want to hear.
And I'm always like, thendon't listen.
Right.
It's not.
It's not meant for you.
I've had lot.
Yeah.
Lots of, you know, theovershare thing was quite a bit for
(02:17):
me.
But we can back up.
I can kind of back up.
Some of it is.
I'll go back to like 2019ish,give or take.
Was when we moved out toNokesville and we were kind of restarting
with our life.
We had.
I had two kids from a previousmarriage and then we had one together.
And we were.
We were, you know, all too well.
We were trying to have anotherbaby and it was very stressful and
(02:40):
hard and lots of infertility,unexplained infertility.
And my package got deliveredat your house.
I didn't know you from Adam,and I'm very.
This is gonna be veryemotional for me just because I can
see your face.
So I didn't know you.
I just.
In one of the Nokesvillepages, you know, I was like, hey,
I have Melissa Landon,whatever, blah, Blah's package.
(03:01):
And so to go.
It's mine.
I came over and got it.
We became friends.
We chatted a little bit in Messenger.
I started following you, yourhealth stuff, all the different things,
you know, that.
That you do.
And you were doing a lot oflife coaching at the time.
And there was something in methat was, like.
At first, I was very jealousof you.
You're such a beautiful.
You were such a beautiful person.
You're very intimidating, butyou get on and you're raw and you
(03:24):
tell your story, and it was so relatable.
And I.
So I reached out and I said, Iwould love to do this coaching.
I've.
I'm going through some stuff.
And I felt very much that Godwas pushing me towards you, like,
every day.
Your stuff was in my feed, andso I felt like just a need.
And we did, and we became goodfriends from it.
I learned a lot.
You helped me reconnect mywalk with God in my faith, because
(03:45):
it was very much.
I mean, we've.
I've been believers since.
I've been a believer since Iwas little.
Right.
We did the church.
We did the mission trip.
We did all this stuff growingup, but it had kind of lagged over
the years, which I thinkhappens not to everybody, but it
happened to us.
Just different things in my life.
And anyway, so you helped me reconnect.
I was doing my journaling inthe morning and starting every morning,
(04:05):
you know, with God and talkingto God in my faith, and I was trying
to share that with my family.
And.
Anyways, so we'll fast forwarda little bit.
And then the infertilityreally, really took a toll and took
a hit on my husband and I andour marriage and our struggle.
And it was the pandemic, too.
And.
And constantly I would reachout to you, and you always had just
(04:29):
great advice or a Bible verseor a book, or you would send, you
know, your daily journals thathave the dates on the top.
You would screenshot and sendone of those and, like, highlight
and be like, this is for you, friend.
This is for you.
And we walked and talked and Iput all my.
You know, we put all my faithin God, and we did.
We had a little angel baby,and she's amazing, and she's.
(04:49):
She just turned three.
So.
What was that?
20.
Gosh.
2022.
Yep.
Right.
And so now we had this miraclebaby that we had prayed for, and
everything was great.
Until it wasn't.
Yeah.
And then the downfall of mymarriage started, and I couldn't
understand why.
Right.
We had prayed and prayed forthis beautiful little baby, and we
(05:11):
get this little baby, and nowour marriage is falling apart and
lack of communication and.
And alcohol and just.
It was terrible.
And again, Once again, Ireached out to you, my friend, and,
you know, we.
You helped me and you talkedand gave guidance, and it proceeded
to just get worse and worse.
(05:32):
Um, and it.
What was it?
Summertime of.
Of 2023.
So she was a little over ayear old.
She was born 2022.
So by summer of 23, it was.
It was disastrous.
It was just.
There was not.
My marriage was destroyed, andall I could do at the time was point
(05:53):
fingers and point blame.
And he did this, and he doesthis and then.
And he left.
And you very much.
You very much taught me thatyou have to dig deep in yourself.
Right?
There are two.
It's two.
Two people are married together.
It.
It.
It come.
(06:13):
You come together with God andfalls apart.
And God was missing.
Was a big part of our marriagethat was missing.
There was other factors.
Right.
There were other things thatwere wrong.
But it took me looking atmyself, and I would pray constantly.
Like, I would pray to God,like, have him come home.
Let him see.
Let him see the errors of his ways.
Like, I was praying for all ofthe wrong things, but I couldn't
(06:36):
see that.
So then I just started prayingfor, okay, this is now my situation.
This is where I'm at.
Give me the strength to, youknow, raise children by myself, to
keep a career by myself.
And then that wasn't working.
I was like, what is wrong?
And.
And then I switched my prayersagain and I started praying for him
and I started praying that hewould find God and God would find
(06:59):
him and help him through thestruggles he was going through and
the things that were goingthrough his head, because I can only
tell my side, right?
I mean, I can't tell.
Share what was going throughhis mind.
And I would pray that he wouldovercome the things that he was going
through.
I'd pray that he could.
Would be the good father thatI know he could, can be and could
be.
That had been lacking becauseof the demons he was fighting in
(07:21):
his head for loss of bitter words.
And I was praying for that andpraying for that.
And in the midst of prayingfor that, I somehow was able to forgive
him and see past.
So when he would come and seethe kids, him and I were cordial.
