March 31, 2026 • 55 mins
John is a retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent with 26 years in law enforcement.Tami is the author of This Isn’t the Life I Prayed For
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Col Steale susslights just lessing him, a faith shadows, a
secrets Doctor Curry.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Last, do the sa AMers graminologist, Seals of the Law,
anachlosys crime break and.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Say Bruce.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
And here's America's Criminologists, Doctor Kerry Myers. How do folks
hope you're doing well? Welcome to America's Criminologists. I'm doctor
Curry Myers, retired sheriff. Prior to that was a special
agent and state trooper. This show where we talk about crime,
culture and the foundations that sustain a civil society, which
(00:58):
I think are the three most important pill of society,
which is faith, family information. In my book The Avid
and Feral Man, I talked about the importance of faith,
family information in our lives because crime doesn't begin in
the streets. It begins when those foundations weaken, and it
really begins how in the home. Today's conversation is one
of the most important we can have in public safety,
(01:20):
not just public safety for everyone. This is a show
that's going to have an impact on every family, every
married family, couple that's out there, what it takes to
sustain a marriage inside one of the most demanding professions
in particular law enforcement. You know, you may not realize
that law enforcement has an extremely high divorce rate, high
(01:41):
alcoholism rate. There are more and more officers that are
committing suicide every day. Those are growing numbers, and again
it's because they often get disconnected from their families as
a result, or they no longer have a family that
they can connect with. Every badge is a family that
(02:01):
serves alongside the officer, So they actually serve with us.
That's not they're not just something to the side. They
fill everything that we go through. They understand everything that
we go through, and they go through it themselves. So
today we're going to talk about resilience, sacrifice, and faith
inside that reality. And as always, if you'd like to
(02:23):
explore more about applied criminology, criminal justice, ethices, policy papers,
research all those things in all the interviews that I've
done in they're all located on my substack page at
doctor Curry Meyers dot substack dot com. This segment of
America's Criminologists with doctor Curry Myers is brought to you
(02:44):
by Real Resilience. That's our e e L. It's a
transformative program that helps inmates prepare for successful re entry.
It uses inspirational films and then has guided discussions after
the films. Real resilience actually teaches practical tools to build resilience,
(03:05):
strengthen relationships, and restore hope for the future. It's real
learning through real stories where positive choices are modeled, not
just preached. Real resilience because re entry isn't just released,
it's a second chance done right. Okay, here's my riff
for the day. I want to say something that often
gets overlooked in policing. Law enforcement officers do not serve alone.
(03:29):
As I said earlier. Their spouses serve, their children, serve,
their families serve. When families are strong, officers are strong.
Strong families, stabilized communities, weak family foundations, weekend officers, and
eventually we can public safety itself. Marriage inside law enforcement
isn't just personal, it's cultural infrastructure, and tonight we're going
(03:52):
to talk about what it takes to build one that lasts.
Tonight's conversation is an important one because behind every law
enforcement career that family serves alongside the badge. So joining
me today is John and Tammy Nance. Now John's been
on the show many times, the couple whose marriage reflects resilience, faith,
(04:15):
and commitment inside the realities of public safety life. Tammy
is a writer, editor, and communications director with more than
two decades of experience writing across multiple genres. She also
serves as communication director for The New York Times bestselling
author Andy Andrews. She is the author of This Isn't
(04:37):
the Life I Prayed For. It's a study of the
book of job written by those navigating unexpected hardships and
learning to trust God when life doesn't unfold the way
they plan. Drawing from both her professional work and her
personal experience as the wife of a law enforcement officer,
Tammy brings thoughtful insight into resilience and faith inside uncertainty.
(05:03):
Her husband, John, served twenty years as an FBI into
his career as an FBI Supervisory special Agent, including assignments
in Miami and Washington.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
D C.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Prior to that, he served as a deputy sheriff, giving
him a total of twenty six years total in law enforcement.
His background includes counter intelligence, surveillance, dignitary protection, tactical operations,
criminal investigations. He now is a contributing nationally as a
communist communist I said communist columnist, Oh yeah, I shouldn't
(05:35):
drink scotch so early from town Hall in Newsmax. You
see him on Fox, you see him everywhere, and actually
he's one of my favorite guys. He's just a wonderful man.
So and he's a fan favorite on this show. John
and Tammy, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
You know, I was gonna shoot you something, be a
cash app or something for that intro until you call
me a communist.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I'm afraid it's too late. I already got it, but.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Somehow it's going back. And I want to thank Tammy
for the book. It's a This is an outstanding book.
It's a great read. And I love the book of
job anyway because I've as a law enforcement officer and
my family has experienced my wife, bless her heart, is
we're celebrating thirty nine years coming up, and thank you.
(06:32):
So I definitely out kicked.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
My coverage on.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Who to Marry, but it's not without trials and tribulations,
mostly my doing in law enforcement in particular. So you know,
I want to kind of start out with more on
the law enforcement side that's going to include you both.
(06:57):
And then in the second segment, we're going to get
into your book a little bit more tammy. So when
someone chooses law enforcement as a profession, for years, the
family wasn't kind of invited to the end of the picture.
I don't know if you experienced at John, but when
I first came in, they were it was kind of
a secondary thing. I think they're doing better now where
(07:20):
they have the families part of the group. They bring
spouses in to talk. We would get together with parties
and things like that. But I'm talking about the agency
preparing the law enforcement officer coming into the organization better
and preparing the families to get together because a lot
of these young officers, many of them haven't experienced the
(07:42):
profession yet, so they don't know what to expect, and
certainly their families don't know what to expect. So one
of the first questions I wanted to ask is how
did this reality shape your marriage early on? I'm talking
about back when you first became a police officer and
got into this line of work.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Well, when I first started in law enforcement, there was
none of that, you know, family inclusion or really even
consideration for family dynamics with regard to the job.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
I mean there was none of that.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
You know, you simply you did your job and keeping
your family together.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
That was all on you.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And interestingly, the military recognized this in their Special Operations
community pretty early on. And in fact, like you had mentioned,
my wife's a communications director for Andy Andrews, and he
was invited in to create a program for the Special
Operations community that would emphasize the family relationships, the family dynamic,
(08:51):
because the military was seeing an anordinately high rate of
suicide among the Special Operations community and they're trying to
figure out why that was happening.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
And they saw very quickly.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
That if the home life, their home lives weren't stable,
if they were being deployed and they were in the
middle of, you know, a real crisis at home, the
likelihood of them coming back was dramatically reduced. So if
people are curious about it, they can read Andy Andrews's book.
(09:23):
It's called The Butterfly Effect, and it talks about a
lot of those issues. I wish that we're present in
law enforcement. I mean, maybe it is some today because
you know, I'm reaching back thirty some years ago in
southern law enforcement, and you know, having any integration or
support of the family just simply.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Did not exist.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And it's difficult, and you know, I don't think I
managed it very well, especially as a young man.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I would bring a.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Lot of the tension and the anger at home, which
never violent, never manifested itself in any sort of a
violent type of outburst, and you know, nothing of that nature.
But it did impact my personality and I think it
made it difficult to to to to to to let
(10:17):
down my guards, so to speak, even at home. So
there was this wall, this you know, this this this
uh uh this this thing that was difficult even for
my wife to to to to penetrate and uh, I
don't know, call it a defense mechanism and maybe a
(10:39):
defense mechanism I developed at work that I brought home
and that was not it was not constructive at home,
and it was hard for her to relate to That's
a component of it too. It's hard for I think
people the spouse, kid, kids, especially, not that they should
(11:01):
be relating to what we're dealing with in law enforcement.
But you know, there's there's a big there's a dichotomy. Right,
it's your your work, your job, it's it's a totally
different violent unpredictable world. I mean you're literally, you're literally waiting.
I don't know why Siri thought she should say something,
(11:21):
but but it you know, you're waiting. I used to
I used to describe it as like waiting hip deep
in the human filth and detritus, the worst that society
you know, could offer. And so how does that not
affect you right when you when you come home?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, I experienced similar as a matter of fact, you know,
I shared with you earlier, and it's I was agnostic
for in for many years in my law enforcement profession,
maybe more agnostic. It actually said how could God exist
with all this stuff going on? Whether or not as
a trooper working horrible accidents or going and telling. Troopers
(12:01):
usually are the ones that make death notifications, often with families,
because somebody might die in another state and so you're
making death notifications. But where when it really affected me
was when I became a special agent and I started
out working undercover and it was good at it and
all different from from what I came to. Tammy, Uh,
(12:24):
did you kind of understand that? Or did did throughout time?
Did you did it? Did it? Finally? You know kick
in that that we some of the stuff we bring home.
It's not because we're being difficult. It's just this constant,
hyper situational awareness that that we have that kind of
(12:47):
impacts us all.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Well, i'd be lying to say that there wasn't an
adjustment period. However, I grew up. I'm a preacher's kid,
and so I feel I always said, I think prepared
me for law enforcement life as a preacher's kid, because
my dad would get called out. And it certainly is
(13:09):
not the same in many respects, but my dad would
get called out at all hours. We would have all
manner of people show up at our door. It was just,
you know, you never knew what a day was going
to bring. And I think that at least prepared me
a little bit. But I learned early on that John
had to have a little decompression time when he got home.
