Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E247: "I'd Rather Die His Friend": A Love Story From Heaven w/Emily Stimpson Chapman | Lila Rose Show

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E247: "I'd Rather Die His Friend": A Love Story From Heaven w/Emily Stimpson Chapman | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  I'm going to marry this guy. I know I'm going to marry this
• 0:02
  guy, but he did not have the same feelings about me.
• 0:04
  Why was he still talking to you? Well, that was a good question,
• 0:07
  Lana, but I would tell him, OK, Chris, we're not going to talk.
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  If we're not going to date, you can't come around.
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  I want a letter in the mail. God, if you want me to continue
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  being Chris's friend, I want you to send me a letter in the mail.
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  From God, from. God, the next day I get a letter
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  and I was so broken and I felt betrayed by God and I felt
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  betrayed by my body. I've spent 20 years dating.
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  I would rather die his friend than marry somebody else.
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  I am so grateful for every single day it took my husband to
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  get around to dating me and asking me to marry him because
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  God saw it all. She got home after their first
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  date and thought, that's the man that I'm going to marry.
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  But it wouldn't be for 10 years until her dream would come true.
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  Welcome back to the Lila Rose show.
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  Today I'm sitting down with the lovely Emily Stimson Chapman,
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  one of my favorite contemporary authors.
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  We get into her personal love story with her husband, the UPS
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  and the downs of what they experience, and the call that
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  God has had on her heart during their whole relationship.
• 1:02
  We talk about their incredible journey with infertility and
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  adoption and parenting, as well as discussing some of her recent
• 1:08
  work, including The Story of All Stories, which is a story Bible
• 1:12
  for young Christians. We love to talk about
• 1:14
  relationships on the show because we want everybody to be
• 1:16
  in flourishing relationships in right order with each other,
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  marriages to be stronger, people seeking to be married to find
• 1:23
  their love, as well as parenting relationships to be stronger.
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  We want everyone to thrive. I know and I hear from so many
• 1:29
  of you who are struggling with both dating and relationships
• 1:32
  and infertility. I think both Emily's story and
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  advice are great inspirations for living those flourishing
• 1:38
  relationships. I'm so grateful to everybody who
• 1:40
  has been subscribing to the show.
• 1:42
  The channel continues to grow like wildfire.
• 1:44
  Thanks to all of you. Also, we're rising in the ranks
• 1:46
  on podcast app. I think we're in the top 50 now
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  for society and culture, which is really exciting.
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  And if you want to help us continue to grow, the quickest
• 1:53
  and easiest way to do that is to make sure that you like this
• 1:56
  video, subscribe to this channel.
• 1:58
  And if you're listening on podcast app, make sure you're
• 2:00
  subscribed. Leave us five stars and a review
• 2:02
  that helps the show reach more people.
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  Emily Stinson Chapman, welcome to the podcast.
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  It is so good to be here, love. I'm glad I feel like I already
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  know you. I know you from a distance.
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  We've been friends online for I don't know how many years.
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  Over well, over a decade at least.
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  You sent me Grubhub gift cards every time one of my kids was
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  born. How?
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  Can I not? You have the cutest, sweetest
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  kids and the best stories. I can't wait to talk about your
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  story, all of your stories. I'm your fan, girl.
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  I'm your fan. You're one of the best writers
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  on the Internet right now. So thank you for your voice.
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  It's really important. All the other good ones have
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  been chased off the Internet. Oh God, the craziest.
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  That's so sad. They've been, a lot of them have
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  been chased off of Acts, actually.
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  That's true where I do not go, as we were saying, I love the
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  Lord so much, but that is one of my boundaries.
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  Sorry. That's a mission field.
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  No stigmata, no X please. It it X can be a lot of fun, but
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  it can be a lot of crazy too, so yeah.
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  God bless you, you're so much bigger than I am.
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  My my wise erudite husband is always my ex advisor.
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  I'm like, you know, there's the you don't know.
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  You don't know what's going on half the time because there's
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  something crazy happening on X and then somehow the rest of the
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  world is blissfully unaware of the controversies on X.
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  So this is the other bubble that happens.
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  I. Only get clued in when someone
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  will say something like if you see what's happening on X and
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  I'm like well for my mental sanity I don't go on there but
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  I'll look now and see so. Well, there was one of my dear
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  friends who was like, can I be in studio for this episode?
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  Because I love Emily. You have, you have so many, I
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  think, fans, lovers of your writing.
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  You're obviously an incredible author.
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  You're also a speaker. You're also someone that your
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  personal story is so beautiful and inspiring.
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  So I'd love to get into all of that.
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  But first, for those that don't know you, how do you like to
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  introduce yourself? I am a wife.
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  I am a mom of three little ones, and I'm a writer.
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  And that's I that's really what I do like.
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  I love my husband. I take care of my kids.
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  They're all little right now. And I in the margins of our
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  life, I write. Yeah.
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  And that's what I've been doing for a long time.
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  What's your favorite thing that you've written?
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  Oh gosh, what is my favorite thing that I've written?
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  Probably the book that's sitting in front of you right now, the
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  story of all stories. I mean, I'm so I'm like a mom in
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  the sense that, you know, your favorite child.
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  Someone once told me your favorite child is the child who
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  needs the most attention. So like whoever's hurt at that
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  moment or whoever really needs your attention.
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  For me, there's always recency bias.
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  So whatever's the most recent thing I finished and the the one
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  that I'm focusing on. But I think when I think about
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  my children growing up and what books are going to really shape
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  the way they know the faith, it's not going to be any of the
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  other books I've written. I don't know if they'll read any
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  of the other books I've written, but I know they'll read that.
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  And I know that they're going to walk away because of the story
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  of all stories, knowing the Bible in a way that I never knew
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  it until I was in my 20s. So I think it's, yeah, that's
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  why I agreed to do it. I agreed to do it because of my
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  children. And so it will probably always
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  be my favorite because it's the book that I really wrote for my
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  children. So this is the story of all
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  stories. This is Emily's book, which I
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  get a special copy of. It's coming out soon.
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  Word on Fire publishing it, but it is the children's Bible.
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  Yeah, and they're not calling it a children's Bible.
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  They're not calling it a Bible for young Catholics.
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  Got it. And it could be that you are 40
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  years old, young Catholic, and you need to know the story of
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  salvation. This would be a great way to do
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  it. Technically it's written for
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  kids ages 7 to 13, but I'm already reading it to my 4-5 and
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  seven-year old and they have been enjoying.
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  I've been reading it to him for a year, but now they get to see
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  the pictures so they're even more excited.
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  Beautiful and it's really, I mean, I, we, I know it says a
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  story for young Catholics, but this, I mean, anybody who's a
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  Christian is going to this is the, this is the Bible and this
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  is basically the beautiful story of the Bible.
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  It is. I mean, that's it tells the
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  story of salvation from the moment God spoke time into
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  existence. And you know, time began right
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  through revelation, and revelation was absolutely the
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  hardest to write. Like how do I write a storybook
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  version? It's a kind of a scary chat type
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  headed. Beast and, you know, like wars.
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  So I thought about CS Lewis and the last battle and how the
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  story goes on. You know, it's always up higher,
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  you know, further and higher up and further.
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  And and I found that was a great way to bring the child into the
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  story. Like, this is part of the story.
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  The story is still going on now. You're a part of the story.
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  And yeah, I have a lot to Louis for for everything.
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  I have a lot to see Louis for everything, but especially for
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  that Bible because he really gave me the imagination to see
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  how to to open up some of the toughest parts of the Bible to
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  young minds and make them help them to not make them beautiful,
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  but to help them see how beautiful the story is and how
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  full of love and adventure and humor.
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  Like the Bible is really funny and weren't on fire gave me
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  permission to draw out the humor so.
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  I love that. I'm very excited for this
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  because there's a lot of beautiful attempts at story at
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  story Bibles for younger tricians, let's say younger
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  Christians, And I'll be honest, I haven't found one yet that I
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  think, OK, this nailed the story Or like theologically, there
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  were some maybe confusing things or things that maybe we're not
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  fully aligned or, you know, miss things I thought should have
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  been included. You know, there's all this
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  laundry list and I think I couldn't trust someone more than
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  obviously weren't on fire and then yourself.
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  So I'm very excited to dive into that and Congrats on your
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  beautiful family too. Emily.
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  I know that's a huge along with your work.
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  That's the that's our greatest accomplishment here is our the
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  families we're blessed with. I want to go backwards and I
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  want to talk more about your writing too, because there's a
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  lot of pieces that are very interesting and I think making a
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  big impact that you've written. But your story is such a
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  beautiful 1 you what you've been through, the hope and the faith
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  that you've had, what you've overcome your marriage now your
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  beautiful marriage. Can you tell us about how you
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  met your husband? It's and we don't have 10
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  seasons, which is really how the story should be to.
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  Give me the give me the 10 vignettes.
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  I mean, it's, it's such a compelling love story.
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  Or crazy. It's crazy, in a good way.
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  I always feel like it needs a big disclaimer like do not try
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  this at home kids like. That's it.
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  That's I want to ask you about that because I think people hear
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  your story and there's a lot of takeaways potentially.
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  So I want to get your analysis of your own story, but first for
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  those that haven't heard it. What is the story?
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  And also give us a more of the background on Emily because
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  you've also overcome a lot of things personally.
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  OK, so I, Chris and I met when I was 30 years old and I had come
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  back to the church five years before that.
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  So I grew up Catholic, but I was catechized in the 1980s and
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  early 1990s when not a lot of catechesis was happening.
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  You know, pre like really John Paul 2 coming for World World
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  Youth Day in Denver in 1993 just set off this spark of
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  catechetical reformation, like renewal that happened across the
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  United States. But I was educated before that.
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  So I didn't know the faith. I knew that we went to church
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  every Sunday. I didn't really know Jesus, Like
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  I didn't know the Bible. But you were.
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  Catholic school educated. Catholic school educated.
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  But this was during the 1980s. So I like if, if you're not
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  Catholic, this will make no sense.
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  But if you're Catholic, you will understand the horror of this.
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  We made our first communion at our Catholic school two years
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  before first confession. So like we didn't even do first
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  confession until years after that.
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  So I was very badly categorized. And for those listening, the
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  first confession, typically it's at the age of reason when you
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  really have the capacity and intellectually to understand and
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  the will it will it developed enough to be able to choose
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  good, bad and be able to confess your sins to God, be forgiven.
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  What you're supposed to do before you receive first Holy
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  Communion because Catholics believe that really is, you
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  know, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus and you want
• 10:00
  to be able to have said, hey, Lord, I'm really sorry for
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  having offended you in all these in all of these ways before you
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  know you receive. Holy How old were you when you
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  received Holy? Community like second grade.
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  So we did, you know, first community and 2nd grade like
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  people still do now mostly so but what I did know growing up
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  was that my both my parents came from big Catholic families and
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  had tons of brothers and sisters.
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  And so almost everybody lived in our hometown.
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  And I always felt I was one of three and I always felt like my
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  parents had cheated my sisters and me by not having more kids.
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  So it's like my kids lives are going to be so boring compared
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  to my life because I have all of these cousins and aunts and
• 10:43
  uncles and holidays are so full of joy and my poor kids are just
• 10:46
  going to have my two sisters as their aunts.
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  Like this isn't going to be fun. So for as long as I can
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  remember, I wanted a big family. Like I always joke that my
• 10:55
  starting plan was I wanted half a dozen redheads and then we'd
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  re, you know, then we'd figure out if we could wait a while or
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  if we should have another half dozen.
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  So that was the plan. The six redheads and I graduated
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  from college and there was no husband came along and I
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  graduate, you know, like years kept going with no husband going
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  along and you were. Dating.
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  I was dating. I was meeting guys, but just I
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  was it's, I don't want to sound this to sound bad.
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  I met some very lovely men, but I was always happy for them to
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  like leave at the end of the night.
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  It was like, all right, that was fun.
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  No toddle along. I couldn't, none of the men that
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  I met could I envision spending the rest of my life with.
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  In the meantime, I'd struggled with an eating disorder.
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  I was struggling with anorexia for a number of years.
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  And when I was 19, I'd left the Catholic faith.
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  I'd met a very cute Protestant boy who put some questions to me
• 11:48
  about the church and Jesus and authority, and I didn't know how
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  to answer them. And looking back, I didn't
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  really want to answer them because I was way more
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  interested in the boy than I was in finding out the truth.
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  But I'm very grateful for those years.
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  I've made wonderful friends in the Protestant circles.
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  I moved in. I got to know Jesus for the
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  first time. Like really what it meant to
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  have a relationship with him and to be honest with him and to let
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  him, to let him break me so that he could remake me.
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  And I was discipled by some wonderful women.
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  I'm very grateful for those years.
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  So Fast forward, I'm 25, I'm working in Washington, DC.
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  It is the great Jubilee year of 2000.
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  John Paul 2 is Pope. So that was a jubilee.
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  Year was Jubilee year. Yeah, 2025, we're here again.
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  So 2020 and I had a Co worker who was really Catholic and also
• 12:37
  really loved Jesus. And I was very confused by that.
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  He was a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
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  And I didn't know how we could love Jesus so much and also pay
• 12:47
  attention to things that Bishop said.
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  So we would argue over work. We're in a shared workspace.
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  You know, it was a big office. I was, I was working in DC at
• 12:55
  the time and I would never admit that I thought he was right.
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  But we would, we would argue and I would go home and think about
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  it, decide that he was right. And then he'd find out like a
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  month later I was like, oh, yeah, I totally agree with you
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  on that question now. So I was coming around on all
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  these issues, and in November of 2025, I felt like I really had
• 13:16
  to make a decision about am I going to go back to church or
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  not? But go back to the Catholic
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  Church. And within a space of days, I
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  did. And it was the easiest, most
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  undramatic conversion story that ever existed on the planet.
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  And I've always credited that to the graces of the Jubilee year
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  and John Paul 2. So you're already Catholic.
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  I mean, that's the thing, it wasn't.
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  It's not like you're an atheist. We say conversion a lot, I
• 13:36
  think. It was a reversion to the.
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  We're all converting every day and yeah, you're just getting
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  back into. I loved Jesus already.
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  I was walking with Jesus already.
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  It was just a question of deciding whether or not I
• 13:47
  trusted that the Catholic Church said who she was.
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  And when I made that decision, it was a huge blessing.
• 13:54
  But at that point I was like, I don't want to stay in DC.