We were no longer at ourthroat, at each other's throat.
(07:46):
And I remember, like, just like.
And he was like, one day Isaid something and he was like, oh,
I can come over and see thegirls after church.
And I was like, wait, what?
And I was like, this can't be.
And then I was mad.
Then I was, dare I say, mad atGod, because that's terrible.
And I was like, why couldn'tthese things all happen before everything
(08:07):
had gone down, right beforethe things had been said and things
had been done and the movingout and the, you know.
Cause some things you cannever take back, Leah.
Right.
Things that are said.
And then I was mad.
And then I was just, I.
To say you're mad at God issuch a terrible thing to say, but
I was just so upset because Iwas like, now here he is, you know,
(08:30):
sobriety has come in and, youknow, he's actively going to church,
and when he comes here, we'reable to interact with each other
and there was no hateful, youknow, hateful things to say.
And so then I pray and then Istarted praying again.
And there is a. I know theshort version of the Bible verse,
but it's Psalm 56, three forthree, three through 11 or three
(08:51):
through four.
And I say it in my brain overand over when, like, it could be
anything.
When I'm afraid, I trust in you.
When I'm afraid, I trust inyou is like the short version that
I say.
But it's when I'm afraid, Iput my trust in you and God whose
word I praise.
In God I trust I shall not be afraid.
And this was something that Irepeatedly, every night when I would
go to bed or I was having amoment and I would say a prayer for
(09:13):
my kids, you know, to getthrough what we were going through
selfishly, for myself or forhim, I would always just, I trust
in you.
I, you know, you, you know howthis is going to play out, you know
how this is going to end.
And fast forward, we are.
Gosh, are we.
He's been.
He's been back a year and change.
(09:34):
We both have been sober for ayear and change.
There's been a lot offorgiveness, which I never thought
I could ever do.
I mean, always outside Lookingin at other people's marriages when
there was infidelities andhateful, you know, all stuff that
had gone, I'm like, oh, gosh,no, that's terrible.
But I think because God hadreally helped me forgive, I forgave
(09:54):
before I even thought that himand I were ever going to be able
to reconcile a marriage.
And I was like, I'm going tohave to forgive him.
I'm going to have to raisebabies with him.
Like, we're going to have tobe able to come together, united
in some front.
So I really prayed for God tohelp me to just forgive the situation.
Not thinking there would everbe reconciliation between us or ever
(10:16):
getting an apology or anexplanation of why things had gone
the way they had gone.
I'm rambling.
No, you're not.
You're sharing your story.
So anyways, I kind of got offtangent, but we.
When we were able to finallycome back together, he.
(10:37):
A whole light, you know, awhole lifetime of terrible choices
and actions was come to lightfor him.
And I'm not gonna tell his story.
I would love for him to tellhis story.
I know he really wants to, buthe's trying to figure out how and
when he wants to do that.
And God is in the front ofeverything we do now.
Everything we do.
(10:57):
And I.
Sometimes I do pray.
I'm like, God, why did all ofthat go down the way it went down?
But I. I think deep down therewas no other way.
Right.
My behavior was never going to stop.
My flaws that I was bringingto the table, that's the stuff he
was bringing.
We were never going to be able.
Without it, you know, hittingthe fan, imploding.
Yeah.
I don't think we would haveever been able to.
(11:19):
It would have just continue.
Would have imploded.
We were never going to see ourown error.
We were never going to be ableto come together as one.
I had a lot of growing andmaturing to do.
I had kids from a priormarriage, and those kids always took
precedence to him.
Like, I thought that's howthat was supposed to go.
That's not.
For those that are listening,that's not.
Your spouse is supposed toalways be your number one.
(11:40):
You guys come together andthen your kids and then your life
and then your work.
And that was something that wehad never done before.
We didn't know how to do that.
Yes, we really reset our whole life.
We.
We just had to come to theconclusion that the old marriage
was over and done.
Right.
I mean, we never legally got divorced.
We Were separated for a while,but that marriage was done.
(12:02):
That was.
That was.
It was great till it wasn't.
And we had that.
It ended.
We renewed our vows withPastor Allen.
We.
We had new vows to each other.
We.
We actually bought new rings.
We got new rings we had in life.
They were blessed.
And we, we reset and startedover and we put God in the front
of everything we do.
(12:22):
We very much live our lifedifferently than we did before.
Sobriety is.
Is one of the biggest things,but just as a whole, we both come
together, you know, with theprayers with the kids, the prayers
before dinner.
All the things that, like, wewere doing separately but not together.
We.
We united.
And God has really, reallyjust changed the whole.
Our whole atmosphere in our.
(12:43):
In our house is completely different.
Everything we do now iscomplete is completely different
too.
I mean, when we would.
Him and I would go onvacations together, we would map
out the bars.
We were gonna.
The bars.
Like, which bars are we gonnago to first?
What shows are we gonna see?
What are what sightsees?
And we would never leave the bars.
Now we, you know, we planvacations and we went hiking on the
(13:04):
last vacation and looked atwaterfalls and, you know, the ones
with him and I, the ones withthe kids, I'm a huge Disney person.
We end up.
We end up seeing Mickey Mousequite a bit.
But I, It.
