In this episode Gina and her husband Norm talk about the significance of partnership in marriage and the misconceptions that often lead to missing out on all that God intended for us. Whether you are married or hoping to be married someday, this is an important message for the body of Christ today!
God’s Calling in Marriage
Gina:
I thought it would be super fun for you and I to have a conversation about marriage and specifically about marriage and ministry, marriage and calling, really about partnership. And, you and I have been married almost 28 years. We’ve been with each other longer than we’ve been without each other at this stage in our lives now.
Norm:
That is true.
Gina:
We’ve crossed that threshold.
Norm:
And we still enjoy each other.
Gina:
We do.
I’m recognizing, especially recently pouring into ministry, into young people, young leaders. A lot of misunderstanding of what marriage partnership is. And a lot of naivety as they step into that. And a lot of ideals and terms of what life and ministry looks like and getting married to someone in ministry. And I don’t want to narrow this only to ministry even.
Norm:
It applies in a broader way.
Gina:
Broader way. It’s believers, maybe overlooking a lot, romanticizing that once they get married, then they’ll be fulfilled. There’s issues with, especially if one of the partners feels very significant calling to something, then the other partner feels like they’re at the mercy of that person’s calling and they don’t really see it as a partnership. I feel like you and I have journeyed pretty significantly and pretty well in that arena of partnership. I thought it would be fun to have a conversation about that.
Norm:
A big part of that, that went easier, was the fact that you recognized God’s calling in my life before I did. We met in a church’s praise band.
Gina:
Norm was the bass player and I was the chick singer. You had a mullet.
Norm:
That’s the essential detail that must be mentioned every time. I did have a mullet. It was a highly functional hairdo back in the day.
I was working for the city of San Diego and we got married and we were both in the praise band of the church and were spending a lot of time serving at the church, but I had the full-time day job. A bit more background is that I’ve been playing bass for many, many years. I came back to Christ several years before we met. At the time I was prepared to give up music, because for me, music was kind of my Egypt, but God had different ideas and I got invited to serve with this home fellowship worship leader.
I had no idea what that was, he found out I played bass and I started playing with him and God was setting me up for this trajectory. I didn’t really know at the time. So we got married and we’re having a great time. I thought this was gonna be a perfect situation because the job with the city was one that allowed me to have complete autonomy over my schedule yet full health benefits and pretty decent pay and the whole thing.
I worked full-time as a musician and full-time with this at the city for a number of years, long time. And it was, as far as I was concerned, great. And at a certain point you said, “I think the time is coming when God’s got you doing this more, full-time, just the music thing.” And I thought, “Why on earth would we want to do that? This is such an awesome thing that we have right now.” And sure enough several years later, God made it super clear and we both looked at each other, “Is this something we’re actually going to do?”
It sounds kind of obvious, but a critical part of that was the two of us agreeing. And everything about what I do in music and in ministry is utterly dependent upon you, for a broad number of reasons. Not the least of which is that you are a significant source of input and discernment and creative insight. I guess you’re sort of like the producer of my life. But, there’s also practical things, we had young kids at the time, if this is something’s that’s going to happen, we have to be on the same page. Period. Or when things get rough we are going to have a major source of dispute.
Gina:
That’s enormous. One of the things that I say is so critical in the marriage relationship, especially when you’re talking about big life change, whether that’s quitting a job, changing a job, moving, having kids.You don’t come and inform me, you’ve never come and informed me, “Hey, Gina, by the way, I’m going to quit my job and do music full time.” You came to me and said, “God’s doing something. And I’m kind of feeling like, maybe this is it. So what do you think? Let’s pray about this.”
Norm:
It was a version of that, because you had already told me that you thought that. So it was more, like, “You know that thing you brought up a while back?”
Gina:
But that was years before. And who you are wired to be, who God made you to be is not a fly by the seat of your pants, risk taking kind of guy. You are a very measured logical. “Yes, God wants us to live by faith, but He also wants us to be wise and be good stewards. I have a family to support.” You’re just very smart and wise and stewardship’s a big thing to you. So by the time God had worked on you and you had come to that place where you were even considering the possibility, I knew the fact that you were even considering it, that this was the Lord.
That already gave me a big, it was very eye opening, here we go. This is Jesus. But even with that, you and I had to look at one another lock eyes and go, “Do you hear God saying this?” “Yep.” “Do you hear God saying this?” “Yep.” “Have you prayed about it?” “Yep.” “Have you prayed about it?” “Yep”, “Okay, are we gonna do this?” And we looked at each other and we said, “Yes, we are gonna do this.” Because one of the things that I’m so passionate about is that this isn’t just your calling. It’s our calling.