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  So why? I'm.
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  Not DC. I was so tired of everyone
• 14:03
  trying to be more important and impressive than they actually
• 14:05
  were. Everyone says this about DC.
• 14:08
  Yeah, it's a sad stereotype, but it's there's a lot of truth.
• 14:11
  Everybody's going around. My boss, my boss, my boss.
• 14:14
  Are you're at the cocktail party and they're looking past you to
• 14:16
  look at that next person looking over your shoulder like are they
• 14:19
  like, what do you do? What do you do for work?
• 14:21
  And it's like, what can I get from you?
• 14:23
  Is always the? Exact.
• 14:25
  Question. Yeah.
• 14:26
  And I had been, I think I was, I was, I moved up very quickly
• 14:29
  When I worked on Capitol Hill, they discovered I, I could
• 14:31
  write. And so I was 22 years old and
• 14:34
  sitting in on midnight meetings with Newt Gingrich, who's the
• 14:36
  speaker of the House at the time, because they were like,
• 14:38
  well, we're working on the Mexico City policy.
• 14:41
  And I had written something from my congressman that I worked for
• 14:46
  about it. And Newt Gingrich was so
• 14:47
  impressed with it that he brought me in to do messaging
• 14:50
  for the Pro-life Caucus. That's so.
• 14:54
  Cool. Yeah, so, so God, I think, had
• 14:57
  shown me very quickly through moving me up so fast.
• 15:00
  This is not where I want you. And I was watching year after
• 15:03
  year, people were fighting about the same bills.
• 15:05
  Like every year it's the same amendment that comes up to this
• 15:07
  appropriations bill. And I felt very clearly that
• 15:12
  that was how it was going to continue to be unless you change
• 15:14
  people's hearts. And I was like, the problem is
• 15:15
  not convincing people to vote for this bill.
• 15:18
  It's that as a people, we're so broken and we don't know who we
• 15:21
  are and we don't understand what human dignity is, that we don't
• 15:24
  know how to vote. And if we can go down, you know,
• 15:26
  go downstream a little and start dealing with how people see the
• 15:29
  world and how they see the human person, that is going to change
• 15:33
  how people vote and what politics looks like.
• 15:35
  And I knew I wanted to get married.
• 15:37
  I knew I wanted to have a family.
• 15:39
  No husband had come along. So I decided, well, I'm going to
• 15:42
  go to Franciscan University and I'll study theology and maybe
• 15:46
  I'll meet a great man. I'll see a lot of Catholic
• 15:48
  families and what a really faithful Catholic family life
• 15:51
  looks like because I didn't have that growing up.
• 15:53
  I had great parents, but the faith was not an important part
• 15:56
  of our of our life. And I was like kind of nothing
• 15:59
  else comes along. I'll just become a professor.
• 16:00
  I'll go on and get a PhD and then I'll be able to take care
• 16:03
  of kids while I'm teaching. So I did that, went back to
• 16:06
  Steubenville, and it was there that I started writing.
• 16:08
  And I always say that God kind of he opened the door.
• 16:13
  So I wanted I wanted I blogs were new and I had started a
• 16:18
  little blog just thinking it'd be fun to communicate with
• 16:20
  friends back home. And because there was nobody
• 16:22
  else blogging at the time, I blogged out a lot of attack.
• 16:24
  Guy read that blog back in the day.
• 16:26
  I mean, was it emilysimpson.com or chat?
• 16:29
  Yeah, it was the website. It was like Emily Stimson
• 16:31
  chapman.blogspot.com right? So we all went there for.
• 16:34
  Blogs and I. Was in DC, I hadn't fled yet
• 16:38
  like you, I think I was there after you and then I ended up
• 16:41
  fleeing and then I met my husband.
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  So right not say it's impossible to meet your husband in DC.
• 16:45
  If anyone listening in DC it is possible.
• 16:47
  Anything possible? Happen.
• 16:48
  Does happen. But most of us flee, yeah,
• 16:51
  because a lot of the guys aren't interested in.
• 16:53
  It's a mission field. Getting DC is a mission field.
• 16:56
  It is. And I was so grateful that,
• 16:57
  like, I worked for men who were called there.
• 16:59
  I had friends who were called there.
• 17:01
  I was glad there were good people there.
• 17:02
  I was not called to be there. So yeah.
• 17:04
  So I picked up some. My blog got a lot of attention.
• 17:07
  A lot of people asked me to write for them.
• 17:10
  I bought a house because I was tired of fixing up other
• 17:13
  people's. I was always fixing up rentals.
• 17:14
  I love to renovate houses. And I think I was laying in bed
• 17:17
  one night going, this house needs, this house needs new
• 17:19
  ceilings. I was like, no, Emily, you're
• 17:21
  not allowed to redo the ceiling in a rental.
• 17:23
  Like you must buy a house. And I it's renting, renovating
• 17:27
  houses is expensive. And so I started freelancing and
• 17:29
  it was like at that point, God slammed the door behind me.
• 17:32
  He was like, all right, this is what you're doing.
• 17:34
  You are going to be writing and I'm not so much giving you a
• 17:37
  choice about this. And that's what I was doing.
• 17:40
  That's what I've been doing ever since.
• 17:41
  So in those years, though, no husbands coming along.
• 17:44
  I'm, I'm dating, I'm at Franciscan University.
• 17:47
  Like I'm trying to meet nice young Catholic men, but nothing,
• 17:50
  nothing was right. And at 30 I went online on
• 17:54
  Catholic Match and I did not want to go online at Catholic
• 17:58
  Match. I was like, Lord, I love men who
• 18:00
  like Jane Austen and. I dropped the handkerchief and
• 18:03
  they pick it up at the ball. That is what we are doing.
• 18:06
  Exactly. I was like, yeah, I don't want
• 18:08
  to meet someone online. Lord, I don't want to meet
• 18:10
  someone. Honestly, I feel like the amount
• 18:11
  of stumbling blocks that Mister Darcy and Jane Austen have been
• 18:14
  to a whole generation of women. I mean, there's good lessons to
• 18:17
  take from it and I love those books, of course, but I think
• 18:19
  women are just unfortunately, I think women do struggle today
• 18:24
  with being willing to put themselves out there because we
• 18:28
  do have these idealistic ideas and and it and it can maybe be
• 18:32
  do a disservice. So anyways, kudos to you for
• 18:34
  just saying I'm going to do the dating platform well.
• 18:36
  I think Mrs. Bennett would have like made made profiles for.
• 18:39
  Her, you know, she had a level of wisdom that like, I mean, she
• 18:43
  had a level of tremendous foolishness, right?
• 18:45
  But there was a little bit of wisdom in how she saw the world.
• 18:48
  Yeah, so if they had insisted back then, but no, I felt like I
• 18:52
  was telling God, I want to get married, I want to get married,
• 18:53
  I want to get married. But I was trying to control How
• 18:56
  I Met my husband. And so I felt like, all right,
• 18:59
  Lord, I'm going to open a window and you can.
• 19:02
  If this is where you want me to meet my husband, then the.
• 19:05
  Prince can. He will come in through the
• 19:06
  window. That's what we're going to do.
• 19:08
  And very shortly after that, I did meet the man who would
• 19:12
  become my husband. Online.
• 19:14
  Online we met on Catholic Match and we were, this was before,
• 19:18
  this was early days of Catholic Match.
• 19:20
  So it was everyone was still writing letters.
• 19:23
  So we wrote letters to each like long emails to each other every
• 19:26
  day, not physical, but emails. There was no chat, there was no
• 19:29
  text. And we had our first phone call
• 19:32
  a couple of weeks after. And then we he came in town and
• 19:34
  we went on a great date and he took me to see all of these
• 19:39
  beautiful. He's, he was from Pittsburgh,
• 19:40
  but he was teaching in South Carolina at the time.
• 19:42
  And he came up to visit his mom, but really to Take Me Out.
• 19:45
  And we went around and looked at all these beautiful buildings in
• 19:48
  downtown Pittsburgh and beautiful old churches.
• 19:51
  And I was so smitten by him. Like, I was so nervous.
• 19:53
  I couldn't eat, you know, with the meal.
• 19:55
  And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is the man I'm going to
• 19:57
  marry. I'm sure this is the man I'm
• 19:58
  going to marry. And I came home and my best
• 20:00
  friend was there, and she's like, tell me all about it.
• 20:02
  I was like, he showed me old buildings.
• 20:04
  And she's like, oh, Lord, nobody could have picked a better date
• 20:06
  for you. But he did not have the same
• 20:09
  feelings about me. So his thought was not I'm going
• 20:14
  to marry this woman. His thought was, she's really
• 20:16
  lovely. She's really interesting.
• 20:18
  But I'm not. I don't think this is it.
• 20:21
  But he did want to keep talking to me.
• 20:22
  So we have this long distance on and off kind of friendship over
• 20:25
  the course. And he and he wanted to keep
• 20:27
  talking to you because he liked your mind, your personality,
• 20:31
  like there was a connectivity there.
• 20:32
  And he didn't want to let go of that.
• 20:34
  Like what was not that? We're going to fully speak for
• 20:36
  him here because he's not here. But why?
• 20:38
  Why? I mean, if he's like, I'm not
• 20:39
  interested like that, why was he still talking to you?
• 20:41
  Because you well, that was a good question.
• 20:43
  That's a really good question. It's.
• 20:46
  A telltale sign of something, right?
• 20:47
  It wasn't. Clear right away that that's not
• 20:48
  how he. Felt like he kept, oh, I see.
• 20:50
  Kept. So he wasn't like, I'm not
• 20:52
  interested, Emily. He just kept on.
• 20:53
  He just kept on doing exactly what we've been doing for about
• 20:56
  a month for the previous. Month and you're like I'm
• 20:59
  marrying you. And I was like, I'm going to
• 21:01
  marry this guy. I know I'm going to marry this
• 21:02
  guy. So, but I, I wanted to sort of
• 21:07
  give him space. I didn't know he was far away.
• 21:09
  I didn't know what was going on with them.
• 21:11
  And I think in February, finally I was like, hey, you know what,
• 21:14
  you sent me all these letters when you're in town, you come
• 21:16
  and see me. What's going on?
• 21:18
  Like what are your intentions here basically?
• 21:20
  And he's like, well, I really enjoy our friendship, but I'm
• 21:23
  not prepared for anything more, which I know a lot of women have
• 21:27
  heard those words. And I was like, and well, at
• 21:31
  that point, he did explain some things to me.
• 21:32
  He was like, well, I have this history.
• 21:34
  He he'd had two broken engagements.
• 21:37
  He had some physical. He did, he was sick at the time
• 21:40
  in a way that nobody understood. It was probably long Lyme's
• 21:43
  disease is what we eventually figured out.
• 21:45
  He just didn't feel like he was in the headspace to make a
• 21:48
  decision. And as I always tease him, his
• 21:51
  idea of falling in love with the person you're supposed to marry
• 21:55
  is a Disney movie, like where forest animals start singing and
• 21:59
  there's birds twittering around. You know they he was.
• 22:01
  Very romantic. It was very romantic.
• 22:03
  He expected to feel basically what I felt looking at him like,
• 22:07
  OK, this is exactly. Twitterpated.
• 22:09
  Yeah, and. He didn't feel that way, but
• 22:10
  he's like, I really like her. Like I love being around her.
• 22:13
  She's interesting, she's funny, she's a good woman.
• 22:16
  I like to spend time with her, but I'm not there.
• 22:21
  Quick segue because I, I don't know, I feel like we have to do
• 22:24
  a little philosophizing on your story as we go.
• 22:26
  There's so much about it. But but I think that like that's
• 22:30
  so interesting because there is back to Jane Austen novels and
• 22:32
  everything else. There is a cultural narrative,
• 22:35
  which isn't all wrong, but there's it definitely can be
• 22:37
  taken too far. Like you have to know, you have
• 22:39
  to like be, you know, be the most be the most attracted or
• 22:43
  the most drawn to the most magnetic connection for it to be
• 22:46
  the one right. And especially for men, they're
• 22:48
  told, well, you have to be super into her.
• 22:50
  Like. Super into her in terms of like
• 22:52
  attractiveness and feeling like you're ready for this, for it to
• 22:56
  make sense. And I think there's so much
• 22:58
  nuance that gets lost in the, you know, these prescriptions
• 23:02
  that we give. Well, my husband has a theory
• 23:04
  that because you hear a lot of times you talk to these, you
• 23:07
  know, lovely older people and they're in their 80s.
• 23:08
  I'm like, you know, I, my grandfather, my grandmother, my
• 23:11
  grandpa met my grandma when he was 12 years old.
• 23:13
  And he looked at her and said, I'm going to marry that woman.
• 23:15
  And sure enough, six years later, he married that woman.
• 23:19
  So Chris has this theory that that's kind of how we were made.
• 23:21
  We were made to to very quickly know who we're called to love.
• 23:25
  But sin has harmed us in ways and Hollywood and romance novels
• 23:30
  and all these things have changed our expectation.
• 23:34
  Like they've heard us the sexual sins.
• 23:35
  My husband had, you know, he had lived with his girlfriend for a
• 23:38
  couple of years in college. And so he and I was I was not, I
• 23:42
  was very pure. I was very innocent at that
• 23:45
  point. And so my reaction to my
• 23:47
  husband, he's always like, well, you were in a healthier spot
• 23:49
  than I was to see clearly. I couldn't see, couldn't see as
• 23:53
  clearly. And I think that is true.
• 23:55
  I think sin really does affect how we see each other.
• 23:58
  It affects our expectations. And so it's not that love at
• 24:01
  first sight never happens and those relationships never work
• 24:04
  out. It just is rare these days.
• 24:06
  So he thinks the sexual revolution has really changed
• 24:09
  our ability to instantly have that love at first sight and
• 24:14
  have the good sense to to recognize when we meet someone
• 24:17
  we should marry. So again, this is like we could
• 24:21
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  your order. It's it's a season by season
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  blow. I mean, for 10 years this goes
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  on for nine years, us keeping our friends entertained the
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  whole time. My friends did not know what to
• 27:14
  do once we finally started dating.
• 27:16
  But I would tell them, OK, Chris, we're not going to talk.
• 27:18
  Like if we're not going to date, you can't come around.
• 27:21
  We're not going to spend time with each other.
• 27:22
  Like I need to be open to, like I need to be open to other men.
• 27:26
  I want to get married. I want to have a family.