It's just like we look backand there are still lots of fond
memories of the, the priormarriage, right?
We.
We have children.
We have four children.
We've raised them together.
There's lots of that.
But it's just.
My kids are different.
(13:24):
My older two interact differently.
With him, we interact differently.
We just interact.
It's.
It's night and day difference.
And I thank God all the time.
It is hard work.
It is.
It is very hard because ofsome things that were done right
that we still.
Not as much as.
As the days go by as the years.
Gosh, we're, you know, a yearand a half in.
We don't think about all the bad.
And I know I've called you afew times and I'm like.
(13:45):
And you're like, nope, we'regoing this way.
We're looking forward.
We're no longer, you know,looking back.
So that's.
That's long winded.
There's.
I was just saying to someoneyesterday, you know that how they
say that the windshield isbigger than the rear view mirror
for a reason.
Like, we're not goingbackwards, we're going forwards.
(14:07):
And so much that you said,like, you know, People, a lot of
people can relate with beingmad at God.
And, you know, he can handle it.
God can handle it.
He can handle all of our feelings.
He gave us those feelings tohave and to feel.
And he can handle when you're upset.
And, you know, justultimately, as long as you keep coming
back to him in His Word, you will.
(14:27):
You will get to the truth.
And I just.
I mean, from the beginning ofjust us getting to know each other,
and it's so crazy, too,because I wouldn't have even remembered
that's how our story startedhad you not reminded me of the package
that showed up at my house.
Right.
And that these are just thingsthat, like, God will do in your life.
(14:47):
Like, he'll bring the people.
And that's something that's aprayer of mine all the time, like,
bring the people who need tohear this exact podcast or this exact
person.
And.
And God will do it.
And he'll do it even whenyou're not asking for it.
He'll find a way to manipulateeverything to get you into a room
or get you into contact withthis one person that somehow can
(15:08):
change your life and that heneeds to use for you.
And, you know, gosh, so manythings that you said, but the, the
hierarchy of how God wantsmarriage to look like.
And like, if God is first andthen our spouse and then our children.
And the water gets very murkywhen we've been divorced before.
And it's.
I always say this is why Godhates divorce, because it was never
(15:30):
meant to be like this.
We weren't supposed to beblending families and having step
parents and all of thesethings that make a marriage really,
really hard.
But.
But he still provides a way.
He still provides a way for usto, you know, get through those things.
And it always starts with himbeing number one.
(15:51):
And yes, marriage, our spouseis supposed to be number one.
But I think.
I don't know if you can relateto this, but I think for me, what
I always did is I was tryingto overcompensate for the fact that
my children had divorcedparents and they had to go back and
forth, and I had to always putthem first to, like, make up for
my bad choices that led totheir lives being where they were,
(16:11):
were.
And what I couldn't really seeis that their lives were great.
They were going through somethings, right.
But their lives were really good.
And I actually just made itmore difficult on them by always
trying to overcompensate anddo all these things.
And mine was I never let.
I Never let him.
I never let him.
Parents because I just.
The situation, you know, thedivorce situation they came from
(16:35):
was rough.
It was difficult.
Right.
We didn't like each other.
My cousin and I did not.
Like we get along now, but.
Because it's been a long time,but we didn't like each other.
And I really just wanted themto love Tyler and like, be.
You know, I wanted him to betheir best friend and a father figure
that they could trust and go to.
And I don't mean any illtowards my ex when I say that, but
because they lived with us andI didn't.
(16:56):
I didn't realize that I wasdoing that.
Right.
I didn't realize I didn'tallow him to punish them or I didn't
allow him to have argumentswith them.
I always stepped in.
And yes, like you said,overcompensate for.
For Ford and make it this big,great, wonderful, happy family.
And there are lots of those memories.
But I go to, like when.
When we gave Wyatt.
When Tyler gave Wyatt a truck.
(17:17):
And now, yes, we taught himhow to drive, right?
We taught him how to drive.
But we get.
We literally gave a death trapto a 7, 16, 17 year old boy and he
flipped it and he could havekilled himself and his friend, and
he didn't.
But instead of Tyler and Icoming together to parent, we parented
him separately because we just.
We had never done.
And that was a big.
(17:37):
That was during when all thisstarted too, right?
Like, that was a big explosion.
And I, We.
I realized, like, oh, my gosh,we're not even on the same page parenting
him.
And we failed Wyatt, right, As a.
As a teenage boy who almostkilled himself and his friend by
the grace of God.
Like, I mean, when you look atthe truck and you look at the circumstances,
him and his friends shouldnever have walked away from that.
(17:57):
So that was, I feel like thebeginning of God's like, hello in
my eyes.
And it was very.
It was very much for all of us.
But it was also when Tyler andI realized, like, oh, my gosh, we're
not on the same page with alot of things.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, it tooka lot of reflecting on myself and
my bad behaviors and.
Why?
Because I come from, you know,divorced parents, which is fine.
(18:19):
I mean, but it's not fine.
But, you know, I mean, like,but I'm like, oh, gosh, like, I wonder
if I think it stems from that.
And I.
And he.
I never meant to step on histoes, but like, like I said, reflecting
was all of the things that Ibrought crummy to the table.