(13:30):
He you know, I was home. I mean at the time,
I worked outside the home, but you know, I'd be
home for hours on end, which by myself, and then
he comes home and I'm chatty Cathy, and the last
thing to do was talk about his day for obvious reasons.
And so I finally learned he needed a minute, you know,
(13:54):
he needed some time to just go do something, and
at the time, early on it was video games. He
would just kind of go disappear to compress and then
we'd have a great night. But it was it took
some time. It was an adjustment period for sure.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
What and my wife also had came from a very
great faith life background, unlikely unlike me, of course, and
I became Christian after because of her prayers. Quite frankly,
she prayed for me every night, and as we had kids,
we have five children, as each child they would be
in their room praying for me. I had no idea
(14:32):
this was going on until I converted. She didn't share
with me that they would be doing that in their
bedrooms at night. So prayers matter. But she came from
a faithful family. But it kind of goes back to
how important faith plays in a marriage. I don't care
what you do, but in particular in law enforcement, yeah,
(14:56):
it does.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
I think the probably one of the most memorable conversations
I had early on in our marriage was there had
been a shooting in our county. I couldn't get a
hold of John back then, I think you had a
bag phone in your car, but that was you know,
it was before something. Yeah, and so I was inwardly
panicking and called my mom and you know, so I
(15:21):
don't know, you know, all these people were calling me
trying to figure out if John was okay because it
was on his shift in his area. And my mom
gently told me, She's like, Tammy, you need to just
get on your knees and pray for him. The safest
place he can be is right in the center of
where God wants him, and you just need to give
(15:41):
that to the Lord. And I really listened to that,
and from then on I really didn't struggle to the
extent I did early on for that reason. I really
learned early on to just pray for him and trust
that God was going to take care of him.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Yeah, I had. I had something similar. I was in
the nineteen ninety three Federal building shootout and bombing incident,
and I was gone mostly, you know by the time,
not only the events going on, which lasted a long time,
but then I had to be interviewed by the FBI
and sat down all that, so it took forever. No
one told my wife she didn't even know I was
(16:19):
at Cork, that she knew I was in law enforcement.
But she didn't know. I was at Federal Cork that
morning when the when the gunman came in. So it
kind of goes back that there was nobody in law
enforcement even reaching out to your to your family members
to say, hey, this is going on. Everything's okay, you know,
(16:41):
or we don't know. Don't don't you know? If you
don't know, don't say everything's okay, but say we'll give
you more information. That's the little things I think. And
maybe communications better now because we all have cell phones
and you know, all that kind of stuff. But back
in our day, early on, there was no man's land.
If you were out working, you know, especially if you're
(17:02):
gone in another state or another location, it wasn't you
didn't even know where they might be, or it might
jeopardize a case.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Yeah, well you know it.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Especially then families, you know, they weren't they And I'm
speaking institutionally, right, I'm not talking about the individual law
enforcement officers. Families were not even an afterthought. And especially
that situation that you're discussing, well, in the end, the situation.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
To a to a great extent, where.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
A coworker, a fellow deputy was was shot and killed
and and she mentioned the bag phone thing. I mean,
there was a time, you know, before even the the
bag phones, there was there was really no opportunity to
communicate with family. I mean they had to wait until
into the shift, or maybe they called into the to
the to the sheriff's office or whatever, police department or
(17:53):
whatever to try to get some sort of an update.
But I'm hopeful that things are better. I'm sure they
are in terms of communication these days. But you know,
I hate to you know, back in the day, Uh,
it just was was not It wasn't something that uh,
the the administration thought about, you know. I think they
(18:17):
just kind of had the attitude, well, uh, these deputy
sheriffs or you know, cops or whatever, they're responsible for
their own families and and they'll communicate as as they can.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
I'm I'm not sure that has changed in the sense
of the relationship between the agency and the family certainly,
and and of course I'm sure it depends on the agency.
But but I know what the with the FBI, there
was nothing. There was absolutely no effort, and I think
(18:52):
these agencies would do well to include something too, to
get to repare the families for you know, as far
as like in the in the academy and that kind
of thing to prepare people for what they're in for.
And then I think they would do well to to
(19:13):
in some way nurture that family relationship, because you know,
a happy home makes a big difference on the job.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I think, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. In our case, a
happy wife is a happy life.
Speaker 6 (19:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I don't know about you, but every time every time
I was gone, something always happened at home. I don't
know if that happened to you, but we had flood
I'd come home and there has been with a broken
window in the basement and that flooded that I mean,
and I'd been gone for four days and didn't know.
I mean, you know, it's as my poor wife is
or something always happening. Did that happen with you? Were okay, Well,
(19:48):
I just got to take care of something until I.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Mean, yeah, I can't think of any specific examples, but
in the last half of his career we lived near family,
so that helped tremendously. But yeah, I mean, you know,
it was a one woman show when he was out
of town.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
So most of that was when I was assigned to
the Attorney General's Protection detail, so that was a lot
of long hours and a lot of travel. And also
when I was doing ground surveillance, there was a ton
of travel involved with that, and those were those were
(20:25):
two weeks at a time.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
So that's two weeks.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Stretches where I wouldn't be at home, and so obviously
whatever happened at home, she'd have to handle it, you know,
if I'm you know, eight states away, two time zones away,
whatever it may be.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
So that's obviously a.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Huge stressor on a relationship. But you know, you mentioned faith.
I mean faith is a very important component of that,
especially in law enforcement, and you talked about being an
agnostic and wondering why all these terrible things would happen
(21:04):
two people. Well, faith does provide a lot of explanations
for that. Doesn't doesn't explain it fully because we're not
omniscient and we don't know God's plan completely. But you know,
when we understand that, you know, people make choices and
they're responsible for those choices, and God allows people to
(21:26):
make choices, right, That's where a lot of humans suffering
stems from. And you know, Robbie Zacharias, I don't know
if you're familiar with him, he's a he was a
Christian apologist. He passed away a few years back, but
he said something I thought was very profound, and then
something that I had wondered about for a long time, like,
why would God, knowing all, you know, knowing knowing exactly
(21:50):
what Adam and Eve would do, knowing exactly what would
happen to humanity, why would he create us at all?
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Why would he? Why would he do that?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
And I wish I could take credit it for this statement,
but you know, this is the only this is the
only universe in which love can exist. Because if if
God had just created us as automatons, we wouldn't know love,
We wouldn't be able to experience love. The word would
have absolutely no meaning. So in giving us the ability
(22:21):
to choose to make choices in our lives, you know
we can. We can make the choice to love him
obviously as he works, as as he works to draw
us to him through through his grace and through his mercy.
But faith is a very very important component. I think
(22:44):
I can say this unequivocally that the individuals that I
worked with who were who were Christians, who who believed
the Bible, who studied the scripture. They had the best,
i'd say, the most healthy marriages, and I think we're
some of the most productive people that I saw throughout
(23:04):
my career because you know, these things ground you in
a very chaotic and very violent at times profession.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Yeah, I mean I converted because God spoke to me
and said, what are you waiting for? I'm here, I'm
with you, and you ultimately learn it's free will. As
you said, I mean, he loves us so much he
has given the ultimate freedom, freedom for us to decide,
I mean, and not just us. He gave it to
the angels. A third of the angels fell. They had
(23:38):
free will and they decided I'm out of here, and
he allowed it. But everything is because God allows it
to happen. God allows Satan to happen. God allows bad
things to happen, for us to have some miseries because
we can go closer to God in those traumatic times.
(23:58):
But also because it's learning. It's for us to learn
the results of doing bad things are that were there
early habits that you guys naturally, faith is one of those.
But what habits protected your marriage?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Well, I would say communication. That's that's always been the key.
And when when our relationship has suffered the most is
when we're not communicating. And I think that's true, that's
that's true for every couple, but I think especially in
law enforcement, if you're not if you don't have somebody
(24:38):
to talk to, if you're not talking to your spouse
to some degree about what you're going through about the
difficulties that you're having as a couple, that's I think
that is the fundamental component to any good or lasting
relationship is you know, maintaining those open lines of communication.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
And that maybe sort of a truism, but it's a
truism for a reason.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And I know it sounds easy, but it's not.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
It's not. Yeah, I mean, you know, we certainly don't
want to paint a picture like we just had it
all figured out. I mean, it's time. It took it
really took years for us to figure that out, a
little bit of counseling here and there, you know, but
we finally learned, you know that that that is a
(25:29):
key that that was that was probably paramount. Also obviously
our relationship with the Lord was that we've always prioritized
that even when we were struggling through something, we prioritize
that so comes more than others.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, And I think the other thing is in the
law enforcement world, we spend ninety five percent of our
time with five percent of the population, so we come
with significant cognitive biases that we have as a result,
and we viewed the outside world. I will tell you
my life got one hundred percent better in my faith life,
(26:07):
in my community life when I stopped having nothing but
police officer friends, and I switched all of a sudden
to people who were in my faith community and others,
and it allowed me to get perspective. And I'm not
saying you can't hang out with your law enforcementster friends.
They're brothers and sisters and you want to. But I
(26:29):
had too many of the same ones and we were
just stuck in that cognitive bias.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
That's easier said than done.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no question. So what a great discussion.
