In this, part 2 of Gina’s conversation with Norm about Partnership in marriage, Gina and Norm talk about what it means to trust God as a couple. Learning how to live a life of dependance on God, together. They touch on everything from family of origin and identity to provision and seeing God’s faithfulness.
On Marriage, Finances, and Calling
Gina:
I’m thrilled that you’re joining us a conversation with Norm Stockton, my husband, who I am so honored and privileged to partner with in marriage, to partner with in ministry. And I wanted to have a conversation of what it looks like to be partners, partners in life, partners in ministry, partners in your calling.
And it was an incredible conversation that took us to a lot of different places. We talked about what it means to trust God as a couple and how that affects your relationship and your identity and all of the ups and downs that life brings. What does it look like to trust God at His word to trust His provision and His presence?
God Our Provider
Norm:
We have been able to make steps of faith, because God has proven Himself faithful. Countless times in our 28 years together. Early on we concluded that the city of San Diego is not our provider. The church where you were working is not our provider. Maranatha Music is not our provider.
God uses those things. Like the minister in England who ran orphanages and they never shared their needs publicly ever. They would be praying for the meal and they don’t have anything to feed the kids, but they’re all praying for the meal. And then there’s a knock on the door and there’s food. That’s God showing Himself faithful regardless. When things are looking bleak, then all of a sudden a call comes in and there’s this thing that we didn’t see coming.
That went all the way from the very beginning, when we were wondering if you’re going to be able to stay home when Carly, our eldest daughter, was born. We were going to be $1,100 in the hole, every month. And I thought “I’ll get two jobs and we’ll see how that goes.” But in fact, right around that time, my job track at the city of San Diego started morphing, because there were reorganizations.
Suddenly I had this new job track and you were able to stay home during that season which was just miraculous provision. There’s certainly practical things to make it where you minimize how much potential conflict you’re opening yourself up to with your spouse. There are practical things like, making sure that the communication is just absolutely flowing and, it’s welcomed.
It’s like, “Hey, let’s talk about this.” That’s not to say that you and I have always agreed on everything. But if you have two thinking people, then if we see everything the same way all the time, then that might not be good. That means that we have the exact same perspective on everything. You’re able to illuminate things when you’re seeing things slightly differently than I am, but we’re always able to talk through it. And I think that that is a critical part of this as well.
Ministry, Calling, and Marriage
Gina:
We’ve both grown in our ability to do those things, because we come from very different backgrounds. I love Brian and Linda. They did a thing on marriage for a local church, and they talked about when you have two family cultures that collide. We have very different family cultures. My parents weren’t married. My dad was a lounge singer and an alcoholic. My mom was a cocktail waitress and an alcoholic.
I grew up with my grandparents with my mom who was a mess. I grew up in bars watching my dad sing. It was just a very weird tumultuous kind of childhood. Thank God for my grandparents. I was well cared for and had my needs met, but there was a lot of emotional baggage and stuff.
You grew up in a house where your parents were married and loved each other. Your dad still referred to your mom as his bride up until he couldn’t anymore. Three kids in Japan for much of that. A very close-knit family. No sarcasm was allowed, very strict decorum in that, but also a very insulated family. You didn’t have a birthday party with more than family until I threw you one, so in a very different context.
Because of my upbringing, a lot of insecurity that I had to work through, I had a lot of stuff that I wrestled with. Because of your background, you had different stuff. And so there’s still the merging of those things. There’s the growing and maturing as you step into the different things.
We met on that worship team. We met in ministry together. We met going and leading worship and doing all this stuff. That’s who we were. When we had kid and when you started doing Maranatha and some of that started shifting, I wasn’t with you everywhere. That was really hard for me because my identity just got wrapped up in leading worship.
This is a danger for believers in general when, what we do for God starts to replace our relationship with Him. That becomes a dangerous thing. But it’s so easy, especially for those who maybe come from a more insecure upbringing or if you’re into enneagram, if you’re 2, or whatever the case may be, you can go, go, go and serve, serve, serve to fill you up and to make you feel like you’re worthy to even be here. So much of my identity, my identity for us as a couple was in that.
Then suddenly you were off, leading worship all these different places and doing all this fun stuff and traveling. And I’m home being a mom, super insecure in my ability to be a mom, because of my upbringing. We needed to learn how to do that. I needed to learn how to confront my own insecurities and not lay all my garbage on you. You needed to learn how to be patient with me and to encourage me and you probably had to do more encouraging and affirming than maybe some would in that situation.
Norm:
That was a challenging time, especially for you. That was a critical time for us to have been on the same page. Because me being out doing what I was doing was absolutely dependent upon you having my back. We’re on the same page. And all of a sudden I’m out on the east coast somewhere and you’re home with our two young daughters and struggling.
Gina:
I was feeling like you’re doing what I want to do, doing what I feel called to do. This wasn’t a season that I could do that. What the Lord did with me in that time was pull me back to go, “I don’t need your gift. I just want you.” For someone who doesn’t feel worthy, that’s hard to swallow. It’s hard to be okay with being here in my own skin and that supposedly is enough.
I was on this journey of the Lord, bringing me back to Him and going, “Yes, I’ve gifted you. And yes, I’ve given you that, but I don’t need that. I want you to be Mary. I want you to sit at My feet. I want you to hang out with Me and let’s do this together.” That was a lot of surrender and letting go and not letting jealousy and envy start to set up camp in my heart and my mind.
I talk a lot in prayer training about identity, ministry, and connection with the Lord. The verse in Corinthians talks about taking our thoughts captive. We drive ourselves crazy trying to lasso our thoughts. And we don’t ever go back to a couple versus before that, that say, “I’ve given you all the authority to pull down every stronghold and every high thing that sets itself up against the knowledge of God taking every thought captive.”
When Paul wrote that, he was talking about them preaching to the mindset and the strongholds in the place where they were, but it’s also applicable to us. Because if we don’t address the stronghold, then we’re not ever going to be able to take the thought captive. We need to deconstruct the things that we’ve allowed or another way to put that is let’s not build them to begin with.
I had to work hard not to allow the construction of those strongholds to be set up in my heart and my mind even though everything in me wanted to build those. It would’ve made me feel justified in what I was feeling, but I worked hard not to let those things get to that. God’s grace, He wouldn’t let me, He kept coming in and disrupting. And luckily for me, I actually listened and would do that work, but there was a lot of opportunity for a lot of things to get wedged in.
Norm:
One of the main takeaways I’m getting from that as well, is that when one is feeling like they’ve been sidelined, that can be really hard. And yet in that process, God is doing big construction. Critical construction. And certainly that was the case with you. And that’s been the case with me in various seasons. I’m thinking about the phrase, “God is seldom early, but He’s never late.” That whole waiting on the Lord, like actually waiting, “Lord, are we going to move to this? Is that the next thing?” And He’s like, “No, wait, it’s not time yet.”
There were many times with you in your ministry where it’s like, “Lord, what is going on?” Both of us are wondering, “What’s the deal?” We don’t want to get into all the details, but suffice to say that there’s times in your life where you’re like, “Why aren’t we getting to this next step? Why am I going through this?”
This is probably going beyond the scope of what we’re talking about today, but I think it’s really relevant that now we can look back, in an encyclopedic way, I can document how He was instilling things in you and teaching things that are allowing you to do what you do today. But you would not have any idea about had you not gone through the fire. When you’re in the midst of it and you’re wondering “Why Lord, why Lord, why?” Sometimes He will answer that overtly. And sometimes, many times He won’t. All He is really saying is “Trust me.”
Check the rest of this conversation Health and Hardship in Marriage
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