Realizing that we equallybrought stuff that just, it was creating
the perfect storm.
And we did.
We just allowed all thesethings to go down.
(18:39):
But yeah, my, my kids have inmy brain.
Right?
Your kids are your number one.
Like why wouldn't your kids beyour number one?
But the way the Bible teachesit and it's, it's absolutely.
You're raising them to go offand have their own family.
Right?
To go be something in life andthen find a husband, find a wife
and create a family and do allthe things.
Not until you're left withyour spouse.
And if you and your spousearen't on the same page or it wasn't
(19:03):
love.
We loved each other, but we just.
And we communicated terrible.
Everyone's like, marriage isso hard.
I do don't, I don't disagree.
But I think if my.
At least for me, I was alwayslistening to him to rebuttal him.
I was never him to actuallylisten to what his complaint or what
he was upset about or what is.
He was trying to express his feelings.
So that for us is different.
Right.
(19:23):
We now communicate better oryou know, we might just be having
a day and we're like, okay,I'm having a day and we don't, we
just let it eat.
We don't try to argue or tellthe other person that that's silly.
You shouldn't have a daybecause of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you know what?
I feel like I recognize thatI've always done and I think that
I feel like I didn't deservethis first Jonathan or this life
(19:48):
that he has blessed me with.
And I think because of that myprotective parts came out and what
I decided was that I had topoint out every flaw that he has
because it would bring himdown a little more to my level and
it would make it so that I dodeserve to be here or with him.
I'm, I'm.
He's just as bad as me or.
(20:09):
And it became this like selffulfilling prophecy.
Like all I did all day waslook for his flaws or if he messed
something.
I couldn't just let anything go.
I had to bring it up all the time.
Like I.
And I have to still catchmyself from doing it.
Like I, it is, it is.
I recognize why.
But when I try to explain itto him because I've told him like,
(20:29):
look, I feel like the reason Ido this is because I've never felt
like I deserve this.
And even having people over tomy house, I don't I don't have people
over here.
And I think it stems from Idon't feel like I even deserve to
live here sometimes.
Like, this doesn't feel likesomething I should get to have.
And so I've had to workthrough a lot of that.
(20:50):
And there's just so manythings that people, you know, like
you said, like initially I was jealous.
And it's like, I love that youadmit that because that's like so
many people feel that I feelthat about other people.
And you know, it just canreally get in the way of something
really great.
You know, if you're just.
Social media kills it.
Right?
(21:10):
Social media is great for, for businesses.
But again, we should have leftthat on LinkedIn.
That's really argument becauseI can't say, see, you're fabulous
when you go on vacation.
I would love to see yourvacation or what you're eating or
your kids or, you know, you,you, you have so many things that
like, I follow and you like.
But I, I, I agree with you on the.
It's a jealous thing becausewe see what people put out, if that
(21:33):
makes sense.
Right?
Like we put the fairy tale ofthe lives.
Sure.
My marriage crumble.
People are like, oh my gosh.
Because I was very open about it.
I was, you know, I, my podcastis not nearly as great as yours.
I do some videos and I did andI do some things and stuff, but I
was very much like, I was, washalf a contributor to the Fall of
it.
And everyone was like, oh, no.
He was xyz.
And I said, oh no.
(21:54):
And they're like, well, lookso great.
And I was like, well, becauseyou're only putting the great out
there for everybody to see, right?
People.
I don't.
And then because some peoplelove to see the downfall.
I did have a lot of, you know,you, like, that's, it's, it's the
pros and the cons.
But I, I was jealous of you.
Cause I was like, look at herand this fabulous life and the house.
I saw your house.
Your house is beautiful.
And then I got to know you andI was like, she's got this same struggles.
(22:16):
Different struggles, right?
But same struggles thateverybody else has.
I, I mean, that's again, your story.
Everyone knows your story.
But I, I was, I was moved byyou because I was like, I was such
a terrible.
And you didn't even know itwas in my head.
I'm like, oh my gosh, it'sperfect little ball.
And like when you are one ofthe most loving Caring, genuine people.
I mean, you, you really are.
And following your, your, yourwalk and your story and, and now
(22:40):
the switch of the podcast.
When I listened to the firstone, I was so moved.
I'm like, oh, my gosh, that isso your calling.
The name is perfect.
What you're doing is perfect.
The stories that you'resharing are perfect.
I mean, I fully believe mypackage got delivered to your house
on purpose because I was goingdown a path then with the fertility
stuff, then with theseparation and all of that, if I
(23:02):
didn't.
I mean, I had a couple offriends, too, but especially you
very.
Kept me very much like, Godhas a plan.
God has a purpose.
Stick with it.
Stick with your prayers, stickwith your journaling.
Stick with, Stick with him.
And I did.
And it was hard.
And there were days where Iwas like, this does not make sense.
And now, you know, what are wein 20, 25, three years later?
Two.
Yeah.
I'm like, oh, my gosh.
(23:24):
Okay.
Well, I just love that youcan, you're able to see, you know,
hindsight's 20 20, they say, right?
So coming out of it, like, inthe midst of all that, none of that
could have made sense.
It was so painful for you.
