SID: Now John, because I know you’ve shared this publically and I have to say that I have to commend you for being having the courage and being so transparent with such a large well-respected ministry but you literally put your hands to your wife. Tell me about that.
JOHN: Yeah, I hated sharing it but I realized I had to. It happened the first 4 years of our marriage. And one time I got so frustrated I hit Lisa and I remember it happened one or two times and I remember the final time when it happened I was horrified at my behavior. And I Lisa, you know Lisa’s healthy and so Lisa was like you know what? You need to leave the house and you need to get this thing straightened out and you’re not coming back until it’s straightened out And so that coupled with how horribly I felt I left and I remember it became very, very strong in me how wrong that was. I mean the realization that God would make a man’s body stronger because that’s what Peter said when he says the wife’s the weaker vessel. It’s nothing about her spirituality. It’s nothing about her position in Christ. It’s all about her physical body. And that God made the man’s body stronger to be able protect the woman, not use his strength to control the woman I realized how absolutely hideous in the eyes of God it was and when I realized how hideous it was it’s never happened since. So it’s been almost 30 years that it hasn’t happened and actually it’s been probably right around 30 years. But I didn’t want to bring that up because I do realize that there’s people out there that they have the attitude that if any man has ever touched a woman I’ll never listen to a thing he said. But then I also realized that being open and transparent might help a lot of guys stop being physically abusive with their wives or abusive in any way to their wives. And so I brought that up and I do, I do want to say that if there’s any guy listening to me right now and you have out of frustration, and I don’t care how angry your wife made you, how much she provoked you, you have absolutely no business ever putting your hands on your wife to create any kind of hurt, pain or affliction to her. You are not to do that! You are to walk out, turn around and walk out the other way and deal with that thing before you look at her in the eyes again.
SID: I have to ask you, I have to ask you this question though. John, you had a pretty decent knowledge of the Bible. Lisa’s starting with ground level zero. I can tell you in my case my wife and I were married when we were both heathen and when I became a believer I travelled the earth talking about my testimony having not even read the New Testament and it’s an absolute miracle that Joy and I have celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary.
LISA: Wow!
SID: God gets all the credit for that! But how in the world did you guys know what to do with such a mess? You were set up to have a divorce!
LISA: Yeah.