Your ministry is not your ministry without me. And my ministry is not my ministry without you. We are something together that we can’t be separate. And if we aren’t unified and a fully United front when we make that decision, then as you said earlier, when it gets hard and it will, when things are difficult and they will be, when the enemy comes and says, “Did God really say? Or, well, look you really screwed that up.” And he will do that absolutely.
You’ve now shut the door of opportunity for him to come in and start to use that against you and my heart, or use that against me and your heart. That doesn’t mean it’s not gonna be hard, because it will be. But it means that we’ve taken the weapons out of his hands. Because if we don’t do that, if I don’t look at you and go, “I am for you. I’m with you. We are called to this, whatever that means, whatever the cost may be, whatever sacrifices there are, we are together, we’re saying yes to that.”
If I can’t say that wholeheartedly then I’m leaving room for bitterness and resentment to build. I’m leaving room for blame. I’m leaving room for as soon as something doesn’t go my way, or as soon as I’m tired, then I can start compiling my list of ammunition against you. And that’s been a huge thing for us, because this life is no joke.
Norm:
No, it is not for the faint of heart. Going from a full time government income to freelance musician. And for years that was our household income. I think there are logistical considerations, like, how are we gonna pay the mortgage, but certainly doing ministry.
It hacks the enemy off, when we’re stepping out in faith. And I think that marriages are under attack anyway. It’s the favorite thing for the enemy to put wedges in there between spouses. Certainly this whole journey that we’ve been on, every critical point we fasted and prayed, and God made it clear, “This is where I want you to go.”
Reaching those conclusions together has been of utmost importance. And has, over the long haul, proven time and time again, that things would be very different, had we not had those discussions and been on the same page in that regard. The freelance life is feast or famine. During the famine times, it’s tough, if you’re not convinced that God spoke clearly. In our situation, there were a number of ways that God really confirmed.
Gina:
It was significant because it’s never as simple as we think it is. Even that journey, even that revelation like, “I think we’re supposed to do this.” And then you and I, praying and fasting, we came up to orange county, we went to church, a friend of ours was leading worship at. God spoke to both of us very clearly at that church service. And your devotional, we’re making these steps and we’re going forward. Because we’re humans, I think everybody does this, “God’s calling you, us to do this. So it’s gonna look like this.”
We kind of come up with our presumption of what that path is gonna be. You were working full time at the city and then you were traveling with Maranatha Music. Maranatha Music was doing something called the worship leader workshops, which was probably the first iteration of a praise conference, worship conference before passion.
And all those guys were doing that. You were traveling a lot. So working full-time plus traveling on the weekends doing these clinics. During that time, you got inspired to do Grooving for Heaven, which was base curriculum for bass players within the church. Because you recognize that bass players all had very similar musical issues.
Norm:
Holes in their bag, as it were.
Gina:
Holes In their bag, as you like to say. Most of them, ex guitar players who said, “I’ll play bass”. Self-taught. You had been growing this thing. I think there were maybe 17 dates with Maranatha that last really busy year before we moved. So the assumption was, Maranatha is in Orange County, we’re gonna be closer. They’ll probably be 20 or more dates. We sell our house, we move, we buy another house.
We sold our house, bought a house. Our mortgage went up by $700 a month. The city allowed you to go to halftime, which was a huge provision. You were able to maintain health insurance and half of your salary. But it was still a big cut it’s half. Then we get the phone call in December that this year there will be only two Maranatha dates, not 17.
Norm:
God’s sense of humor. I want to say that had we known that, if God had told us we still would’ve gone. But I don’t know. I think God maybe knew that. If I knew that ahead of time, I would’ve really struggled with that.
Gina:
That was the carrot that God had to almost angle to get you to go, “I’m gonna take the step.” And then once we took the step, He’s like, “Actually now that you’re here, let me tell you what this is really about.” But all that to say, I just want to encourage people, we’re in our fifties now, even now God’s still pushing me on that. Letting go have that expectation in that we have a good God. We have a Father who is moving.
Jeremiah 33:2-3 “Thus says the Lord who made it, who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name): ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'” We want to live by faith. We want to live with this great expectation that God is going to move, but we don’t want to lay our design and our anticipation of what that should look like. We need to learn how to live with expectation, but also let go of it so that we can enjoy.
Because His plans are always way better than ours. God opened the door for you then to start doing clinics in your own, right, not just with Maranatha Music. He opened doors for you to grow as a solo artist, as a jazz artist, all these different things that we never would’ve seen had we been devastated and disappointed and left and come back to San Diego or whatever the case may be. And the reality is we never missed a mortgage payment.
Our kids were healthy and had food on the table, but it was an E ticket ride. It wasn’t for the faint of heart and you were traveling a ton and I didn’t know anybody up here. A lot of attack, a lot of crazy weird spiritual attack when you were gone. Every time you’d leave something crazy would happen, a flood or a car gas leak or rats in the walls of the house.