I, I mean, I remember the lapswe made around the pond, and you
were just so broken and so sad.
(23:45):
And to think that, you know, Ithink sometimes we just think, well,
if God's good, we're not goingto go through hard things.
And the truth is the Bibletells us we will go through hard
things, but there's purpose inour pain.
And you can see now, I mean,even just, you know, the alcohol,
like, what an absolute blessing.
You guys weren't going to havea healthy, you know, forever marriage
(24:09):
if just that, even, just thatone thing continued, you know, and,
like, for someone to try to belike, a mentally healthy human and
have be altered by alcoholevery day of their life or whatever,
I don't, you know, don't claimto know, but, like, that's just a
demon that had to be dealt with.
And what an amazing thing toshow your children now.
(24:31):
Like, look, we don't, we don'tneed this for fun.
And I used to, I grew upthinking, like, if people don't drink,
what do they do?
How boring.
Like, what the heck?
And now I haven't had a sip ofalcohol since finding out about my
heart stuff, and it's justlike, you know, this is, I kind of
love this.
Like, I, I, I love to have aclear mind.
And the Bible called, calls usto be sober minded.
(24:54):
Like it's one of those thingsthat's culturally so accepted but
it's very clear in the Biblethat it's not okay.
It's so.
It's such poison too.
I mean, not to go down, youknow, the sit on the soapbox.
Because I, you know, I lovedto drink, I'll be very honest.
But I drank and I smoked and Iacted a fool.
Yes.
Say inappropriate things andI, I would, I mean I had no shame.
(25:17):
I mean I would just say and dowhatever and blame it on alcohol
and lived that life andpandemic made it worse for us or
two.
I mean I think it did for alot of people.
We just, I just sat on mycomputer and you know, did loans
and mortgages and drank allday 247 and as did he.
And we ignored real life.
And Yeah, I mean it's, it'sfunny too.
(25:38):
I don't miss it.
Someone said the other day, doyou miss it?
I said look, I love a goodBloody Mary, but I can still have
the bloody Mary.
Like it's the tomato juice andall the things in it.
Like I don't, I don't miss itat all.
And I kept asking him, I was like.
Because initially his was likeI'm gonna go year sober just to prove
he could do it.
And then as he kept going,he's like, yeah, no, I have no desire
to, to, to do that.
And so here we are.
(25:59):
And it's.
And I mean thank God, thankGod he took that desire from him.
Yeah, yeah.
I really, I mean really nightand day difference with him, you
know, with just God in general.
Like I would love for him totell a story.
He really does need to tell astory and I think he will in due
time but.
Cause he's the only one thatcan explain it.
I mean he's explained it to me.
(26:20):
We, you know, we've talked atnauseam of how our marriage got to
where it got and how it endedup imploding.
And then like I said, by thegrace of God somehow, because I was
like never going to forgive him.
Like in my head I was justgoing to hate him forever.
I was never going to co parent.
I was never going to.
And then like one night in myprayers I switched, excuse me, and
(26:42):
started praying for him.
And I was like this isridiculous, but here we go.
And it was almost like asecond I did that.
It's somewhere in my brain andI full believe the devil wanted me
to hate him forever.
Wait was me in my head andSome days he's still there.
Like, I literally was drivingon the other day, some song came
on the road and I was like,oh, not today.
Satan literally didn't changeit because I was like, had I listened
to that song, it would havebrought me back.
(27:02):
It would have sent me down therabbit hole.
Then it would have just been a disaster.
And I, I, I, I switched it andI did my when I'm afraid I'll trust
in you prayer.
And I was like, no, we're not,we're, we're looking forward.
I have a, I have a littlething that I do like that too.
And mine is always, holyspirit, control my thoughts.
Because sometimes when I startto spiral, I'm just like, holy spirit,
control my thoughts.
(27:22):
I know this isn't what youwant me thinking and this isn't where
you want my mind to be, sojust please control my thoughts.
And it stops it really, really quickly.
I use that little, that's likemy little hack I use all the time
when my mind starts to gosomewhere I don't want it to go.
But do you have, like, whatwould you say to someone who was
going through like, infidelityor their marriage falling apart?
(27:43):
Like, whether it's like whatyou do in the moment, in the pain
of it all, or how you come to forgiveness?
Because I think that's a lotof people would look at your story
just like you looked at otherpeople's and thought, oh, no, I could
never.
I think it does depend onthis, the situation.
Right?
I mean, I can't speak.
I mean, again, I don't wantto, I don't want, I don't want to
(28:05):
go too far down.
I mean, obviously you can, youcan guess what went down.
I do think it depends on the situation.
Uh, for me, I do believe thatthe, the quicker one can come to
forgiveness, it's, and it'snot for the other person.
Right?
I, I came to the forgivenessbecause I was very bitter about the
situation.
I knew my faults, but Icouldn't understand why it couldn't
(28:28):
be fixed.
Why, why it was, why it wasthe way it was.
And I had to come to theconclusion that this was now my life.
And I had to get up every dayand go to work.
I had to raise children, and Ihad to raise children in a non.
I hate to be pet of and usebitter, but I had to do it without
any hateful thoughts ortowards, towards him.
So more I was like, you know what?
(28:50):
This is my life.