• 27:28
  And he would say, OK. And then somehow months, months
• 27:31
  would go by and something would always happen where we'd start
• 27:34
  talking again. And once we started talking
• 27:35
  again, we would fall right back into our old patterns.
• 27:39
  And I should say, none of these patterns were ever sinful.
• 27:41
  Like, we had a very good friendship.
• 27:45
  We never put each other in a, in an even in a near occasion of
• 27:49
  sin. It was very chaste.
• 27:51
  It was we love talking with each other.
• 27:52
  We love being with each other. We your buddies, we were such
• 27:56
  good friends. But I was praying everyday like
• 28:00
  Lord like I want what you want like if this if you want Chris
• 28:04
  for me, I want Chris. If you do not want Chris for me,
• 28:07
  I don't want him. Please change my heart.
• 28:09
  I but I don't know what to do Lord, because I felt like God
• 28:11
  was always saying like this is who I have for you.
• 28:15
  I mean, so there was like this phrase that I would get whenever
• 28:19
  I'd be like, I'm so done with this Lord, what do you want me
• 28:22
  to do? Should I say something and cut
• 28:23
  this off? And you know, I'm, I'm never
• 28:26
  very good at the chapter and verse, but it was, it was like
• 28:29
  in, in patience. It's like in quiet and
• 28:34
  confidence is your strength. And I'd be like, OK, so I'm
• 28:36
  supposed to be quiet, Lord. That's how I always took it.
• 28:38
  Like I needed to be patient. I needed to trust, I needed to
• 28:41
  be quiet and so I'd be patient. And one time I was so irritated
• 28:45
  with the whole situation. I was like, Lord, I am done.
• 28:49
  Like if you want me to, I was like, I want a letter in the
• 28:52
  mail. God, if you want me to continue
• 28:54
  being Chris's friend, I want you to send me a letter in the mail.
• 28:57
  From God, from. God.
• 28:59
  I told God I wanted a letter in the mail.
• 29:01
  The next day I get a letter, not from God but from a friend, and
• 29:05
  on the back of the envelope is that first like in quiet and in
• 29:10
  confidence is your strength. Does she know that verse meant a
• 29:13
  lot to you? She.
• 29:14
  Had no clue. Nobody knew.
• 29:16
  I never told anyone about this verse.
• 29:17
  Never until after we were married.
• 29:19
  She's a letter about Chris. No, it was about me helping pay
• 29:22
  her gas bill. I was paying her gas bill for
• 29:24
  her. So she was writing me a thank
• 29:25
  you note for helping her out with her gas bill.
• 29:27
  And it had that verse on the back of it.
• 29:30
  And I was like, all right, Lord, there was another time right
• 29:34
  before he moved back from South Carolina.
• 29:35
  I didn't know he was going to be moving back.
• 29:37
  And I was leaving Mass on campus and I was sad.
• 29:41
  I was like, Lord, I am so hung up on this guy who I haven't
• 29:43
  talked to for that. We haven't talked for a long
• 29:45
  time. I'm like, this is ridiculous.
• 29:48
  I believe your will is in the situation.
• 29:50
  And the situation is that I am here and he is there and we are
• 29:53
  not talking. And so like, Lord, unless you
• 29:56
  want me to, I'm like, I am done. I'm not going to say another
• 29:58
  prayer about this guy unless you change the situation.
• 30:01
  Like your will is in the situation.
• 30:03
  That night, Chris called me to tell me he was moving back to
• 30:06
  Pittsburgh. I was like, OK, God, what are
• 30:08
  you doing? Demonic activity?
• 30:10
  No, I'm joking, obviously. It's like so ridiculous, so.
• 30:14
  So, so I've got to ask you because this is a really
• 30:18
  important point, the point about chastity that was really
• 30:21
  important because it's one thing if you're like, we're not
• 30:23
  married. He doesn't actually want to
• 30:24
  marry me, but like we're still doing sexual things together.
• 30:26
  It's like, no, don't do it bad. Leading each other into sand.
• 30:29
  That is not God working in your. Life.
• 30:31
  But then the other thing is your posture because you maintained
• 30:36
  occasionally, sometimes you'd freeze him out and then like,
• 30:38
  he'd come back in and you would talk and you would have this
• 30:41
  like friendship, a very real, beautiful friendship that was
• 30:44
  really hard for you. But you, it sounds like you were
• 30:48
  actively trying to be open to other men.
• 30:51
  I was during this season. And you would go on other dates.
• 30:53
  OK. I was still on Catholic match,
• 30:55
  still going out with other guys, still asking God everyday like
• 30:59
  Lord like if you do not want this to be my heart, like change
• 31:03
  my heart. My prayer was not God give me
• 31:05
  Chris, God give me Chris, God give me Chris.
• 31:07
  I want to be Chris's wife. I was like, Lord, I I really
• 31:10
  care for this guy, but if this isn't what you want, I don't, I
• 31:13
  don't want this. And those weren't always easy
• 31:15
  words to pray. I'm you know, I'm like, those
• 31:18
  were hard words, but I knew that I didn't want anything like it
• 31:21
  was the Christian virtue of hope.
• 31:23
  Where like what you want heaven most of all, you want Christ
• 31:26
  most of all, and God had blessed me with that, with that hope.
• 31:29
  And I'm like, no, what I want is you, Lord.
• 31:31
  And if this isn't what you have for me, if this is not going to
• 31:35
  draw me closer to you, if this is going to separate me from
• 31:37
  you, I don't want this. Take this away and give me what
• 31:41
  you do want. And I was going out with and I
• 31:44
  was, I had a great single life, Lila.
• 31:45
  Like, I remember at one point I was probably 38 and I'd caught
• 31:50
  out with a guy who's such a jerk, who's such a jerk.
• 31:53
  How so? Oh, you know, like, he was.
• 31:56
  I probably was. He probably was.
• 31:57
  I should not say he was a jerk. He was trying very hard to
• 31:59
  impress me. But he was coming off in a very
• 32:02
  cocky way. And he had flown in from out of
• 32:04
  town and he was rude to my friends.
• 32:08
  And we've gone on a double date or actually like a triple date
• 32:11
  with some other couples because I wasn't just going to go out,
• 32:14
  you know, with any random guy who came to town and spent all
• 32:16
  night with him that all night, but the whole evening.
• 32:19
  And he was insulting them, saying they weren't treating
• 32:22
  their women. Who were?
• 32:23
  Who were they? They had with them nicely
• 32:25
  enough. I had season tickets to the
• 32:27
  Symphony. So we had gone to the Symphony
• 32:29
  and he was complaining about my seats, that they weren't nice
• 32:31
  enough and that if I had gone to where he was, he would have.
• 32:35
  Gotten it, so wasn't. Yeah, he was just very, he was
• 32:38
  very rude. And then he tried to be
• 32:39
  inappropriate with me at the end of the night and I was like, all
• 32:41
  right, bye. He's like, these might be cheap
• 32:43
  seats, but you're pretty cute and like just don't like.
• 32:46
  No, Lord. Not now, not here, not ever.
• 32:50
  I'm so tired at this point because I was, I probably, yeah,
• 32:53
  I was exhausted. 37, the single girl book had just come out,
• 32:56
  maybe 36. And I was like, Lord, this is
• 32:58
  exhausting. Like I really love my life.
• 33:00
  I have wonderful friends. I have a home I love.
• 33:03
  I have work that has meaning to me.
• 33:05
  I get a love on all of my friends, kids.
• 33:07
  I have an abundance of beautiful little ones in my life.
• 33:10
  I get to travel. I'm, you know, I was travelling
• 33:12
  to Europe all the time and I was like, I like, like someone's got
• 33:17
  to be really great at this point to come along because you've,
• 33:19
  you've blessed me so much and I and I had a lot of joy.
• 33:21
  So I wasn't desperate to marry anyone.
• 33:24
  I was just like, this is I want to be married still.
• 33:26
  I still want babies. I still love this Chris guy who
• 33:28
  I was not talking to at that point.
• 33:30
  What's? The longest time you went
• 33:31
  without talking to him in the nine year span?
• 33:34
  In the nine year span, probably 8 months.
• 33:38
  Those were really hate months and what I discovered of and I
• 33:41
  always I always hesitate to say this because I don't want I'm
• 33:44
  always scared some other woman's going to not fully.
• 33:47
  I don't I don't want always people to do as I say do as I
• 33:50
  don't do as I do don't do as I do necessarily because it's so
• 33:54
  complicated. It doesn't normally work out
• 33:55
  this way, but what I realized over the course of all of our
• 33:58
  breakups and getting back not even we call the breakups now
• 34:01
  that we're married because it. But you were never girlfriend or
• 34:04
  boyfriend during those 9. Years break offs.
• 34:06
  We were breaking off the friendship when we were not
• 34:08
  speaking. It was so incredibly hard.
• 34:12
  And I would go to bed at night and be like, Lord, I can't do
• 34:14
  this another day. I can't do this another day.
• 34:16
  And I would wake up the next morning and it would be even
• 34:19
  harder. Like there was every, every day
• 34:21
  was hard. And there were times when we
• 34:23
  were friends and I would go to bed and say, Lord, I can't do
• 34:26
  this. This is ridiculous.
• 34:27
  This is frustrating. Like you've got to give me some
• 34:29
  grace to do this another day. And I would wake up the next
• 34:32
  morning and I absolutely have the grace to do it.
• 34:34
  And I was like, no, this is what I want.
• 34:36
  Like I want to be friends with this, this man.
• 34:38
  And I think there came a point like at one point he almost died
• 34:41
  and he was in the hospital for a week.
• 34:43
  And this was during us not talking period.
• 34:44
  And he called me and it was like, I'm dying, come to the
• 34:47
  hospital and I went to the. Hospital and you're.
• 34:50
  Like held hands to the hospital for a week and you know, it was,
• 34:53
  it was like a Mexican soap opera.
• 34:55
  It was like a telenovela. It was so, it was so crazy.
• 34:58
  And our friends were just getting the blow by blow.
• 35:00
  Truly, they didn't know what to do when we finally started
• 35:02
  dating. But even after that, he had to
• 35:03
  get healthier. We didn't start dating again for
• 35:06
  about a year after that. I had been on a an interview on
• 35:09
  a Catholic, a big Catholic radio show on SiriusXM, and I thought
• 35:15
  I was going on to talk about a book I'd written about American
• 35:17
  Catholic history. And instead all the host wanted
• 35:19
  to talk about was the fact that I was still single and.
• 35:23
  How old are you at this point? I was 39.
• 35:27
  That must have not been fun. It was, it was so terrible and
• 35:31
  Chris had spent all Chris and I were not dating at this point.
• 35:33
  We're spending a lot of time together and I, he had spent all
• 35:36
  day trying to get serious in his car so he could listen to the
• 35:38
  radio. So he's listening to this whole
• 35:41
  thing. And there was like the host was
• 35:43
  really inappropriate. You know, he was, there was some
• 35:45
  very double and, and entendre kind of remarks made about my,
• 35:50
  my body and Brussels sprouts. And it was, it was just crazy
• 35:54
  and bizarre. And so I was in tears when we
• 35:58
  got off of the interview. Like I didn't cry on air, but I
• 36:01
  was so upset. I was like, I've been
• 36:02
  humiliated. It's every single woman's worst
• 36:04
  fear, right? You're 39 years old.
• 36:07
  You go on national radio. Wait, what would?
• 36:09
  The Brussels sprouts about. He was asking me about my
• 36:12
  single. I was talking about I haven't my
• 36:14
  single male friends or something and my cooking and the heels
• 36:17
  like oh, what do they like you to cook?
• 36:19
  And you have here's you have you have you have three choices in
• 36:22
  this type of interview. You know, when someones being
• 36:25
  you can play along and be inappropriate in a I could have
• 36:31
  played along been sexually inappropriate with my own double
• 36:33
  entendres, which I was not going to do.
• 36:36
  You can be the aggressive wench and come back at him hard and
• 36:39
  come off like, you know, a real, like, someone's like Miss
• 36:43
  Feminazi sort of person, or you can say.
• 36:45
  Dumb. You can rebuke him.
• 36:47
  You can rebuke. Him.
• 36:47
  And then they'll be like, you're a feminist and you're like, I'm
• 36:50
  just a Catholic woman. I believe a lot of people would.
• 36:53
  Like not to have offensive remarks made and like veiled
• 36:55
  language about you know, my body or you can play dumb and I chose
• 36:59
  to play dumb. I am not dumb, I knew.
• 37:02
  So there was a Co host from Franciscan who was there.
• 37:05
  Is this guy still on air? He has and he very kindly has
• 37:08
  apologized to me so I no longer. He had a bad day, he had too
• 37:11
  many. It took a twigs of I got an.
• 37:13
  Apology he heard from someone that he was like, yeah, so
• 37:16
  anyhow, so the guy, the Co host comes up to me.
• 37:19
  He's like, don't you realize what he was saying?
• 37:21
  And I was like, of course I know what I was saying, but what
• 37:24
  choice did I have? So I had played along and just
• 37:27
  you know, and boy, who they're like, what do they like you to
• 37:29
  cook? I was like, well, they love my
• 37:30
  pasta. They love my Brussels sprouts,
• 37:32
  just like, yeah, I bet they love your Brussels sprouts.
• 37:35
  And I was like, oh, could you do you have to make a dirty joke
• 37:37
  about Brussels sprouts? Like what is wrong with you when
• 37:39
  you make a dirty joke about Brussels sprouts?
• 37:42
  So Chris heard all that, Chris. Heard all of that.
• 37:44
  He felt so bad. The next day he greeted me with
• 37:46
  flowers and a bottle of wine. He felt bad because it's his
• 37:50
  fault. He felt so bad because it was
• 37:51
  his fault. He always jokes about the single
• 37:53
  girl book. He says.
• 37:54
  Yeah, she was single to me when she wrote that, but we still
• 37:58
  didn't talk about it. And at this point, Chris was
• 38:00
  starting to try to have conversations.
• 38:02
  He'd be like, so do you feel like maybe one of the reasons
• 38:05
  that you're not married yet is because of our friendship And be
• 38:09
  like, I don't know, maybe, who knows?
• 38:10
  Because I didn't want to have any more conversations because
• 38:13
  at that point, I'd initiated so many conversations over the
• 38:16
  years. Chris, we can't do this, Chris.
• 38:19
  We have to talk about this. And they always ended badly.
• 38:21
  They always ended up with us not talking.
