Your Marriage Is On Display | The Art of Relationships

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Your Marriage Is On Display!

Chris Grace: Welcome to another Art of Relationships podcast. Tim, oftentimes one of the things that we hear from students, people our age, is that life is always unpredictable, but what helps moderate that and bring hope and healing but also encouragement or friendships, right? The idea of having somebody that you can hang out with and be a friend. We talked about spouses as friends and what that mean, and so the role of friendships are huge and important.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yet national surveys show that most men in the United States would say that they’re lonely. And part of that is because of the transitory nature of our country today, is that people tend to pick up and move, be it job related or family related. So friendships, are rare to cultivate in college and even rarer to keep them going once people graduate from college. And yet, we have a couple here who not only met at Biola University, but had been able to sustain friendships long after graduation, which I’m sure is of great interest to our listeners.

Chris Grace: Yup. So we brought in some special guests today. Let me introduce to our listeners, Mike and Stephanie Anderson. Mike and Stephanie, thanks for joining us on the podcast.

Mike Anderson: Great to be with you.

Chris Grace: Good to have you guys. Hey, now I know you guys are up in Washington in Seattle. What’s it like the winter so far? You guys surviving up there? I think it gets snow at some point.

Stephanie Anderson: We did. We had quite a bit of snow this year.

Chris Grace: When you guys are up there, do you get back down to Biola often? You graduated a number of years ago, but how often do you get back down to this area?

Mike Anderson: We were just there last spring for commencement, but prior to that it had been quite a bit of time since we had visited.

Chris Grace: Yeah. Well, Mike and Stephanie, again, thanks so much for joining us on this podcast. Tell us a little bit about your story. You guys came here to Biola and you met, how did you guys end up meeting together and getting together finally?

Stephanie Anderson: So we met our junior year. I had come down with mononucleosis the year before and had to drop out of school for a semester and go home, and came back. One of the classes that I had to retake was a 7:30 Bible class. We had that class together, so I guess you could say we met because of mono.

Chris Grace: Ah, there you go. Never the best of circumstances to meet under, I’m assuming.

Stephanie Anderson: No, but it worked out.

Chris Grace: Yeah, it worked out. So Mike, both you and Stephanie are very busy people. Thanks for taking the time you guys. I know Mike, you’ve been a CFO, a chief financial officer of a company, you’ve worked in a variety of areas, and we wanted you guys on this podcast primarily because you guys have such a great background, the story of your relationship. We’ll talk some about that, about friendship and what it means to establish and keep a friendship in a marriage. And then the busyness that hits. Some of our Biola graduates and other listeners also know what it’s like to find you in a place where life is so busy and so difficult and so hard, and then the role that having a great marriage and a great friendship creates and allows.

Tim Muehlhoff: Mike and Stephanie, we’ve been teaching a class. We’ve been doing it for about five, six years. It’s called the Christian Relationships Class. It’s a really cool class. It’s taught with me representing communication theory and my wife, Noreen. It’s Chris and Elisa representing psych. And then we have a theologian, John Mundy and his wife Pam, and we all teach this class together. We have about a 150 students and we go from courtship to God’s will to what’s the purpose of marriage? I’m sure our listeners are always fascinated in your courtship story. Can you tell us a little bit about the courtship, how you knew and how you date at Biola and all those different kinds of things?

Chris Grace: I heard a laugh, so this is going to be interesting.

Mike Anderson: I laugh because when Stephanie and I met the tail end of our junior year at Biola, I then left shortly after that and went on a summer missions project in Thailand through the Student Missionary Union Program there at Biola. We then dated our senior year and, as I graduated in May of that year, I was struggling because I had come from a background where marriage … I didn’t see a great example of marriage with my mom and dad. It was pretty clear that I loved Stephanie, but I struggled with the decision, “Was I really prepared to be married? I chuckle because Stephanie would tell you that she, in effect ,gave me an ultimatum at some point, “Make a decision or let’s move on,” and I really struggled with making that commitment because I just had this perspective that was not a healthy perspective of what marriage was. Yet when Stephanie and I work together, life was good.

Tim Muehlhoff: So Mike, a lot of our listeners, a lot of these students in this class I was telling you about, come from broken families, come from really hard situations. What eventually communicated to that you were ready to do this, that you had made peace, at least, with your background? How did you overcome those kind of negative entailments of a tough family life?

