My Wife - A Rock

For those of you who follow and read our blogs about life's adventures here in Guatemala, you all by now know that our family brought a new life into the world on 1-11-11. Nathan Cruz Schmidt arrived safely into our world and into the arms of our family at 12:10 Tuesday afternoon, in a Guatemala City hospital. This blog is more about the woman who God chose to bring him into the world.

If you don't know my wife, Gina, I hope you one day get to meet her. For most of you who are reading this, you follow our blog because you know us, so I probably will be telling you much about Gina that you already know, but I'm going to anyway.

She is a rock! Her love and kindness for others, the peace with which she carries herself, all are part of what makes her so great! The way she handled 4 mths of sickness during this pregnancy, all with such grace was a "light" to many, teaching us all to just trust God's ways. As I got to walk the path of delivery with her on Tuesday, I was just reminded of how lucky I am to be her husband, to have been connected with her back in college and to have had the privilege to be her man now for around 19 years (I include the dating years...). I remember when she gave birth to our first, the rock that she was then, and almost 15 years later, nothing has changed. As the pain hit harder and harder, she just prayed harder and harder and was talking to Jesus the whole way through. I loved the way that in the midst of her pain she was being a testimony to everyone around her in the delivery room, showing them that God is her strength and that He is an ever-present help in her life. Now, as I type, I look over at our bed and see her and baby Cruz, sleeping peacefully together it reminds me of what a tender mommy she is. She really is just incredible!!!

Anyhow, this is a feeble attempt to describe an indescribable woman, so I will now close. Gina - you are a rock and you rock! I can't believe you've (we've) done it again! Here's to raising up one more to follow Jesus with all his heart, radically.

I love you!

Pressure in Marriage - Part Four

Pressure # 4 - Being the Perfect Spouse

Somewhere in all of us, deep down perhaps, is a natural desire to be the best possible husband or the absolute perfect wife. For many, this desire can be a bit overwhelming. I remember I was never really nervous that my fiancé would not say “yes” on our wedding day; rather, the part I was perhaps most nervous about was if I would be the kind of husband worth saying “yes” to.

I will never forget exactly where I was when I was finally able to take a deep breath of confidence about being a good husband. I was sitting on a bench in the check-out line area of the Wal-Mart Supercenter in my hometown the week I was to propose. Attempting to be a clever romantic, I created a grand story telling Becca (now my wife) I was a plane flight away at a conference in another part of the country. In reality, I was only 45 minutes away in my hometown trying to relax and waiting for the perfect night to swoop in and surprise her with a ring. Seeing how I had nothing to do the “week I was away at a conference”, I decided to run a few errands and found myself people watching and, no doubt on this day, thinking about my future marriage.

After sitting there for what felt like hours, I had worked myself into quite a stressful state. My mind had become an arena of wrestling with the fear of being a good husband. Can I be her spiritual leader? Can I provide for her? Can I love her like she needs to be loved? - All these questions growing louder and louder in my mind until I could barely think straight. Then, he walked by. I will never know the man’s name, but I will never forget him. He was a bear of a man, standing well over six and a half feet tall and weighing only a hair under 350 pounds. He had his long, dirty, salt and pepper hair pulled back in a pony tail that would make Willie Nelson jealous. His flannel shirt looked as if it had never seen an ironing board and his Big Smith overalls made burlap look comfortable. This man’s appearance and demeanor was unforgettable. But perhaps the most unforgettable thing for me personally about this man was what I found on his left hand – a dingy, scratched, well-worn wedding band! It was in that moment, as a gigantic smile grew across my face. I realized if this guy can be a husband, I certainly can be a good husband!

Whether it is Hollywood, the lies from Satan, or our overall prideful nature, somehow we create in our minds the perfect spouse; my goal: somewhere between Dick Van Dyke and Brad Pitt. For the majority of married couples, the problem is in the reality that none of us can be that perfect husband or that perfect wife no matter how hard we try. Our marriages always start out with the best intentions. In fact, so many of our marriages are built upon inflated promises and unreachable goals. The problem with the so-called “perfect spouse” we have created is that we may have some of the qualities or characteristics needed, but in reality we are far from being the man or woman God wants us to be. The frame may be built with the best intentions but the foundation has been laid in self, not in God.