• 38:23
  And I was done with that. Like I'd had a point where I was
• 38:25
  thinking about, Lord, maybe you weren't really calling me to be
• 38:28
  his wife. Maybe you're saying I want you
• 38:30
  to be his friend. And I would have at that point,
• 38:32
  it's like, I'd rather be Chris's friend than anyone else's wife.
• 38:35
  I've spent 20 years dating. I'm tired of dating.
• 38:39
  I've never met a man who's as good as my husband, who's as
• 38:42
  good as Chris is, who's this kind, who I love to be with as
• 38:45
  much. And there must be something in
• 38:48
  him that he can't move forward with marriage.
• 38:49
  And I would rather, I would rather die his friend than marry
• 38:52
  somebody else. And so every time he would try
• 38:55
  to have one of these conversations, I was trying to
• 38:57
  dodge them. Oh, no, no.
• 38:58
  This was. This was.
• 38:59
  Like this was interior in your heart.
• 39:00
  This was in my heart. Did anyone, did you tell anyone
• 39:03
  that? My best friend, you.
• 39:05
  Yeah, what did she say? They were all had given up at
• 39:08
  that point. And like we cannot control what
• 39:10
  Emily does, they did Like we do not approve but.
• 39:13
  Well, they are not even from like not approving and to being
• 39:17
  just like you 2 are always, you always find your way back to
• 39:20
  each other. Like what is even the point of
• 39:22
  not spending time together anymore because you're just
• 39:24
  going to start talking again. So but I also was seeing
• 39:27
  spiritual directors at this point.
• 39:28
  I had two I had over at different points.
• 39:30
  I've had two very holy spiritual directors who kept encouraging
• 39:33
  me to be friends with Chris. They're like, no, I think you
• 39:36
  should continue on in this friendship.
• 39:38
  And one of them was Father Ray Ryland, who's this amazing
• 39:44
  Catholic priest who had converted from Anglicanism.
• 39:46
  And he like, knew Walter Hooper, you know, CS Luke.
• 39:49
  He was just very holy and very lovely.
• 39:51
  And he would always be like, I'm praying on my every morning.
• 39:53
  He would be on his exercise bike and he was in his 80s.
• 39:55
  And he'd be like, every morning, I'm praying for you and Chris.
• 39:57
  And I was like, oh, thank you, Father Ryland.
• 40:01
  So I had these spiritual directors who were encouraging
• 40:02
  me to continue to be friends again because I think they
• 40:05
  didn't see any signs of sin. Like my friendship with Chris
• 40:08
  made me better. Like I was, I love Jesus more
• 40:11
  because of our friendship. I was more humble.
• 40:13
  I understood suffering more. I was, I was becoming more who
• 40:18
  God made me to be through this friendship.
• 40:20
  And I think that's what they, they saw.
• 40:23
  And they saw the peace that I had in the friendship with him
• 40:26
  that I did not have when Chris and I weren't talking.
• 40:28
  And so the the spiritual directors were encouraging me to
• 40:30
  stay in this relationship. My friends had given up thinking
• 40:33
  we would ever actually not talk. And but Chris, that is now the
• 40:37
  one who for a period of months is trying to get me to have
• 40:39
  these conversations. And I didn't want to talk about
• 40:41
  it because I just assumed, well, if we talked about it, I'd given
• 40:44
  up on the thought of him ever wanting to date me.
• 40:47
  And I was like, that's we're not going to date.
• 40:49
  And so if we have this conversation, we're going to
• 40:51
  stop talking. And I don't want to do that
• 40:53
  anymore. So you'd given up.
• 40:55
  Hope I'd given up hope I did not think.
• 40:57
  I was like, this is not going to happen.
• 40:59
  And finally we were a friend of his kind of lit into me about
• 41:05
  our friendship. And I broke down in tears in
• 41:07
  front of Chris about it. And we went for a drive and on
• 41:11
  that we were in Abbeville, SC. And on that drive, he's like,
• 41:16
  well, maybe we should actually start dating.
• 41:20
  And I was like, what like, are you serious?
• 41:24
  And it was just so, it was so natural and yet so surreal all
• 41:29
  at the same time. And so that was in December of
• 41:32
  2014. And we started dating and we got
• 41:38
  engaged a year later. He had wanted us to date for a
• 41:42
  full year because he'd had these two sort of precipitous
• 41:45
  engagements. And one had been to a good
• 41:46
  friend. And it was in the course of
• 41:48
  their engagement that he got to see her family dynamics and
• 41:51
  realized how she participated in some really problematic family
• 41:55
  dynamics. And he was like, I don't think I
• 41:57
  want to bring that into a marriage, so.
• 41:59
  He broke up the former engagement.
• 42:01
  He broke both of them. I first one he broke off and the
• 42:04
  second one he broke off the engagement but wanted to
• 42:08
  continue dating and they did for a while and then she broke off
• 42:10
  the relationship. So he was picky.
• 42:14
  I mean, well, clearly. Yeah, I mean, he was.
• 42:16
  Clearly it like took him nine years to finally he was.
• 42:18
  Picky. I think his illness really did
• 42:21
  affect him, like Lyme disease. And I don't say picky
• 42:23
  pejoratively, by the way, I'm not saying that.
• 42:25
  But my husband is an incredibly good man.
• 42:28
  He is a good man and he's a wise man.
• 42:30
  And I think that's why a lot of people were struggling to see
• 42:32
  why he was still single in his 40s, because they're like Chris
• 42:34
  Chapman's awesome. Like Chris Chapman is such a
• 42:37
  good guy. Why can he not like move it
• 42:40
  forward and pick a woman and marry?
• 42:43
  Not because he wasn't a jerk. He wasn't he wasn't sinful.
• 42:47
  He was a very good. He wasn't a sex addict.
• 42:49
  He didn't have mental health issues, deep wounds that were
• 42:52
  preventing healthy relationships.
• 42:54
  He had a job he like. There wasn't the like skeleton
• 42:57
  in the closet. There's.
• 42:58
  No red flags other than there's 22 broken engagements and he's
• 43:03
  single and he's real. He's like my husband's very
• 43:05
  handsome, he's good looking and he's not married.
• 43:06
  Like what's going on? I've, I'm on, I have Lyme
• 43:10
  disease right now. So I've been on killer
• 43:12
  antibiotics. It's OK when Pittsburgh, you
• 43:15
  know, it's like everybody gets it.
• 43:16
  We might as well just keep doxycycline in our fridge and
• 43:18
  like, you know, take swigs of it when we everyday.
• 43:22
  But it really does affect your clarity.
• 43:23
  And he first got it from everything we can tell back in
• 43:28
  the back in the 80s when nobody knew what to do with it.
• 43:30
  And I had very. Chronically had it for years.
• 43:32
  Chronically had it. All of these health problems.
• 43:34
  So much confusion. He was not himself for a long
• 43:38
  time. Like he could not think straight
• 43:40
  about a lot of these things. And his health scare when he in
• 43:46
  2012, when I had like spent the week in the hospital with him,
• 43:49
  kind of moved along some healing in a direction that he started
• 43:52
  seeing a Doctor Who helped him move to a better, healthier
• 43:55
  place. So a lot of it was, I think, and
• 43:58
  we just don't know. And that's what So I'll hear
• 43:59
  from women all the time, be like, there's no good men out
• 44:02
  there, you know, or the I meet guys and there's these issues.
• 44:05
  And I was like, OK, God is healing people all the time.
• 44:08
  The man who is perfect for you right now could be sick.
• 44:11
  He could have Lyme's disease, you know, or he could be dealing
• 44:13
  with the grief from the loss of a parent.
• 44:15
  Like you don't know who is broken today, who is going to be
• 44:19
  whole tomorrow. Like it.
• 44:23
  We think we can see everything. And all we can see is a moment.
• 44:26
  And God sees it all. And so all those years when I
• 44:29
  was being patient and trying to do what God wanted, like God
• 44:33
  used those years too. Like we look back and sometimes
• 44:35
  we'll say, because Chris, Chris for a long time really struggled
• 44:38
  because once we started dating, we were so happy.
• 44:41
  Like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world to
• 44:43
  date. It was so easy to get marriage,
• 44:46
  like those first years of like, it's all I always say.
• 44:49
  Being married to Chris is the easiest thing I've ever done.
• 44:52
  Like we had such a solid friendship and he's so loving.
• 44:55
  The dating was hard. The marriage was easy.
• 44:57
  The the friendship. The friendship.
• 44:59
  Sorry the non dating friendship was hard.
• 45:02
  Like we had a lot of a lot of hardships out during that time,
• 45:05
  but Chris every once in a while, and he did this a lot early on
• 45:09
  before our kids came and he would say, I just I wish like, I
• 45:13
  don't know what was wrong with me.
• 45:14
  I wish we had more time. I hate that we don't, we don't
• 45:16
  have we lost all that time, but I'm so glad it worked out as it
• 45:21
  did. Like God knew it all when God,
• 45:23
  when I got on Catholic Match that day in 2005, probably like
• 45:28
  right around now, 20 years ago. You know, it's been 20 years in
• 45:32
  August since I got on Catholic match.
• 45:34
  God saw it all. He saw all of the waiting, He
• 45:36
  saw all of the friendship. He saw all of the work that he
• 45:39
  would do in me during those years.
• 45:42
  If we'd gotten married right away and maybe been able to
• 45:44
  start a family right away, would I have, I had just started
• 45:47
  freelancing at that time. You know, I'd just written my
• 45:50
  first article for First Things I would I have kept writing what I
• 45:55
  have done, the work that God has given me to do over the past 20
• 45:58
  years. Would this book exist?
• 46:00
  Would that book exist when my book that I wrote for single
• 46:02
  women when I was 35 that I never wanted to write with that exist?
• 46:06
  And no matter what, we would not be the parents to the children
• 46:09
  that we have. And I know you want to talk
• 46:11
  about our children who all came to us through adoption.
• 46:14
  And you know, our first son, our son's, our first son's first
• 46:20
  mother. The reason she chose us is she
• 46:22
  wanted a family who had no other children and who couldn't have
• 46:24
  children. We never, even if we've been
• 46:27
  considering adoption at that time in 2018, would we have been
• 46:32
  chosen to be his mom. So this is your first son?
• 46:37
  Our first son, yeah. And so you when you you and
• 46:40
  Chris get married. So this is a year long dating.
• 46:43
  Yeah, 5 month engagement. Five month engagement.
• 46:45
  So then at that point, Chris, it's like we're doing this.
• 46:48
  Like what is it we're? Doing this.
• 46:50
  We had like, you know, I had all these speaking engagements
• 46:52
  because I was doing a lot of speaking back then.
• 46:53
  And I was like, so we were trying to like figure out when
• 46:56
  can we get married and where? Toby is your oldest.
• 46:58
  Son Toby is our oldest son, yeah.
• 46:59
  OK, his story is amazing. You got to let us know how he
• 47:03
  asked you to marry you. And then the the, the grand
• 47:07
  finale. I mean, it's not the finale.
• 47:09
  Though he hates so Chris hates these stories.
• 47:11
  Like he hates it when I talk about all this because he's
• 47:14
  like, I'm the bad guy. I'm always the bad guy.
• 47:16
  The story I was like, honey, you're not the bad guy.
• 47:19
  Like it was just, it was the best guy.
• 47:21
  He's the best guy. He's such a good man.
• 47:23
  And all of my friends who didn't know him very well when through
• 47:27
  all those years, like the more they got to know him, they're
• 47:28
  like, oh, This is why I'm really waited.
• 47:30
  I've so many people have met him and they're like, oh, my gosh,
• 47:32
  this is no wonder you waited so long.
• 47:34
  And I was like, yeah, he's really awesome.
• 47:37
  He was all excited. We So I have my grandmother's
• 47:40
  ring and my grandmother was died when I was 19.
• 47:43
  I was very close to her. She was a young grandma.
• 47:46
  And I always knew that I would get the ring if I wanted it.
• 47:49
  And so he asked my mom for the ring.
• 47:51
  And he had all these big plans to come back and ask me to marry
• 47:54
  him on the feast of the Epiphany.
• 47:55
  And then he got sick and had 103° fever and was sick for days
• 48:01
  and days and days and knew he had to ask me because I had all
• 48:05
  these speaking engagements that I had to honour.
• 48:08
  And the window is closing. And so he came over for dinner
• 48:11
  and on on my couch and just a very sweet way he asked me to
• 48:14
  marry him. And it's nothing vague or ground
• 48:18
  like he'd wanted to do, but it was I didn't care like he asked
• 48:22
  me to marry. Him How did you feel when he
• 48:23
  asked you to marry him after nine years?
• 48:26
  At this point are are we going on 10 years?
• 48:27
  Let's see, that was 10 years. After 10 years of first meeting
• 48:32
  him and thinking he's the 110 years later now he's finally
• 48:35
  asking you. I was a little scared.
• 48:39
  I was scared that I would always worry that he didn't really love
• 48:45
  me and that he had, you know, I, I think I was scared I would
• 48:49
  cause all, you know, 10 years of what's going on, what's
• 48:52
  happening? Like, does he love me?
• 48:53
  Does he, why can't, why will this guy not go away?
• 48:55
  Why does he keep calling me? Like, what is wrong with this
• 48:58
  man? All of that not feeling good
• 49:00
  enough. Like I'm not pretty enough, I'm
• 49:02
  not smart enough, I'm not sweet enough.
• 49:04
  I'm not, I'm not enough. Like I had a lot of years of
• 49:09
  feeling like I wasn't enough. And I was very worried that even
• 49:12
  after we married, I would still feel like I was not enough.
• 49:17
  And, and I will say I'm worried about that through the whole of
• 49:21
  the engagement, I was very worried about that.
• 49:25
  And now I, I had nothing to worry about.
• 49:27
  Like my husband has just lavished me with love and
• 49:31
  affection. And you know, you can show
• 49:32
  affection differently when you're married than you can when
• 49:35
  you're single. And so marrying and being able
• 49:39
  to be fully affectionate with each other and fully intimate
• 49:43
  and just building a life together and the way he showed
• 49:45
  his love and the way he now we I always.
• 49:49
  So there's this beautiful passage in, I think it's in The
• 49:53
  Great Divorce, where CS Lewis talks about how grace, sin, and
• 49:59
  both grace and sin can work backwards and forwards.
• 50:01
  So if people in hell look back on their life on earth and they
• 50:04
  see it was hell all along because every step of their life
• 50:07
  was leading them to hell. And people who are in heaven
• 50:09
  look back on their life and every moment it was heaven
• 50:12
  because it was all leading them to God.