When we return, we're going to talk with Tammy about
her powerful new book, This Isn't the Life I prayed for?
And how the Book of Job speaks directly to suffering
uncertainty and resilience inside marriages and in particular in the
law enforcement marriage. And if you'd like to more conversations
(26:58):
like this one. Visit my substack, doctor Curry Meyers dot
substack dot com. Stay safe and we'll be right back
in three minutes. Hi, folks, doctor Curry Myers here to
(27:24):
let you know that my new show is called America's
Criminologist with doctor Curry Myers every Tuesday at one pm.
Is a former State Trooper special agent share from a
major county. I will offer sharp insights into the pressing
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(27:45):
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Hey, my friends, is doctor Currymeyers, America's criminologist. I have
a new sponsor for my show. I mean real resilience.
That's our a e l transformative program helping inmates prepare
for successful re entry and uses inspirational films and guided discussions.
Real Resilience teaches practical tools to build resilience. It's really
(30:06):
an important tool, real resilience, because reentry isn't just released,
it's a second chance done right. All right, Welcome back
to America's criminologists. I'm doctor Curry Myers. Today we're talking
with John and Tammy Nance about marriage and particular law
(30:28):
enforcement marriage and Tammy's new book, This Isn't the Life
I prayed for. It's a study of the Book of
Job and what it teaches us about trusting God when
life doesn't unfold the way we expected. And again. For
more information about my work, visit my substack page at
doctor Currymeers dot substack dot com. So let me set
the stage for our listeners before we step into the
(30:49):
next part of the conversation. The Book of Job is
one of the oldest and most honest discussions about suffering
ever written. It begins with something important that many people
this Job is not suffering because he failed. He is
suffering even though he was faithful, and that matters, especially
law enforcement families, because in public safety, hardship doesn't always
(31:12):
come from mistakes. Sometimes it comes from the service itself.
As we dive into the story of Job, we begin
with his first response to profound suffering. Job was a
man of integrity, a man of faith. He's a man
of responsibility. And suddenly he lost his wealth, he lost
his health and even his children. And yet what's remarkable
(31:33):
in this Job did not pretend everything was fine. He lamented,
He spoke honestly before God, and he cried out, why
not I, Why did I not perish at birth? That's
in Job three, verse eleven. Those are not the words
of weak faith. Those are the words of honest faith,
because Job teaches us something essential here. Faith does not
(31:54):
mean the absence of struggle. Faith means bringing struggle into
the presence of God. Law enforcem families understand this reality
better than most. There are unseen burdens. There's unanswered questions,
moments when strength runs thin, moments when explanations don't come
sometimes at all. And what Job shows us is that
(32:15):
lament is not failure. Lament is prayer. It is trust
strong enough to speak honestly to God. That's why Tammy's
book This Isn't The Life I Prayed For is such
an important guide and I highly recommend it, especially for
families living inside professions where sacrifice and uncertainty shape almost
every day.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
Of their life.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
So what I'd like to do now is walk through
several moments of the book of Job together and explore
what they teach us about marriage, suffering, resilience, and trusting
God when life doesn't unfold the way we expected. So
kind of in Job one, it focuses on the scene
and unseen. Law enforcement families often live with pressures the
(32:58):
public never sees. So what were the unseen burdens in
your marriage that shaped your faith most?
Speaker 6 (33:07):
That's a tough go ahead, you're laughing at me.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Well, you know, the public doesn't.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I mean, the public sees the guy in the uniform, right,
and in fact, they don't really even see a human being.
They see the uniform and they see, you know, a
component of the government, really, and they don't they don't
realize what's going on, certainly with the person in the
moment or and they're not really concerned with that because
(33:38):
you're not there. Because somebody is having a good day
you're there because somebody is having a very very bad day.
So what happens at home? You know, all this, all
this stuff that you experience in law enforcement has ramifications.
I mean, it's like you know, throwing a pebble into
(33:59):
a pond. These ripple effects impact, impact your marriage, impact
your relationship with your children. If you're not very, very careful,
I don't know. I think even the most circumspect people
still you know, it does affect your relationship with your spouse,
It does affect to a degree, your relationship with your children.
(34:24):
But you know, all these things happen under the surface,
out of the public's eye.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
You know, at home.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You know, specifically, I'm not sure specifically what I could
you know, maybe we're maybe I'm still too we're still
too close to it to really see exactly, you know,
in in sort of the the micro view, you know,
what things happened under the surface.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
I mean I.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Can I can certainly say that, you know, having a
short temper, I think you know, we impeded communication, like
we talked about before the break, you know, getting angry
about things that you know weren't necessarily related to what
was going on at home.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
It was more of a.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Reaction to, you know, something that may have happened at work.
But all of those things work toward making it much
more difficult to talk about aspects of your relationship that
need to be talked about. I don't know if that's
confusing or not, but that's just kind of the way,
(35:38):
you know, it's real. I mean, it's kind of the
way it seemed to me.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
Well, and I'll say on my part, just learning to
be I had I had to learn to be patient.
You know, he would, like I said earlier, he would
come home and he didn't want to talk. Of course,
he doesn't want to talk. He's been doing that all day,
and so he wanted to come home and decompress. And
I had to learn. I didn't know that coming in.
(36:04):
I'm a young twenty twenty twenty four year old bride.
I didn't I didn't know, and so I took it
very personally when he would come home and just kind
of be shut down, and I you know that that
took a long time to figure out, but that was
one of the big ones. Just learning to be patient
(36:26):
and and to have respect really for each other, and
in particular me to respect his need for you know,
just some space. That's just one you know, that's just
one thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
How did your hardship change your relationship with each other
during those times we talked about in joke too, suffering
gets personal, so you know, and we and we experience
that differently because I think, if if I may say tammy,
because my wife went through similar things, she was always
having to just fire to me as opposed to the opposite,
(37:07):
which put the onus on her most of the time,
which isn't fairer.
Speaker 6 (37:13):
Well, I mean true, but I think you know, if we,
I think we love each other, we work through it.
And I know for us, like hardship, we went through
a lot of personal hardship, not just in not not
just relationally, but in our family, just different tragedies in
(37:33):
our family, and I think those drew us closer. We
learned through those just to I don't know, to we
grew closer through them.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah. You know, you said something interesting when you described
the relationship as one of fairness, right, One aspect wasn't fair.
I don't think relationships are fair right because you're you're
two very flawed people.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Well, and I think that.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
As you mature together as a married couple, you discover
one person has, you know, weaknesses in one area, the
other person has weaknesses in another area, and so.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
I it's not like this, it's it.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I just don't look at it like a balancing scale,
so to s not that you are, but you know
this idea of fairness, you know, I mean, what was
it fair? Was it fair for her to have to
deal with my stuff at work?
Speaker 5 (38:33):
Well? No, but you know that's part of the that's
part of the for better or worse right?
Speaker 6 (38:39):
And I would say, was it fair several years ago
when my dad had to come live with us and
he was one of two primary caretakers, that wasn't that
wasn't fair to him. So I feel I agree, Like
I feel like there are just different seasons, you know,
(39:00):
in your life where where that I think it kind
of balances out and we learned to just kind of
roll with them. Is an easy no oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Now, yeah, man, we're certainly not marriage counselors, far from it.
But I think if a couple kind of goes into
it with this idea of fairness, like I need, you know,
we need to balance this out so that it's fair
to each of us you know, I think that presents
a whole set of other problems. I think you should
(39:30):
be I think the mindset should be like mutual servanthood.
That's what the Bible teaches, and that has nothing to
do with fairness.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
You know, you're meeting each.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Other's needs at whatever point they need to be met, sos.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
And lows in different places.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Just because you're And you know, somebody speaking of Job
to somebody that get off and gets overlooked in the
Book of Job is his wife. And that's something that
struck me as I wrote through the Book of Job.
And you know, she's only mentioned the one you know,
she's she just mentioned the one time, and we don't
know her, we don't even know her name. But she
(40:05):
was suffering through the same things that Job was in
terms of they're losing their children, losing everything they had,
and you know, she's kind of given a bad rap
for having a bad attitude, but you know, I mean
kind of don't blame her.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
And Joe three, we talk about letting grief have a
voice in that honesty that comes with it. Does that
come over time and through us developing wisdom through the ages,
or did you guys find that earlier somehow.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
No, that absolutely is a process of time.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, I think it took me about thirty five years.
Speaker 5 (40:49):
Yeah, we've been married for.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
Thirty almost thirty two years, and it's yeah, it probably
took I don't know, at least twenty five.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
I think we're so yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it's working
on it.
Speaker 8 (41:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
If what's one thing that you could uh from a
law enforcement officers why point of view? Do you have
any advice for that kind of honesty and someone who's
just getting married now.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
I think if you just have to start out being
real with each other about everything, If if you come
into your marriage not talking, you know, like he talked about,
you know, he would try to leave the job on
the job and come home, Well, then I just wanted
(41:42):
to know all the things like I wanted to I
wanted to know about his world, and the last thing
he wanted to do was come home and talk about that.
And that's just one I mean, it goes both ways
for each of us. But I think just starting out,
you know, with the intent of we're we're going to
communicate to the extent that we can. I mean, obviously
there came a time where in his work he couldn't
(42:03):
come home and talk to me about everything that went
on at work. But but and then we have to
just give some grace and realize there are just things
they can talk about and but just open communication. And
you know, then you bring children into the mix, that's
that's a whole nother you know, can be a whole
other set of issues. So communicating about what's going on
(42:26):
in the kid's life, just trying to keep him plugged in.
