Remarriage after losing a spouse felt impossible to me — until God said, "I'm going to send you a wife."
In this first-ever podcast episode, my wife Mallory and I sit down on camera and tell the whole story: how I lost Amber to stage four metastatic breast cancer, lost my mom one month later, walked through clinical depression, and slowly healed through counseling, community, and the Holy Spirit — before I ever knew Mallory existed.
Mallory shares her side too: the season of singleness where she surrendered her deepest desire to be married, how older, wiser women called out her blind spots, and what it felt like to marry a man whose grief the whole church already knew by name.
In this video:
- Why healing after the loss of a spouse has to happen before the next covenant, not during it
- How a counseling intensive and one hard book broke open years of unexpressed emotion
- What being single without being lonely actually looks like
- Why we practiced sexual integrity and celibacy through our entire courtship
- The "box" moment that became the first real test of our marriage
- How Mallory responded to my depression without resentment — and what set me free
If you're single and waiting, engaged and nervous, or married and quietly struggling, this Christian marriage testimony is for you.
CHAPTERS
00:00 – Intro
02:01 – Why We're Finally Starting This Podcast
05:18 – Mallory's Season of Singleness Before We Met
08:17 – Her Expectations and Assumptions About Marriage
11:33 – Surrendering the Desire to Be Married
14:06 – Community, Wise Women, and Blind Spots
20:58 – Losing Amber to Stage 4 Cancer, Then My Mom
23:12 – The Counseling Intensive That Changed Everything
26:52 – For Men Who Feel Numb After Trauma
29:20 – Healing in Community and Pursuing Professional Help
31:46 – The Depths of Clinical Depression
32:32 – "Prepare Your Home, I'm Sending You a Wife"
33:58 – How We Met: Her Stepdad's Prayer
43:40 – The 5PM Calendar Invite First Phone Call
45:12 – The Question I Asked on Our First Coffee Date
51:15 – Dating Through COVID and God's Provision
55:57 – Sexual Integrity and Celibacy While Dating
01:04:18 – A 30-Person Wedding and Investing in the Marriage Instead
01:11:00 – Year One: Marrying Into a Public Grief Story
01:19:20 – The Box and Prioritizing the Covenant
01:23:58 – Behind Closed Blinds: What Depression Really Looked Like
01:30:03 – Set Free, and What's Next
🔗 Resources & Links
Book a 30-minute virtual coffee call (no pitch, no pressure): https://bit.ly/30minVirtualCoffeewithChris
Watch next — The Real Reason Millennials Are Burning Out (It's Not the Money): https://youtu.be/iCzOztFbD7E
• Podcast (faith-based wealth, legacy, leadership)
👉 https://podcasts.apple.com/ph/podcast/the-impactful-leader/id1852272191
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccallahan9239/
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