• 50:13
  And something like that is true of my relationship with Chris.
• 50:17
  Like when we look back on it now, feels like we're always
• 50:20
  married, like feels like we were always dating, like we're always
• 50:23
  a couple. Like it's the grace has worked
• 50:25
  back and healed all of those memories and all of those
• 50:28
  insecurities and just covered every bad memory in the love and
• 50:35
  the life that we have now. And so all those fears proved
• 50:39
  the marital graces, the graces of the sacrament are so powerful
• 50:43
  and they've healed all those wounds and all those memories so
• 50:46
  that it's not an issue now. And it's hard to, I have to like
• 50:50
  work. It's it's like Chris gets
• 50:51
  exhausted by the telling of the story because it's, it's we're
• 50:54
  always telling you're past. It yeah, you're so past it.
• 50:58
  We're so. Past it.
• 50:59
  We've been married for nine years now.
• 51:00
  We've been. Married for nine years and it's
• 51:03
  a. Real relationship, I'm like,
• 51:05
  that's where the life story. Begins on the show.
• 51:07
  Dang it, we should have had a double this.
• 51:09
  I made this mistake before in the show.
• 51:11
  I like I have the retelling of this amazing love story and it's
• 51:13
  like, where's the husband? And we actually have done it
• 51:16
  with the man where it's like, where's the wife?
• 51:17
  But we'll have to have him. He's great.
• 51:20
  He. Sounds like he's very wise too.
• 51:22
  He's so wise and so like such a gift to me.
• 51:27
  Like I always the writing I do. I'm such a better writer because
• 51:31
  of Chris. I'm a better woman because of
• 51:32
  Chris. I'm a better mother like I am a
• 51:35
  bet I am. I am more Emily because of
• 51:38
  Chris. I'm more who God made me to be
• 51:39
  because of him. And that was true during our
• 51:41
  friendship and it's been true during our marriage.
• 51:45
  And so, yeah. But I, I guess that's why I'm
• 51:47
  always like, this is the least interesting part of our life.
• 51:50
  It's the sitcom part. It's, you know, I always say
• 51:53
  when I'm talking to audiences, you know, you can tell how old
• 51:56
  people are by do they know Sam and Diane from Cheers or do they
• 52:00
  know Luke and Lorelei from Gilmore Girls or like Mulder and
• 52:03
  Scully from X-Files? Like the shows make it seem like
• 52:06
  that's the interesting part, the will they or won't they?
• 52:09
  But the real interesting part is when the marriage begins and
• 52:12
  you've given yourself and you're living a life together, and
• 52:15
  everything else is just a prelude, like it's not the main
• 52:19
  show. And I see Chris so differently
• 52:23
  now than I saw him 15 years ago when we were in the middle of
• 52:28
  what's going on with him, what is he doing?
• 52:30
  And I see who he is and I see how he was suffering and what he
• 52:34
  was struggling with, which makes me think about God, like how God
• 52:37
  looks at us. You know, we're so caught up in
• 52:40
  the moment and he sees us now and he sees us 10 years from
• 52:43
  now, and he sees us 20 years from now.
• 52:45
  He sees the whole of our life. He sees every prayer we're going
• 52:47
  to pray. He sees the prayers that we're
• 52:50
  so glad he didn't answer. You know, he knows which prayers
• 52:53
  we're going to be glad he did not answer.
• 52:56
  And being in a relationship now with Chris for 20 years, like I
• 53:00
  can kind of see Emily. I get a little glimpse of how
• 53:03
  God, of how God sees us because I'm like, oh, thank God he
• 53:06
  didn't answer that prayer that you prayed that day in that way.
• 53:09
  Thank God he, you know, knew what you would ultimately want,
• 53:13
  what you would want more than what you wanted in that moment.
• 53:16
  And if that long experience of waiting and praying and
• 53:20
  struggling to trust and hoping has taught me anything, it's
• 53:23
  that God really knows what he's doing.
• 53:25
  Like he he sees all and he knows all and he knows how to bring
• 53:29
  something beautiful out of something that we think no
• 53:31
  beauty can come. And so, yeah, I'm really
• 53:34
  grateful for that long story, but it's it's also the least
• 53:39
  interesting part of our life together.
• 53:43
  Well, your kids, the crown, the crown of the marriage, the
• 53:45
  child. I'm we're going to talk about
• 53:48
  that in a minute, but I've got to ask you wrote the single
• 53:50
  guide, the guide for single girl.
• 53:51
  Catholic girl survival guide to the single year.
• 53:54
  Yes, which is a classic, you know, I understand it's still
• 53:57
  selling to the stay. Surprise, surprise.
• 53:59
  But so I've got to just ask because there's so much that
• 54:02
  could be gleaned from the prelude.
• 54:04
  And then there's even more that can be cleaned from the marriage
• 54:06
  and everything you're doing now as a as a family.
• 54:09
  But what would you say is your, you know, top couple piece of
• 54:14
  pieces of advice for single men and women who are trying to find
• 54:21
  that person, right? And I have heard so many
• 54:25
  stories, Emily, of both women and men who were interested in
• 54:29
  somebody else and they were not as interested as they were.
• 54:32
  And just the strain that comes from that or the pain that comes
• 54:36
  from that. And, you know, rarely it's nine
• 54:38
  years. Like that's a, that's might be
• 54:39
  a. Record saner or.
• 54:42
  Yeah, Saner. Or maybe, maybe.
• 54:45
  Yeah, again, it's like how you like, it's all how you discern
• 54:48
  it, right. You can't, you can't like
• 54:49
  there's no, there's no automatic system here.
• 54:52
  You know, there's no sort of like calculation here that you
• 54:55
  can just put in the numbers and it comes spits out the answer
• 54:57
  like it's, you have to discern it with God, spiritual
• 54:59
  directors, there's so many elements that are personal to
• 55:04
  this. So anyways, what would you say?
• 55:06
  Like if they like, if you were talking to a woman who's like
• 55:09
  Emily, like, you know, what should I do?
• 55:12
  I, I'm with, let's just do the scenario.
• 55:14
  I'm with a guy and he's not interested, but I I love him,
• 55:18
  you know? I mean, the first thing is you
• 55:20
  look at it, is there sin in the relationship?
• 55:22
  Well, what if he has an addiction like this is I hear
• 55:24
  this a lot. I just did a call in show, one
• 55:27
  of the gals called in and she was sharing about the sexual
• 55:32
  addiction's a strong word, but the the you know, the habit,
• 55:35
  Yeah, the habit of falling into porn use and masturbation.
• 55:39
  I think as long as that habit is there without serious intent,
• 55:44
  that's one thing if there's like a relapse and occasional but if
• 55:48
  he is not seeking help if he has not been a number of years or
• 55:53
  number at least number of months without without seeking comfort
• 55:56
  in that, you should not be dating that guy.
• 55:58
  I've seen it destroy too many marriages.
• 56:01
  I've seen the effect it has, like it it it's cause for an
• 56:04
  annulment, like you can't keep dating somebody.
• 56:07
  If it's unknown. If it's.
• 56:08
  If it's well. If is that a cause for an
• 56:10
  annulment? If it's known if.
• 56:11
  There's a pornography addiction, the inability to give yourself
• 56:15
  because you're so beholden to that.
• 56:20
  You're like an alcohol addiction.
• 56:21
  If you know, they're addicted to alcohol and you marry them,
• 56:24
  that's still something you're going to go back and look at in
• 56:26
  an annulment because the person wasn't capable of giving himself
• 56:28
  freely. And so if you have someone with
• 56:30
  a pornography addiction who thinks that marrying you and
• 56:33
  being able to have sex with you is going to solve his addiction,
• 56:36
  like you're basically that's, that's not a free gift of, of
• 56:39
  self that's. And so yes, that would
• 56:41
  absolutely be something that would come up during it and.
• 56:43
  All sadly what like what you just said.
• 56:45
  I know you actually write about adjacent themes to what you just
• 56:48
  said, but that is a unfortunate misunderstanding, I think
• 56:52
  amongst even many Christians today where they to interpret
• 56:55
  Saint Paul and they say, you know, marriage is given to us
• 56:58
  because we're burning with passion.
• 56:59
  And so therefore, you know, our spouse is an outlet for this
• 57:03
  passion. And I I know there's an element
• 57:05
  of truth there, but if you're missing the larger picture, it
• 57:07
  can become an occasion for sin, quite frankly, and objectifying
• 57:11
  the spouse. But what are your?
• 57:12
  Well we struggle to understand the difference between lust and
• 57:14
  attraction. They are different like you can,
• 57:17
  you should be attracted to your spouse.
• 57:19
  You should want to sleep with your spouse.
• 57:21
  But that attraction is for the whole person, like it's for who
• 57:25
  they love the way they look. You're attracted to them
• 57:27
  physically, but you, you want to talk to them, you want to be
• 57:30
  with them. You want to trust them with
• 57:32
  yourself. Like you are attracted to who
• 57:34
  they are. Like my husband is attracted to
• 57:37
  me every, every part of me. You know your husband is
• 57:39
  attracted to you, every part of you.
• 57:42
  Lust is when you reduce the person to their body, to one
• 57:46
  part of themselves. And that's what you want.
• 57:49
  If somebody wants just your body, that is lust.
• 57:52
  If somebody wants your body and all of you and to make a gift of
• 57:55
  themselves to you and to receive the gift of yourself, that's
• 57:58
  attraction. Attraction is good.
• 58:00
  Attraction is holy. Attraction is from God, like we
• 58:02
  see it in the Song of Songs. Lust is not from God.
• 58:06
  Lust is reducing a person to less than who they are, and a
• 58:10
  person who is addicted to pornography has an active
• 58:13
  addiction and active habit of use.
• 58:17
  You can't know that he sees you for who you are.
• 58:19
  Like, how do you know until you've sorted that out?
• 58:22
  And it's not to say, again, it's not to say this person is never
• 58:24
  going to become marriageable. It's not to say that someone
• 58:27
  who's broken today is going to be broken forever.
• 58:29
  But as a man, he has a responsibility to learn how to
• 58:34
  value women for As for who they are for creatures of God, like
• 58:40
  creatures made in the image of God, people who reflect the
• 58:43
  image of God as much as they do, you know, when their ability to
• 58:46
  reason and choose right from wrong and give themselves like
• 58:51
  so a man who has a pornography habit, a regular habit, has no
• 58:55
  business dating because a woman's not going to sell it for
• 58:58
  him. That's not that's not how life
• 59:00
  works. Like that's not going to.
• 59:02
  Well, I think it's connected back to in a marriage, if you
• 59:05
  are, you know, basically the object for sexual fulfillment
• 59:09
  and sexual fulfillment is out of the context of loving the whole
• 59:12
  person, then that is less than a marriage.
• 59:16
  I think that's a really important point for people like
• 59:18
  you, like you should in a marriage, like the sex and
• 59:21
  sexual attraction needs to be ordered towards the good of the
• 59:23
  other, seeing the other as a gift, seeing the fullness of the
• 59:26
  person in their in their subjectivity.
• 59:30
  And if you don't do that, then you're using your spouse as a
• 59:33
  sex object. Right.
• 59:34
  If you can't see. So I mean, in every marriage,
• 59:37
  like sex is a wonderful gift. It is a wonderful part of the
• 59:40
  marriage. It is.
• 59:41
  It is. It's not a necessary part of
• 59:43
  marriage because somebody can be critically injured and not able
• 59:46
  to fulfill that part of. Well, initially.
• 59:48
  Initially it has to be. Yes, initially it has to be.
• 59:50
  Become one flesh. But it doesn't suddenly make the
• 59:53
  marriage no longer a marriage if something happens and somebody
• 59:56
  can no longer engage in the marital act.
• 1:00:00
  But it is, it is as you were saying, like you should see the
• 1:00:04
  whole good of the person. And in every marriage, there's
• 1:00:07
  going to be times where you have to abstain, like, because
• 1:00:09
  somebody is sick, because somebody is absent, you know,
• 1:00:13
  like, because if someone's parent is dying and they've had
• 1:00:15
  to go across the country for a few weeks to take care of their
• 1:00:17
  parent. Like there is a reason that
• 1:00:19
  married people are called to develop the virtue of chastity
• 1:00:23
  and not just because it is a virtue and it's good for all of
• 1:00:25
  us to have it because you really have to learn to live chastity
• 1:00:27
  within marriage. And so if you can't see the
• 1:00:31
  whole of the person in front of you and the needs that they have
• 1:00:35
  and the struggles that they have and be able to control your own
• 1:00:39
  desires to order them towards the good of the person, then
• 1:00:43
  you're not loving them, you're lusting after them.
• 1:00:45
  So there can absolutely be lust in marriage.
• 1:00:47
  And that lust is what it reduces a person to an object who is
• 1:00:52
  there to fulfill your needs. And that's not what we want.
• 1:00:57
  And a good man, there's good men out there who are struggling
• 1:00:59
  with pornography addictions. They.
• 1:01:00
  Are and women and women there's increasingly.
• 1:01:03
  Ironica for women especially like.
• 1:01:05
  Arat Novels is women's porn. Yeah, smut novels.
• 1:01:07
  And by the way, when I see on Instagram and TikTok, but like
• 1:01:12
  these girls who make jokes about reading smut novels in front,
• 1:01:17
  like with their husbands, like their husbands, like, what are
• 1:01:19
  you doing? And they're like, I'm like, Can
• 1:01:21
  you imagine if a man was making content joking about looking at
• 1:01:24
  porn? We were like, that's, I mean,
• 1:01:26
  thankfully some people would be like, that's horrible.
• 1:01:28
  Some people like whatever, I don't care because porn is
• 1:01:30
  unfortunately. They're like, OK, watch it
• 1:01:31
  together. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:01:33
  Watch it together. It'll strengthen your marriage.
• 1:01:35
  But I just think it's so it's so it's just like the the
• 1:01:38
  corsification, you know, we're, we're so coarsened.
• 1:01:41
  We don't have to be this way. And, you know, there's pushback
• 1:01:43
  against that, of course. But yeah, in my views, if if the
• 1:01:46
  if the if the writing is erotica, it's designed for
• 1:01:49
  arousal and sexual fantasy fantasizing.
• 1:01:52
  Because women are tend to be aroused.
• 1:01:53
  Yeah, differently so. It's female.