I know, when when he was on the Attorney General's detail,
he was gone for a huge portion of those years,
he was gone so much, and so trying to keep
him plugged in as much as I could so that
he still feels like he knows what's going on at
home and you know, keeping you know, keeping his relationship
(42:50):
with with our daughter solid. He worked very hard at
that and and you know, it was worth every bit
of time that it took.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned kids too, because kids can
really be a you know, affected in certain ways. Number One,
their their their father or their mother may be a
police officer, which means there's going to be some grief
sometimes from your from your peers. And then for me,
it really magnified when I became sheriff of the county
(43:22):
and then my kids, all of a sudden, that's you know,
that's the daughter of the sheriff for you know, might
might have affected some dates. I didn't have any problem
with that, but maybe at the dates I don't my daughter,
my daughters, but God blessed me with four of them,
you know, and and able to work all those things out.
We also have friends, So when friends get it wrong,
(43:46):
some you know, friends are closest. Sometimes they're the ones
that we share sensitive information with about our marriage. Sometimes, uh,
we ask for counsel, we ask for advice, and sometimes
they get it wrong. How did people understand what another
family is carrying and carrying, especially like those in law enforcement.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
I think that was that was that's probably been maybe
one of the harder things because we didn't since he's
been since he was with the Bureau, we didn't have
a lot of uh, hang out with a lot of
people that were also agents, and so we didn't have
a lot of people within the law enforcement community that
(44:32):
we hung out with together, and so there wasn't a
lot of understanding from friends. People don't know what you're
going through a lot of times, and so I think
it's important for you to have friends who are in
that realm so that you do know, can at least
have something to relate to there, because very often I
would get, you know, bad advice from friends who would
(44:55):
just get aggravated because you know, he said something a
certain way or whatever, and they don't know the whole story.
They don't know what he's what he's been dealing with
at work all day, you know, And so that was
that was a tough one for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Well, relating to people that are outside of the law
enforcement community is sometimes it's difficult, you know. That's why
I think people have this view of law enforcement, like
it's very insular that cops only want to be friends
with cops, right. Well, yeah, well that's big because it's
kind of true, only in the sense that, you know,
(45:32):
it's it's difficult for someone not not in that environment
to relate what to to relate to what's going on.
And I know I'm talking a lot, or at least
I'm talking a lot about my pre you know, Bureau
local law enforcement experience, but the the FBI experience is different,
very different. And FBA culture too, was sort of in
(45:56):
the middle of a big sea change. When I got hired.
My first office was staffed by a lot of the
old school agents, and so we actually did stuff. We
did stuff together as families, as.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Co workers after hours.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
But you know, the longer I got into my bureau career,
the less.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
That became the norm.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
And in fact, towards the end of my career, you
really had almost no family involvement or agent to agent,
you know, sort.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
Of family involvement. That was a very very rare sort
of thing.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
And I don't know if that was more of a
you know, a gen X thing with because we're getting
this big influx of gen xers, especially toward.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
Yeah, that's true, So I never thought about that way.
But they see things differently.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
And then you know, in Joke fifteen through seventeen, we
talked about when faith feels like a fight, and so,
you know, any mentioned earlier, the perfect word was the
different seasons. But how do you faith gets difficult for
all of us. There's doubt, you know, sometimes we have doubt,
there's different things. How do you How did you kind
of walk through those things?
Speaker 6 (47:15):
I think it depended on the season. I mean, we
we we I hope you cannot hear our dogs right now,
because they are.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Every once in a while I hear something, but it's
but we were good.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
I'm very sorry if you can.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
I love dogs.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
If I seem distracted, that's why the seasons, I don't know.
I mean, it's interesting. I covered that chapter in my
Bible study just today, and it is very difficult because
you know, Job in that stretch was he was getting
pretty exhausted, and he was getting pretty tired of hearing
what his friends were saying. And and in fact, I
(47:54):
think one of the verses in Jobe sixteen is miserable
comforters are ye all? He was sick of it and
and I think sometimes you just have to go to
God and trust the Lord for for what he is
doing in your life, and sometimes shut out those voices
(48:14):
that are the negative, you know, the the negative voices
you know in that in your life in that season.
I don't know if you have anything more to offer there.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Well, you know, well, I think it's important, like she's saying,
is to listen to the right people. And part of
that is to be plugged in, you know, if you're
a believer, to be plugged into a good local church. Yeah,
and that's that's that's really really important. I think that's
really important for law enforcement, and especially with regard to
trying to, like you mentioned earlier, trying to have friends
(48:47):
outside of law enforcement, you know, people that aren't cops.
And the reason why I said before the break that
that's easier said than done is because after a while
you don't really want that. You know, you you have
this synergy with other people that you're working with. They
speak your language, they know exactly what you can say
something to them that would actually curl the toenails back
(49:12):
on someone who's lying.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Law enforce and.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Wich we all have which all every we have a
warp sense of humor.
Speaker 6 (49:20):
I don't know about your wife, but it rubs off.
So you learn to get it. And it's true that
other people just don't and it's it's okay, you don't
need you shouldn't be able to get it.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Yeah, well, shout out to your prayer, to your to
your Bible study group. So thanks for all the work
that they've done there. So one thing I think my
prayer life has changed considerably over time. It's it's much
more in depth, much more you know, you kind of
feel your way and then all of a sudden, You're
we're all in different paths in our faith life. Some
(49:53):
of us are you know, longer and in a different
spot than others. When did how did prayer life evolve
for you in these uncertain seasons?
Speaker 6 (50:06):
I know for me it's really kind of strengthened significantly,
probably over the last several years. We've been through you know,
I mentioned my father getting sick. We went through that.
We went through a season of our daughter getting very sick.
(50:27):
We went through a season with where my husband got
real sick, and so we've just been through some hard stuff.
And I my prayer life grew a whole lot during
this than during this most recent season. So I fully
admit it wasn't as strong as it should have been
early on in our lives. And I feel like maybe
(50:49):
that would well, I know that would have made a
huge difference, because one thing that job teaches us is
we can trust God with all of it. We don't
have to clean clean it up when we take it
to the Lord. We can just take it all to
him and he's going to listen. And and so it
can be in in a be in a law enforcement
(51:12):
spouse can often be very lonely if you don't have
people around you who who get it, and so understanding
that we have the we do have the Lord to
turn to is a big deal and and very important.
So I would say as far as your question, definitely,
(51:33):
in this last this latest season in our lives, it's
grown significantly.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yeah, it's it's it's increasingly becoming, uh and more important
to us. Right when you're when you're busy with the job,
you you tend to rely on yourself quite a bit,
which is stupid. It's a very bad practice. And you know,
having the luxury of being retired, so to speak, or
(52:00):
at least semi retired, and looking back on that stuff,
I can see where that led to some you know,
bad decisions that led led to not good places. And
I think one of the really interesting, interesting, interesting things
about Job is that, uh, this, this, this, the whole
book is about relationship. It's about his relationship with God
(52:22):
and how at the end God revealed himself to Job
and that's the prayer is about relationship. And I think
it's one of the more difficult aspects of the Christian life.
I don't think people really talk about it much because
it requires something of you uh, And prayer is about
having that relationship with God, you know, speaking to him,
(52:46):
you know, like like Moses, you know, was was was
someone with whom God spoke face to face and you know, believing,
you know, Christians have that same opportunity to speak with
God God, so to speak face to face. And one
thing I want to mention about Job real quick that
I think is so significant. Job talked about and this
(53:09):
was kind of I think in the middle portion of
his suffering. He said, oh, that my words will be
written with a pen of iron in stone, right. He
prayed this to the Lord. Okay, yeah, Job, chapter eighteen.
And if you look at look at how God answered
that prayer. He did better than just write his words
(53:32):
down with a pen of iron. He he engrossed it
in scripture for all eternity. So if you if you
look at Job, you know through that perspective, how God,
how God did this brought him through this and answered
that particular prayer in such a profound way, in a
(53:55):
way that Job could have never imagined.
Speaker 4 (53:59):
So well, Tammy, how can people find your book I
prayed for?
Speaker 6 (54:08):
They can go to Tammy Nance dot com. T A
M I N A N T z dot com or
on Amazon or it's anywhere audiobooks are sold.
Speaker 4 (54:19):
Beautiful book. It's a great read. I highly recommend it,
and thanks for doing it. Apparently you know it's I
think God has a special heart for people who pick
out these things, and and so discerning the right title
and discerning who you're going to write after I think
very very important. So congratulations on a great book, and
(54:41):
thanks to you both for coming on and sharing your experiences.
I know that's not an easy thing to do. And John,
how can we keep up with with your work?
Speaker 3 (54:52):
You can find an x at v John Nance or
at townhall dot com. You can find my work there,
or you can just google my name and that'll up
all my socials and a bunch of my articles too.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
Enjoyed it much, Thanks so much, folks on doctor Curry Myers.