This is the situation.
The quicker I was able toforgive for something.
An apology I was never goingto get for action that never.
That didn't seem.
Were wrong.
Right.
This.
They were my fault, quote, unquote.
The quicker you can get tothat, you'll have more peace.
Because I got there before.
Like I said, I never thoughtin a million years we would be able
to reconcile that I would beable to forget things that were said
(29:12):
and done and vice versa.
I mean, I. I said really cruelthings along, you know, the six,
eight months of the separationor however long it went.
But someone that's goingthrough it.
I think that you have to finda way to forgive the betrayal and
you have to do it for yourself.
And it really.
And then.
And some days.
And I would get a therapist.
Yeah.
(29:33):
Someone that can help you walk.
Walk through.
Walk through the thoughts inyour head.
Um, but there were.
Especially in the beginning,there were times I had to forgive.
Several times, like again inmy head.
And like, no, again.
You know, Satan loves to remind.
Loves to remind.
And I was like, we're notgoing there.
We're not doing that.
So that was when I came to aplace of, this is it.
This is my life.
(29:53):
This is what we're doing.
We're moving forward this way.
I felt a sense of peace.
I know that sounds reallyweird, given it this situation, but.
Cause, I mean, I had little.
Little kids and he was goingto be around for forever.
As much as I wanted him tojust go away, that was not going
to happen.
So that was how I was able to,at least in the beginning.
Right.
If you take thereconciliation, because a lot of
(30:15):
people can't reconcile afterinfidelity and a marriage falls apart,
that's just hard to do.
But we were able to.
We talked through it at nauseam.
He will say at nauseam.
We talked through and walkedthrough it and how we got there and
how we're going to get out ofit and get out of it together.
And like I said, we put God first.
Yeah, we both did.
(30:35):
And we just reset andrestarted and we just try.
It's more so me that will.
Well, not.
It's been a long time.
And even this conversation isgreat because I'm like, I don't have
that feeling I had in the pitof my stomach.
Normally if I talk about it, I get.
I get that pit.
That feeling.
And like, I relive it.
Yep.
God's not letting me relive it.
I'm telling it to help otherpeople, but it's not that same reliving
(30:55):
it that it used to be.
Yeah.
So I think what I'm hearingyou say is you just had to.
It's like radical acceptanceof where you were.
You had to just accept whereyou were in life because nothing
you could do could change it.
And then you just had tochoose to forgive someone else's
actions, even in the midst ofdeep, excruciating pain, to set yourself
(31:16):
free.
Yeah.
Because you could see that youwere just drowning in it until you
chose.
And it really is.
It is a choice you have to make.
And I love that you said, I'vehad to make it more than once.
I've had to make that choice,same choice over and over.
And I will give your husbandcredit in that I know there were
times that you needed to talkabout it when the last thing he wanted
(31:37):
to do was talk about it.
And you guys had to get intothose really, really hard, like,
into the mud and the muck ofall of it when he felt for sure like,
oh, no, do I have to do this again?
Because he knows he's havingto come back to these bad decisions
that he made that really hurt you.
And it was a very rock bottomfor him too.
So he also didn't like torelive it.
(31:58):
Exactly.
Talk about it.
I'm reliving something that Iwish I didn't do or I wish I could
take back, or I wish we couldhave found a way to come together
before it imploded.
And I very much am.
Like, I think.
And I'm thinking, right,because I don't know God.
I.
My assumption is that that wasGod's plan the entire time.
I know that sounds.
I feel like God wouldn't want,but I don't think there was any other
way him or I were ever goingto see.
(32:19):
Right.
The path that we were on was.
Was separate.
And I think at some point itwas going to implode.
And it.
And it did.
Yeah.
And it's.
I don't know, It's.
It's crazy.
It's, it's.
It reminds me of my story.
Like, he used a really hardthing to save your life, to save
your marriage.
You know, to save.
To save it.
He had to break it all down.
(32:40):
And my kids have such a betterrelationship now with their stepfather.
I mean, they, you know,because it was.
Alcohol was such a huge parthere too, in the house.
And like now, like, they cansee, like, what it did.
What.
You know, and they said thenight and day difference is a night
and day difference.
I mean, they have such greatrelationships now that they weren't
Having before.
(33:01):
So I mean, it's unfortunate and.
But yeah, I think you justhave to.
And you.
And this is one piece ofadvice I do is you can forgive it,
right?
You.
You have to forgive itsometimes multiple times.
You.
For you'll forgive it.
You don't ever really forgetit, if that makes sense.
It's there.
You lived it.
It's a part of your life.
But if you decide to forgiveit and you're going to move forward
(33:23):
other than the initial, therewere questions that I annoyingly
had to have answered.
Yeah.
And so he begrudgingly answered.
We, you know, like I said,talked about everything at nauseam
and the ones that is was okaythen that was it.
If I, I had to really come toGod and be like, okay, I got my answers.
I really, I need helpforgiving and quote unquote forgetting,
(33:45):
if that makes sense.
Like, you never reallytechnically forget.
But I don't need the constant reminder.
We're really trying to rebuild.
And so it was a constant withGod, like, okay, we, we're going
to do this.
We're doing this with you.
