Intro to STM

John and Trish, a married couple, are starting a podcast to share their testimony and the love of Jesus. They believe that sharing their experiences can help other couples and individuals find freedom and have the marriage they dream of. They explain how their own struggles and hardships have led them to rely on God and how their testimonies can bring hope and deliverance to others. They emphasize the importance of transparency and being real in their podcast, which they humorously call "Scotch Tape Marriage". Hey guys, welcome to the Scottsdale Marriage Podcast, take one. I am John Finnell and I'm lucky enough to be here with Trish, the wife of my youth. We have been married for almost 39 years and we have got a lot of marriage experience we want to share and most importantly, a relationship and marriage with Jesus that we really would like to have others experience. So Trish? Yes, hi, I'm Trish, John's wife and just like he said, we had just come to just what we feel like the Lord has been calling us to do. We went through some rough time and we just want to share the love of Jesus and what he's done for us in hopes that other married couples will listen to this and understand and know that they're not alone and that they can also turn to the Lord and be set free and have the marriage that they always dreamed of having. Yes, yes, yeah. We have with us tonight, Ms. Daly. Hi, I am Dela Latham and I'm just totally awed and amazed at John and Trish's testimony and I really feel like having Trish having said that come through hard times and I've heard the story or at least a portion of it and I just, I feel like, you know, for those that God does the most and brings the furthest, he expects the most and I love seeing that you two are doing that. You just freaked me out a little. I did not. Those, yeah, I agree with that, I really do. Thank you for saying such a kind thing, that means a lot. Thank you dear. You are welcome. So what are we doing? What's this about? Well, we obviously podcast, but more, way more than podcast, just podcast is a vehicle that we want to use to share our testimony and we have a reason for that, scripturally. Yes, in Revelations 12 verse 11, he says that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb, which is Jesus, and by the word of our testimony. So that's what we are here to do, is share our testimony and the other scripture is Psalms 58 verse 10, it says the righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance and I, John, I will let you talk for a minute about that. Well, we, would you read Revelation again, read that scripture? It says, for they overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony and did not love their lives to the death. Man, that is so much in that scripture. I remember when I very first read that scripture and I realized the weight of the fact that the scripture, the Holy Bible had included our sordid, at times filthy and tattered story in the same sentence with the blood of our Savior. Yes. That messed with me. That was real hard for me to receive, but he gave me peace about it, understanding that they are equally important for people, for us. They are. They are. So, and the vengeance that I believe David was talking about when he said that they rejoice when they see vengeance is when the righteous, in Christ Jesus of course, the righteous in Christ Jesus see others delivered from things that they once were bound by, released, delivered, maybe even by means of their testimony, and they rejoice. That's the vengeance. The enemy losing ground in others' lives by way of our testimony and the blood of our Lord and Savior. And it helps others to know that they're not alone, because if we can give our testimony because we have been freed by allowing Jesus to come and wash us and know, like I know for me it was, you know, this beautiful thing that God wanted me to tell my testimony to a whole bunch of women that I really didn't know very well. We had just moved up here. I had argued with him for three months, because I was like, I will not tell nobody here about my testimony. Like, we're starting over. These ladies don't know what horrible things I did. They don't know about my past, and that's the way I want to keep it, because I want them to like me. And God just kept working on me and working on me, and He gave me several scriptures and just spoke to me one day, and I finally acquiesced to Him. And after arguing, and He showed me in Isaiah 43, He's like, when you walk through the waters, they will not overtake you, and when you walk through the fire, the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God who ransomed you, you know, I called you by name. And for me, that just so spoke to my heart. At that moment, I said, I'm ready, Lord. I will tell my testimony to every woman who will listen, and every man for that matter. Anybody who would listen, I will tell my testimony until I take my last breath, because You have set me free, and I want others to be free. To live their life the way that You have called them to live. Yeah, in a similar manner, when I felt led the first time to give my testimony, and when we say our testimony, we mean, you know, the grease and the guts of life, of our life. Nobody's willing to say the deep, dark, closet stuff that nobody wants to say because the enemy has told them for so long that, you can't say that. You're the only one going through this. Nobody's going to like you. They're going to just judge you and disown you, and they're not going to want to be around you, because I believed