• 1:01:55
  That's what it is. It is.
• 1:01:56
  And so, no, I think there's lots of good people who find them in
• 1:01:59
  them and they're and they're like, OK, if I get married, this
• 1:02:01
  will solve that problem. But it's not going to like find
• 1:02:04
  a spiritual director, find a counselor, become the kind of
• 1:02:08
  person who can make a free gift of yourself, whether you're a
• 1:02:11
  man or a woman, become the person you want.
• 1:02:13
  You know, you would want your child to marry like you're, if
• 1:02:15
  you're a man, become the kind of man you'd want your daughter to
• 1:02:17
  marry. If you're a woman, become the
• 1:02:19
  kind of woman that you would want your son to marry and then
• 1:02:23
  enter back into the dating pool. It's not forever.
• 1:02:25
  Not dating for six months, not dating for a year.
• 1:02:28
  Learning to get your addictions or your struggles or your wounds
• 1:02:31
  under control like that only makes you a better white flake.
• 1:02:33
  Chris and I have a better marriage for all of like all of
• 1:02:37
  the healing that God did in our hearts during the years that we
• 1:02:40
  weren't and we didn't. I didn't have like a pornography
• 1:02:43
  addiction, you know, but but I had wounds for my eating
• 1:02:45
  disorder. I had wounds from my childhood.
• 1:02:48
  I had wounds from not being married in my late 30s, you
• 1:02:52
  know, And God really did a great work in me so that I could be
• 1:02:55
  the kind of wife that I wanted to be for Chris when we married.
• 1:02:58
  And you don't have to be perfect to be married, but you do have
• 1:03:01
  to be capable of giving a full gift of yourself and not
• 1:03:04
  reducing your spouse to an object like that's a baseline
• 1:03:07
  for any marriage. What is the we talked about like
• 1:03:10
  smut novels or, you know, erotica novels for women, But
• 1:03:13
  what would you say the man struggle potentially with less
• 1:03:17
  and women struggle with less. But usually it's talked about in
• 1:03:19
  the terms of men, you know, have porn addiction at a higher rate
• 1:03:23
  than women, right? That is an objective fact right
• 1:03:25
  now. Women, though, have other
• 1:03:26
  struggles. How can and I know you have a
• 1:03:29
  book about this for single girls, The Single Girls Guide.
• 1:03:32
  But what would you say is the lesson or a lesson for women
• 1:03:36
  about how they can prepare in their single years to be the
• 1:03:39
  best they can be as a woman and for a potential future spouse to
• 1:03:44
  bring into the marriage wholeness and health and the
• 1:03:47
  right perspective on what the man, the relationship with the
• 1:03:51
  man so that the expectations are ordered.
• 1:03:55
  Because I think sometimes as women, we can get tripped up
• 1:03:58
  with expectations for men that are not, that are crippling for
• 1:04:02
  them and end up being super crippling for us and
• 1:04:06
  disappointing for us when it's like we're we think we're living
• 1:04:08
  a Jane Austen novel, right? Like, for example, the girl who
• 1:04:12
  said, oh, you proposed me on the couch.
• 1:04:14
  Like what about the helicopter? You know, like.
• 1:04:18
  Where's the camera crew filming? It but but that unfortunately,
• 1:04:22
  because of the culture and where we're, you know, where we're at,
• 1:04:24
  that is a temptation for women. And that's one example of a
• 1:04:28
  temptation, I should say. I think the best thing you can
• 1:04:30
  do, the best thing that I, I can't speak for everyone, I can
• 1:04:33
  tell you the best thing I did was I spent a lot of time with
• 1:04:35
  married couples. I spent so much time with my
• 1:04:37
  friends in their kitchen. Like if there's anything young
• 1:04:41
  married couples would love, it's a single woman with two hands
• 1:04:44
  that is willing to like, hold a baby or.
• 1:04:46
  Cook. A meal or be like, yeah, I'll go
• 1:04:49
  to the zoo with you, no problem. Like, I spent so much time just
• 1:04:52
  living life alongside married couples, and I saw what was
• 1:04:56
  important in a marriage. And it wasn't the grand romantic
• 1:04:59
  gestures, although those are lovely if you get them.
• 1:05:02
  It was a man who does what he says he's going to do, a man who
• 1:05:06
  follows through with his word, a man who honors his commitment, a
• 1:05:09
  man who leads like Christ did and who puts himself at the
• 1:05:13
  service of his wife and children.
• 1:05:14
  Like I knew what I wanted in a husband and I knew what mattered
• 1:05:18
  in a husband. I had a great dad.
• 1:05:21
  So that helped, but also because I got to see so many other
• 1:05:24
  marriages up close because no, like nobody's parents, no matter
• 1:05:28
  how great your parents marriage is, it's not perfect, you know?
• 1:05:31
  And so seeing lots of other good marriages and bad up close
• 1:05:34
  taught me a lot about what I wanted my expectations to be.
• 1:05:39
  And then it always comes back to one thing.
• 1:05:41
  I, I felt like I talked to women about a lot back then when I was
• 1:05:45
  doing a lot of single talking about single life was hope.
• 1:05:48
  And if you have, you have to know Christ, like you have to
• 1:05:52
  know who Christ is and you have to believe his promises.
• 1:05:55
  Because if you want Christ and the life he has for you, like if
• 1:06:00
  you really believe that he has what is best for you, then
• 1:06:03
  you're not going to compromise with anything else.
• 1:06:06
  You're not gonna be like, OK, I'll sleep with this guy hoping
• 1:06:09
  that he'll marry me. I'm not going to, like, marry
• 1:06:11
  this guy who treats me as a jerk because I so desperately want a
• 1:06:14
  husband. Like when you want Jesus more
• 1:06:16
  than you want anything else, then that helps you make better
• 1:06:20
  decisions That like, I am so glad I did.
• 1:06:23
  I'm so glad that what I wanted was Jesus and not just a spouse
• 1:06:26
  because of what I had just wanted was a spouse.
• 1:06:28
  I might have made some very bad decisions and not have the life
• 1:06:31
  that God has given me. And I'm so grateful for that.
• 1:06:34
  So, yeah. So spend time with married
• 1:06:35
  people and spend time with Jesus.
• 1:06:38
  Like, learn to trust in who he is and know that he wants more
• 1:06:42
  for you than you can possibly want for yourself.
• 1:06:45
  I love that. It's so beautiful.
• 1:06:47
  I one other question about this before we move on to the
• 1:06:50
  beautiful kids and where people can find your, your amazing
• 1:06:53
  work. I think today there's an
• 1:06:55
  identity crisis at large for women and for men.
• 1:06:58
  We all have identity crises everywhere, like human
• 1:07:01
  anthropology. We don't know where we're from,
• 1:07:02
  what we're made for. You know, what you were talking
• 1:07:04
  about earlier. There's so much confusion.
• 1:07:06
  And so there are these stereotypes now for women, like
• 1:07:08
  pick your avatar. You could be the trad wife and
• 1:07:11
  you can be, you know, you home school, you bake your sourdough
• 1:07:15
  bread, your submissive wife, you know, maybe you veil at mass and
• 1:07:19
  you are, you know, I don't want to again say this in a
• 1:07:21
  pejorative way because there's very beautiful people living
• 1:07:25
  this out. But then maybe there's elements
• 1:07:28
  that go even more rigid than that.
• 1:07:29
  But then over here you're 5050 partnership.
• 1:07:31
  He's my partner. They only say husband, wife.
• 1:07:34
  You know, we go into this and we 50% everything.
• 1:07:37
  I bring in the money, you bring in the money.
• 1:07:39
  I you watch the kids, I watch the kids.
• 1:07:40
  We're equal. Basically, men and women are
• 1:07:42
  very much the same. We don't have sort of defined
• 1:07:44
  rules in the household beyond like what we pick and choose.
• 1:07:46
  And there's, you know, we could say feminism over here.
• 1:07:50
  You know, this person's a feminist.
• 1:07:51
  This person is, you know, they're not traditional, They're
• 1:07:54
  usually not people of faith. And then there's all this in
• 1:07:57
  between, right, of how how this lives out, how you can live this
• 1:08:01
  out. What do you think women should?
• 1:08:04
  How should women do you think see their role in a marriage and
• 1:08:09
  prepare for that role of being wife and mother?
• 1:08:13
  And I got to say one other thing.
• 1:08:14
  You were thinking, I want a six kids like you always wanted to
• 1:08:18
  be a mom. Your career kind of found you.
• 1:08:20
  You didn't like go after your career kind of.
• 1:08:22
  I mean you worked hard and you were very bright, but you kind
• 1:08:24
  of you, you were always making space in your life for dating,
• 1:08:27
  for love, to be open to life when you got married.
• 1:08:30
  Like I if I was going to be a PhD because I guess I better get
• 1:08:32
  more education. I'm going to do this with my
• 1:08:34
  kids at Dirtel. Like that was your mindset
• 1:08:37
  always. So you were great marriage
• 1:08:38
  material, Emily, you were great. And Chris eventually saw that,
• 1:08:41
  and now he's happily ever after, right?
• 1:08:43
  Kept saying they're like. A lot of women, I think, are in
• 1:08:47
  an identity crisis of what does it mean for me as a woman to be
• 1:08:50
  great marriage material? And OK, so I love Jean Paul 2's
• 1:08:55
  theology of the body, which most people think is the theology of
• 1:08:58
  sex, and it's not. It is an anthropology, and it
• 1:09:01
  talks about what it means to be a human person made the image of
• 1:09:04
  God with a body, with a soul. Like, how do we image God?
• 1:09:09
  And he, he draws on particularly the writing of like same 80s Isa
• 1:09:13
  Stein, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Thomas Aquinas, Hildegard of Big
• 1:09:18
  N like there's all these like, you know, big names from
• 1:09:21
  throughout Catholic history who he draws on.
• 1:09:24
  And that for me was really essential when I discovered it
• 1:09:27
  because I can remember being, I don't know, 21 walking around my
• 1:09:31
  college campus being like, what does it mean to be a woman?
• 1:09:33
  I don't know what it means to be a woman.
• 1:09:35
  Like people have been telling me all my life, I'm really smart.
• 1:09:37
  And so I'm gonna like rule the world and do all these things.
• 1:09:40
  But then I see all these girls here who are super beauty and
• 1:09:42
  beautiful and sexy and they're the ones the boys pays attention
• 1:09:46
  to. And like is, I don't know, maybe
• 1:09:47
  it means I need to be thinner and I need to be sexier.
• 1:09:50
  Like, what does it mean? And when I discovered John Paul
• 1:09:52
  choose theology of the body, it taught me that like the heart of
• 1:09:54
  femininity is receptivity, It's being able to receive the gift
• 1:10:00
  of another to see the other. Like when you and I are sitting
• 1:10:03
  here, like, do I see you or do I just see what I want to talk
• 1:10:05
  about? Like how what are what are your
• 1:10:07
  gifts? What are your strengths?
• 1:10:09
  How do I meet you where you are and love you where you are and
• 1:10:12
  welcome you in and be kind to you.
• 1:10:15
  And women often don't do that like we either.
• 1:10:18
  We, we can be cliquish, cliquish.
• 1:10:20
  We can cut each other off, cut each other out.
• 1:10:22
  We can be a mean girl. We can be passive and never
• 1:10:26
  really let a person in and kind of hide our feelings and.
• 1:10:29
  And don't seek others out. And don't seek others and we're.
• 1:10:31
  Focused. We're not focused on the other.
• 1:10:33
  We can be narcissistic and so I would say if you want to be the
• 1:10:39
  best wife, you can be one. Obviously spend a ton of time
• 1:10:41
  with Jesus, receive as much of his grace as he will pour out on
• 1:10:44
  you. But really look at receptivity.
• 1:10:47
  Like do you see the people around you?
• 1:10:49
  Do you? How do you love them?
• 1:10:51
  And then do it like, who are the friends who need your attention?
• 1:10:54
  Who needs you to call them? Who needs you to listen to them?
• 1:10:56
  Who needs you to say, hey, can I babysit for you this week?
• 1:10:59
  Or hey, you had a rough, you've had a really rough job.
• 1:11:02
  Your boss has been a jerk. Can I take you out tonight?
• 1:11:04
  Like love the people around you receive them, see them.
• 1:11:09
  And then when you and your husband are in a situation where
• 1:11:11
  you have to make decisions, you will have cultivated the habit
• 1:11:15
  of receptivity and you'll have a relationship with Christ so
• 1:11:18
  you'll be able to discern what Christ is calling you and your
• 1:11:21
  husband too. Like that's the thing.
• 1:11:23
  You it is a, a marriage is always between two particular
• 1:11:26
  people. And Lana Rose is Lana Rose.
• 1:11:29
  You're not anyone else. You know, Emily Chapman is Emily
• 1:11:31
  Chapman Chapman. I'm not anyone else.
• 1:11:33
  My husband is not anyone else. And so you and your husband have
• 1:11:36
  to figure it out between you like what's very personal, God
• 1:11:40
  gifted you, how has he blessed you?
• 1:11:42
  What is he calling you to? And if you have developed the
• 1:11:46
  habit of receptivity and he's developed the habit of
• 1:11:48
  engagement, of being an engaged man, you're going to have a much
• 1:11:52
  easier time living the call that God has called you to.
• 1:11:55
  And like, that's the most specific advice I can give.
• 1:11:58
  That was beautiful, Emily beautifully said, and it creates
• 1:12:02
  space for everything within the moral order.
• 1:12:04
  That is the beautiful kaleidoscope of personalities,
• 1:12:08
  callings, giftings, experiences that God, you know, God's men
• 1:12:12
  and women have. Yeah, God has given us so much
• 1:12:14
  freedom. Like so much freedom.
• 1:12:16
  Yes, he really has and. We don't be freedom half the
• 1:12:19
  time. We're like, no Lord, like I
• 1:12:20
  don't want the rules. Tell me how to dress.
• 1:12:21
  Tell me how to go to mass. Tell me exactly what music I
• 1:12:23
  should be listening to at mass. Tell me how I should be spending
• 1:12:26
  every moment of my day. But tell me exactly how to show
• 1:12:29
  up as a wife. Give me the parameter so I can
• 1:12:31
  check the. Right.
• 1:12:32
  How should I be educating my children?
• 1:12:34
  How should our house look? What should I be baking bread
• 1:12:37
  and God's like? Do you like baking?
• 1:12:40
  Bread. Like, I actually don't.
