S03E002, When Your Plate Is Full, Marriage Matters
Andy B and Jo continue in this new series of Marriage Matters improving the format further – just a few tweaks! In this second episode, Andy B and Jo take a look at when life gets hectic, when there might be too much going on and it might be difficult to find time for your spouse.
Times of busyness can cause problems and you may feel distant from each other in marriage, or it can bring you together as you do life together through the ups and downs and hectic happenings.
This week, Andy B reads from the book of Mathew, perhaps some familiar verses calling us to go to Jesus and find rest in Him.
The Take Away
Andy
Andy gives us a handy tip to ‘front load’ which means get things done ahead of time so when stuff comes in, we can handle it!
Jo
Jo highlights the importance of prayer in helping us through the busy times and staying strong together as a couple. And Jo notes we can cause our own busyness and to be careful of that.
Andy and Jo
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Andy B: Hello. Well, it's another Marriage Matters. This evening we, well, I'm saying this evening cuz it's our evening. It may not be evening for you, but it's is for us. So we are talking about what Jo? What's the title?
[00:00:21] Jo: When our, what is it? When we we're running on empty. I, I couldn't think. I'm running on empty, I think here. This, this is real. Yeah. Running on empty when you know, you're finding things difficult when your plate is full.
[00:00:36] Andy B: Your plate is full. Yes. There are various times when I think that's gonna happen in life. I would say, for example, there's gonna be different seasons. One of those times is gonna be breast fed babies, that kind of age because it's very tiring. It passes. It's a phase, it's a season, but it's exhausting.
[00:00:51] Andy B: Another phase would be sickness if you've got children who are really ill. We've had that a few times, when you are so exhausted.
[00:00:59] Andy B: Really busy [00:01:00] work times you've had. So times when we are just, you know, we we're tired, it's just we, we, we are shot. We're, we're, we are exhausted. We've got nothing left to give. How do we maintain a healthy marriage in those times?
[00:01:13] Jo: Yes. Good question!
[00:01:15] Andy B: Well, that's what we're looking at. Yeah. Yeah. If you've got the answers right on a postcard too. So if you wanna stay up to date with all that we're doing here at the BerryBunch, the best thing you can do is go to the website, sign up to the Newsletter.
[00:01:26] Andy B: Now, I'll say this really briefly. The newsletter is a whole new thing. We had a newsletter with the old website. This is a new website. It's gonna be totally different. Expect a few little wrinkles, little bumps across along the road, potholes like any other thing while we, you know, get our head around it. It is new, but that'll be really good way of you staying in touch with us and us staying in touch with you. Because this isn't about us, this isn't about you. This is about us learning together, with God, trying to make the best of a bad situation this week.
[00:01:59] Jo: Running on empty [00:02:00] is a set phrase, isn't it? Sort of an idiom, isn't it? And I'm presuming that that means, you know, maybe if you are powering the car and that would be empty. But anything that needs fuel. And we as people and in, in our marriages, we need fuel, don't we to keep going. But how do we do that when we are running low on fuel? Whether that's energy, whether that's finances, whether it's things you just think you need, isn't it
[00:02:25] Andy B: Sleep.
[00:02:25] Jo: Sleep, sleep's a good, yeah.
[00:02:27] Andy B: Money. If you think through, I guess the most, if you had to give me the top three stresses in, I was gonna say any marriage, but our marriage. We are all about keeping it real here. We're not talking generically. This is, you know, we are, we're, we are sharing with you our life, our experience in order to hopefully encourage you. Feel free to encourage us back. That's okay. But in our marriage, what are the three biggest sources of stress, strain, angst, exhaustion. What, what are those, I suppose pressure points, pinch points where it just, those are the bits [00:03:00] that we really. You know, be careful with,
[00:03:02] Jo: Yeah, you can get that, can't you? The top three things that cause arguments or, or stresses or difficulties in marriage, that kind of thing. Yeah. For us particularly, finances have been a pinch point, haven't they? Throughout the years?
[00:03:15] Andy B: About 25 years.
[00:03:16] Jo: I mean, I'm thinking we we're very similar in terms of parenting, so I'm not sure that's been a particular pinch point for us, but I know that can be, if we come from very different sort of walks of life.
[00:03:26] Jo: Sleep you talked about, isn't it times of tiredness, just getting that sleep? Yeah, there's long hours, so.
[00:03:33] Andy B: Because you are a morning person, I'm a, I'm a night person.
[00:03:35] Jo: Yeah.
[00:03:36] Andy B: That's a source of contention.