Mike Anderson: Well, my hunch is that this will be somewhat unique to me. I was invited by Stephanie’s parents to stay with them while Stephanie was finishing her time at Biola. She graduated the following December, and I felt pretty awkward about that. And yet, through some conversation, I decided to do that and so I literally commuted to my brand new job with Stephanie’s dad, and that was life changing because we had all kinds of windshield time, I had not met a man who claimed faith in Christ who was highly accomplished in his vocation. He was a senior finance officer with Xerox and we were commuting every day. I would literally drop him, we’d drive his car, I would drop him at his office and then I went about 10-15 minutes further to my office, and then had the return trip together and we did that for six months.

Tim Muehlhoff: Were there any topics that just particularly stand out to you that were really healing and helpful moving forward?

Mike Anderson: You know, I often think that sometimes just watching somebody and seeing how somebody models something is far more impactful than necessarily having had a deep topic. So for me it was just the natural course of conversation, and then again to see how he engaged with his wife was transforming for me. I just hadn’t seen anything like that, and it started to give me hope just in watching my now father and mother-in-law, that maybe I could have some hope that I could have a marriage that looked like that.

Tim Muehlhoff: Boy, that’s great. I feel the same way. Chris often doesn’t say very deep things, and so I’ve gleaned from him, I have to kind of pick up non-verbals from Chris. Right now he’s giving me non-verbals right now. I’m picking up-

Chris Grace: No, but verbal is we’re going to edit that out. That’s the verbal. So we could do non-verbals. Stephanie, you probably felt some sense of trepidation, relief, excitement, worry when Mike was in the car or how did you feel about what was going on?

Stephanie Anderson: Well, I thought it was awesome. One of the things that I remember distinctly, one night we were talking on the phone, Mike and I, because he was in the Bay Area and I was still at Biola. He told me that my parents were sitting together watching TV one evening my dad had his arm around my mom, and he had never seen that at his home. And that just broke my heart. My parents had a solid relationship. I’m so blessed with my family that I was born into, and obviously the impact was amazing for Mike and for both of us.

Chris Grace: When you think back on that time, I’m sure the both of you sensed something that a lot of people do. What a blessing to have somebody who can model a healthy marriage and what it means to love somebody. And we have students that approach us all of the time with this question. By the way, it’s why we started our center here. Five, six years ago, the president said to us, “Chris, Tim, let’s do this thing that you guys are working on all the time, and that’s relationships, because too many of our students are walking away, coming from maybe not the greatest backgrounds, but they aren’t getting the equipping that they need to deal with some of those emotional tolls that being in a family like that takes, and they need positive models and impact.” And so Tim and I immediately thought, “This is it. This is what Biola could really make a stand on, and that is healthy relationships,” because Mike, unfortunately, many of our listeners and a lot of people are like that, they don’t have a place to look to for healthy relationships.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, Mike, I had the exact same experience you did. I grew up in a family. It was very difficult. There was a lot of verbal abuse and I remember going on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ and getting placed at Miami of Ohio University in Oxford, Ohio and basically the campus director and his wife, Roxanne, reparented me. I remember watching them laugh with each other and realizing I had never seen my parents do that, ever. And so that kind of, I think what you are saying is just picking up on how they interacted with each other, to me gave me a very different context of what marriage was supposed to look like.

Mike Anderson: Agreed.

Chris Grace: Mike, so now you’re now maybe in the role that your father-in-law was, you’re working as a CFO. I know you’re even on a board, are you with the Seattle School of Theology, is that right?

Mike Anderson: Correct.

Chris Grace: Yeah. Those lessons that you’ve learned, you not only apply them in marriage, they’re applied throughout your work world. What have you learned that you carried with you about that, even in what you do on a day-to-day?

Mike Anderson: I would say probably a big lesson learned was that you can have cognitive knowledge about many aspects of life, but it’s so important how you bring it. It’s how you show up. It’s your countenance, it’s your ability to speak appropriate to the contexts that you find yourself. And that’s where my father-in-law began to show me some of those examples. And then, as I came alongside other men over the course of my vocation, they were a huge voice in how I showed up vocationally. Even in how I showed up in a church context, in all of those areas, it was so evident to me that it wasn’t enough just to have book knowledge, it was how you brought it and how you showed up and engaged. Could I be present? Could I be thoughtful? Could I be discerning? Those are really important lessons that I’ve felt like I’ve learned along the way.