This has been America's criminologists, and don't forget to view
on my published works, interviews and broadcasts at doctor Curry
Myers dot substack dot com. It's also available on all
the streaming services you like, and don't forget you can
check me out. Next week, we're going to have a
(55:24):
child pedophile hunter on and he's going to get into
some of the terrible things that are going on, so
stay safe and see you next week.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Steals shadows Seequist, squamos Co,
Col Steale susslights just lessing him, a faith shadows, a
secrets Doctor Curry.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Last, do the sa AMers graminologist, Seals of the Law,
anachlosys crime break and.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Say Bruce.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
And here's America's Criminologists, Doctor Kerry Myers. How do folks
hope you're doing well? Welcome to America's Criminologists. I'm doctor
Curry Myers, retired sheriff. Prior to that was a special
agent and state trooper. This show where we talk about crime,
culture and the foundations that sustain a civil society, which
(00:58):
I think are the three most important pill of society,
which is faith, family information. In my book The Avid
and Feral Man, I talked about the importance of faith,
family information in our lives because crime doesn't begin in
the streets. It begins when those foundations weaken, and it
really begins how in the home. Today's conversation is one
of the most important we can have in public safety,
(01:20):
not just public safety for everyone. This is a show
that's going to have an impact on every family, every
married family, couple that's out there, what it takes to
sustain a marriage inside one of the most demanding professions
in particular law enforcement. You know, you may not realize
that law enforcement has an extremely high divorce rate, high
(01:41):
alcoholism rate. There are more and more officers that are
committing suicide every day. Those are growing numbers, and again
it's because they often get disconnected from their families as
a result, or they no longer have a family that
they can connect with. Every badge is a family that
(02:01):
serves alongside the officer, So they actually serve with us.
That's not they're not just something to the side. They
fill everything that we go through. They understand everything that
we go through, and they go through it themselves. So
today we're going to talk about resilience, sacrifice, and faith
inside that reality. And as always, if you'd like to
(02:23):
explore more about applied criminology, criminal justice, ethices, policy papers,
research all those things in all the interviews that I've
done in they're all located on my substack page at
doctor Curry Meyers dot substack dot com. This segment of
America's Criminologists with doctor Curry Myers is brought to you
(02:44):
by Real Resilience. That's our e e L. It's a
transformative program that helps inmates prepare for successful re entry.
It uses inspirational films and then has guided discussions after
the films. Real resilience actually teaches practical tools to build resilience,
(03:05):
strengthen relationships, and restore hope for the future. It's real
learning through real stories where positive choices are modeled, not
just preached. Real resilience because re entry isn't just released,
it's a second chance done right. Okay, here's my riff
for the day. I want to say something that often
gets overlooked in policing. Law enforcement officers do not serve alone.
(03:29):
As I said earlier. Their spouses serve, their children, serve,
their families serve. When families are strong, officers are strong.
Strong families, stabilized communities, weak family foundations, weekend officers, and
eventually we can public safety itself. Marriage inside law enforcement
isn't just personal, it's cultural infrastructure, and tonight we're going
(03:52):
to talk about what it takes to build one that lasts.
Tonight's conversation is an important one because behind every law
enforcement career that family serves alongside the badge. So joining
me today is John and Tammy Nance. Now John's been
on the show many times, the couple whose marriage reflects resilience, faith,
(04:15):
and commitment inside the realities of public safety life. Tammy
is a writer, editor, and communications director with more than
two decades of experience writing across multiple genres. She also
serves as communication director for The New York Times bestselling
author Andy Andrews. She is the author of This Isn't
(04:37):
the Life I Prayed For. It's a study of the
book of job written by those navigating unexpected hardships and
learning to trust God when life doesn't unfold the way
they plan. Drawing from both her professional work and her
personal experience as the wife of a law enforcement officer,
Tammy brings thoughtful insight into resilience and faith inside uncertainty.
(05:03):
Her husband, John, served twenty years as an FBI into
his career as an FBI Supervisory special Agent, including assignments
in Miami and Washington.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
D C.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Prior to that, he served as a deputy sheriff, giving
him a total of twenty six years total in law enforcement.
His background includes counter intelligence, surveillance, dignitary protection, tactical operations,
criminal investigations. He now is a contributing nationally as a
communist communist I said communist columnist, Oh yeah, I shouldn't
(05:35):
drink scotch so early from town Hall in Newsmax. You
see him on Fox, you see him everywhere, and actually
he's one of my favorite guys. He's just a wonderful man.
So and he's a fan favorite on this show. John
and Tammy, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
You know, I was gonna shoot you something, be a
cash app or something for that intro until you call
me a communist.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I'm afraid it's too late. I already got it, but.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Somehow it's going back. And I want to thank Tammy
for the book. It's a This is an outstanding book.
It's a great read. And I love the book of
job anyway because I've as a law enforcement officer and
my family has experienced my wife, bless her heart, is
we're celebrating thirty nine years coming up, and thank you.
(06:32):
So I definitely out kicked.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
My coverage on.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Who to Marry, but it's not without trials and tribulations,
mostly my doing in law enforcement in particular. So you know,
I want to kind of start out with more on
the law enforcement side that's going to include you both.
(06:57):
And then in the second segment, we're going to get
into your book a little bit more tammy. So when
someone chooses law enforcement as a profession, for years, the
family wasn't kind of invited to the end of the picture.
I don't know if you experienced at John, but when
I first came in, they were it was kind of
a secondary thing. I think they're doing better now where
(07:20):
they have the families part of the group. They bring
spouses in to talk. We would get together with parties
and things like that. But I'm talking about the agency
preparing the law enforcement officer coming into the organization better
and preparing the families to get together because a lot
of these young officers, many of them haven't experienced the
(07:42):
profession yet, so they don't know what to expect, and
certainly their families don't know what to expect. So one
of the first questions I wanted to ask is how
did this reality shape your marriage early on? I'm talking
about back when you first became a police officer and
got into this line of work.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Well, when I first started in law enforcement, there was
none of that, you know, family inclusion or really even
consideration for family dynamics with regard to the job.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
I mean there was none of that.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
You know, you simply you did your job and keeping
your family together.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
That was all on you.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And interestingly, the military recognized this in their Special Operations
community pretty early on. And in fact, like you had mentioned,
my wife's a communications director for Andy Andrews, and he
was invited in to create a program for the Special
Operations community that would emphasize the family relationships, the family dynamic,
(08:51):
because the military was seeing an anordinately high rate of
suicide among the Special Operations community and they're trying to
figure out why that was happening.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
And they saw very quickly.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
That if the home life, their home lives weren't stable,
if they were being deployed and they were in the
middle of, you know, a real crisis at home, the
likelihood of them coming back was dramatically reduced. So if
people are curious about it, they can read Andy Andrews's book.
(09:23):
It's called The Butterfly Effect, and it talks about a
lot of those issues. I wish that we're present in
law enforcement. I mean, maybe it is some today because
you know, I'm reaching back thirty some years ago in
southern law enforcement, and you know, having any integration or
support of the family just simply.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Did not exist.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And it's difficult, and you know, I don't think I
managed it very well, especially as a young man.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I would bring a.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Lot of the tension and the anger at home, which
never violent, never manifested itself in any sort of a
violent type of outburst, and you know, nothing of that nature.
But it did impact my personality and I think it
made it difficult to to to to to to let
(10:17):
down my guards, so to speak, even at home. So
there was this wall, this you know, this this this
uh uh this this thing that was difficult even for
my wife to to to to penetrate and uh, I
don't know, call it a defense mechanism and maybe a
(10:39):
defense mechanism I developed at work that I brought home
and that was not it was not constructive at home,
and it was hard for her to relate to That's
a component of it too. It's hard for I think
people the spouse, kid, kids, especially, not that they should
(11:01):
be relating to what we're dealing with in law enforcement.
But you know, there's there's a big there's a dichotomy. Right,
it's your your work, your job, it's it's a totally
different violent unpredictable world. I mean you're literally, you're literally waiting.
I don't know why Siri thought she should say something,
(11:21):
but but it you know, you're waiting. I used to
I used to describe it as like waiting hip deep
in the human filth and detritus, the worst that society
you know, could offer. And so how does that not
affect you right when you when you come home?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, I experienced similar as a matter of fact, you know,
I shared with you earlier, and it's I was agnostic
for in for many years in my law enforcement profession,
maybe more agnostic. It actually said how could God exist
with all this stuff going on? Whether or not as
a trooper working horrible accidents or going and telling. Troopers
(12:01):
usually are the ones that make death notifications, often with families,
because somebody might die in another state and so you're
making death notifications. But where when it really affected me
was when I became a special agent and I started
out working undercover and it was good at it and
all different from from what I came to. Tammy, Uh,
(12:24):
did you kind of understand that? Or did did throughout time?
Did you did it? Did it? Finally? You know kick
in that that we some of the stuff we bring home.
It's not because we're being difficult. It's just this constant,
hyper situational awareness that that we have that kind of
(12:47):
impacts us all.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Well, i'd be lying to say that there wasn't an
adjustment period. However, I grew up. I'm a preacher's kid,
and so I feel I always said, I think prepared
me for law enforcement life as a preacher's kid, because
my dad would get called out. And it certainly is
(13:09):
not the same in many respects, but my dad would
get called out at all hours. We would have all
manner of people show up at our door. It was just,
you know, you never knew what a day was going
to bring. And I think that at least prepared me
a little bit. But I learned early on that John
had to have a little decompression time when he got home.