[00:03:38] Jo: So finances, sleep or sleep patterns? I can't think of a third. I'm sure there's a third.
[00:03:46] Andy B: I've got blank.
[00:03:49] Jo: Yeah, I've got a blank.
[00:03:50] Andy B: Two's enough. That's fine. Two of the most stressful things in our marriage. That's fine. We wanna deal with the reality and that's what we're gonna talk about for the next little while.
[00:03:57] Andy B: Last time, new season, we tried three 10 [00:04:00] minute segments. That didn't work. So we like to be flexible, you know, so we're gonna try three, six minute segments. Let us know what you think of this new approach. We're trying to find like bite size bits, but also a complete story. So think of it like a, you know, a quick chapter, maybe.
[00:04:14] Jo: Yeah. But, so yeah. The beginning, the middle and the end. Yeah. So the beginning is kind of the overview. That's this section. Then we sort of go deeper in the middle section, and then we have a takeaway which is sort of the rounding up of the thing
[00:04:28] Andy B: where we ramble.
[00:04:28] Jo: Yeah.
[00:04:29] Andy B: Yeah. So we wanted to look at that today because we are probably in a season of financial strain is probably one way of putting it. It's not so much we haven't got enough money. It's like, how do we spend the money that we got? That's really where we're at. If you look around the UK at the moment, where we live, there's an awful lot of strain on finances.
[00:04:46] Andy B: I went to get some fuel. It was under £1.60 a litre. I mean, I remember fuel at £0.49 per litre. It's now £1.58.9 a litre. That shows my age. So that's good it's come down [00:05:00] a little bit. But food prices have gone up, energy costs have gone up and all this stuff. And, and what's, what we are finding is people who have got a little bit of money are finding it more and more squeezed.
[00:05:09] Andy B: So how do we deal with that? And for us as a family, that's quite tough. We got to buy some clothes for the boys. We'll share a miracle and take away of why we need to depend upon God. But it's really hard when you haven't got enough money. And, and there's, there's, there are millions, tens of millions of people, I think, in the UK at the moment who are in that same boat. People who are exhausted working two jobs. And how, how do you, how do you. How do you get through it?
[00:05:36] Andy B: There's a great scene in a film Alexander in a terrible big bad day, or something. It's a Steve Carell film and there's this scene where they're trying to do everything. They're trying to look after the daughter, and the son and the car, and they've got a baby, and they've got this to do and there's a theater thing and one daughter's sick, and at one point they just all screaming out, our plate is too full. We've got too much on our plate. [00:06:00] We need to put our plate down. And I think that is something we'll tackle as well.
[00:06:04] Andy B: How do you clear stuff off you're not supposed to do.
[00:06:06] Jo: Bite off too much that you can chew.
[00:06:09] Andy B: Bite off more than you can chew.
[00:06:10] Jo: That's the one.
[00:06:10] Andy B: With that we'll have a break, shall we?
[00:06:14] Jo: Family Prayer Time. So what is it, Peter?
[00:06:18] Peter: Well, it's well, me and mum or, well Jo we look at, we find a subject for a prayer, so maybe the Psalm or a country. And then we pray as we feel led and bob's your uncle.
[00:06:30] Jo: Excellent. Yeah, absolutely. It's Family prayer Time. Me and Pete pray together and we'd like you to pray as a family. So join us for Family Prayer Time.
[00:06:57] Jo: So we're back with Marriage [00:07:00] Matters. You're here with Jo and Andy B and we're looking at oh gosh, I've got a real problem with it. I think I'm actually going through this at the moment. That my plate is too full! And I might be running a little bit on empty.
[00:07:14] Andy B: Do you think?
[00:07:14] Jo: Yeah. And it's looking at how do you then, help each other in your marriage? How do you, you keep the marriage going forward and healthy and, and well, when things aren't going so well, when things are, are too much whether you just don't have enough time, whether finances are difficult. We've just got lots of things going on and it's, and as Andy said earlier, it's seasons.
[00:07:39] Jo: So you, you may have young children. Or, or older children that need lifts or, or support around their education. You may have older relatives that you need to look after. That's always going to impact the rest of the family. It's gonna impact your marriage.
[00:07:52] Jo: And so it's looking at how, how do we continue to move forward? And we did find some scripture on this. Well, [00:08:00] something to help us.
[00:08:00] Andy B: The Bible has something to say on everything. And it has some't to say on this too. So if you're wanting to look this up, this is from Matthew chapter 11. This is Jesus speaking Himself, all right, so I'm gonna be quoting Jesus here. Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 through to thirty. It's probably well known, or you might have heard parts of this.
