Your Spouse as a Healing Agent
When we think about couples we admire, marriages we see and want model, The Ewing's are at the top of our list. These high school sweethearts pastor The Fellowship of Love Church and are two rays of sunshine. They are committed to God, one another, and to leading their family with integrity. I haven't met another couple with the amount of sincerity and spiritual fortitude and we feel so fortunate to serve under their leadership and call them family. The pair will celebrate 13 years of marriage next month and they make it so look good. We interviewed them because their story is inspirational and unique just like their perspectives. What we love the most about them is their willingness to learn. They're flexible. That attribute alone makes for a really solid marriage and a great friendship.
What do you love most about one another?
Kandice: One of the things I love most about Lorenzo is that he is very sweet. He’s sensitive. When I say sensitive and sweet I mean he’s very perceptive. I’ll think I’m fine and he’ll ask what’s wrong, he can detect. It’s really nice.
Lorenzo: What I like about my girlfriend and wife is she’s the biggest giver in the world, she’s always giving and always thoughtful. Sometimes it makes me think I’m not a big enough giver. Because she’s thoughtful. She’ll never come home without getting me something to eat. I love her for being the giver she is.
What is the hardest challenge you’ve had to overcome in your marriage?
Both: Blended family.
Lorenzo: It’s been the biggest challenge, but it’s also been the biggest opportunity. It brings us closer together, it’s a great conversation piece, we talk the most passionately about it.
Kandice: Hours and hours and hours.
Lorenzo: Yeah, which is good and bad because we can harp on it. But I believe it’s part of our ministry to help other individuals.
Kandice: It’s broken us. And taught us, although you always kind of know you’re not in control. It’s taught us how to pray and continue to follow the Lord in what we say, how we act, how we respond. It’s made us hyper-aware of what we want the house to feel and look like in terms of how we embrace and celebrate one another. There’s been a lot of blessing in it.
Lorenzo: There have been a lot of victories. I think one of the biggest challenges is learning how to lay a foundation for your kids. But depending on what your setting is on weekends, it may be totally annihilated and the kids come home and you have to start all over again. It makes you feel helpless especially when you’re working hard and you see progress in your kids.
Kandice: We have fun but we never want to encourage them to be reckless or careless or insensitive.
How has your marriage strengthened your relationship with God?
Lorenzo: You have to work at it. You have to learn how to be more creative.
Kandice: And sacrificial, and I think you have to know what God says about your role. What does God tell me about being a wife? What’s going on in my heart? Because it’s not always him. Admitting that and apologizing and owning it is important.
Lorenzo: I’m really afraid that if I mishandle what God has entrusted to me, that I won’t be heard. The bible says to deal with your wife according to understanding. There’s a science to it. You can’t deal with her any kind of way. You have to study how to attend to your wife. She’s a special case. And every husband should say that about his wife. Not in a bad way but she has to be treated according to her type. I'm learning to be sensitive to her ways because I don’t want my prayers to be hindered. One of the worst things you can do is position yourself where your prayers can’t be heard. Life is already hard enough.
Morgan: One of the things Mitch and Gunner exists to do is shatter misconceptions about what marriage really is. We don’t say “Christian marriage” because marriage in itself is Christian. It’s a construct created by God, modeled by Christ and the church. It’s sacred, and God created it to be. The rules that apply are God’s rules. I think not knowing that causes marriages to fail. Because we come into a covenant under God but forget that it’s for God. We must play by his rules. The blessings don’t come, the understanding, the joy, the peace, don’t come if your marriage doesn’t honor God. I don’t understand how people live in the same household, share names, have children, wear rings and don’t have Christ as the cornerstone. There are these little foxes that come in the form of arguments or disagreements or bad days when God wants to give us a picture of what Christ loving the church really looks like and how beautiful his bride is. It’s not a fly-by-night decision we’ve made, it’s not something we did on a whim. It’s not something we don’t maintain and think, ‘Oh, it’ll just work itself out.'” We have to work it. It doesn’t work unless you work it. I think coming into a marriage believing it’ll heal itself, or 'once I take this man’s last name, all my issues with lust or frustration or low-self esteem will dissipate because I’ll have someone to love me,' is unrealistic. That said,
What advice would you give a newlywed or someone who’s engaged and really thinking about what their marriage should look like?
Lorenzo: You said something profound. We have to play by God’s rules. Everyone wants to have the benefits of a God-ordained marriage but won’t play by the rules of what God intended marriage to be. It’s almost like being on the football field, in a basketball uniform. You have to value God’s institution. Who are we to try to finagle that relationship, those rules, those guidelines he wants us to follow? What was the question? (laughter) Yes, you have to fall in love with your friend. And if you happen to marry your lover, tell all your other friends, for a season, you’re establishing a friendship. That goes a long way. God [also] has to govern that relationship. If we’re mad at one another the first place we go is to God. If we're mad, we’ll pray and seek God’s advice. That helps to solve a lot of our issues.