• 1:12:43
  I like occasionally baking like a coffee cake.
• 1:12:46
  I can't keep up the starter. I just.
• 1:12:47
  Starter is a our nanny, our nanny who's like a, you know,
• 1:12:52
  amazing blessing to my household.
• 1:12:54
  She loves baking bread, so I do have homemade sourdough in my
• 1:12:58
  kitchen. I didn't bake it.
• 1:13:00
  Which is fantastic, yeah. She made it.
• 1:13:02
  People really struggle with the freedom they yeah, they want God
• 1:13:06
  to tell us what to do every step of the way.
• 1:13:07
  And God doesn't do that. He's like, no, I made you to be
• 1:13:09
  you. And there's no one else in the
• 1:13:10
  world who's like you. There's no one.
• 1:13:12
  Never has been, never will be. And I want you to love me.
• 1:13:16
  I don't want you to give my you. And be love.
• 1:13:18
  Give my heart and receive my love and then all the other
• 1:13:21
  stuff like as long as it's not sin, like be you.
• 1:13:25
  Be the person I made you to be. Live life like God works us
• 1:13:29
  through our desires, our good desires, as much as he does
• 1:13:32
  anything else. So yeah, I think there's just a,
• 1:13:35
  a real fear of the freedom that God gives us.
• 1:13:37
  There's so much freedom in Christ and people are like, no,
• 1:13:40
  we want to be slaves. We want to be slaves.
• 1:13:42
  Lord take this freedom away. And he's like, no, not going to
• 1:13:45
  do it. That's why the moral law is such
• 1:13:47
  a blessing, because it's like, follow the level, the moral law
• 1:13:50
  and then. Have.
• 1:13:51
  Like live, you know, like live abundantly, chase the, you know,
• 1:13:55
  chase the inspiration. Like obviously live with an
• 1:13:57
  order, like the rightly ordered relationship.
• 1:13:59
  But the moral law is such a blessing because it sets you
• 1:14:01
  free to really live it. Gives you these nice boundaries.
• 1:14:04
  Yes, it sets you in clear important stuff.
• 1:14:07
  Don't send and then you have all of this room to be who God made.
• 1:14:10
  You to be so beautiful. You guys are living this
• 1:14:13
  beautifully. I gotta hear the story of your
• 1:14:16
  well, all of your children have incredible stories.
• 1:14:19
  So this this is its own episode. Actually, this could be its own
• 1:14:22
  also series. This is another TV series, Emily
• 1:14:25
  Story of Your Children. It was pretty intense.
• 1:14:27
  It was a pretty intense time. So Chris and I got married and I
• 1:14:31
  was 41. I just turned 41.
• 1:14:33
  When we got married, he was just about to turn 40.
• 1:14:36
  He was 47. I think he was about to turn 48.
• 1:14:38
  But I'm so like type a choleric, you know?
• 1:14:41
  I know. And I want babies Like I've been
• 1:14:43
  waiting for a long time for babies like. 41 maybe we could
• 1:14:45
  squeeze in six if I just do one every like 13 months You.
• 1:14:48
  Know for the next week 48 years 3.
• 1:14:51
  Like 2 sets of twins. Yeah, How do we do it?
• 1:14:53
  I was totally praying for twins, which I learned that's, that was
• 1:14:56
  the best thing to pray for. But we, I had done all the Napro
• 1:15:00
  tests, you know, so I'm like, we're not even married and I'm
• 1:15:02
  getting my hormones tested. I'm getting everything checked
• 1:15:04
  out. The doctors are like, you look
• 1:15:06
  great. You should be able to hit the
• 1:15:07
  ground running. There's no reason you can't
• 1:15:08
  conceive. After several months, nothing
• 1:15:11
  was happening. I go back to the Napro doctors.
• 1:15:13
  I'm like, not conceiving yet. What else can we do?
• 1:15:15
  They're like, well, let's do an exploratory surgery.
• 1:15:17
  And so we spent really a year and a half trying, doing
• 1:15:21
  everything possible to conceive because again, I so wanted to be
• 1:15:26
  a mother. And I felt like God had told me
• 1:15:28
  I was going to be a mother. And I was willing to do whatever
• 1:15:31
  it took within the moral boundaries that the church had
• 1:15:34
  set up. And I remember one point, I was
• 1:15:36
  in my kitchen. I was like, I'm not eating
• 1:15:37
  anything good. I'm taking all these vitamins.
• 1:15:39
  I'm taking all these hormones. I've had all, it was like I
• 1:15:41
  should be spontaneously reproducing, like there should
• 1:15:44
  be a baby, like popping out of my head, like, you know, Athena
• 1:15:47
  from the head of Zeus. It was not happening.
• 1:15:50
  And I was so broken. Like I felt like I'd waited so
• 1:15:53
  long and I'd done all the right things.
• 1:15:54
  Like I had been the good Catholic girl.
• 1:15:56
  I had been chased. I had prayed, I had prayed the
• 1:16:00
  novenas. I had worked for God.
• 1:16:01
  Like I wrote fundraising letters for God, Lila, like, you know
• 1:16:04
  how awful fundraising letters are to write.
• 1:16:06
  I'm like, come on, Lord, all those fundraising letters and
• 1:16:09
  not a single baby and no babies were coming.
• 1:16:11
  And I was so broken and I felt betrayed by God and I felt
• 1:16:14
  betrayed by my body and I felt like a failure as a wife and a
• 1:16:17
  mother. And at that point, I, I was
• 1:16:22
  doing a study for Endow about Humanae Vitae.
• 1:16:24
  And I didn't want to do this study because I was mad.
• 1:16:26
  I was like, I don't want to tell fertile couples that they should
• 1:16:29
  be happy to have a baby. Like, I don't feel like giving a
• 1:16:32
  pep talk to anyone who doesn't get how blessed they are to be
• 1:16:35
  able to conceive. But in the course of that study,
• 1:16:37
  God really showed me that he wasn't asking anything of me and
• 1:16:40
  Chris, that he wasn't asking of anyone else.
• 1:16:42
  He was asking us to trust him, trust him with our fertility,
• 1:16:45
  just like we trusted him with every other part of our life.
• 1:16:48
  And that's what I hadn't been doing.
• 1:16:50
  You know, I, I've been praying all the novenas and taking all
• 1:16:52
  the vitamins and doing all the special diets, but I was not
• 1:16:55
  trusting God. Like I was trying to control the
• 1:16:57
  situation. And when Chris and I realized
• 1:17:00
  that that Chris was a lot more trustful than me, I was the one
• 1:17:03
  who was being super controlling, a little bit of a struggle for
• 1:17:06
  me. And so we decided to take a
• 1:17:08
  break. We're like, all right, we're
• 1:17:09
  going to step back. No, like no more special
• 1:17:12
  vitamins for Emily, no hormones for Emily.
• 1:17:14
  I'm going to go ahead. No.
• 1:17:15
  Scheduling sex is that. No.
• 1:17:17
  Yes. No scheduling sex have.
• 1:17:18
  Fun, enjoy yourself. But nothing more miserable than
• 1:17:21
  scheduled sex. And we're like, this is just no
• 1:17:25
  charting. I stopped charting.
• 1:17:26
  I stopped doing everything. And during that time, we'd
• 1:17:30
  always talked about adoption, but we'd felt like it wasn't
• 1:17:33
  something we didn't think we'd have the money.
• 1:17:34
  We didn't know how we both worked for the church.
• 1:17:35
  You know, I'm a Catholic writer. He is, he's a Catholic school
• 1:17:38
  teacher. And adoptions cost around
• 1:17:40
  $50,000. Like there's, there's, there's
• 1:17:42
  no way. But during this time, we're
• 1:17:44
  like, you know what? We want to be parents, like more
• 1:17:48
  than we want to be pregnant, we want to be parents.
• 1:17:50
  And if we're really trusting God, just like I opened the
• 1:17:53
  window to Catholic Match and I opened that window and Chris
• 1:17:56
  walked in, we're like, maybe we just need to, we're not seeing
• 1:18:00
  what God is seeing. We're not seeing this clearly
• 1:18:02
  enough. We need to open a window and
• 1:18:03
  start thinking about adoption. And as soon as we opened that
• 1:18:08
  window, like as soon it's like God started chucking babies, you
• 1:18:13
  know, like we, we, our first son, we just, I asked on
• 1:18:17
  Facebook, I asked people a question about home studies
• 1:18:20
  because we were renovating our home at the time.
• 1:18:22
  I was like, how done does our home have to be before we can
• 1:18:25
  pass a home study? A.
• 1:18:26
  Home study to be eligible. To be eligible to adopt and I
• 1:18:31
  within 24 hours of me posting that question, we had found an
• 1:18:36
  agency who could do a home study and relative relative of mine
• 1:18:41
  generally generously stepped forward and said, I want to give
• 1:18:43
  you the money that you need to get started in this process.
• 1:18:47
  We'd had a bunch of different recommendations for agencies,
• 1:18:50
  attorneys, whatnot, and we started talking to some of those
• 1:18:53
  people just trying to figure it out.
• 1:18:55
  Within a month of that, it was the week I sent off the endow
• 1:18:57
  study on human evite. The very week I sent it off, one
• 1:19:00
  of those attorneys who we had talked to called us and said,
• 1:19:02
  look, I've got a mom who has some very specific requirements
• 1:19:06
  for a couple. And I don't have anyone on my
• 1:19:08
  client list who meets those requirements, but you guys do.
• 1:19:12
  How fast could you get me a profile for her to to look at?
• 1:19:15
  You know, it's like a little look book that you have as an as
• 1:19:17
  an adoptive couple. Like it tells some of your
• 1:19:19
  story, who you are because you want the mom to at least, you
• 1:19:22
  know, feel good about who she's placing her child with.
• 1:19:24
  And that was a Friday. By Sunday I had that if you book
• 1:19:31
  together, there's it's a good time to be a writer with does
• 1:19:34
  some knowledge of graphic design.
• 1:19:36
  And by Tuesday, that mom had chosen us to, to be the parents
• 1:19:40
  of her of her son. It was a very drama filled
• 1:19:44
  adoption. They were very broken people.
• 1:19:46
  They had a lot of struggles. We had to provide for a lot of
• 1:19:49
  their needs. They're in California and
• 1:19:51
  California adoptions tend to be very expensive because there's
• 1:19:53
  no limit placed on birth parent expenses, which is why so many
• 1:19:56
  people in California choose surrogacy over adoption because
• 1:19:59
  it is it is cheaper to be often to choose surrogacy and it's
• 1:20:03
  more guaranteed because adoption is never guaranteed.
• 1:20:05
  You know you want the the mother to feel free to change her mind
• 1:20:09
  at any point. And this mother was she
• 1:20:12
  struggled profoundly. It was there's lots of drama.
• 1:20:15
  I probably I shared too much online that I should not have.
• 1:20:17
  I never did again for with a future adoptions.
• 1:20:19
  I learned a lot. I learned a lot through that
• 1:20:21
  first adoption. But I think you helped us at one
• 1:20:24
  point because we were trying to find them housing because they
• 1:20:26
  were homeless and we'd found like it was so complicated.
• 1:20:29
  We ended up finding a trailer for them that we had to like,
• 1:20:31
  figure out how can we get this trailer, this mobile home so
• 1:20:36
  they can live it to them. And you were connecting us with
• 1:20:39
  different pro-life people here in California because the
• 1:20:42
  adoption was here. It was crazy.
• 1:20:45
  But eventually our son was born and he was entrusted to us.
• 1:20:49
  Amazing. Kid.
• 1:20:50
  Beautiful boy. So beautiful.
• 1:20:52
  Yes, he's striking. He's a very, all of our kids are
• 1:20:55
  very, very beautiful. And it was the thing I should
• 1:21:00
  say, before that, before I even was doing the study on Endow,
• 1:21:04
  we, I was giving a talk here in California.
• 1:21:06
  I was up in the Pasadena area giving a retreat at the Alhambra
• 1:21:10
  Carmelites. Love them so much.
• 1:21:12
  I adore them and they're so wonderful and they introduced me
• 1:21:16
  to their founder who Mama Lucita, who she was married
• 1:21:19
  from. Before she died or the no, no,
• 1:21:22
  no, they introduced me, OK. My dead thing.
• 1:21:24
  Oh, she's but she's dead. Mama Lucy.
• 1:21:25
  And like Mama Lucy dead you. Got to meet her.
• 1:21:27
  She's dead, but they told me about her and they said she was
• 1:21:30
  married for 14 years and they couldn't have babies.
• 1:21:33
  But she and her husband decided the poor would be their
• 1:21:35
  children. And so they found at hospitals
• 1:21:36
  and orphanages. And they said she is a real.
• 1:21:41
  She's. They said she's great.
• 1:21:42
  Like, if you're struggling to conceive, you talk to Mama
• 1:21:44
  Lucita. She always comes through.
• 1:21:46
  And if it's not a biological child, she'll give you another
• 1:21:48
  child, some other child to love. And so we started praying that
• 1:21:52
  around the same time I started the study for Endow I, we
• 1:21:54
  started praying a daily novena to Mama Lucita.
• 1:21:56
  And so it was within like six weeks of that that we had been
• 1:22:00
  matched with Toby. And we, of course, we called the
• 1:22:01
  sisters and they're like, we'll be praying for Toby, we'll be
• 1:22:04
  praying for Toby. And after Toby was born, I was
• 1:22:06
  giving a talk in Philadelphia and their mother Superior was
• 1:22:09
  there and Toby was with us. And I was so excited to
• 1:22:11
  introduce, you know, Mother Superior and the sisters that
• 1:22:14
  were there to Toby. And they said, well, you know,
• 1:22:16
  there'll be more babies. And I said, no, no, no, we, we
• 1:22:19
  could bare, we barely were able to afford this one.
• 1:22:21
  We had to put out like a take a second mortgage out on our
• 1:22:23
  house. Like, I can't see how there'll
• 1:22:25
  be anyone else. They said, no, no, no, Once Mama
• 1:22:27
  Lucy just starts giving babies, she keeps giving babies.
• 1:22:29
  So we get calls all the time from people telling us to ask
• 1:22:32
  Mama Lucy to stop praying. And I was like, oh, ha, ha, ha,
• 1:22:35
  so funny. And then sure enough, a year
• 1:22:37
  later we were like, let's start the adoption process again.
• 1:22:41
  We didn't know we're going to fund it.