[00:08:19] Andy B: Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
[00:08:39] Jo: Ah.
[00:08:40] Andy B: You see, you read that and you think, yeah. Oh, tingly. So I just wanted to unpack that really quickly for marriage. Because, the thing is, you need to understand what a yoke is. Otherwise, this doesn't really work. So what is the yoke? What is Jesus? What is the yoke of Jesus?
[00:08:56] Andy B: Back when Jesus was around, walking on Earth, you'd have [00:09:00] two oxen, right? Didn't really have cows where he was from. They had two oxen, same kind of thing, and they had a yoke. Now, a yoke was a, a wooden, halter, it was like a, a, a thing that went between the two oxen.
[00:09:10] Andy B: You'd have an old oxen and a young one. The old one would know what to do. The young one was forced to behave because the old one knew what to do. And it would just drag it along in a sense, in a healthy way. And when the young one wanted to steer off, go faster, slower, the old one was not going to change. It was going to keep going at a nice, solid pace along the field. And that's the yoke that Jesus is talking about here.
[00:09:33] Andy B: If we have the yoke of Jesus or you know that that analogy, it means we are walking at His pace. That means we're walking in the right direction, at the right speed, and the right pace and the right rhythm and it's easy.
[00:09:46] Andy B: What happens is we throw the yoke off cuz we think, Ugh, I'll do it myself. I know better. We go racing off down the field and we're. And that's really what we are looking at today is how do we do that?
[00:09:57] Andy B: So I'm gonna give you two letters. [00:10:00] It makes it one word. And here's the best thing you can do in your marriage is learn as a couple to say no.
[00:10:05] Andy B: So learn to say no to your children. Super important. They will not thank you, ever for you giving them everything they want. Children love boundaries. We all like boundaries. We do better. We push harder when there's something to push against. No boundaries, there's nothing to push against, you just have this sort of squishy mass.
[00:10:22] Andy B: What's that? Is it Bob of Monsters versus Aliens? There's this, there's this gelatinous blob who was created in some scientific experiment. Turns out you don't need a brain. Okay, we don't need to be like that. We need to have something to push against, and that's where boundaries come in. And that encloses the marriage. How do you safeguard your time in marriage?
[00:10:43] Andy B: Now there's some really easy parts to that. Oh, could we come around and see you tonight? We thought we'd have a, you know, pizza night and, and bring our family around to yours. That might be an easy one to say no to, because you know, our plate is full. We are tired.
[00:10:56] Andy B: But how are you gonna say no when your wife says, I need some time [00:11:00] with you to talk about this, because I'm tired, when you are tired. It's not so easy to say no to your wife sometimes actually it might be valid.
[00:11:09] Andy B: But church, I mean, I've, I've, I've written about this recently. Church is such a pull on a marriage. It can destroy a marriage, sadly. Not because you go into church, but because church demands of you to attend to it. And that's the bit I think we need to at.
[00:11:24] Jo: Yes. I, it's very helpful that scripture to, to take on Jesus', which is easier and light. And that works for our marriages, not just on an individual basis, in our relationship with Christ, but we take our marriage to to God in prayer. And I suppose that's where prayer is really vital and time together to pray together. Read your Bible together so you're on the same page.
[00:11:47] Andy B: With the same yolk
[00:11:48] Jo: On the same journey together. And you, you've got the same goals of where you want to be. 'Cos we, the reason for Marriage Matters is that we know that if you, we need to work at our marriages, they're not just [00:12:00] gonna, you know, we're gonna wake up and it's all gonna be.
[00:12:02] Andy B: Hunky dory.
[00:12:03] Jo: Hunky Dory. We actually have to work at it. And if something's important to us, we will work at it. And this is, this is what this is about, isn't it? Marriage Matters. And there are times where it will become difficult and we need perhaps need to step up the prayer. Step up that time and remind ourselves of what we wanted together, what we worked out together, and that we, how we want this marriage to work and what you know, we've agreed upon, 'cos that can go out the window if you're tired or whatever.
[00:12:30] Andy B: We talked about in a, in a previous episode, I think the first season, we talked about how tiredness can be a reason for an argument. There can be nothing wrong between the two of you. You're just exhausted. Temper start to fray and you can argue. All right, we've talked about how that can have nothing to do with any relationship stuff. Just tiredness. Your brain hurts. Your body aches. As an ex trucker, I know that sensation.