Chris Grace: I mean, I love that word. Being present, being mindful, right? One of the things we’re learning, even now we run this great center, but we also have a place in which we spend time modeling for students that we don’t even realize that we’re modeling. In other words, just this week, a student said, I asked them about classes, and said, “My favorite class is the Relationships Class.” I said, “Well, why?” She goes, “Well, interestingly enough, we love what you talk about when you all are lecturing, but it’s watching how you interact with each other up front that teaches us things about marriage, about how to love somebody else, about how to be friends, and it’s watching that dynamic,” And so we realized we have to be very intentional and mindful about spending time with students in a way that models something. It’s not just our words, it’s not just the cognitive, it’s not just our theories, and that that can really be a powerful influence.

Tim Muehlhoff: For example, we had a man on, this was a while ago, who actually created Imago Therapy, fascinating individual, and he had a view of dating that was very, very unique and kind of controversial. So we bring it up in class and I actually thought there are parts of it that were really good. Noreen, sitting right next to me, and she disagrees with me. She’s like, “Honey, what? Come on.” So we had this interesting conversation from the students. They later commented that for some of them that was the highlight to see two people disagree with each other, but do it in a way in which was a little bit playful, winsome, but joking with each other. So let’s ask this question. If our listeners were to watch you two daily interact, what would be the good, what would be the things you struggle with? What would they pick up if they are kind of were a fly on the wall?

Mike Anderson: Go ahead dear.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh well. Played well played Sir.

Stephanie Anderson: Well, I hope they would see that we respect each other, that we care about each other. In our life have had some challenges thrown our way that we never anticipated would be our life, and we don’t always approach things the same way at all. Mike handles things very differently than I do.

Tim Muehlhoff: Can you flesh that out, Stephanie, for our listeners? Can you flesh it out with that looks like?

Stephanie Anderson: I tend to be a lot more emotional in my reactions. Part of that I think is just being female, and take things very deeply to heart. I also need time to process my thoughts and Mike is more typical as far as how men process things. We have a special needs son and that grieving process was the first major point in our marriage where our differences were very pronounced in how we handled that. Mike was able to compartmentalize, to go to work every day, and he was much more thoughtful in how he processed that. I, on the other hand, was very emotional, needed to talk it out.

Tim Muehlhoff: I think that’s important for listeners to hear, when we process stress differently. Then how do you do the dance together? How do you … knowing that that’s true about each one of you, how does that not become a point of tension, but rather how can you allow for each other’s tendencies be it compartmentalizing or being emotional and verbal processing?

Mike Anderson: I would say it this way. I think if somebody observed us, I think a big step forward for me personally was just giving Stephanie space, to just allow her to be emotional, to just allow the conversation and not to try and solve anything. I felt like that helped during those particularly rough times when we were processing things differently. There’s a phrase that has come to me that I think of often, and I call it engaging the discourse. I used to think that having points of difference and having points of disagreement wasn’t good. Now I understand it’s awesome, because in stepping into the difference, we begin to see things that I think neither of us had seen before, but having the patience and the time and just giving the space for that, that was a big lesson I felt like for me in our relationship.

Chris Grace: That’s really good. There’s so much that our students and other listeners can figure out on how to have an appropriate and healthy relationship by just simply learning, not just what they’re like and wired, but ways that they can reach in someone who’s very different than them. So Stephanie, my wife is a lot like you. She processes internally a lot, and I think the biggest challenge for me was to figure out that when we had an argument or a conflict, I just wanted to talk about it and resolve it and take care of it. And she just needed a little bit of time. And I think the journey for me has been to learn her love language, but also learn her style. And so we’re going to talk a little bit more about that.

Mike and Stephanie, one thing Stephanie I wanted to follow up on, and I know you guys have had some unique challenges and you parent a child with special needs. Has that been, for you guys, an experience that has shaped you and in what ways? Life is never something that we can predict and plan and things are hard, but I’m assuming that in that challenge you have found some things that you’ve learned about each other and learned about marriage.

Stephanie Anderson: Yeah, it’s been quite a learning experience actually. One of the things is just it has solidified my faith because when we first got the diagnosis, I questioned that for a while. Just coming to know that God was watching, that he knew our son, that he knows us, that we can still trust him was huge for me. Also, it gives you a whole different perspective on heaven that I never expected, and you know, it has caused us to have to work through things that we never anticipated having to work through with each other. And you know, me knowing that Mike wasn’t going anywhere and him knowing that I wasn’t going anywhere, and that we were going to work through it together.