(13:30):
He you know, I was home. I mean at the time,
I worked outside the home, but you know, I'd be
home for hours on end, which by myself, and then
he comes home and I'm chatty Cathy, and the last
thing to do was talk about his day for obvious reasons.
And so I finally learned he needed a minute, you know,
(13:54):
he needed some time to just go do something, and
at the time, early on it was video games. He
would just kind of go disappear to compress and then
we'd have a great night. But it was it took
some time. It was an adjustment period for sure.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
What and my wife also had came from a very
great faith life background, unlikely unlike me, of course, and
I became Christian after because of her prayers. Quite frankly,
she prayed for me every night, and as we had kids,
we have five children, as each child they would be
in their room praying for me. I had no idea
(14:32):
this was going on until I converted. She didn't share
with me that they would be doing that in their
bedrooms at night. So prayers matter. But she came from
a faithful family. But it kind of goes back to
how important faith plays in a marriage. I don't care
what you do, but in particular in law enforcement, yeah,
(14:56):
it does.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
I think the probably one of the most memorable conversations
I had early on in our marriage was there had
been a shooting in our county. I couldn't get a
hold of John back then, I think you had a
bag phone in your car, but that was you know,
it was before something. Yeah, and so I was inwardly
panicking and called my mom and you know, so I
(15:21):
don't know, you know, all these people were calling me
trying to figure out if John was okay because it
was on his shift in his area. And my mom
gently told me, She's like, Tammy, you need to just
get on your knees and pray for him. The safest
place he can be is right in the center of
where God wants him, and you just need to give
(15:41):
that to the Lord. And I really listened to that,
and from then on I really didn't struggle to the
extent I did early on for that reason. I really
learned early on to just pray for him and trust
that God was going to take care of him.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Yeah, I had. I had something similar. I was in
the nineteen ninety three Federal building shootout and bombing incident,
and I was gone mostly, you know by the time,
not only the events going on, which lasted a long time,
but then I had to be interviewed by the FBI
and sat down all that, so it took forever. No
one told my wife she didn't even know I was
(16:19):
at Cork, that she knew I was in law enforcement.
But she didn't know. I was at Federal Cork that
morning when the when the gunman came in. So it
kind of goes back that there was nobody in law
enforcement even reaching out to your to your family members
to say, hey, this is going on. Everything's okay, you know,
(16:41):
or we don't know. Don't don't you know? If you
don't know, don't say everything's okay, but say we'll give
you more information. That's the little things I think. And
maybe communications better now because we all have cell phones
and you know, all that kind of stuff. But back
in our day, early on, there was no man's land.
If you were out working, you know, especially if you're
(17:02):
gone in another state or another location, it wasn't you
didn't even know where they might be, or it might
jeopardize a case.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Yeah, well you know it.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Especially then families, you know, they weren't they And I'm
speaking institutionally, right, I'm not talking about the individual law
enforcement officers. Families were not even an afterthought. And especially
that situation that you're discussing, well, in the end, the situation.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
To a to a great extent, where.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
A coworker, a fellow deputy was was shot and killed
and and she mentioned the bag phone thing. I mean,
there was a time, you know, before even the the
bag phones, there was there was really no opportunity to
communicate with family. I mean they had to wait until
into the shift, or maybe they called into the to
the to the sheriff's office or whatever, police department or
(17:53):
whatever to try to get some sort of an update.
But I'm hopeful that things are better. I'm sure they
are in terms of communication these days. But you know,
I hate to you know, back in the day, Uh,
it just was was not It wasn't something that uh,
the the administration thought about, you know. I think they
(18:17):
just kind of had the attitude, well, uh, these deputy
sheriffs or you know, cops or whatever, they're responsible for
their own families and and they'll communicate as as they can.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
I'm I'm not sure that has changed in the sense
of the relationship between the agency and the family certainly,
and and of course I'm sure it depends on the agency.
But but I know what the with the FBI, there
was nothing. There was absolutely no effort, and I think
(18:52):
these agencies would do well to include something too, to
get to repare the families for you know, as far
as like in the in the academy and that kind
of thing to prepare people for what they're in for.
And then I think they would do well to to
(19:13):
in some way nurture that family relationship, because you know,
a happy home makes a big difference on the job.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I think, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. In our case, a
happy wife is a happy life.
Speaker 6 (19:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I don't know about you, but every time every time
I was gone, something always happened at home. I don't
know if that happened to you, but we had flood
I'd come home and there has been with a broken
window in the basement and that flooded that I mean,
and I'd been gone for four days and didn't know.
I mean, you know, it's as my poor wife is
or something always happening. Did that happen with you? Were okay, Well,
(19:48):
I just got to take care of something until I.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Mean, yeah, I can't think of any specific examples, but
in the last half of his career we lived near family,
so that helped tremendously. But yeah, I mean, you know,
it was a one woman show when he was out
of town.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
So most of that was when I was assigned to
the Attorney General's Protection detail, so that was a lot
of long hours and a lot of travel. And also
when I was doing ground surveillance, there was a ton
of travel involved with that, and those were those were
(20:25):
two weeks at a time.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
So that's two weeks.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Stretches where I wouldn't be at home, and so obviously
whatever happened at home, she'd have to handle it, you know,
if I'm you know, eight states away, two time zones away,
whatever it may be.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
So that's obviously a.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Huge stressor on a relationship. But you know, you mentioned faith.
I mean faith is a very important component of that,
especially in law enforcement, and you talked about being an
agnostic and wondering why all these terrible things would happen
(21:04):
two people. Well, faith does provide a lot of explanations
for that. Doesn't doesn't explain it fully because we're not
omniscient and we don't know God's plan completely. But you know,
when we understand that, you know, people make choices and
they're responsible for those choices, and God allows people to
(21:26):
make choices, right, That's where a lot of humans suffering
stems from. And you know, Robbie Zacharias, I don't know
if you're familiar with him, he's a he was a
Christian apologist. He passed away a few years back, but
he said something I thought was very profound, and then
something that I had wondered about for a long time, like,
why would God, knowing all, you know, knowing knowing exactly
(21:50):
what Adam and Eve would do, knowing exactly what would
happen to humanity, why would he create us at all?
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Why would he? Why would he do that?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
And I wish I could take credit it for this statement,
but you know, this is the only this is the
only universe in which love can exist. Because if if
God had just created us as automatons, we wouldn't know love,
We wouldn't be able to experience love. The word would
have absolutely no meaning. So in giving us the ability
(22:21):
to choose to make choices in our lives, you know
we can. We can make the choice to love him
obviously as he works, as as he works to draw
us to him through through his grace and through his mercy.
But faith is a very very important component. I think
(22:44):
I can say this unequivocally that the individuals that I
worked with who were who were Christians, who who believed
the Bible, who studied the scripture. They had the best,
i'd say, the most healthy marriages, and I think we're
some of the most productive people that I saw throughout
(23:04):
my career because you know, these things ground you in
a very chaotic and very violent at times profession.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Yeah, I mean I converted because God spoke to me
and said, what are you waiting for? I'm here, I'm
with you, and you ultimately learn it's free will. As
you said, I mean, he loves us so much he
has given the ultimate freedom, freedom for us to decide,
I mean, and not just us. He gave it to
the angels. A third of the angels fell. They had
(23:38):
free will and they decided I'm out of here, and
he allowed it. But everything is because God allows it
to happen. God allows Satan to happen. God allows bad
things to happen, for us to have some miseries because
we can go closer to God in those traumatic times.
(23:58):
But also because it's learning. It's for us to learn
the results of doing bad things are that were there
early habits that you guys naturally, faith is one of those.
But what habits protected your marriage?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Well, I would say communication. That's that's always been the key.
And when when our relationship has suffered the most is
when we're not communicating. And I think that's true, that's
that's true for every couple, but I think especially in
law enforcement, if you're not if you don't have somebody
(24:38):
to talk to, if you're not talking to your spouse
to some degree about what you're going through about the
difficulties that you're having as a couple, that's I think
that is the fundamental component to any good or lasting
relationship is you know, maintaining those open lines of communication.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
And that maybe sort of a truism, but it's a
truism for a reason.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And I know it sounds easy, but it's not.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
It's not. Yeah, I mean, you know, we certainly don't
want to paint a picture like we just had it
all figured out. I mean, it's time. It took it
really took years for us to figure that out, a
little bit of counseling here and there, you know, but
we finally learned, you know that that that is a
(25:29):
key that that was that was probably paramount. Also obviously
our relationship with the Lord was that we've always prioritized
that even when we were struggling through something, we prioritize
that so comes more than others.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, And I think the other thing is in the
law enforcement world, we spend ninety five percent of our
time with five percent of the population, so we come
with significant cognitive biases that we have as a result,
and we viewed the outside world. I will tell you
my life got one hundred percent better in my faith life,
(26:07):
in my community life when I stopped having nothing but
police officer friends, and I switched all of a sudden
to people who were in my faith community and others,
and it allowed me to get perspective. And I'm not
saying you can't hang out with your law enforcementster friends.
They're brothers and sisters and you want to. But I
(26:29):
had too many of the same ones and we were
just stuck in that cognitive bias.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
That's easier said than done.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no question. So what a great discussion.