Norm:
You’re speaking past tense. I mean that stuff still happens. Kerosene gets poured on the fire, regularly when I’m on the road.
Gina:
And the same happens when I’m heading in to do a prayer training or something. Then attacks come. The unity between you and I, and for those years when our kids were little and I was the stay at home mom and you were traveling and, and doing that stuff for me to be able to look at you and go, “I am here, I’m in. I’m with you. I may not always like it. I may have a bad day. You may need to be okay listening to me complain here and there, or be frustrated. But that’s not gonna change the fact that I’m in this. We’re doing this.”
Norm:
It’s a huge unity thing. It’s also a huge gift that a spouse gives a spouse. Because that in turn frees me up and I know that you have my back and conversely, when with your ministry, now I totally have your back. You never need to feel like there’s resentment or anything like that. No, I’m championing you.
We were talking a little bit before this recording about how this dynamic is hugely applicable to people that aren’t necessarily doing ministry vocationally. I think the whole idea is being on the same page and recognizing and supporting that calling in each other’s lives. And that’s not the easiest thing to do. I think that’s sort of that counting the cost thing. And if you know that your spouse has this calling, then there’s this, “We are a team. Therefore we have this calling.”
Gina:
Because it feels, some people may say it’s semantics and it’s subtle. But it’s not, there’s a difference if I say “We have this calling” and if I say, “Norm has this calling and I’m just kind of tagging along or I’m being dragged along.”
Norm:
Do you wanna unpack that thought? Because we were talking about this. We talk a bunch when we’re not being recorded as well. But we were talking about how you’re not a bass player. I don’t have the teaching gifts that you do. You want to unpack that a little bit.
Gina:
This came up, not that long ago. I was asked to come in and do some prayer ministry over a young couple that we know that we’ve poured into a bit. He is a pastor, they’re married in ministry. She has her own photography business. He’s a worship pastor and they both are deep wells. You just know that God has so much in store for them. And they were walking through some challenges, not necessarily maritally just walking through challenges with really some spiritual attack.
They have a young child and are just trying to figure this all out and moving forward. As I was praying for them, the Lord just kept having me pray for who they are as a couple and what they are called to, not what he’s called to, not what she’s, but what they are called to. That God has called the two of them together. And that there’s something significant and powerful about what He is birthing in them.
And when we got done praying, I said, “I just want to encourage the two of you that, his call is your call and her call is your call.” And she looked at me and she’s like, “I don’t understand that. How does it work? He’s a worship pastor. I can sing, but I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be leading the worship team with him. Or I have this photography business. He’s not gonna come be my second shooter or run my business.”
And I said, “No, it’s not about that. It’s about you looking at your husband and going, “Yes, we are called to ministry to be a worship pastor. That means that I am with you. And we’re choosing this lifestyle. We’re choosing the weight.” Life of ministry is hard. Being a pastor is difficult. It has its whole unique challenges financially. Drain emotional bandwidth, learning how to have boundaries. As much as you put up boundaries, it’s gonna seep into your life and your house.
So he can’t stand there unless the two of you are standing there.” That is profound and significant. And if couples can understand that, I’m not just talking about ministry now, she has this photography business, but now she’s feeling called to pour into young marriages, because she’s seeing, she’s photographing all these weddings. Also seeing a lot of people walking in blind or walking in with crazy weird sideways expectations. And so she wants to point to them.
She can’t stand there unless the two of them are standing there. And that doesn’t mean you walk away from your own call ministry, but it means that you’re unified and you are partners. That also brings to mind, we have some friends, Brian and Linda Sites who have a tremendous ministry to marriages. They have a class called Rebuild, for marriages who are in crisis, who are just struggling a bit, they counsel and mentor, they’ve done counseling for years, couples counseling. They also counsel and mentor married couples and law enforcement couples.
And one of the things that just has been a brutal tool of the enemy is a distortion of the submission model. There’s that kind of fundamental idea that God’s the head of the husband, the husband’s the head of the house and therefore leadership in the home means I’m making all the decisions. We are gonna do this my way or the highway. You need to submit to me. And it may not be outwardly verbally said, but it can happen in actions on both parties part.
So the wife can get totally passive and not believe or trust that she has anything to offer, or that she’s not a partner, that she’s a subordinate. Right. And that’s not who Adam and Eve were. That’s not what God designed marriage to be. He designed male and female different. And that when they’re joined together, there is something completed that isn’t there individually. And for a man to recognize that the uniqueness in his wife in how she’s just made because she’s female, but also how she’s gifted, how she’s wired, the emotional intelligence she brings, maybe the wisdom that she brings.