[00:12:53] Andy B: But the whole thing of this, this Matthew 11, 28 to 30 is Jesus is saying, not here's the yolk go and [00:13:00] learn. He said, take my yoke. Learn from me. Learn my rhythm. Let me walk alongside you.
[00:13:06] Andy B: We see that replicated in Isaiah 43 where God says, when you go through the fire, I will be with you. When you go through the floods, I will be there with you. Not off you go, son. But God's there. We'll talk about that again more in a moment.
[00:13:22] Andy B: I was asked to record a video and write a book by a friend. He'd seen so many people with broken dreams just hopeless about the life they were living, and the life before them. So I wrote a book.
[00:13:35] Andy B: It's my very first book. It's called Broken Dreams, and Hope! It's based on my own life, some struggles that I've had, and the fact that through those struggles, however bad they were, whether they were caused by me or caused against me, throughout all of that, there was still hope.
[00:13:52] Andy B: Let me just read a few things that people who've read this book already have said. It's a page turner with each chapter leaving you wanting to read just [00:14:00] one more. You gave the reader motivation to look up and grab the hand that can lift you up on your feet, and walk you through life's muddy mire.
[00:14:10] Andy B: And I love the way you spoke of hurt and abuse, but never going into details that would've robbed the reader of their own inward pains, and ability to take hold of the Lord's extended, the hand that will never let go.
[00:14:23] Andy B: Broken Dreams, and Hope! is a book I wrote because I know what it is to have broken dreams. I know what it is to feel hopeless. But I also know what it is to have hope, because that hope has a name and that name is Jesus Christ.
[00:14:51] Andy B: So it's time for the Takeaway. So this is where we kind of try and bring some of that mess we've been talking about and making it into [00:15:00] some sort of order that's helpful for you and for us well. And we get a lot out of this. We pray and hope you do too! But, for us, we get a lot out of this because actually, It helps us to talk this out. And Marriage Matters is all about real talk. It's not about, you know, fake stuff.
[00:15:16] Andy B: We're not gonna give you theoretical stuff. We wanna talk about our own life to try and encourage you in your marriage. Because marriage does matter! You know, it's not just a clever title. It it's, it's a real personal belief of us.
[00:15:28] Andy B: And we see marriages not supported, routinely, in churches all over the country. And I know that's been replicated all over the world because of all the blogs that I read. So this is our little effort to try and support you in your marriage.
[00:15:38] Andy B: Now, we're talking today about when your plate is full, when you are at your, your end.
[00:15:44] Andy B: Here's a few things that I think I wanted to just briefly touch on before we really do the Takeaway properly.
[00:15:49] Andy B: One of those is the importance of putting your spouse first.
[00:15:54] Andy B: If you don't have much to give anybody because you are exhausted, because, taking my own example from many years [00:16:00] ago now, I was working a 15 hour day with a, with an hour's commute, 17 hours a day. By the time I got home I had nothing. Sometimes the kids were asleep before I got home, so I might only see Jo for half an hour before I had to go to sleep again. But I wanted to give Jo my best.
[00:16:14] Andy B: Now, my best was, was pitiful and woeful, but it's the best that I had. And we see that example in scripture as well, because you think about the widows mite. What did she do? She didn't give a bit of a money. She emptied her purse into the offering. Here's everything I've got. And I would come home and I would desperately try to give Joerything I had that was left after my working day.
[00:16:34] Andy B: I hope that came across. I did try.
[00:16:37] Jo: Yeah, I think so. My, my memory's not brilliant.
[00:16:41] Andy B: Well, we were tired at that point. Yeah.
[00:16:44] Jo: Yeah, absolutely. So the Takeaway, I'm trying to think about what I'm taking away. And I've got it's, it is hard when it's tiring, when things are difficult. But, you know, it's that idea of was it the three chords [00:17:00] together, isn't it? You know, and I, and I, when we set off on this journey of marriage, it was like you, me, and God at the center.
[00:17:06] Jo: So, no matter what we were going through, we would already be strong because of Jesus being at the center. Guiding us, helping us, and we go to him through the good times and the bad times as well and just, yeah. And remember, that, you know. I think also, I suppose one of the things that made me think. Sometimes we put problems on ourselves. You know, we say our plate is full and we're sort of almost like abdicating responsibility that somehow life has just thrown itself at us. But I think, sometimes, we make it more difficult for ourselves, don't we? We kind of stress, or worry, or you know, don't go to bed early enough or whatever it might be. You know, manage the finances.
[00:17:43] Andy B: Or get up too early, for example.
[00:17:47] Jo: Yes.