In the High Priestly Prayer of John 17, Jesus says in verse 22 and 23, “…that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity…” When we as children of God, direct all our passions and all our effort into having a healthy relationship with Him, it is then and only then that we live in the glory of God for which we were created. In order for me to be the best possible husband I can be, or in order for my wife to be the perfect wife she wants to be, we have to be concerned first and foremost with living in right relationship with our Heavenly Father. Whenever we live in such unity, we are able to love with Christ’s love through us, we are able to experience joy with Christ’s joy in us, and we are able to know peace with the peace of Christ present in us. Otherwise, we are left to live very responsive lives. In our own strength, we may mean to love better, but we respond to our spouse’s lack of love. We may strive to be joy-filled or fun-loving, but whenever we do so in our own flesh and with our own strength, we will come up short every time – left being affected and ultimately controlled by our sin and self.

If there is any desire in you to be the perfect spouse, then may it start with the pursuit of the perfect Savior. Francis Chan once said, “You think He [Jesus] is a great Savior, but not a great role model.” It is only when a husband will commit himself to unity with God and the pursuit of living a Christ-like life that he will become the “perfect” husband he so desperately wants to become. It is only when a wife will humble herself and live with Jesus as her example and be filled with His glory in her life that she will be the wife she dreams of being. May we never forget, being the perfect spouse starts with Christ as the passion of our hearts.


Part four in our series on Pressure in Marriage was written by Stephen Brannon. Stephen serves with his wife, Becca, at Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, TN. He is the new Associate Pastor of Young Adults.

Simplify Your Home

As you read through the site of DeepStream or speak to any of us who are involved, you will find that the home is a hot topic of discussion. Our hearts beat faster when we envision what “could be” for the families of our community, for the friends that we are living in connection with. On the other side of the coin though, we also have deep emotion when we sit and talk with families and see the realities of what our culture is doing to the modern family. The stories that we hear leave us wondering what life must be like in many of these homes on a day-to-day basis. Based on many of these conversations and many of our own experiences we’ve come up with a simple, one word slogan to live by. It’s a word that we feel all families and homes need to embrace. We actually have a plaque that hangs on the wall of our home, which says this – SIMPLIFY - basic, full of meaning, and a word that will revolutionize your home life.

If we take a distant look back into God’s original design, we see His people being challenged in the area of priorities. I believe that if we would take a moment as Dad or Mom, Husband or Wife, or as a family and really look at and refocus some priorities, we will begin to see and live the Simpler Life that God has in store for each of us. The passage below was know as the SHEMA to the people of God in the Old Testament. They lived and died by it and were committed to it at all costs! Read it below and let’s unpack God’s design together.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9
“Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (NKJV)

Simplify Priority #1 – Refocus your belief in God.

The challenge in Deuteronomy starts by clarifying that there is only one God and that we must be totally committed to Him with our whole being. We each must personally embrace a proper view of who God is, and then that should drive each of us in our individual pursuits of a relationship with Him. It then goes on to state that these words must be rooted deep in our hearts. Proverbs tells us that we are to “keep our hearts with all diligence, for out of them spring all the issues of life”. Later in the New Testament, Christ reiterates that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. Simply put, we must put God and our relationship with Him through His Son Jesus at the top of our priorities. Out of this relationship will come the strength, clarity, and focus to do the other things which we’ve been put here to do.

Simplify Priority #2 – Take the time to teach your family.

Further into this passage, after the challenge and reminder of who God is, the reminder turned into a command to teach. You can note that this was not an “academic” teaching on your view of God, but a way of communicating to your family through the everyday happenings of life. We are encouraged to talk of God as we walk, sit, lie down, or when we rise up. Basically, throughout the day, we should be actively living out our belief and faith in God. This isn’t a private matter either. We are commanded to talk about it. A key ingredient to making this happen in our everyday is to make time. We don’t avoid doing this b/c we don’t have the desire, but normally it ends up taking the back seat to the already jam packed schedule that our family might have. Even if you currently find yourself in a routine that can’t be changed immediately, begin by using some of the time you do have, and making that time more God focused. You can talk to your family about God while you are sitting at dinner, while you are driving, and so on. Simply put, we have to make the time to do this.

Simplify Priority #3 – Make your home different than the rest.

At the end of the passage in Deuteronomy, we are all encouraged to take these commands and not only write them on our hearts, teach them to our families, but to write them on the doorposts and gates to our houses. I believe that in these verses we are being encouraged to be different. Our homes should be places that make people question “What is it about this place. It feels different!” As Christian homes, there should be a Spirit that is different abiding within our walls. This Spirit should be part of our witness which points others towards God. Is your home a place that is peaceful? Welcoming? Real? Do your neighbors feel that you have time for them? Do you have time for them? Take some time and talk with your spouse and family and really think about the message you send to those around you.