that for years. And it's not true. You're not the only one. Everybody goes through dark things a lot of times. Some may be more hurtful, more darker. It's whatever. Sin is sin. Darkness is darkness. But when it's brought out into the light, it changes everything. It dries right up. You know, we all say, as Christians, it's easy for us to say, thank God I've been delivered. Well, the people that are not as familiar or have never been around Christianity, delivered from what? And it's good that some people are willing to share what they were delivered from, and we can know that we, too, they, too, can take back what Satan has tried to steal. Without it, it's like, we call it Christianese, the language of the Christians, the language of the church. We know there's supposed to be deliverance. We understand. We've read about that. But we haven't ever experienced it. You know, we need to see others and hear about their experience and know that, oh, you experienced that? Well, I experienced that. I went through that. I thought I was the only one. I never would have thought anybody else could have gone through that. As a matter of fact, the night I gave my first testimony was in the chapel at a prison with close to 200 men in the room, and a lot of my testimony I gave that night was not very manly. And I remember thinking, nobody ever experienced what I experienced. And then that night afterwards, there was a line of about 40 men that wanted to come talk to me personally. Every single one of them said, I can't believe you did that. Every single one of them said, something like that happened to me. And since I heard you say that, it did this, or it did that, or it made me feel this, or it made them feel that. And then the next time I gave it, I didn't have nearly as much snot or tears. I was able to do it a little more distinguished, but it got easier and easier, and one thing that always happened was somebody was always lingering to say, thank you. I needed to hear that. Me too, me too. Me too, me too, yeah. Yeah, and I've told my testimony, too, a lot of times through snot and tears. And I remember the first time that I ever told my testimony, and I didn't cry. I began to laugh. I was on a bus coming back from Houston. I had carried a bunch of teen mania kids to the Houston airport to send them off on a missions trip. And one of the girls rode back with me. She was my ride girl, so keep me awake and make sure everything was okay. She told me her testimony, and then she said, okay, tell me yours, and so I began to tell her. And I remember I was driving, and I was telling her my testimony, and I began to laugh. And she said, Ms. Finnell, are you okay? I said, oh, honey, I'm more than okay. I'm like, I am free. Yes. I'm really, really free. And she said, what do you mean? I said, I've been telling my testimony for years, and I cry, and I cry, and I cry, because of the pain and the hurt of it all. I said, but now I'm laughing. Not that it didn't hurt, or I still don't feel some of the things. I said, but now I know what God has done, and what He pulled me up from, and that is the word, the laughing over, you know? You know, when joy leaves the body, it often leaves through laughter. Yeah. As we exude joy, it comes out of us as laughter. Sure it does. Not that it was funny. It felt good, and I know exactly what she meant. I remember feeling that same way of, wow, this is awesome. Who could have ever guessed? And then you get to a place where you realize the brilliance of God to say that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony. Yeah, and so when we, when God put it on our heart to start this podcast, we were mulling over, you know, what are we going to call it? What are we doing? And John came up with Scotch tape marriage, and I laughed, and I was like, really? Scotch tape marriage? And he was like, well, look at it. We were bleeding, and we were falling apart, and our children were, you know, hanging on by a thread, and when we fell on our knees and cried out to the Lord, he began to put us back together, and it was just one, and then we started being transparent, and giving our testimony, and just being really real, and doing the hard stuff, and so it's just like he started taping us back together with transparent Scotch tape. Yeah, I don't think, you know, I'm rednecked by birth, and I normally would use duct tape, but this isn't been a duct tape situation, it's been a Scotch tape situation, because God demands, our relationship with Him and with others demands transparency. It demands it. Anything without transparency is at best fake. Amen. So, it would be perfectly natural, and I had this vision in my mind of the cake topper with the groom and the bride, and somebody dropped it and broke it on the floor, and all they had to do, all they had to put it back together with was Scotch tape, so there's Scotch tape wrapped all around it, and we'll get that picture, it'll be coming for our future, as soon as we're able to create it, but yeah, it's transparent tape, the transparency of our lives, and His life with us, holding us together, with Scotch tape marriage. Trisha and I have been married, well, I fell in love with her when I was 15. I've never loved another woman. Yeah, it is an awe, you know, it's really cool. We fought, we fought alongside each other ever since we were kids. Got married when we were 18, graduated in May, got married in October. And the rest is history, you know, we drove it into the rocks and did our best to destroy it. Two hurt people, come from dysfunction, come together, trying to