Tim Muehlhoff: And Stephanie, you said something and it almost went by so quickly, but I want our listeners to hear it. In today’s divorce culture, you said, “I know Mike’s not going anywhere.” What difference does that make in a marriage knowing that you guys are going to live out your wedding vows, that nobody’s going to go anywhere until death do you part? How does that make a difference? What changes does that make in your interaction?

Stephanie Anderson: Well, it’s huge because there are days when you don’t like each other very much. Everybody has challenges in their marriage, and just knowing that you’re going to work through it and you’re going to hang in there and you’re not going to run when things get hard. And he’s proven that to me over the years, and it just makes a world of difference I think, just having that confidence.

Tim Muehlhoff: I remember Noreen and I were having a disagreement one time and she said to me, this is pretty early in the marriage, like within the first couple of years, and she said, “Hey, we’d better work this out or the next 60 years is going to be difficult.” The subtext was powerful, right? “I’m not going anywhere for the next 60 years. You and I are in this together, so let’s work on this stuff we need to work on.” And I’ve always remembered that, that that was a really powerful statement on her part. Yeah, it makes a huge difference in today’s divorce culture that we are not going anywhere.

Chris Grace: So you guys have processed a lot of challenges, and I imagine the marriage relationship has been something that sustains and helps and grows. But Mike, one thing I know about your story as well is you met a number of friends at Biola and you have stayed in contact with them. Tell us a little bit about that story.

Mike Anderson: Yeah. These were three guys that we all met it within our first semester as freshmen at Biola, and never imagining that some 42 years now later we would still be in relationship. 14 years ago we got in touch with each other and said, “Hey, let’s consider a quick rendezvous.” We met for four days in Phoenix and watched some cactus league baseball and had a great time. It was so impactful that we said, “Let’s try this again next year,” and just this March was our 14th consecutive getaway for spring training.

These are three men that have become extremely dear to my heart. When we get together, there is big slaps on the back, big hugs, there’s weeping, there’s praying, there’s talking about the pressures of our vocations, how to be better husbands, how do we be a better dad? It’s been just a remarkable set of years with these men, and it’s a highlight every year that I get a chance to do that with them. A couple of times, Stephanie will be quick to tell you that it’s not as many as I think it is, we have invited our wives and that has been really fun.

We were with our wives just this last March. We brought them with us this year. We joke that the only reason we don’t do it more often is then we couldn’t burp and then we have to be a little bit more-

Chris Grace: Refined.

Mike Anderson: … on good behavior. But yeah, it’s been a really great experience with these three men.

Tim Muehlhoff: Mike, do you have an agenda? Do you read a book in advance or do you pick a topic that you’re going to work through, or do you just enjoy each other’s company?

Mike Anderson: We don’t have an agenda and what’s been remarkable to me is that every year there seems to be someone who’s really in a bad place. And it’s incredible to see how the other three come around that individual, encourage them, and affirm them. Sometimes we just get into each other’s grill really hard and say, “You need to man up and there’s a lot at stake and don’t you dare stop running the race.”

Chris Grace: Yeah, that’s so cool.

Mike Anderson: I was just gonna say, so there is an agenda, but there’s been enough trust that’s been built that we just pick one person and we say, “Okay, just go. Just tell us where you’re at.” And there’s no lying allowed and we’ve gotten really good at unpacking statements so that we’re really getting to the heart of what’s going on in each other’s lives.

Tim Muehlhoff: Wow, that’s great. We have a marriage group we belong to with the Graces for probably what, 10 years, Chris? And you’re right. Periodically we have couples that have just been really struggling. Like there was the death of a really dear friend and a couple of that was in the group was walking through that. There was another person who has an unexpected health issue that’s not going away anytime soon, unless God really intervenes. So you right, to walk with life through individuals is incredibly important. The church is to act together and we often in neglect that. That’s really great that you do that. How do the wives change the equation when the wives joined?

Mike Anderson: Well, to be honest, we had built some pretty tight camaraderie and we were a little nervous. I mean, with our wives, would they get along? Would this be okay? And I think they actually had a good time. In fact, it was suggested this last March that they want to come again next year, so that the cadence of their participation seems to be increasing.

Chris Grace: Oh, that’s awesome.

Tim Muehlhoff: Stephanie, what does it do for you, as a wife, to know that Mike is part of this kind of a group, that he has this kind of support, that they’re getting into each other’s grills? How does that help the marriage, knowing that he has a group like that?