Kandice: I think you have to feel safe. You want to know you’re taken care of, you’re thought of and that you can trust them. He can see different sides of you and still be able to handle it and not hold it against you or over your heard. But to understand we go through seasons. Knowing we have one another’s backs. I agree with the friendship too. We’ve been friends forever and I’ve always loved him. He’s always been respectful. Even when we were sixteen. My family loved him. Even when we were silly. He never got out of control or was someone I had to wonder if he might say the wrong thing. He was always friendly. The way he is now is the way he was when we were young. It’s his character. He’s likable.
Lorenzo: From a man’s perspective, I’d say always try to take the high road. Even if there’s not a high road, make one. Keeping peace in your home is one of the most precious things you could have. You want your home to be a place of peace. In my home, we value peace. I like coming home. You want to marry someone you can come home to. You don’t want to get off at 5 and drive around for 3 hours because you don’t want to see your wife. Don’t play the blame game. Sometimes it’s you.
Kandice: I’d also say to listen to the advice of people you love. You may have a couple people who pick up things in the other person and you want to listen. Sometimes they’re right, so be honest with yourself. I know sometimes as women, we’ve dated a man for so long and they finally begin to act right. He’s finally matured. You start to make concessions and you know something is not right, but you choose to ignore it. Give it 6 months, pray and see what God says.
Lorenzo: I’ve been listening to a pastor and he said, “what you don’t groom, grows.” You have to get some advice, counseling, some kind of help to help you groom. If not, it’ll grow out of control.
Why did you marry your spouse?
Kandice: I married Lorenzo because I knew I could trust him. I wanted to marry someone I respected and someone who could lead me. I didn’t know what it would look like but I wanted someone to lead because my father led us. I saw a good example of a father who was committed to his wife, his family, and worked really hard but also knew how to have fun. My mother never had to wonder if he would come home. He kept his word. I don’t like the up and down and not knowing who I’m with. He was strong in so many areas, I knew he could lead a church or a lawn mowing company. I knew he would keep his word. Even when I get upset with him, I still respect him. I never think about leaving him.
Lorenzo: I think that’s why I married her. She fits the mold. Everything I was looking for she was that. I needed support, a potential mother and a woman who had values and morals. In you, I found all that. And we had history. My life was so crazy because I was going through tumultuous times and I wasn’t ever going back in the direction I had come from. You know what you don’t want to ever happen again. I knew I didn’t want to go that route again. God has done so many phenomenal things as a result of me choosing a spouse by God’s criteria. People get these ideas from the world and have a belief of what the ideal man or woman is but it’s not until you wear a pair of shoes too small that you realize you never want to do that again. I think I picked the right fit. Enough room to grow into, you don’t want anything too snug or too big.
Morgan: We talk a lot about how your spouse acts as a healing agent throughout your relationship. For Kel and I, there were so many things we were walking through when we first met that just being in one another’s company assuaged. I think that’s the spirit of God, you can’t have peace without the Holy Spirit, so when the spirit comes and ministers there’s nothing like it. I’ve experienced ministering angels. I really feel like Kel is my angel.
How has your marriage healed pain or a hurt in your heart?
Lorenzo: One of the major, most important ways my wife has healed my heart is her consistency in who she is. She’s very considerate. There aren’t many inconsistencies in her love and care for me. It healed a lot of damage and hurt I had gone through in my previous relationship. I know if I come home, she’ll be home. I never have to wait up, that consistency has been important to me. I needed that more than anything.
Kandice: Recently our son had college visits. And I wasn’t able to go and it did something to me. I cried like a baby. I was sensitive at work. It healed me because Lorenzo felt so bad and kept letting me know how everything was going. It wasn’t the first time he had ever felt my pain. But it was different this time. On one hand, I cried because God told me, 'the reality is that you’re not their mother.' And to have that sink in and even be able to say it now! I was broken for that but the healing came because Lorenzo was tending to it by being apologetic and fighting for me and he was constantly in contact with me. He reiterated I was valuable. He had written me notes and left them all over the house for me to find. It healed me. It helps me even now. I know: there’s only so much you can do, just relax. It healed that part of me. I was hurting but I was healing.
Kel: There are so many things in this world that make you feel like you’re not valued. I believe it’s the role of a spouse to, no matter what this world says, affirm the other person’s value. You are valuable, this is what God says you are. I think every time your spouse reaffirms your value it’ll always heal a part of you. You’re going to wake up one day and your spouse will say something affirming and something is going to get healed that you didn’t even know was broken. It’s a constant replenishing.