figure all of it out. Did a pretty good job, still destroyed it, because at that time we weren't living for the Lord. We were living for, you know, we were living for the world, living, you know, doing everything that we could, and running amok, and had two beautiful children, and trying to raise them. And I don't think we did too bad of a job in all of that. Considering all the odds were stacked against us. Exactly. And then, you know, the crash came, because we had two broken people coming together, not understanding how to put all those broken pieces into one jar, and try to put them, make them fit, and make them work. And we didn't have anybody, I mean, our parents loved us, absolutely, they did the best. They were broken too. They were broken and did only what they knew. And so, here we are, we hit the wall, and everything crashed and burned. But we knew one thing though, through all of it, is that we knew that we loved each other. There you go. And we knew that we didn't want to end our marriage, we just did not know how to save it. And we tried for three years, a very wrong living, and wrong things to try to save it. Yeah. Until we came to the end of ourselves, and threw up our hands. Well, Trish threw up her hands. Luckily for me, I married over my head, and she found herself in front of a pastor, who cared, and had Jesus in him. Yeah. Bro, I fell in love with Jesus through that man. And she shared her assorted story, but not like a testimony. She tried to give it to him, to blow his socks off, and shut him up. Yes, I was a very angry woman. I was very angry, I was very hurt. I did not, my sister-in-law attended that church, and I had gone to her, and I said, I'm done. Can't do this anymore. She said, let's go talk to my pastor. I'm like, no. She said, let's just go. And so, I was very hard-headed. I was very outspoken, and loud, and so then I was like, fine, let's go. I want to tell him everything. I want to see his skin crawl. You know, that was just my attitude at the time. And so, we went, and I sat on the other side of his desk, and he said, what's going on? And I sat there with my hands crossed, my chest bowed out. Angry, and spewed out every, I didn't hold back nothing. Told him every ugly thing that had gone on. And that's when I met Jesus, because he never blinked an eye. He never scrunched up his face. He never judged me. He looked at me with the most love in his eyes, and he said, Are you ready to come to Jesus, because he loves you. And I fell in love with Jesus right then, and the rest was just like, yes. Well, I've got you. Thank God for men of God, women of God. Godly relationships are probably the most valuable thing we can have in this life, this side of heaven. I don't know if that's the case, but I feel that way. And can I tell you that that started the transformation. Amen? Amen. Me and the children, me and John, and John Ryan, and Jessica started going to church, and we began praying for Dad. And Dad was strung out on dope. Champion meth addict. And so depressed. And so dark. And so alone. That... I didn't know those depths existed. I didn't know. So they were instructed by the pastor, Danny. Talk about that. So we were going to church one Sunday, and we were just kind of having a revival. And I don't even remember the whole sermon, but I do remember afterwards, he had come to me, and he asked about you. And I said, well, you know, it's still a struggle. He's still very angry. He's really mad that we're coming to church. And you remember, he took a little piece of cloth, and he anointed it with oil, and he got the three of us together, John and Jessica and I. And he said, we're going to pray over this anointed piece of cloth. He said, and you're going to go home, and you're going to put it under his pillow, or under the mattress where he lays his head. And you are going to begin to pray and believe that God is going to change your husband and your dad. And we're going to see a miracle. And we did exactly that. And I don't know, it was probably three weeks later, me and the kids were in the living room, and we were reading the Bible out loud. And John walked by, and he just kind of snickered and said, what are you doing? And I said, well, we're just reading the Bible. And he said, can I sit with y'all? And then he was going to church with us. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I believe John and I are going to get into all the ugly stuff. And the tip is this, guys. The tip is this. Transformation took place. Signs and wonders immediately began. And that's what that was, a sign and a wonder. So we have with us our IT guru, which happens to also be John Ryan, our son. Do you have anything to say about remembering what that felt like, that moment that you saw some fruit of the miraculous? Well, it was definitely the first time, first experience of God's movement. You know, what, ten years old? Yeah. Didn't know any of it. And then to see this weird white cloth with some random oil from this old man. Yeah. Tell us to put it under your dad's mattress while he sleeps and something's going to happen. It was like something out of some Warner Brothers cartoon thing. I don't know. It was weird. The way it worked was like, whoa. Can I help you with the cloth? What's going on? What's up with the cloth? And since then, in my own life, growing up as an adult, I've used that. Remembered that. And I've anointed cloth and put them under people's stuff. And have instructed and advised people to do the same thing. And one of the most amazing parts about that whole thing for me was it