Hope for the Home with Jerry and Becky Drace

Drawing on a chapter from their book "44 Ways to Strengthen Your Marriage," Jerry and Becky talk about supporting a spouse's dreams — even decades into marriage.

Becky shares her own story of setting aside college to support Jerry's ministry and their children, then returning to finish her undergraduate and master's degrees in her sixties with her family's encouragement. They discuss the danger of a spouse feeling threatened by the other's educational or career growth, and the importance of staying "one team" while still pursuing individual calling. They close with 1 Thessalonians 5:11 on comforting and edifying one another.

Topics discussed:

• Supporting a spouse's personal and educational dreams
• Becky's return to college in her sixties
• Avoiding intimidation over a spouse's career or education
• Staying a "team" while remaining distinct individuals
• Encouraging children's dreams the same way
• 1 Thessalonians 5:11 and Genesis 1:27

Prompted by a listener's question about Ephesians 5:22, Jerry and Becky tackle one of the most misunderstood words in marriage: submission.

Becky explains submission as a voluntary response to a husband who submits first to Christ, not a demand for control, while Jerry points to Noah as an example of a man who earned spiritual leadership through consistency. They discuss how media often portrays husbands as incompetent, how wives can unintentionally take over a home's leadership by default, and how a husband who isn't leading at home will often try to lead somewhere else. They close with the story of their son Drew's skydiving trip as an illustration of voluntary submission to proper order.

Topics discussed:

• Defining biblical submission in marriage
• Noah as an example of earned spiritual leadership
• How media portrayals undercut husbands' leadership
• Wives stepping back to let husbands lead
• Blended-family leadership dynamics
• Genesis 6:9 and Ephesians 5:22

A father's question about a split household — his wife and daughter attend one church, he and his son attend another — sparks a conversation about why worshiping together as a family matters.

Jerry and Becky discuss how divided worship habits, along with pandemic-era livestreaming, can fragment a family's spiritual life, and they lay out criteria for choosing a church: biblically sound teaching, a united and engaged congregation, and worship that isn't just entertainment. They encourage parents to ask their children what they're actually being taught in children's and youth ministry, and Jerry shares how he leaned on John 3:16 during their son Drew's premature birth.

Topics discussed:

• Families who worship at separate churches
• The effects of pandemic-era livestreaming on church attendance
• Criteria for choosing a church home
• Discussing sermons and children's lessons as a family
• Worship as an encounter with God rather than an emotional experience
• Not forsaking the assembling of believers together

A newly married man's question — how do we maintain a healthy balance in our marriage? — leads Jerry and Becky to unpack their "equilateral triangle" model of spiritual, physical, and emotional balance.

They describe a marriage built on a spiritual foundation, with the physical and emotional ("sensual") sides equally weighted, warning that if any one side dominates, the relationship becomes lopsided. They discuss the importance of a husband earning spiritual leadership rather than demanding it, the impact of a father's prayers on his children, and daily habits — a shared verse, a shared prayer — that anchor a marriage from its earliest days.

Topics discussed:

• The equilateral triangle model: spiritual, physical, emotional balance
• Newlywed adjustments and blending routines
• Cohabitation before marriage and its statistical link to divorce
• Earning, not demanding, spiritual headship in the home
• The impact of a father's prayers on his children
• Daily Scripture and prayer as a marriage habit
• 1 Samuel 1:19, Romans 14:19, and John 14:27

Responding to a wife heartbroken after discovering her husband's affair nearly 50 years into marriage, Jerry and Becky talk candidly about how trust is broken and how it can be rebuilt.

They walk through the shock, confusion, and grief that follow discovering an affair, and stress the value of qualified Christian counseling. They broaden the conversation beyond infidelity to other ways trust erodes in a marriage — financial secrecy, broken priorities, and inconsistency in spiritual leadership — and close with the idea that forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling, pointing to Proverbs 31:11 and 1 Peter 4:8.

Topics discussed:

• Discovering a spouse's affair and processing the emotional fallout
• The importance of qualified Christian counseling
• Financial and social-media related breaches of trust
• Rebuilding trust as a long, mutual process
• Forgiveness as a choice rather than an emotion
• Proverbs 31:11 and 1 Peter 4:8 on trust and love