[00:17:47] Andy B: A recent issue we've had is I said to Jo, you're basically doing a 12 hour day, for a seven and a half hour working day. So that's been causing some issues, and some friction because Jo's tired and we're not really seeing her. Because we [00:18:00] tried to redo how she does her workday and all the rest in it. And it's not working at the moment, the, the, the approach that we've taken.
[00:18:06] Andy B: So I was saying to Jo. It's like we, we really miss you 'cos she's coming home, and she's basically getting ready for bed almost, by the time I've had dinner and it's just, do you know what, that's, that's not okay. Not Jo's failing, not, no, she's done something wrong or she's screwed up or made a mistake. It's just we've tried something and it's not worked.
[00:18:24] Andy B: And one of the most important things I think, in marriage is to say, do you know what, that didn't work. Let's try something different. And I think that, that, that should apply to everything you know.
[00:18:34] Andy B: If you're making a meal and, and, and I make it and Jo hates it, it's, it's a bit pointless making it again. So we wanna be flexible and change what we do. And I think that's the same.
[00:18:44] Andy B: Jo's working a pattern and it's just, it's not functioning around the family. So we need to revisit that. And I think, coming back to that thing I said in the, the middle section, was we need to learn to say, Part of that reason is we don't wanna work at a hundred percent.
[00:18:58] Andy B: There's no point in being maxed [00:19:00] out because if anything comes in, you are done. So actually you need to have spare capacity in there. That would be, for example, a date night or a family movie night. Those are spaces that we put into the week, which we protect as much as we can, doesn't always work, in order to have some spare and breaks.
[00:19:19] Jo: Yeah. Coming back to that film that you mentioned at the start Alex and his very bad day, the family, it's great. It kind of pulls the family together and, and we do go through hard times and difficult times. It does bring us together as a couple and as a family. So we are now not trying to avoid the tough times because, you know, consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, as it says in James.
[00:19:42] Jo: But if you watch this film with Steve Correll that they, they're honestly, there's so much going on that they really did do too much, and put too much into that. Those two days are those few days, and we can all do that. I mean, sometimes we think, right, we've got a week off and we have all these activities planned, don't we? And it's like, we're absolutely exhausted when ,actually, [00:20:00] let's just vege, let's just sit on the sofa, let's just not do anything particularly.
[00:20:04] Jo: So yeah, we need to be careful we don't like, try and fill our plates too much ourselves, and leave that space. Which is what you do for work, don't you? A plan to have a, you know, time to,
[00:20:14] Andy B: In principle
[00:20:14] Jo: Just in case, a just in case time.
[00:20:17] Andy B: Front loading, getting things done ahead of time, so that when other things do come in you've actually done stuff, you've actually got some spare capacity.
[00:20:23] Jo: Yeah.
[00:20:23] Andy B: Let's come back to the scripture. We can't finish any better than this really. Matthew 11, verse 28 to 30 says this.
[00:20:29] Andy B: Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
[00:20:43] Andy B: And that's the heart of what we're talking about here.
[00:20:45] Andy B: For my yoke, this is the yoke of Jesus Christ is easy and my burden is light. If you feel as though the burden upon you is heavy, that is not the burden that Jesus has given you because the burden of Jesus is light. That [00:21:00] yoke is not heavy. It is not difficult, complicated, or, you know, un unpleasant in that sense.
[00:21:06] Andy B: It can be hard work. But, actually if, if it's heavy, then you need to go back to Jesus and say, look, you know, God, we, we are not walking at your pace. We're not walking at your rhythm. Show us your pace, your rhythm. and invariably that means what do we need to cut out?
[00:21:19] Andy B: Because your marriage comes first or it comes last.
[00:21:23] Andy B: There's a thought for you.
[00:21:24] Andy B: It's either gonna come first or last. If it's not first, you're gonna get pushed off the order. Do you wanna finish us off?
[00:21:29] Jo: Just be careful not to fill your plate too full, and go to God in prayer. If you know, you know, if things are getting too heavy, maybe there needs to be something you need to change, isn't there? Yeah, I think.
[00:21:43] Andy B: Thank you for joining us for Another Marriage Matters. We're sort of messing around with the format a little bit. I think six minutes is too short. We'll try eight. Maybe that's the Goldilocks time. Thank you for joining us. Take care wherever you are. be in touch if you want to, we'd love to hear from you. You can get in touch with us through Contact Us on the on the website BerryBunch.org.
[00:21:59] Andy B: [00:22:00] Stay safe.
[00:22:00] Andy B: Bye for now