When we return, we're going to talk with Tammy about
her powerful new book, This Isn't the Life I prayed for?
And how the Book of Job speaks directly to suffering
uncertainty and resilience inside marriages and in particular in the
law enforcement marriage. And if you'd like to more conversations
(26:58):
like this one. Visit my substack, doctor Curry Meyers dot
substack dot com. Stay safe and we'll be right back
in three minutes. Hi, folks, doctor Curry Myers here to
(27:24):
let you know that my new show is called America's
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Is a former State Trooper special agent share from a
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(27:45):
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an important tool, real resilience, because reentry isn't just released,
it's a second chance done right. All right, Welcome back
to America's criminologists. I'm doctor Curry Myers. Today we're talking
with John and Tammy Nance about marriage and particular law
(30:28):
enforcement marriage and Tammy's new book, This Isn't the Life
I prayed for. It's a study of the Book of
Job and what it teaches us about trusting God when
life doesn't unfold the way we expected. And again. For
more information about my work, visit my substack page at
doctor Currymeers dot substack dot com. So let me set
the stage for our listeners before we step into the
(30:49):
next part of the conversation. The Book of Job is
one of the oldest and most honest discussions about suffering
ever written. It begins with something important that many people
this Job is not suffering because he failed. He is
suffering even though he was faithful, and that matters, especially
law enforcement families, because in public safety, hardship doesn't always
(31:12):
come from mistakes. Sometimes it comes from the service itself.
As we dive into the story of Job, we begin
with his first response to profound suffering. Job was a
man of integrity, a man of faith. He's a man
of responsibility. And suddenly he lost his wealth, he lost
his health and even his children. And yet what's remarkable
(31:33):
in this Job did not pretend everything was fine. He lamented,
He spoke honestly before God, and he cried out, why
not I, Why did I not perish at birth? That's
in Job three, verse eleven. Those are not the words
of weak faith. Those are the words of honest faith,
because Job teaches us something essential here. Faith does not
(31:54):
mean the absence of struggle. Faith means bringing struggle into
the presence of God. Law enforcem families understand this reality
better than most. There are unseen burdens. There's unanswered questions,
moments when strength runs thin, moments when explanations don't come
sometimes at all. And what Job shows us is that
(32:15):
lament is not failure. Lament is prayer. It is trust
strong enough to speak honestly to God. That's why Tammy's
book This Isn't The Life I Prayed For is such
an important guide and I highly recommend it, especially for
families living inside professions where sacrifice and uncertainty shape almost
every day.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
Of their life.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
So what I'd like to do now is walk through
several moments of the book of Job together and explore
what they teach us about marriage, suffering, resilience, and trusting
God when life doesn't unfold the way we expected. So
kind of in Job one, it focuses on the scene
and unseen. Law enforcement families often live with pressures the
(32:58):
public never sees. So what were the unseen burdens in
your marriage that shaped your faith most?
Speaker 6 (33:07):
That's a tough go ahead, you're laughing at me.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Well, you know, the public doesn't.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I mean, the public sees the guy in the uniform, right,
and in fact, they don't really even see a human being.
They see the uniform and they see, you know, a
component of the government, really, and they don't they don't
realize what's going on, certainly with the person in the
moment or and they're not really concerned with that because
(33:38):
you're not there. Because somebody is having a good day
you're there because somebody is having a very very bad day.
So what happens at home? You know, all this, all
this stuff that you experience in law enforcement has ramifications.
I mean, it's like you know, throwing a pebble into
(33:59):
a pond. These ripple effects impact, impact your marriage, impact
your relationship with your children. If you're not very, very careful,
I don't know. I think even the most circumspect people
still you know, it does affect your relationship with your spouse,
It does affect to a degree, your relationship with your children.
(34:24):
But you know, all these things happen under the surface,
out of the public's eye.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
You know, at home.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You know, specifically, I'm not sure specifically what I could
you know, maybe we're maybe I'm still too we're still
too close to it to really see exactly, you know,
in in sort of the the micro view, you know,
what things happened under the surface.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
I mean I.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Can I can certainly say that, you know, having a
short temper, I think you know, we impeded communication, like
we talked about before the break, you know, getting angry
about things that you know weren't necessarily related to what
was going on at home.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
It was more of a.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Reaction to, you know, something that may have happened at work.
But all of those things work toward making it much
more difficult to talk about aspects of your relationship that
need to be talked about. I don't know if that's
confusing or not, but that's just kind of the way,
(35:38):
you know, it's real. I mean, it's kind of the
way it seemed to me.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
Well, and I'll say on my part, just learning to
be I had I had to learn to be patient.
You know, he would, like I said earlier, he would
come home and he didn't want to talk. Of course,
he doesn't want to talk. He's been doing that all day,
and so he wanted to come home and decompress. And
I had to learn. I didn't know that coming in.
(36:04):
I'm a young twenty twenty twenty four year old bride.
I didn't I didn't know, and so I took it
very personally when he would come home and just kind
of be shut down, and I you know that that
took a long time to figure out, but that was
one of the big ones. Just learning to be patient
(36:26):
and and to have respect really for each other, and
in particular me to respect his need for you know,
just some space. That's just one you know, that's just
one thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
How did your hardship change your relationship with each other
during those times we talked about in joke too, suffering
gets personal, so you know, and we and we experience
that differently because I think, if if I may say tammy,
because my wife went through similar things, she was always
having to just fire to me as opposed to the opposite,
(37:07):
which put the onus on her most of the time,
which isn't fairer.
Speaker 6 (37:13):
Well, I mean true, but I think you know, if we,
I think we love each other, we work through it.
And I know for us, like hardship, we went through
a lot of personal hardship, not just in not not
just relationally, but in our family, just different tragedies in
(37:33):
our family, and I think those drew us closer. We
learned through those just to I don't know, to we
grew closer through them.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah. You know, you said something interesting when you described
the relationship as one of fairness, right, One aspect wasn't fair.
I don't think relationships are fair right because you're you're
two very flawed people.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Well, and I think that.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
As you mature together as a married couple, you discover
one person has, you know, weaknesses in one area, the
other person has weaknesses in another area, and so.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
I it's not like this, it's it.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I just don't look at it like a balancing scale,
so to s not that you are, but you know
this idea of fairness, you know, I mean, what was
it fair? Was it fair for her to have to
deal with my stuff at work?
Speaker 5 (38:33):
Well? No, but you know that's part of the that's
part of the for better or worse right?
Speaker 6 (38:39):
And I would say, was it fair several years ago
when my dad had to come live with us and
he was one of two primary caretakers, that wasn't that
wasn't fair to him. So I feel I agree, Like
I feel like there are just different seasons, you know,
(39:00):
in your life where where that I think it kind
of balances out and we learned to just kind of
roll with them. Is an easy no oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Now, yeah, man, we're certainly not marriage counselors, far from it.
But I think if a couple kind of goes into
it with this idea of fairness, like I need, you know,
we need to balance this out so that it's fair
to each of us you know, I think that presents
a whole set of other problems. I think you should
(39:30):
be I think the mindset should be like mutual servanthood.
That's what the Bible teaches, and that has nothing to
do with fairness.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
You know, you're meeting each.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Other's needs at whatever point they need to be met, sos.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
And lows in different places.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Just because you're And you know, somebody speaking of Job
to somebody that get off and gets overlooked in the
Book of Job is his wife. And that's something that
struck me as I wrote through the Book of Job.
And you know, she's only mentioned the one you know,
she's she just mentioned the one time, and we don't
know her, we don't even know her name. But she
(40:05):
was suffering through the same things that Job was in
terms of they're losing their children, losing everything they had,
and you know, she's kind of given a bad rap
for having a bad attitude, but you know, I mean
kind of don't blame her.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
And Joe three, we talk about letting grief have a
voice in that honesty that comes with it. Does that
come over time and through us developing wisdom through the ages,
or did you guys find that earlier somehow.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
No, that absolutely is a process of time.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, I think it took me about thirty five years.
Speaker 5 (40:49):
Yeah, we've been married for.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
Thirty almost thirty two years, and it's yeah, it probably
took I don't know, at least twenty five.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
I think we're so yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it's working
on it.
Speaker 8 (41:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
If what's one thing that you could uh from a
law enforcement officers why point of view? Do you have
any advice for that kind of honesty and someone who's
just getting married now.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
I think if you just have to start out being
real with each other about everything, If if you come
into your marriage not talking, you know, like he talked about,
you know, he would try to leave the job on
the job and come home, Well, then I just wanted
(41:42):
to know all the things like I wanted to I
wanted to know about his world, and the last thing
he wanted to do was come home and talk about that.
And that's just one I mean, it goes both ways
for each of us. But I think just starting out,
you know, with the intent of we're we're going to
communicate to the extent that we can. I mean, obviously
there came a time where in his work he couldn't
(42:03):
come home and talk to me about everything that went
on at work. But but and then we have to
just give some grace and realize there are just things
they can talk about and but just open communication. And
you know, then you bring children into the mix, that's
that's a whole nother you know, can be a whole
other set of issues. So communicating about what's going on
(42:26):
in the kid's life, just trying to keep him plugged in.
