Hi, Jim Daly here. Today's cultured deeply needs help, but in times like these, the light of Christ can shine even brighter.

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What would it look like for Jesus to walk into the room and be the healer, the same God, the one who is able to resurrect the dead, speak life where it seems like there's no hope.

What would it look like for Jesus to walk into the room? Is there room for God? He is the difference maker. And at our darkest moment, He told us His grace was sufficient and He meant it. And that's what brought us through.

Well, this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guests today are Sean and Lynette Reed. They'll be talking about marriage. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.

John Marriage is a gift from God. And I want to make sure people hear that. Sometimes we say too much, you know, it's hard work. I ran into a 20-something woman the other day. And she said, yeah, you know, when I hear a lot of Christian leaders talk about marriage, they usually say it's such hard work that I'm kind of not sure I want to get married.

So I don't want anybody to hear that. What I want to hear is, man, pursue this because if you feel called to marriage and not everybody is, I get that. It is an awesome experience.

It does take some work. I don't want to be, you know, heading the sand with this. But, you know, what a beautiful, beautiful gift God has given to us in marriage. And it's a beautiful picture of the gospel.

How these ups and downs have a purpose to make us more like Jesus. Gary Thomas has said that many times and wrote about it. You know, God brings two different people together typically, not the same personality.

And you end up learning to be selfless or selfish. And selfless is the way of the cross, in a way of Christ. And isn't that awesome that even in that marriage connection, God's trying to teach us something.

Yeah. And Sean and Lynette will be sharing from their own personal experiences and expertise. They've been married for some 25 years, I believe, and are part of the exo marriage team of speakers and podcast host.

Lynette is a director for exo and Sean is a teaching pastor at Open Door Church. And they have three adult children and have written a book together called Marriage in Transition, creating connection through uncontrollable change.

Stop by the show notes for details or give us a call. Sean and Lynette, welcome to focus on the family. Thank you very much. It's so good to be here.

Yeah, so great to have you. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to this discussion. You kind of heard my heart a moment ago on that. But, you know, you're pastoring, you're working with couples directly and really both of you are.

So in that context, what are people sharing with you when it comes to facing these uncontrollable transitions that are part of marriage?

Yeah, I think a lot of people are just kind of floating when it comes to life transitions and change. And we were ourselves as well. And that was part of the greatest challenge is that if we're not prepared for seasons of change, right, then we don't know how to navigate them well together as a couple.

And so Lynette and I, we had within our first three years of marriage, we had three children. We had moved to two different cities.

Wow, that was busy. Yeah, so three kids in three years. Three kids. That's awesome. Yeah. So it wasn't back then. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's where you just put your head down and go. That's it.

You know, get through the day and wake up the next day. But it did create some issues. Oh, 100%. You know, we were trying to discover who we were. Yeah.

And trying to discover our children and communication and juggling work and all the things. You know, and going through just normal life circumstances.

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