Stephanie Anderson: I think it’s awesome and I’m a little jealous, actually, because I haven’t had that. And so I watched them and the relationship, and it’s just … I think it’s so important to have accountability, and people that will tell you the truth and I’m not let you get away with things. It’s been a great getaway for him just to be able to relax. He has a very high pressure job. And so just for health reasons, I think it’s awesome that he has that chance to get away and relax, but also that it’s time well spent, that it’s encouraging and motivating him, like you said, to be a better man.

Chris Grace: And then to watch the Dodgers and be such fans of them I would imagine was just … It brings just love into my heart right now thinking about Dodgers, and I’m sure that’s the same, your favorite team.

Mike Anderson: Well, what’s been part of the fun is that our allegiances to certain teams has just dissipated because we don’t care which park we’re at. It’s like the sun is warm, the companionship is incredible, and we just enjoy that time. We’ve been to the Dodger park, we’ve been to see the Giants, we’ve been to see the Seattle Mariners, but at some point we just don’t really care whose park we’re at, it’s about the guys that are there. I think part of what’s made this work is that we don’t have the agenda. I think we all have been involved in so many things, that if we had to prepare yet one more thing for this to work, I’m not sure it would have worked.

Tim Muehlhoff: That’s good. So what would be your advice, other than perhaps reading a Muehlhoff book ahead of time? I don’t think that would kill you, Mike. You win. What advice would you have to even undergrads, students listening right now, male and female of, “Okay, I want to do this. I want to get this going.” What kind of things can they already be doing now to set up the future when they graduate?

Mike Anderson: I would probably say don’t be afraid to be proactive. Don’t be afraid to reach out. Sometimes the answer will be no. And that’s okay. What a joy it is when the answer’s yes, and I’ll tell you briefly how this even came about. I got a phone call from Ben. Ben said, “Hey, I’ve taken this new executive director role with a non-profit. I’m looking for a great CFO. Would you be willing to get reacquainted and join me for a flight to Africa? I was within days of a board meeting with the company I was with and I could not make that work. But, to Ben’s credit, he reached back out by phone and he said, “I know that didn’t work. Might we get another date on the calendar?” And we both, in that conversation, just said, “What about this coming weekend?” Just impromptu, without trying to schedule months in advance.

And I said, “You know what? I can do it. How about if I call two other men?” I called an impromptu, that next weekend we met in Phoenix for the first time. 14 years later we’re still doing it now.

Tim Muehlhoff: Wow, that’s great. Hey, one last quick thing. When we do these marriage conferences, here is the biggest challenge that we tend to hear from couples, that life overwhelms them. It could be parenting, it could be work, and that they just don’t make time for themselves. For instance, there’s a very famous study that shocks people that the average American couple only communicates between one and half minutes in two minutes on an interpersonal level, to which people immediately object and they say, “No, I know I talked to my spouse more than that.” Yeah, but it might be organizational like, “Hey, Tom has got taekwondo. Remember Susie’s got this. We got this lunch.” That’s organizational. But interpersonal is sharing your heart’s fears, things like that. So you have a high-powered job, you have parenting issues. How do you two carve out time to connect with each other and to make yourself a priority?

Stephanie Anderson: Well, we have a favorite restaurant just down the hill, and we like to just take off and go for dinner on the weekend. And just because we’re out of the house, we tend to be able to have more concentrated time to talk and connect. That’s been something we’ve been doing for quite a while now. Just trying to get away one evening a weekend.

Tim Muehlhoff: Is it every … you shoot for every weekend, Stephanie, that regularly, like a weekly kind of thing?

Stephanie Anderson: Well, I don’t know if we actually consciously shoot for once a week, but it’s kind of worked out to be that. And I’m motivated because Mike’s so busy, I find that when we’re away from the house and we sit down at this place for dinner, it’s easier for him to talk and not be distracted. And so for me it’s motivating because of that and getting together to remember that, “Hey, I really like your company.” Because sometimes when you get busy you kind of forget that.

Tim Muehlhoff: You know, what Noreen and I have tried to do is we do, believe it or not, we try to do yoga, beginning yoga, once a week. We just go and laugh because I am the most unflexible person you’ve ever seen. Like happy baby position is just, to me, torture and we just laugh as we do it. But we walk there and we walk back, and it’s during those walks that you just kind of declutter a little bit and things like that. So I just admire that you guys tried to do that. And when you do have dinners is technology off, do you turn everything off?

Stephanie Anderson: Well because we have a special needs son that lives with us, our phone is always on the table, because he can text us if there’s an issue, but we’re not on our phones reading our phones, doing email, that kind of thing.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, that’s good.