I need your help to continueto move forward and rebuild our marriage
and rebuild our life and showthese kids love and show these kids
God.
Because my, My kids came frombroken and I didn't want them to
(34:05):
have broken again.
And so.
Yeah.
So once you've make thedecision that that's what you're
going to do, you, you.
You can't go backwards.
Right?
Exactly.
And I just do want to justacknowledge like how many times then
I would start to see you atchurch and like, all of you, like
your family, you were coming, your.
The girls, everybody's comingto church together.
(34:26):
You know, Tyler would come tochurch when you were gone.
When you were gone for aweekend, we would see him sitting
in church.
And it just, you could telllike that someone who.
That's a family who is reallytaking this seriously and who cares
to.
For their lives to bedifferent going forward and to have
God at the center of it.
And it just like, I know that,you know, Alan and people in the
(34:49):
church rallied around you guysand that was, I'm sure, very helpful.
And I think that having achurch family, especially when you
go through something likethis, is so, so important because
it was.
I started going, I was goingsomewhere else and then you were
like, come and do you rememberthe very first service that I brought
you that you brought me to?
Yes, I do.
My eyes out.
Because he was talking aboutlove and marriage and I was like,
(35:10):
what did you do?
Like, I do remember I went to.
Several by myself, and thenhim and I started reconciling, and
I was like, he's going to come.
And then he came, and thennow, yeah, we're part of the family.
Like, he's good friends withPastor Allen.
And as Don, we donate music.
We he music equipment.
And we're active now.
Volleyball takes us away a loton weekends, but we watch online.
We're there, we're active.
(35:30):
We did the chili cook off.
Like, it's, It's.
It's.
It's great.
We.
I don't know.
Like I said, it's.
It's just been.
It's been a wild ride.
And it.
I just continuing.
Every morning when I open myeyes, I thank God for.
For the life, for the forgiveness.
Some people ask, how'd you do it?
And I'm like, God, sobrietyand forgiveness.
Those are the three.
(35:50):
Repeat on repeat.
Yeah, and.
And I don't.
It's.
I don't know.
Like, I just.
Knowing.
Knowing that you can't do anyof it in your own strength, you know,
like, if you had tried to doall of that in your own strength,
if you had thought, like, oh,I can just forgive.
My flesh can just forgive.
No.
Yeah, it's.
It's.
It's darn near impossible todo without God.
(36:12):
And like, you mentioned, peacethat made no sense.
Well, that's literally what he does.
Peace that surpasses understanding.
Like, you think that you cannever get to a place of peace from
a circumstance.
And like, same with me.
And somehow I could be layingin my bed at night not knowing if
I was going to live or die andsee my children grow.
And yet there was this peacearound me.
(36:33):
I could go to sleep and feellike I was literally sleeping in
the arms of Jesus.
And it's like, man, thank God.
I love when you say that, too.
Oh, man.
So.
He's so good.
So.
Well, this was amazing.
I think you're right.
So many people are going to beable to relate.
Unfortunately, a lot of peoplego through a similar, you know, marriage
(36:55):
is.
It's not easy.
But he never said it's goingto be easy.
So stop thinking it's supposedto be easy and, you know, like, do
the work.
And that's also a part of,like, maybe if you can see areas
in your own marriage where,like, oh, we're sliding here a little,
or we seem to have a lot ofconflict around this thing, or, you
know, we are drinking or, youknow, whatever it is, like, start
(37:17):
to get a handle on Thosethings as soon as you start to recognize
them, because they'll just getaway from you so quickly.
Life is, you know, life is busy.
We have.
We're.
We're bad.
We'll do really well at thedate nights or the, you know, trying
once a quarter to get away.
I mean, we have four kids, soit's crazy.
We both work full time, andthat's wild.
But we.
I also have noticed when wedon't make time for just each other,
(37:40):
we get on each other's nerves 100.
It makes no sense, right?
You're like, I'm asking you tospend time, but we don't spend the
quality time and, you know, goother than sitting scrolling on our
phones, watching tv.
Yes.
This is so relatable.
We watched the majority of ourshows, which is.
Which is crazy.
But spending the timetogether, bringing the family together
and, you know, we lost a lotof friends through all this, and
(38:03):
that's okay.
Yeah.
And our little family is really.
We decide that's all we really need.
Right.
We have.
God, our little family and.
And that this.
We're okay with it.
But it is hard.
But embrace the hard.
I mean, absolutely.
If you're not gonna.
I mean, if you don't embracethe suck.
I mean, sometimes that's allthere is.
Right?
And I think too, like, just onthat last note, to your point, spending
(38:26):
time with your spouse, awayfrom your children and away from
your home, because for us, nomatter what it is, we can spend time
together in our house.
But it.
I do not get the connectionthat I get when we take the time
to actually go away for theweekend or even.
I was about ready to murderJonathan last Saturday.
Friday.
Last Friday.
Like, I was just mad at his existence.
(38:49):
And he's like, oh, man, thisis bad.
And I'm like, yeah, it's bad.
And we.
He begrudgingly.
I got in the car with him togo to the gym in the morning, and
I.
He goes, okay, I can see thatyou're not going to work out with
me, so see you at the end ofthe workout.
