What if the very thing God designed to heal and unite your marriage is the thing most couples avoid talking about?

In this episode of the Grace Marriage Podcast, Brad and Marilyn sit down with Bella from Delight Your Marriage for a raw, hope-filled conversation about intimacy, forgiveness, and the habits that either heal or quietly destroy a marriage. Bella shares her personal journey through marital pain, divorce, and restoration, and how God used that story to shape a ministry helping couples learn how to love each other well.

You’ll hear why intimacy is far more than sex, how unresolved pain blocks connection, and why forgiveness is the first step toward lasting change. This episode is both deeply spiritual and incredibly practical...especially for couples who feel stuck, distant, or unsure how to move forward.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.


🔑 KEY IDEAS:
• Why intimacy is essential for emotional and spiritual connection
in marriage
• How unresolved pain and resentment block closeness
• Forgiveness as the starting point for marital healing
• The difference between physical intimacy and wholehearted intimacy
• How men and women experience love and connection differently
• Why marriage habits—not intentions—determine long-term health


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What happens when authenticity replaces performance in your marriage, ministry, or leadership?

In this episode of the Grace Marriage Podcast, Brad sits down with Chuck Allen (lead pastor of Sugar Hill Church) to explore how freedom, authenticity, and grace reshape both marriage and leadership. From navigating insecurity and burnout to learning how to truly value your spouse, this conversation dives into why pretending you “have it all together” eventually leads to collapse, and how radical honesty creates deeper connection.

You’ll hear why prioritizing marriage strengthens leadership, how speaking life builds confidence, and why planning life together weekly can transform both your relationship and your sense of peace. This episode is a powerful reminder that grace-filled marriages don’t happen by accident...they’re built through intentionality, humility, and authentic love.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.


🔑 KEY IDEAS:
• Why image management and people-pleasing slowly destroy marriages
• How insecurity drives overwork, burnout, and emotional distance
• The difference between performance-driven marriage and grace-filled marriage
• Why authenticity creates freedom in leadership and relationships
• How valuing your spouse daily makes grace and kindness easier
• Why pastors and leaders must prioritize marriage over ministry
• How speaking life builds confidence and draws spouses closer
• The power of weekly life planning as a couple
• Why encouragement motivates change better than criticism
• How grace turns marriage into a place of safety, joy, and growth

📚 KEY VERSES:
📖 Ecclesiastes 4:9 - Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.
📖 James 1:5 - If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
📖 Proverbs 27:6 - Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
📖 Romans 5:8 - But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING??
✅ Subscribe & Share – Help us spread the message of grace-based marriage by subscribing to the Grace Marriage Podcast and sharing this episode with friends or family.
✅ Join Grace Marriage – Ready to invest in your marriage? Visit GraceMarriage.com to learn how proactive marriage care can transform your relationship.
✅ Leave a Review – Your feedback helps us reach more couples who need encouragement.

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What happens when good things (ministry, leadership, work) quietly take priority over your marriage?

In this candid conversation, Brad sits down with Dave and Ann Wilson to unpack how even serving God can unintentionally damage a marriage when priorities drift out of order. They talk honestly about insecurity, performance-driven relationships, emotional isolation in ministry, and why affirmation at home matters more than applause everywhere else.

You’ll hear why pastors and leaders often neglect their marriages, how encouragement can restore connection, and what it really means to build a grace-filled marriage that makes both spouses better.

If you want a marriage that thrives instead of slowly drifting, this episode will challenge and encourage you to rethink what truly comes first.

https://www.daveannwilson.com

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.


🔑 KEY IDEAS:
- Why putting ministry or work ahead of marriage slowly destroys intimacy
- How insecurity and affirmation drive overcommitment outside the home
- The hidden marriage crisis among pastors and church leaders
- Why encouragement motivates change better than criticism
- How speaking life builds confidence, connection, and trust
- Grace marriage vs. performance-driven marriage

📚 KEY VERSES:
📖 Romans 5:8 -- But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
📖 James 1:5 -- If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
📖 Proverbs 18:21 -- The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
📖 Proverbs 27:6 -- Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.

LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING??
✅ Subscribe & Share – Help us spread the message of grace-based marriage by subscribing to the Grace Marriage Podcast and sharing this episode with friends or family.
✅ Join Grace Marriage – Ready to invest in your marriage? Visit GraceMarriage.com to learn how proactive marriage care can transform your relationship.
✅ Leave a Review – Your feedback helps us reach more couples who need encouragement.

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Most marriages don’t fall apart overnight...they slowly drift.

In this episode, Brad talks with Dave and Ann Wilson about the subtle but dangerous lie that traps many “fine” marriages and how it nearly cost them their own. Dave shares the moment God broke through his busyness and ministry obsession, while Ann explains how learning to speak life (rather than criticism) reshaped their marriage from the inside out.

This conversation explores why marriage repair can’t stay "horizontal," how repentance changes everything, and what it really takes to shift the drift toward a thriving, grace-filled marriage.

https://www.daveannwilson.com

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.


🔑 KEY IDEAS:
• The hidden danger of “fine” marriages drifting toward isolation
• Why fixing your marriage can’t start with fixing your spouse
• How repentance and reordering priorities restores intimacy
• The power of words to bring life — or shut a spouse down
• Why encouragement motivates change better than criticism
• What it looks like to “go back and do the things you did at first” in marriage


LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING??
✅ Subscribe & Share – Help us spread the message of grace-based marriage by subscribing to the Grace Marriage Podcast and sharing this episode with friends or family.
✅ Join Grace Marriage – Ready to invest in your marriage? Visit GraceMarriage.com to learn how proactive marriage care can transform your relationship.
✅ Leave a Review – Your feedback helps us reach more couples who need encouragement.

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What if your marriage had a game plan as intentional as a championship team?

In this episode, Brad talks with George and Tondra Gregory, NFL chaplains and founders of Journey for Life, who have spent years walking with professional athletes, coaches, and couples who want to build marriages that reflect Christ. They share how serving NFL teams opened unexpected doors for ministry, how success can become either a platform or an idol, and why many husbands settle for “average” when God calls them to something far greater.

George and Tondra break down the key components of a winning “marriage game plan”: knowing you’re on the same team, identifying the opponents of your marriage, setting shared goals, creating rhythms of intentionality, and refusing to coast. They also challenge men specifically with a powerful question: Why would you want an average marriage when you serve the greatest of all time?

If you’ve ever drifted, settled, or assumed “we’re fine,” this conversation will push and inspire you.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.

• Journey for Life – https://journeyforlife.com

🔑 KEY IDEAS:
• Why “average” marriages are actually harmful, not neutral
• How NFL athletes approach growth — and what couples can learn from them
• Why intentionality is essential: nothing grows by accident
• How to build a shared vision and “game plan” for your marriage
• Identifying the true opponents of your marriage
• Why success can become an idol or a platform
• Why husbands must take ownership instead of settling for “we’re fine”


LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING??
✅ Subscribe & Share – Help us spread the message of grace-based marriage by subscribing to the Grace Marriage Podcast and sharing this episode with friends or family.
✅ Join Grace Marriage – Ready to invest in your marriage? Visit GraceMarriage.com to learn how proactive marriage care can transform your relationship.
✅ Leave a Review – Your feedback helps us reach more couples who need encouragement.

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Why do we keep doing the things in marriage we know we don’t want to do? In this episode, Brad sits down with Ron and Nan Deal to unpack the core concepts behind their new book The Mindful Marriage—a practical, accessible tool built on decades of clinical marriage therapy work from Dr. Terry Hargrave.

Ron and Nan explain what “dysregulation” actually is, why your brain reacts before you can think, and why couples get stuck in repeating patterns of blame, shame, control, and escape. They share how the cycle forms, how it fueled their own marriage struggles, and how learning to map their “pain cycle” and “peace cycle” changed everything.

This conversation is loaded with insight, neuroscience, honesty, and hope. If you’ve ever wondered “Why do I keep reacting like this," this episode could be a breakthrough.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.