I know, when when he was on the Attorney General's detail,
he was gone for a huge portion of those years,
he was gone so much, and so trying to keep
him plugged in as much as I could so that
he still feels like he knows what's going on at
home and you know, keeping you know, keeping his relationship
(42:50):
with with our daughter solid. He worked very hard at
that and and you know, it was worth every bit
of time that it took.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned kids too, because kids can
really be a you know, affected in certain ways. Number One,
their their their father or their mother may be a
police officer, which means there's going to be some grief
sometimes from your from your peers. And then for me,
it really magnified when I became sheriff of the county
(43:22):
and then my kids, all of a sudden, that's you know,
that's the daughter of the sheriff for you know, might
might have affected some dates. I didn't have any problem
with that, but maybe at the dates I don't my daughter,
my daughters, but God blessed me with four of them,
you know, and and able to work all those things out.
We also have friends, So when friends get it wrong,
(43:46):
some you know, friends are closest. Sometimes they're the ones
that we share sensitive information with about our marriage. Sometimes, uh,
we ask for counsel, we ask for advice, and sometimes
they get it wrong. How did people understand what another
family is carrying and carrying, especially like those in law enforcement.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
I think that was that was that's probably been maybe
one of the harder things because we didn't since he's
been since he was with the Bureau, we didn't have
a lot of uh, hang out with a lot of
people that were also agents, and so we didn't have
a lot of people within the law enforcement community that
(44:32):
we hung out with together, and so there wasn't a
lot of understanding from friends. People don't know what you're
going through a lot of times, and so I think
it's important for you to have friends who are in
that realm so that you do know, can at least
have something to relate to there, because very often I
would get, you know, bad advice from friends who would
(44:55):
just get aggravated because you know, he said something a
certain way or whatever, and they don't know the whole story.
They don't know what he's what he's been dealing with
at work all day, you know, And so that was
that was a tough one for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Well, relating to people that are outside of the law
enforcement community is sometimes it's difficult, you know. That's why
I think people have this view of law enforcement, like
it's very insular that cops only want to be friends
with cops, right. Well, yeah, well that's big because it's
kind of true, only in the sense that, you know,
(45:32):
it's it's difficult for someone not not in that environment
to relate what to to relate to what's going on.
And I know I'm talking a lot, or at least
I'm talking a lot about my pre you know, Bureau
local law enforcement experience, but the the FBI experience is different,
very different. And FBA culture too, was sort of in
(45:56):
the middle of a big sea change. When I got hired.
My first office was staffed by a lot of the
old school agents, and so we actually did stuff. We
did stuff together as families, as.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Co workers after hours.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
But you know, the longer I got into my bureau career,
the less.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
That became the norm.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
And in fact, towards the end of my career, you
really had almost no family involvement or agent to agent,
you know, sort.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
Of family involvement. That was a very very rare sort
of thing.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
And I don't know if that was more of a
you know, a gen X thing with because we're getting
this big influx of gen xers, especially toward.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
Yeah, that's true, So I never thought about that way.
But they see things differently.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
And then you know, in Joke fifteen through seventeen, we
talked about when faith feels like a fight, and so,
you know, any mentioned earlier, the perfect word was the
different seasons. But how do you faith gets difficult for
all of us. There's doubt, you know, sometimes we have doubt,
there's different things. How do you How did you kind
of walk through those things?
Speaker 6 (47:15):
I think it depended on the season. I mean, we
we we I hope you cannot hear our dogs right now,
because they are.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
Every once in a while I hear something, but it's
but we were good.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
I'm very sorry if you can.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
I love dogs.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
If I seem distracted, that's why the seasons, I don't know.
I mean, it's interesting. I covered that chapter in my
Bible study just today, and it is very difficult because
you know, Job in that stretch was he was getting
pretty exhausted, and he was getting pretty tired of hearing
what his friends were saying. And and in fact, I
(47:54):
think one of the verses in Jobe sixteen is miserable
comforters are ye all? He was sick of it and
and I think sometimes you just have to go to
God and trust the Lord for for what he is
doing in your life, and sometimes shut out those voices
(48:14):
that are the negative, you know, the the negative voices
you know in that in your life in that season.
I don't know if you have anything more to offer there.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Well, you know, well, I think it's important, like she's saying,
is to listen to the right people. And part of
that is to be plugged in, you know, if you're
a believer, to be plugged into a good local church. Yeah,
and that's that's that's really really important. I think that's
really important for law enforcement, and especially with regard to
trying to, like you mentioned earlier, trying to have friends
(48:47):
outside of law enforcement, you know, people that aren't cops.
And the reason why I said before the break that
that's easier said than done is because after a while
you don't really want that. You know, you you have
this synergy with other people that you're working with. They
speak your language, they know exactly what you can say
something to them that would actually curl the toenails back
(49:12):
on someone who's lying.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Law enforce and.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Wich we all have which all every we have a
warp sense of humor.
Speaker 6 (49:20):
I don't know about your wife, but it rubs off.
So you learn to get it. And it's true that
other people just don't and it's it's okay, you don't
need you shouldn't be able to get it.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Yeah, well, shout out to your prayer, to your to
your Bible study group. So thanks for all the work
that they've done there. So one thing I think my
prayer life has changed considerably over time. It's it's much
more in depth, much more you know, you kind of
feel your way and then all of a sudden, You're
we're all in different paths in our faith life. Some
(49:53):
of us are you know, longer and in a different
spot than others. When did how did prayer life evolve
for you in these uncertain seasons?
Speaker 6 (50:06):
I know for me it's really kind of strengthened significantly,
probably over the last several years. We've been through you know,
I mentioned my father getting sick. We went through that.
We went through a season of our daughter getting very sick.
(50:27):
We went through a season with where my husband got
real sick, and so we've just been through some hard stuff.
And I my prayer life grew a whole lot during
this than during this most recent season. So I fully
admit it wasn't as strong as it should have been
early on in our lives. And I feel like maybe
(50:49):
that would well, I know that would have made a
huge difference, because one thing that job teaches us is
we can trust God with all of it. We don't
have to clean clean it up when we take it
to the Lord. We can just take it all to
him and he's going to listen. And and so it
can be in in a be in a law enforcement
(51:12):
spouse can often be very lonely if you don't have
people around you who who get it, and so understanding
that we have the we do have the Lord to
turn to is a big deal and and very important.
So I would say as far as your question, definitely,
(51:33):
in this last this latest season in our lives, it's
grown significantly.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yeah, it's it's it's increasingly becoming, uh and more important
to us. Right when you're when you're busy with the job,
you you tend to rely on yourself quite a bit,
which is stupid. It's a very bad practice. And you know,
having the luxury of being retired, so to speak, or
(52:00):
at least semi retired, and looking back on that stuff,
I can see where that led to some you know,
bad decisions that led led to not good places. And
I think one of the really interesting, interesting, interesting things
about Job is that, uh, this, this, this, the whole
book is about relationship. It's about his relationship with God
(52:22):
and how at the end God revealed himself to Job
and that's the prayer is about relationship. And I think
it's one of the more difficult aspects of the Christian life.
I don't think people really talk about it much because
it requires something of you uh, And prayer is about
having that relationship with God, you know, speaking to him,
(52:46):
you know, like like Moses, you know, was was was
someone with whom God spoke face to face and you know, believing,
you know, Christians have that same opportunity to speak with
God God, so to speak face to face. And one
thing I want to mention about Job real quick that
I think is so significant. Job talked about and this
(53:09):
was kind of I think in the middle portion of
his suffering. He said, oh, that my words will be
written with a pen of iron in stone, right. He
prayed this to the Lord. Okay, yeah, Job, chapter eighteen.
And if you look at look at how God answered
that prayer. He did better than just write his words
(53:32):
down with a pen of iron. He he engrossed it
in scripture for all eternity. So if you if you
look at Job, you know through that perspective, how God,
how God did this brought him through this and answered
that particular prayer in such a profound way, in a
(53:55):
way that Job could have never imagined.
Speaker 4 (53:59):
So well, Tammy, how can people find your book I
prayed for?
Speaker 6 (54:08):
They can go to Tammy Nance dot com. T A
M I N A N T z dot com or
on Amazon or it's anywhere audiobooks are sold.
Speaker 4 (54:19):
Beautiful book. It's a great read. I highly recommend it,
and thanks for doing it. Apparently you know it's I
think God has a special heart for people who pick
out these things, and and so discerning the right title
and discerning who you're going to write after I think
very very important. So congratulations on a great book, and
(54:41):
thanks to you both for coming on and sharing your experiences.
I know that's not an easy thing to do. And John,
how can we keep up with with your work?
Speaker 3 (54:52):
You can find an x at v John Nance or
at townhall dot com. You can find my work there,
or you can just google my name and that'll up
all my socials and a bunch of my articles too.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
Enjoyed it much, Thanks so much, folks on doctor Curry Myers.
This has been America's criminologists, and don't forget to view
on my published works, interviews and broadcasts at doctor Curry
Myers dot substack dot com. It's also available on all
the streaming services you like, and don't forget you can
check me out. Next week, we're going to have a
(55:24):
child pedophile hunter on and he's going to get into
some of the terrible things that are going on, so
stay safe and see you next week.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Steals shadows Seequist, squamos Co,
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