• 1:22:42
  And I was like, I'll write a cookbook and anyone who donates
• 1:22:45
  to the adoption, I'll send him this E version of a cookbook
• 1:22:48
  because I cook a lot and I host a lot.
• 1:22:50
  And we sure enough, we, we were blessed to adopt A little boy
• 1:22:55
  who's what they call stork drops.
• 1:22:56
  So we got a call on our porch. They're like, hey, baby boys,
• 1:22:59
  been born. How fast can you get here if you
• 1:23:01
  want to be his parents? And we're on the road to Texas
• 1:23:03
  two hours later. Is that a safe haven?
• 1:23:05
  Mama no, it wasn't a safe haven. The Mama just didn't make a plan
• 1:23:08
  until. I can't.
• 1:23:10
  I'm not going. To There was a lot of trauma
• 1:23:12
  involved in her pregnancy, and she always planned on adopting,
• 1:23:16
  but Becca was placing. She was always gonna get around
• 1:23:19
  to it. Yeah, you know, she's gonna get
• 1:23:20
  around to creating a plan. But Becca came early, around
• 1:23:23
  30-4 weeks. Another gorgeous.
• 1:23:25
  Kid, he is beautiful. He is.
• 1:23:27
  He was intense from the moment he was born.
• 1:23:29
  Like he's just intense now. Choleric.
• 1:23:33
  Melancholic. Like choleric, sanguine or
• 1:23:35
  sanguine choleric. We can't tell yet which it's
• 1:23:37
  gonna be your. Colouric, sanguine or colour
• 1:23:41
  colour? Melancholic.
• 1:23:43
  Yeah. The melancholic keeps the colour
• 1:23:44
  in check. Yeah, it keeps me bearable.
• 1:23:47
  So Becca, Becca came along and he was in the NICU in Texas for
• 1:23:50
  four weeks. And we were.
• 1:23:53
  And it was during COVID, It was 2020.
• 1:23:55
  And then we finally got released from the hospital, got home.
• 1:23:58
  Six days after we got home, we got a call.
• 1:24:00
  We're in the kitchen. Someone had brought us a meal,
• 1:24:02
  You know, because I've got this baby who's not even full term
• 1:24:04
  yet. And Chris takes the phone call
• 1:24:07
  while I talk to the friend who brought us the food.
• 1:24:09
  Chris comes in a few minutes later and says that was Colette,
• 1:24:12
  who is our adoption attorney. Toby's birth parents are
• 1:24:16
  pregnant again. They want us to adopt.
• 1:24:20
  I thought he was joking. I I didn't believe him like it
• 1:24:23
  took. I was like, you're that's not
• 1:24:25
  funny, Chris. I was like, it's not funny.
• 1:24:26
  We have this holding a new preview because he had he had
• 1:24:29
  acid reflux. Who's throwing up on me like 4
• 1:24:31
  to 7 * a fee. You know, he wouldn't be
• 1:24:33
  anywhere about my arms. The NICU had been very NICU's
• 1:24:35
  are traumatic for all babies, but especially for adoptive
• 1:24:37
  babies. Especially for adoptive babies
• 1:24:39
  during COVID when everyone was wearing masks.
• 1:24:41
  My son didn't see a human face for the first four weeks of his
• 1:24:44
  life. Like he didn't see a smile.
• 1:24:46
  I couldn't kiss him. I couldn't like, you know, I
• 1:24:49
  always. They make them wear the mask.
• 1:24:51
  It was June, July of 2020, and Dallas was having a surge.
• 1:24:55
  He didn't have a mask on. Every NICU person did.
• 1:24:58
  I did. But was that to protect him from
• 1:25:00
  protect? Him from COVID.
• 1:25:01
  Did it protect him from COVID? He ain't got it.
• 1:25:03
  I mean until all right. Until he saw your smile after
• 1:25:06
  four weeks, thanks be to God. Oh my goodness.
• 1:25:08
  Definitely. Like, and he was an intense
• 1:25:10
  little guy and he was throwing up all the time.
• 1:25:11
  And Chris is suddenly like, hey, there's another baby coming in
• 1:25:13
  seven months because we would never say no.
• 1:25:16
  Like it's our sister, oldest son's full sibling like you.
• 1:25:19
  One of our family mottos is you never say no to a baby.
• 1:25:22
  So so. Are you?
• 1:25:25
  You're 3 now. Would you take a fourth?
• 1:25:27
  We almost, we almost did have a fourth.
• 1:25:29
  We, we lost a baby who we were going to adopt last January, who
• 1:25:32
  would have been sibling to Toby and Toby and Ellie's full
• 1:25:35
  sibling. And so, yeah, we if someone
• 1:25:38
  dropped another baby in our lap, yes, like we feel like we're too
• 1:25:40
  old at this point to seek an adoption out, but.
• 1:25:43
  If they came to you. I would love another baby, Lila.
• 1:25:45
  Yeah, I miss, I miss the newborn stage.
• 1:25:47
  I miss the froggy legged firsts like.
• 1:25:50
  Are you able to be in touch with the sibling of Toby and Ellie?
• 1:25:54
  Well, no, that baby passed away at the end of the first
• 1:25:56
  trimester. So that baby passed away.
• 1:25:58
  We lost. We actually had said yes to two
• 1:25:59
  other babies who had passed away, and we know that they know
• 1:26:05
  that we love them and would have been so excited to be their Mama
• 1:26:07
  and Dada. And we believe they're praying
• 1:26:10
  for their first parents and know that we would have loved them
• 1:26:12
  too. So.
• 1:26:14
  So yeah. So if so, Ellie came along seven
• 1:26:16
  months later and we got an RV and drove across country with a
• 1:26:19
  2 year old and an 8 month old and had another NICU stay, also
• 1:26:25
  during COVID, also in a city far away from home and on the other
• 1:26:29
  side of the country. And so 2 1/2 year, in 2 1/2
• 1:26:33
  years, we suddenly we had three babies and it was wild and crazy
• 1:26:40
  and the most beautiful, miraculous gift I've ever been
• 1:26:43
  given. And which is why Chris and I
• 1:26:46
  can't regret not having gotten married earlier.
• 1:26:50
  Like it all worked out. Because if we'd gotten married
• 1:26:52
  earlier, if we'd had children of our own, even if we'd adopted
• 1:26:54
  children, it wouldn't be these children.
• 1:26:56
  Like, I wouldn't be Mama to Toby, Beckett and Ellie.
• 1:26:58
  I wouldn't know Toby, Beckett and Ellie.
• 1:27:01
  Like, I would have no idea who they were, that they even
• 1:27:03
  existed. And so I am so grateful for
• 1:27:05
  every single day it took my husband to get around to dating
• 1:27:08
  me and asking me to marry him because God saw it all.
• 1:27:12
  And yeah, he saw it all. And it's so beautiful, Lila, And
• 1:27:16
  I'm so grateful. The timing was perfect.
• 1:27:20
  'Cause that's timing, always is. He knows what he's doing.
• 1:27:22
  He's got like, I have lots of good ideas and good plans and
• 1:27:25
  I'm always trying to tell God how to do it.
• 1:27:27
  And I'm like, come on, Laurie, maybe.
• 1:27:28
  Somehow, the Master of the Universe knows better.
• 1:27:30
  Somehow he's better. He's better planning than me.
• 1:27:33
  He's even a. Better pretty good, Emily, But
• 1:27:35
  yeah, pretty good. I am not that good, so yeah.
• 1:27:38
  Emily, you're amazing. I know people listening are so
• 1:27:43
  deeply moved and inspired as I am.
• 1:27:45
  I mean, I'm cheering up over here.
• 1:27:46
  And I know there's also just the half of it because I was like,
• 1:27:49
  you got to come back. You got to do make a this a
• 1:27:51
  California trip. I know you're here with your
• 1:27:52
  family. This has got to be a regular
• 1:27:54
  thing. But where can people find your
• 1:27:56
  work and how can they get your most recent book?
• 1:28:00
  Right. OK, so.
• 1:28:01
  Sub stack. Sub stack is where I write
• 1:28:04
  weekly, so I started sub stacking when we had three
• 1:28:06
  little babies and I couldn't meet any deadlines.
• 1:28:08
  Great read everybody. I got to figure out a way to
• 1:28:10
  help pay some bills. So sub stack is always
• 1:28:13
  wonderful. I am on Instagram.
• 1:28:15
  Not as much as I used to be. Emily, you know, Emily Stimson
• 1:28:18
  Chapman. I have a lot of books, over a
• 1:28:20
  dozen now. I've got three books coming out
• 1:28:23
  in the next six weeks. You're amazing.
• 1:28:25
  You're prolific. I mean, three babies in three
• 1:28:28
  years basically. And now they're, I know they're
• 1:28:29
  a little older, but they're still very little.
• 1:28:31
  And I don't know how you do all the writing you do.
• 1:28:33
  But the books have gotten written out over period.
• 1:28:35
  The fact that all sick, all three are coming out in six
• 1:28:37
  weeks is like a cruel joke. So you've got a couple of them.
• 1:28:40
  The first is the adoption cookbook, which is.
• 1:28:43
  That's the cookbook I. First the adopt, but it's in
• 1:28:46
  print now, so how? Lovely.
• 1:28:48
  The Saint Paul Center Emmaus Rd. Press had approached me early
• 1:28:51
  on. They're like, this is great.
• 1:28:53
  And then COVID happened and no one was hosting.
• 1:28:55
  So whose? Hand is this Emily?
• 1:28:56
  That's Ellie's little. He's Ellie's I wanna, I wanna
• 1:28:59
  and the kids are in there. So we voted to it.
• 1:29:02
  There's a hundred recipes that are easy for families hosting.
• 1:29:06
  Do you bake sourdough bread? I do not make sourdough bread.
• 1:29:08
  I don't really bake. There's like 8 dessert recipes
• 1:29:10
  in. There, you're more of a.
• 1:29:11
  Cook. I have a cook than a Baker, but
• 1:29:13
  there's lots of recipes on hospitality and how you hosted
• 1:29:15
  the busy seasons, how you welcome people into your home
• 1:29:18
  without killing yourself. Because really, I just want to
• 1:29:22
  foster community. OK, here's the family,
• 1:29:24
  everybody. The gorgeous family.
• 1:29:26
  You guys can see it. I don't know if you guys can see
• 1:29:28
  it in Harris, but we could also show it.
• 1:29:29
  But this is Emily and little Ellie here and your sweet
• 1:29:33
  husband and your two boys, Your two handsome boys.
• 1:29:36
  So sweet. So there's that is coming out
• 1:29:39
  and I just, yeah, I'm really excited to see that that helped
• 1:29:42
  us adopt 2 babies. And what I'm hoping is that it
• 1:29:45
  really helps other people because we see adoption as an
• 1:29:49
  act of hospitality. You know, we were so thrilled to
• 1:29:51
  welcome these babies into our homes and into our lives.
• 1:29:54
  Like that's what hospitality is. It's welcoming the other end and
• 1:29:57
  loving the other. And that's what we do with our
• 1:29:59
  children, and that's what we do with our friends and people who
• 1:30:01
  we want to become friends. And I hope this book helps other
• 1:30:04
  people do that. And so there's that.
• 1:30:06
  There's the Story of all Stories that we already talked about,
• 1:30:09
  which is a story Bible for young Catholics that is like, if you
• 1:30:13
  invited me to your home and said, tell the story of
• 1:30:15
  salvation to my kids, Like help them to know how dramatic and
• 1:30:18
  exciting and funny and beautiful it is and that they are a part
• 1:30:21
  of this story. That is what the Story of All
• 1:30:25
  stories is. And that comes out October 12th
• 1:30:27
  from Word on Fire. And then there's one more book
• 1:30:30
  that I wrote when Ellie was a newborn.
• 1:30:31
  I don't know how I wrote it. I actually was rereading the
• 1:30:34
  proofs recently, and I'm like, oh, this is good.
• 1:30:36
  I don't remember writing a word of it.
• 1:30:37
  Sleep deprivation. Yeah.
• 1:30:38
  It's about the history of winemaking and Catholicism.
• 1:30:41
  So it's like a coffee table book that looks at different
• 1:30:43
  vineyards in Italy and Spain and France and their Catholic
• 1:30:48
  connections. How fun.
• 1:30:49
  It was fun, but they all got written out over a very long
• 1:30:52
  period of time so no one should be under the illusion that I am
• 1:30:55
  writing enough to keep a sub stack going and write 3 books
• 1:30:58
  all at the same time and keep my children alive.
• 1:31:00
  Oh, you've also just got a really supportive and amazing
• 1:31:02
  husband. You're a team.
• 1:31:04
  He loves, he's so proud of me and he's so proud of the work I
• 1:31:07
  do. And he believes very strongly
• 1:31:09
  that God has called me to this. And he always says he's, he's
• 1:31:12
  like, I'm Saint Joseph. I like to be the one.
• 1:31:14
  He's like Saint Joseph's Mary had this great calling.
• 1:31:17
  And Saint Joseph's call was to really support Mary through what
• 1:31:19
  she did. And I am not the Blessed Virgin
• 1:31:22
  Mary by any stress of the imagination, not even close.
• 1:31:26
  But he loves to see himself as like.
• 1:31:28
  How beautiful. Supporting.
• 1:31:29
  What a guy. That's what you want.
• 1:31:31
  That's the best. How beautiful.
• 1:31:33
  Emily. Thank you.
• 1:31:34
  Thanks. What a treat.
• 1:31:35
  Seriously, such a treat. Come back.
• 1:31:37
  Oh, we'll come, Mike. There's.
• 1:31:38
  A million more. Things you're loving out, so
• 1:31:40
  we'll totally. Come so good.
• 1:31:41
  Thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:31:43
  this episode of the Lila Rose Show with Emily Chapman.
• 1:31:46
  Go check out her stuff. It's going to only encourage and
• 1:31:48
  inspire you. Also, thank you so much to
• 1:31:51
  everybody who is liking the show subscribing to the show.
• 1:31:53
  It helps the show continue to grow and I'm so excited to get
• 1:31:57
  to create this all with. You.
• 1:31:58
  A huge thank you to our partner EWTN, the largest religious
• 1:32:02
  broadcaster in the entire world. EWTN is reaching millions of
• 1:32:05
  people every single day with the beautiful truth of the gospel.
• 1:32:08
  You can watch new episodes of the Lila Rose Show 24 hours
• 1:32:12
  before they hit podcast app over at ewtn.com slash on demand.