Well, as you’ve read, this wasn’t a list of to do’s or ways to change your families schedule and re-focus your priorities. The point is for all of us to realize that God comes first. If we put Him in that position, most of the other priorities are going to fall into place. We will have a desire to teach our families and we will have a desire to impact our friends and neighbors.

Simplify!!!

Pressure in Marriage - Part Three

A couple of months ago we began a series of blogs regarding different pressures that marriages face. The first spoke of the pressure that comes from the "agendas of other people" (Read it here). The second talked about pressure due to "spiritual imbalance" between the marriage partners (Read it here). I've been putting a lot of personal thought and reflection into the items that I know have added much of the unneeded pressure that our marriage has felt in the past years and one item that continues to come up, putting us in a crazy cycle is the PRESSURE BROUGHT ON BY FEAR.

Gina and I recently had a long... we'll call it a long discussion. As a result of our discussion and getting to the bottom of some tension that we were experiencing for a few days I began a little more self-reflecting as to how we get this way. Since my purpose in these blogs isn't to "call Gina out", I am going to focus more on the areas where I know I struggle, and the topic of this blog is one of them. For me I think FEAR plays a huge role. Let me explain...

1) I hesitate to apologize for FEAR OF BEING VULNERABLE. Call it pride, arrogance, whatever you wish, but for me I know that I hate to admit I am wrong. I hate to admit to my favorite person in all the world that I screwed up, that I didn't make the cut on this one, or that I just was selfish.

2) I hesitate to confess sin or wrongs for FEAR OF DISAPPOINTING the one I love the most. Why don't more of us truly open the book of our lives, the good and bad, for our spouse to read and really know our thoughts. Many of our greatest times of growth as a couple have come from times where confession was necessary. There have been times where the only way we could grow would be to allow ourselves to experience disappointment with each other.

3) I hesitate to lead and move ahead with our dreams and visions for FEAR OF FAILURE. No one wants to bite off more than they can chew, right? Moving forward into unknown territory can drive anyone crazy and more recently in our journey God has been showing me firsthand that moving ahead in faith, without fear, following God passionately is where I need to lead our family. Day by day, God is helping me to overcome fear of failing.

To close, I recently came across this verse in I John 4:18 which says "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear". In my marriage I want to grow more like Christ in my live for Gina. His love for each of us is perfect in every way. It is selfless, full of humility and sacrifice, and totally unconditional. This type of love is what I pray I can one day really offer Gina, every day. This type of love overcomes the pressure of fear.

Pressures in Marriage - Part Two

Pressure #2 - Spiritual Imbalance

Thought for a while on what to actually call this "pressure" that many marriages face and that was the best I could come up with. There is much more to the thought and hopefully I will be able to quickly unpack it for those of you taking the time to read on.

As our schedules fill up and pressures pound us from all sides, often what begins to suffer in marriage is the spiritual connection that we all need, specifically with our spouse. Connections at various God-centered groups are great and important in life, but nothing can replace a spiritual connection with the one who God has asked you to become one with. In our marriage, the times that we feel closest to each other always coincide with times that we are seeking God individually and growing in our personal walk with Him. I find that as I walk hand and hand with Jesus, and Gina is doing the same, that it is as if He is the bridge between us, holding both of our hands, keeping us centered and connected. It is as if I can feel the spiritual life flowing from Gina to me and vice versa, with God as our center. These times are also marked by times of sharing with each other what God is doing in our life, talking through struggles, questions, things we learned, etc...

So on to the main point... in order for us to bring something to the conversation or spiritual connection with our spouse, we have to be actively and regularly seeking Jesus, desiring to know Him better. This doesn't just happen. As mentioned earlier it takes time, set aside to be with God, to learn from Him, to talk to Him. What does your personal walk currently look like? What are you bringing to the conversation with your spouse? Anything? A couple of suggestions that could help to kick start this important part of your marriage:


* Read God's word together or at least the same scripture plan so that you can have a common point of reference.

* Find other "God-centered" resources to read together and talk through together. (Marriage books, Bible studies, etc...)

* Serve others together - find a way to engage others and love others as a couple.

* Pray together


Just do something and start doing it today!

Pressures in Marriage - Part One

At various times in our marriage we have felt different types of pressures pushing us in directions which we didn’t want to go. We will never get rid of the outside forces that try to pull us apart but we can and must learn how to identify them so that we are prepared when they come.


The idea for this post came from reading a portion of “Staying Close” by Dennis and Barbara Rainey. He says, "Pressures always come from two directions: what other people expect of us and what we expect of ourselves. It is so easy to let yourself be driven by the agendas of other people”.