And I was like, yes, do notspeak to me.
He hadn't done anything wrong.
We just were so disconnected.
And all we did.
(39:09):
We did a workout separately.
And then we went to Tremorsand had a cup of coffee, and then
we went to a bagel place andhad a bagel sandwich.
And by the time we were done,I couldn't have loved him more.
I was a completely different person.
And the rest of the day was wonderful.
Just from spending an hour oflike real time together away from
(39:31):
your children, away from yourhome and all the things around you
that need to be done or allthe distractions.
And he just said to me theother morning, oh, boy, I need to
take you somewhere.
I said, yes, we need to go somewhere.
It's just the most importantthing for.
Us, time together that not theintimate that we all think exactly.
Is like, you need to do thator, you know, like you said, go,
(39:51):
go away.
We go away all the time.
But we're in volleyball tournaments.
Right, Right.
Not the same Littles.
We're cheering on Sydney.
We're doing.
We're doing stuff or work trips.
And so, I mean, again, itdoesn't have to be a lavish way.
But yeah, like you said, evenjust a coffee and a bagel and just
some.
How are you?
It changed everything, whichis so silly.
You would not think that.
And I don't even know whowould want to go to coffee and a
(40:12):
bagel with me, the way I was acting.
But thank God he's patient andwe went and then he.
To have the wife that he knowsand loves, you know, for the rest
of the weekend.
I'm working on it, Lord, I'mworking on it.
Well, okay.
The last thing I always ask myguests to share either a favorite
Bible verse or a book thatyou've read recently that you could
(40:34):
recommend.
So one of those two.
Oh, I don't necessarily have afavorite Bible verse, which I should.
I don't.
I like.
Well, you shared a great one.
Yeah.
The one I'm afraid I trust in you.
That's the version I say in myhead if I.
It doesn't matter what.
So powerful.
Yeah.
It calms me.
I used to have panic attackswhen I was younger and they tried
to medicate me and I was like,I don't want to do any of that.
(40:55):
So that's the mantra I sayover and over if anything's going
awry.
And the most recent book thatwasn't Mortgage Related Theory by
Mel Robbins.
Okay.
And I enjoyed it.
I think it.
I think you can take parts ofit for.
For me, it was.
I.
Well, I use it for businessaspects and I also use it in personal.
(41:16):
Just because when we decidedwe were going to reconnect, we did
lose friends because friendswanted to be a friend.
I don't know.
I think a lot of them werejust here for the tea.
They just want to know thedrama that my friend.
But very much just let them.
Right.
Because we.
We stopped getting invited to things.
They were doing stuff and Oneof her.
Her theories is let them.
Let them not invite you.
Let them think you're oversharing.
Let them.
(41:37):
But the two parted.
Then let me.
Right.
You're only responsible foryour own behavior and your action.
So for me I'm a very much.
If.
If you make me mad I'm goingto just word vomit and say things
I can't take back.
So hers has really helped mecontrol my own personal thoughts
of let them do that.
Because a lot of timeswhatever I'm concocting in my head
(41:57):
of why is has nothing to do.
Right.
Like they didn't so and thenyeah so the let them theory because
it's like them let me.
So it's really more so how youcan control your thoughts, your day
to day process.
Starting your morning.
She goes through lots of it inthe book it's not just about let
them but even putting yourphone down right.
Don't look at your phone firstthing in the morning, get up, think
of whatever your mantra is,whatever your powerful statement.
(42:18):
I was just thank God that heopened my eyes.
Amen.
Yeah.
I have another day with mychildren and, and life and so yeah
other than that and thenmortgage books but no one cares about
that.
Some people do.
Some people do.
Okay and then tell us wherecan people find you and the name
of your podcast.
Oh so you can find me all oversocial media.
Melissa Landon.
(42:38):
I'm also a licensed mortgageloan officer, so you can find that.
I'm at Sarah CMG Home Loansand I recently I took all of this
trauma drama and I created anown, my own little podcast video
series.
I initially had started itwhich is very much me on it, talking,
sharing.
I shared a lot about this andthen this past year we've turned
it a little bit and and I nowhave a producer.
(43:01):
Sounds so crazy to say.
And legit content stuff for me.
And we talk.
I interview lots of different people.
It's called Rate the DreamLife, Love and mortgages.
We talk about moving.
We did a military appreciation month.
Right now we're doing a movingseries where I've interviewed a moving
company, a interior designer,a stager, all things.
(43:21):
Most of it's housing related,life related, love related.
We go over all kinds of fun things.
I love it.
Well, thank you so much forbeing here and sharing your story.
I love you so much.
And if you didn't know,Kristen has a timer on her phone
where she prays for me andI've never had a friend do that.
2Pm 2pm Pray for Melissa.
Melissa.
(43:41):
Yes.
All right everybody.
Happy Monday.
Thanks for being here.
Later.
If this podcast blessed you,please share it with a friend and
hit the subscribe button soyou never miss an episode.
Leave a five star review onitunes and come hang out with me
on Instagram at Fed by the Fruit.
(44:02):
I'd love to connect with you,you there and most importantly, I'll
see you right here next week.
Come hungry, get fed.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.