• Blended & Blessed – https://blendedandblessed.com
• Ron Deal’s Resources – https://rondeal.org
• Grace Marriage – https://gracemarriage.com


🔑 KEY IDEAS:
• What “dysregulation” really means — and why your brain shuts off in conflict
• The four predictable responses: blame, shame, control, escape
• How triggers form and why they happen in nanoseconds
• The “pain cycle” vs. the “peace cycle” in marriage
• Why your spouse can’t heal your pain — and why that’s actually freeing
• How to move from emotional reactivity to intentional, Christ-centered responses
• Practical steps to rewiring your brain toward love, peace, patience, and self-control


📚 KEY VERSES
📖 Romans 7:15 “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
📖 Romans 6:14 “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
📖 Matthew 7:3 “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
📖 Galatians 5:22–23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”


LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING??
✅ Subscribe & Share – Help us spread the message of grace-based marriage by subscribing to the Grace Marriage Podcast and sharing this episode with friends or family.
✅ Join Grace Marriage – Ready to invest in your marriage? Visit GraceMarriage.com to learn how proactive marriage care can transform your relationship.
✅ Leave a Review – Your feedback helps us reach more couples who need encouragement.

FOLLOW US:
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Most couples think they have a game plan for marriage… until life exposes that they actually don’t. NFL chaplains George & Tondra Gregory join Brad to reveal why doing nothing is still a “game plan” (even though it's a terrible one) and how intentional, Christ-centered strategy can completely transform your relationship.

If your marriage feels “fine but not beautiful,” this conversation gives you the practical steps (and spiritual framework) to change that.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.

• Journey for Life – https://journeyforlife.com


🔑 KEY IDEAS:
• Doing nothing is a game plan...just not a winning one.
• Assumptions are one of the biggest threats to unity.
• Professional athletes never settle for average...neither should spouses.
• Your marriage won’t grow by accident. It grows by intentionality.
• Sanctification and marriage health go hand-in-hand.
• You find life by giving your life away (especially in marriage).
• Complacency is the enemy of beauty in marriage.

📚 KEY VERSES:
📖 Ephesians 5:25 - Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
📖 Matthew 16:25 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
📖 Matthew 7:3–5 - Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
📖 Matthew 13:22 - As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING??
✅ Subscribe & Share – Help us spread the message of grace-based marriage by subscribing to the Grace Marriage Podcast and sharing this episode with friends or family.
✅ Join Grace Marriage – Ready to invest in your marriage? Visit GraceMarriage.com to learn how proactive marriage care can transform your relationship.
✅ Leave a Review – Your feedback helps us reach more couples who need encouragement.

FOLLOW US:
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In this episode, Brad and Kent get brutally honest about a tension every parent wrestles with: How do you balance grace and truth?
Kent shares a powerful framework on why Jesus didn’t stand in the same place with everyone. He stood wherever the person in front of Him needed Him most. And as parents, that’s exactly what we’re called to do.

Brad opens up about his own journey with grace, including how regular confession, forgiveness, and delight radically reshaped his relationship with his daughter.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more couples discover the hope of a grace-filled marriage.

• Manhood Journey – https://manhoodjourney.org/


🔑 KEY IDEAS:
• Balancing grace and truth in parenting
• Why kids stop wanting time with their parents
• The danger of a performance-based Christian home
• How delight builds long-term influence
• Marriage conflict and ‘unseen capital
• How grace multiplies when you give it away
• How to discipline without shaming your kids
• Why Jesus didn’t use one-size-fits-all grace


LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING??
✅ Subscribe & Share – Help us spread the message of grace-based marriage by subscribing to the Grace Marriage Podcast and sharing this episode with friends or family.
✅ Join Grace Marriage – Ready to invest in your marriage? Visit GraceMarriage.com to learn how proactive marriage care can transform your relationship.
✅ Leave a Review – Your feedback helps us reach more couples who need encouragement.

FOLLOW US:
📌 Facebook: facebook.com/gracemarriage
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