wasn't just a one-time thing that God did. Yeah. God is a continual God who loves restoration and loves reconciliation. And if you invite Him into that, He is faithful always to do that. Amen. Yes, He is. Yeah, so that came to you from the second generation godly man on the planet today. When we started, back when this evening took place, whenever we were reading the Bible, and the miracle happened, at that point in time, there were no what I'm going to call godly men. I mean, nobody that led us to that in our lives. Not that we have believers in our lives, because I want to be respectful and honorable to family, but there was no godly men in my line. And there was no godly men in Tricia's line. Or women. No. And now, here we have, and we'll share more, obviously, but as these miracles began to happen, one of the things that Tricia and I said to God was, one thing we need, one thing we want out of this deal is a new people group. You have to stop all of this hideous sin and darkness that is on me and her, that came into our marriage from each other, and start a new people group. Promise us that these curses, these things will not follow our kids. And John is sitting at the table right now, running the podcast for us on Take One. He's leading a men's ministry with other men in the local church, and following God, and successful in business, and I can tell you that God is faithful. Yes, he is. Our children are both, John's wife, his beautiful wife, our daughter-in-law, Cody, and our daughter, Jessica, are both homeschooling our grandchildren. They are submersing them in the word. They are teaching them how to be little godly women and little godly men, and I mean, what more could you ask for? The biggest miracle, and we have seen a lot of miracles, guys. Holy smokes, we've seen a lot of miracles. But the biggest miracle of them all, for me, is the fact that today, June 2024, 24 years into our relationship with Jesus, and we have three generations of godly men and women alive on the planet today. From zero to three. Yes. And we're going to live long enough to see the fourth, and, you know, who knows? Lord carries and wants to leave us out here and just freak people out because we're 130 or 40. Maybe we'll even see some more. And you know what? We called our children's spouses into existence. We prayed for them. So I want to encourage all of you out there listening, even though your children, whatever, from one years old to 21 years old, if they're not married yet, begin to pray for their spouses. Begin to pray for them exactly what you want, you know, that they be equally yoked, that they love the Lord, that they will just love your children with everything that they have. Yeah. Well, we, as we talked a little ago too, our background and where we came from is from broken families. Again, with all love and respect to our families, we don't mean that to hurt anybody, but it was the truth. Yes. We were broken. Yes. We came from broken homes. Oh, my God. Yes, ma'am. And had no clue how to do anything. We had no idea how to have a marriage. And we did it 13 years on our own. And... Train wrecked it. Yeah. But look at you now. Amen. That to me is the biggest miracle. The two of you are walking miracles. And your story today, it's like, I'm sitting here just thinking, all I can say is, that's just like Jesus. Amen. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Well, we're going to talk a lot about rebuilding the man, the husband, the son, the dad. And we're going to talk about, as we go along, the rebuilding the woman. Yes. The mom, the daughter. Yes. The grandma, Omi, in this case. And we're going to talk about rebuilding the family and how he did that. And how our job in the whole thing, if you will, was just to say yes to him every single time. He moved us to East Texas, kicking and screaming. We did not want to come, neither one of us. But we did, and we stayed throughout the entire time. And he's taken us on one of the most whirlwind adventures I could ever... I could never have dreamed up. Huh? No. Never have dreamed it. But our choice and your choice, I want you to know. Whoever's out there listening that feels broken and is in a marriage like we had. What was it called? That book that fell off the shelf at Mardell's. Oh. What was that? How to... I don't remember. Broken. Marriage broken or devoid of love or whatever. It's one of the miracle stories. Trish was broken and Mardell's trying to... I will get the name of the book for the next time. Yeah, we'll share that miracle story with you and a lot more. When love dies, how to fix a broken marriage. When love dies. Yeah. If you're out there and you feel like love's died, I want to tell you, love don't die. Love don't die. Love is God, and God don't die. The word says, God is love. And if we choose to believe Him and belong to Him, have faith in Him, I don't care how long it's been or how bad it got, there is hope. He's got plenty of scotch tape. Yeah, He's got plenty of scotch tape. Amen, yes He does. Plenty of scotch tape. That's awesome. I think that's a great place to stop for our first take. We hope that you enjoyed and that you heard Him. Our prayer for this podcast is that God the Father, Holy Spirit, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is heard through this time together. Amen. That's why we're here. No other agenda other than to rejoice when we see vengeance. Yes. By sharing the word of our testimony. God, we love you and we trust you tonight, and we thank you for this opportunity. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.