He would be a fool not to access and take advantage of those gifts and realize that those are for his benefit and vice versa. I think there’s a lot of marriages, a lot of spouses, not just husbands, not just wives, that do a lot of damage to each other in that misunderstanding.
Norm:
And that’s probably a whole other show. Absolutely. And you said it all. I think that the sort of patriarchal traditional way of looking at that short circuits thousands and thousands of marriages. Makes them ineffective and really adversarial. When the reality is that we are a team. And I’m an idiot if I am not taking advantage of the enormous things that you bring to the table, and I hope that you probably feel the same about what I bring to the table as well.
So any big decisions, we are always bouncing them back and forth. I’m thinking through, I don’t think that there’s ever been a time in our 27 years of marriage where I was like, well, this is how it’s gonna be. There’s never been a time. That’s primarily because aside from the fact that I’d be a jerk, there’s never been a need.
Because we are discussing things, we’re bouncing ideas back and forth. We’re weighing things out. We’re seeking the Lord individually as well as together. And then we’re making the decision and most of the time we are in completely agreement about what we’re supposed to do.
Gina:
I think trust weighs so heavily in that. That I trust you and you trust me so that unity can happen, because I’m never feeling like I have to manipulate or prove or fight for my whatever. And you’re not feeling like you need to do that either. I know that you’re for me. And you know that I’m for you. And I think that when we can say that, then we can have those conversations. You can come to me and say, “I think we should consider moving.” Because moving to orange county, wasn’t part of my original, “Hey, you’re gonna be in music full-time.”
First of all, you weren’t coming in and saying, “This is what we’re supposed to do, and we’re gonna do this. Get on board.” But you were saying, “I think that God is calling us to this. What do you think let’s pray about it. But I also, I trust you. I know you’re for me, I trust your relationship with Jesus.” So that we can enter into that dialogue and that prayer and that fasting together. And we can sometimes agonize over a decision, which we’ve had to agonize over decisions before.
I also wanna make it clear this isn’t just you, my husband, this also applies the other way around. Like two years ago, I felt God was telling me to resign from my job at a church. I’d been on staff for nine years. At that point, because of the nature of the music industry and the changes, your income wasn’t as much as it had been in the past because of digital sales shifts things and has drastic, just really hit how musicians make money.
And I was bringing the in health insurance and a very consistent paycheck. First of all, I didn’t resign without you. I came to you and said, “I feel like God might be calling me out, but I don’t know when.” And that was a process for several months. I think you and I both were like, “Yes, but not yet.”
Norm:
I think it went longer than that. Because you were feeling like this, it’d be pretty cool if this season ended pretty soon, but wanting to be obedient. And we are not going to go until we’re released. And there were several times that it was like, “I totally see that coming. I don’t believe that’s yet.”
Gina:
I wasn’t going to resign until you and I both felt like the Lord said it was time. Again, because I trust you. I know that you’re for me. And I know that our motive and agenda is obedience. But for us to agree to do that going to be a big jump. That was a riskier thing than us moving Orange County.
Much riskier thing. And the Lord didn’t say, “You’re going to go get a job here.” And you didn’t say, “You need to go get a job here.” You said, “No, I believe that God’s doing something. I believe He’s got a calling on your life and we’re gonna do whatever it takes to be in the season of transition and obedience.”
Norm:
That’s sort of that thing that you’re talking about what it’s supposed to look like and holding things with an open hand. Because, Ephesians 2 talks about the good works that God’s prepared in advance for us to do, but we don’t know what exactly those works are specifically. And so we can look back and go, “You can clearly see God’s fingerprints on stuff.” But at the time it’s like, “Okay, so what does this look like exactly?”
Gina:
And we didn’t know at that time that my dad’s who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, that his Alzheimer’s was going to take a dip and that he was going to rapidly progress and need to go into long-term care. So I started having to drive down once a week, which I never could have done. You couldn’t have done that if I was on staff full-time somewhere. We didn’t know that your daughter, my stepdaughter, Jackie, who we hadn’t seen in a long time, we’d get reunited.
And eventually her and our grandson would move in with us for a period of nine months. And we didn’t know so many things. We didn’t know that we would eventually start with ministry and mentoring and teaching. And self-publishing my prayer training and starting a podcast. That we would then incorporate and have a nonprofit Stockton Ministries, which just became official a few months ago. No idea.
When we are unified and we’re saying, “Yes, Lord.” In making these huge steps, these huge risky steps, and to be able to look at each other and go, “You know what? If we lose the house, we lose the house. This is where we’re supposed to be.” And we’re not there. Praise the Lord. We’re not there, but we’ve had moments. And we are in the most, dependent place we’ve ever been with the Lord, but there’s nobody on the planet I’d rather be in that place with than you.
Norm:
Me too, honey.
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