Pressure #1 - The Agendas of Other People

Take a minute and think about the following... in the duration of one day how many “voices” do you hear telling you to do something or be something? Here are a few that we experience regularly:

* The commercial drive of our society - constantly we are bombarded by advertisements telling us that we need to have more and be more than we are and if we aren’t careful we can quickly slip into a lifestyle which begins to provide the “stuff” we are told we need, at the expense of the real stuff we need (i.e. time together, etc...) Careful not to fall prey to this way of thinking - These material things cost much more than money.

* Your Children - whether it is their cute little voices telling you all that they want or need, or some outside “professional” telling us what our kids need, we can easily get distracted from being the parents that they really need. We hear voices telling us that they need music lessons, to play every sport out there in order to be well-rounded, and so on... Without realizing it, mom and dad become part time chaffeurs in our spare time, and the family is now going in two different directions, being pulled apart because we have bought into a philosophy of what others think.

* Demands of work/boss - I remember many times putting the ideals of my job/boss in front of my families needs. While there are times and seasons for everything, including busyness, we can’t always use the “I have to work...” as an excuse to be away from home. Both men and women who are in the workplace need to return to a place where we are willing to say “no” to work and “yes” to family.

* Church - Sadly, even the Church, with all it’s programs and organization can pull the family apart and be used by the enemy as a negative pressure that distracts and lessons the impact that we can have on our culture. This one can get touchy so read with an open-mind and hear me out. I recently shared with a friend (pastor) the thought that I love the local-church and believe in it’s mission. However, I also believe that the Church is people and that we have to re-think this and truly become the church that Jesus died for. Jesus intended for us, as a family, to be connection with other believers but to also be out in culture, engaging our friends and other families, often on their turf. This takes time... it takes moments outside the walls, interacting with people, together as a family unit.

Obviously the pressures above are only a few and are really broad categories with many “sub-pressures” you could list. I would encourage you to do just that with your spouse. Sit down together and identify the forces that are pulling you apart. They are there and it is important to recognize what they are and fight against them.

I want to end with a quick story that actually happened yesterday here with our family. Our entire family headed to Antigua, Guatemala, to take our kids to their soccer games. On the way down it was raining, cloudy and we were talking about whether or not the games would be on. I was focused on the “schedule”, getting Corinne to her game location and getting Eli and Bryn to their location “on-time”. Nothing at all wrong with being on time or keeping a schedule right? Well in this series of events, there was plenty wrong with it. When we arrived at the field where Corinne was playing, the plan was for Gina, Corinne and Isaac to get out... well, we sat there, waiting for it to stop, but the rain only got harder. Me wanting to keep my “schedule”, told them to get out and head over to the stadium, etc... They got out, but as I pulled away they came running back to the car, literally soaked from head to toe, and what transpired next was a nice argument between mom and dad, etc... The rest of the day was somewhat shot and all thanks to my thinking of the agenda rather than my family and their needs. As the rest of the day unfolded, I ended up waiting for around 45 minutes for the other event to start, so I wouldn’t have been late if we had just waited for the rain to pass. Corinne’s game was cancelled. Sure would have been better to think of them first, and let the rest play out however it would.

Anyhow, make your list and talk it through!

Post #1 - Why a blog on marriage?

Our marriage is far from perfect - anyone who knows us and who has spent any time with Gina and I know this without me having to say it. I'm pretty sure that according to the definition of the word perfect, a perfect marriage doesn't exactly exist. After all marriage is a union between two imperfect people living in an imperfect world. Gina and I are no different than the next couple out there and we both know that.

On June 4, 2010 we celebrated 16 years of married togetherness. A lot of couples make it to 16 years, many longer, but the amount who don't is staggering. We've been saddened in the past years together to hear stories of friends who decided to call it quits. Friends from college, people we hung out with as young couples, did life with, deciding that they are better off not being married any longer. What went wrong? How could people who seemed made for each other end up being "done"? One of our heartbeats as a couple is the family unit, beginning with the marriage relationship. At the core of DeepStream is a commitment to living and communicating values that empower families to live up to their potential - fulfilling their purpose for why God called them to each other.

This blog is committed to communicating those values. While we will primarily focus on the central relationship of marriage, we will also have posts related to parenting and family and ideas for reading. From time to time in the past we've posted blogs relating to these topics and this dedicated blog will be a commitment to keeping the communication going. Some thoughts will come from books we've read, others we've talked to, and from time to time just our own experiences over the past 16 years. We hope you enjoy the reading but more importantly we pray that the thoughts will honor God as we live them and seek to communicate them to others.

One thing we know is that God's design for Marriage Works.