Stephanie Anderson: It’s off to the side, but it’s always present.

Tim Muehlhoff: Well, I admire the Graces. This ticks me off when Chris shares this in front of Noreen when we’re doing this class together. But they have done a weekly date night for Chris, how many years?

Chris Grace: Yes. Most of our married life.

Tim Muehlhoff: Come on, stop it. How many years is that?

Chris Grace: It’s 30 some.

Tim Muehlhoff: He shared that in front of my wife, Noreen. I have … talk about non-verbal communication. The look I got was like, “Oh honey,” but I admire you guys doing that, right? Chris, what do you do? It’s not elaborate, right?

Chris Grace: No, it’s definitely … it’s like you guys, it’s just simply being able to connect. And sometimes it’s just fun, and other times we just sit there and and just enjoy the fact that we can be ourselves in the presence of somebody and sometimes it’s really deep talking. We have a lunch quite regularly throughout the week as well.

Tim Muehlhoff: Stop, Chris, stop. Why bring that in? Why do you have to add a … “Honey, love you.” If my wife is listening.

Chris Grace: Mike and Stephanie, as we’re finishing up, what are you seeing as the things most troubling just as you think through relationships, that you guys are facing and seeing among friends and family? Any areas in particular that stand out to you? Because you guys have a ministry in marriage and what’s your passion in your ministry and working together in this?

Mike Anderson: At various seasons that passion has shown up in different ways. There have been times when we’ve hosted and led small groups in our home, and that’s been in some cases a very formal, quote, Bible study format. In other cases it’s just been, “Let’s just get together and talk as couples.” In other seasons it’s shown up by just investing in our daughter and her husband of going on three years. At other times it’s just being available to various families at our church.

I know Stephanie has been often a resource for other women who just need us a safe, confidential place to talk through some things, and I think I’ve been able to be a resource to some men in the same way. I think that collective passion, it depending on the seasons of where we are, has shown up in different ways, but it’s certainly been a part of who we are. It’s also, for a time, shown up in encouraging people to attend a family life marriage conference. Years ago, we were in a tough spot and we were encouraged to go to a conference, made a big impact on us. And the following year we invited 25 couples to go with us. There’s just been various ways that we’ve shared that conviction together and how it’s shown up.

Chris Grace: How does it affect your marriage ministering together as a couple? What kind of impact does it have on you guys in your relationship?

Stephanie Anderson: Well, I think it draws you closer together because you’re working together on something. You know, we have a lot of different interests and things that we’re doing that take us different directions. But when you’re ministering to people together, I think that just draws you closer together, gives you a common goal and also helps cement what you know about God and each other.

Tim Muehlhoff: That’s great. 25 couples, that’s amazing.

Mike Anderson: You know, the other thing that comes to mind for me is I think, with these limited amounts of interaction within a marriage, I find that those small amounts of time are factual. We exchange information just to make the family work. But what investing in others and doing date nights, et cetera do for me is it opens up the story as to what’s happening for Stephanie, and that’s where the fun is.

Chris Grace: Well, if you guys were anywhere closer to us we’d have you in the CMR because we love couples like you guys that have this passion in ministry and invest in so many people. You guys have done Biola proud. Thank you for being alumni of the school and for your model, and just your encouragement as well. We just want to just thank you guys too for taking the time to share a little bit about your journey and story, and it’s so good to hear Biola alum thriving out there and making an impact. Mike, we could talk all day about leadership and being involved in high levels there, and then all these other things we’ve talked about.

But we’re just grateful to have you guys on the program, and what a great story and journey.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, thank you so much. We love it. We love these kinds of stories and it serves Biola well to know that our graduates are really living out the life.

Stephanie Anderson: Thank you. We love Biola.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, good.

Chris Grace: Well, you’re loved here. People, you know, Eric and Barry and others send their greetings. Thanks for being on our program and we’ll talk soon.

Chris Grace serves as the director of the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships and teaches psychology at Rosemead School of Psychology. He and his wife, Alisa, speak regularly to married couples, churches, singles and college students on the topic of relationships, dating and marriage. Grace earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from Colorado State University.

Tim Muehlhoff is a professor of communication at Biola University and author of several books, including I Beg to Differ and Marriage Forecasting. For the past 18 years, he and his wife, Noreen, have been frequent speakers at FamilyLife marriage conferences. Muehlhoff regularly writes and speaks for the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships. Follow Dr. Muehlhoff on Twitter.

By the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships. Discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.