What if the decision to move your wedding date could redefine the essence of your relationship? On this heartfelt episode of "Doing It with the Daniels," we recount the faith-driven choices that led us to change our wedding date from July to April, aligning our union with our spiritual values. Charles opens up about his commitment to our relationship, which involved leaving a past girlfriend behind, while Tesa shares how taking her concerns to God rather than nagging led to a stronger, divinely guided bond between us.
Experience the miraculous moment when our pastor confirmed our union during a church service, turning our friendship into a divinely sanctioned engagement. We dive into the emotional journey of getting engaged without the conventional trimmings, driven by love and trust rather than material symbols. This chapter of our story showcases how faith, not finances, was the cornerstone of our commitment, and how divine confirmation solidified our resolve to be together.
Finally, we tackle the complexities of planning a wedding and purchasing our first home amid financial struggles. From navigating credit issues to relying on community support, our journey highlights the power of faith in overcoming obstacles. Starting married life with minimal furnishings but abundant blessings, we set the stage for the next episode where we confront a pivotal test in our relationship. Stay tuned to discover how this challenging moment influenced our journey. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share to stay connected with "Doing It with the Daniels.
What if the decision to move your wedding date could redefine the essence of your relationship? On this heartfelt episode of "Doing It with the Daniels," we recount the faith-driven choices that led us to change our wedding date from July to April, aligning our union with our spiritual values. Charles opens up about his commitment to our relationship, which involved leaving a past girlfriend behind, while Tesa shares how taking her concerns to God rather than nagging led to a stronger, divinely guided bond between us.
Experience the miraculous moment when our pastor confirmed our union during a church service, turning our friendship into a divinely sanctioned engagement. We dive into the emotional journey of getting engaged without the conventional trimmings, driven by love and trust rather than material symbols. This chapter of our story showcases how faith, not finances, was the cornerstone of our commitment, and how divine confirmation solidified our resolve to be together.
Finally, we tackle the complexities of planning a wedding and purchasing our first home amid financial struggles. From navigating credit issues to relying on community support, our journey highlights the power of faith in overcoming obstacles. Starting married life with minimal furnishings but abundant blessings, we set the stage for the next episode where we confront a pivotal test in our relationship. Stay tuned to discover how this challenging moment influenced our journey. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share to stay connected with "Doing It with the Daniels.
We moved the wedding date from July up to April. Yeah, moved it up because we was trying to do right. Yeah, in touching one another.
Speaker 2:
Exactly.
Speaker 1:
And praise the Lord. I'm so glad that our pastor was like move it up. That was God too. That was God. That was God all day long I was thinking about now we could have moved it on up even further.
Speaker 2:
I didn't want a cold wedding.
Speaker 1:
I didn't want a cold wedding. I didn't want it to be cold. Okay, nothing bad, it wasn't going to be cold. Anyway, you know what I mean. Welcome to Doing it With the Danes, the podcast where we help couples navigate life, marriage and ministry. I'm Charles.
Speaker 2:
And I'm Tisa. Join us as we share insights, wisdom and practical advice to strengthen your marriage, empower your life and enrich your ministry.
Speaker 1:
Let's dive in together and discover the joys of doing life with the daniels. Hey, welcome to doing it with things where we help couples get it on in life marriage and ministry I am tisa and I am charles and we want to jump back in, talk to you guys.
Speaker 1:
We just kind of hit it off our last episode talking about dating and when I asked her to be my girlfriend but she was like no, can you believe that? She told me no because she said I wasn't ready. But uh, I think that's a good place for us to jump in and I mean, I think you were right in saying I wasn't ready. I, looking back, I realized, excuse me, that I was not ready and it was not the right time and I needed to make some adjustments. But but that was kind of the the mark point. That was kind of the mark for us or the place where I started to turn the corner and I started getting serious about our relationship. And I think that's key for every man.
Speaker 1:
At some point, man, you got to start getting serious about the relationship. If you try to be player player, you try to be the man, you're trying to have all these different women let me tell you that is not the way to go. That's not even a sustainable life. If you want a family and a future I didn't say if you just want a bunch of kids out here in the world. If you want a family and you want to establish a legacy and a future, it's important that you get serious about being with the one that you're with. I think it's important for every man to take this approach that you get. God created. I believe, one woman.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
For one man Exactly For one lifetime? Can you commit to the same person for the remainder of your life? Not can you bounce around to all these different people? Because people change, people grow, and it takes a lot of growing maturity and adjustments in order to maintain a positive and quality relationship as you grow together and experience the changes of life together.
Speaker 2:
All right, so how did you do it?
Speaker 1:
How did I do it?
Speaker 2:
Well, you know, you said you had to make some adjustments and you made some adjustments, but there was one.
Speaker 1:
It started with me making up my mind.
Speaker 1:
I mean, I made up my mind that I wanted to be with you and I was going to cut off the dead weight yes that was around me, that that was keeping you from being convinced that I really wanted to be with you and I was really serious about it. And so I think, after kind of trimming it down to that one, as we talked about before after trimming it down to that one, I think we ran into a problem where I wouldn't really really let go of that one, uh huh, and and I was like I think we end up having a conversation about how that's my friend and that's where we got to like that's my friend, that's my genuine, just real friend. But we had been in a previous relationship and so it was like you was kind of like well, how is it going to be your friend and y'all in a relationship that you weren't comfortable?
Speaker 2:
I wasn't comfortable with that. I said how can you be friends with somebody that you were in a relationship with previously?
Speaker 2:
so I didn't feel comfortable moving forward with you and I told you that I didn't agree with that that's true but I did not hound you about that and I just went to God and I just prayed about it and I just told God how I felt, what I thought about it and I just left it alone. And so, ladies, sometimes you don't have to, you don't have to nag, you don't have to beat it over the head sometimes, just take things to God. And I just don't. I just look back and so crazy that I realized how God was in a lot of this stuff that we were doing, because I'm like it had to be Holy Spirit to give me the capacity to even go there and do that. I just expressed it to you, how I felt and I just like okay, god, if this is the person that you got for me, then you're going to have to deal with this situation yeah, you didn't nag me, you didn't.
Speaker 1:
We didn't have a big blow up about it. I think we had a conversation about it and you expressed your displeasure in the idea of me having this female friend, yeah, but yet talking about I want to be with you, and after I was like that's my friend, that's gonna always be my friend and you just gotta deal with it. Yeah, that was kind of.
Speaker 2:
That was kind of the way it went, yeah, and I just left it alone.
Speaker 1:
I was like, after I went to the father, I was like, okay, dude, I'm done and not surely after that, me and that person had a little blow up and it was kind of like one of them forget you, like you go, do you, I'm doing me. And it was done. It was done. It kind of came to an end right out of that which, looking back, I realized it needed to end. It could have ended better, yeah, um, had I had I had the wisdom to know you, this can't be your friend, right going into what you're trying to go into. You gotta let this go, but thinking, no, it's no big deal, it'll, it'll be cool.
Speaker 1:
But didn't realize the danger that other side well, yeah, yeah it was, it was keeping something available open. Yeah, yeah, but we're open yeah and and that's another thing you got to close the doors. When you start getting serious, you start closing doors yeah to your past and to other opportunities, and so that, since I did not close that door, I feel like from you praying god intervened and created a condition where that door had to be closed.
Speaker 2:
It was closed and padlocked.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it was closed, padlocked key, thrown in the river somewhere. That's a done deal. But after that, that's when I think you and I really got serious about us.
Speaker 2:
I think that's when we went to god and was like okay, god, now what are? What is this? What are we supposed to be doing? You know what is the next step for us yeah, we didn't just jump into marriage.
Speaker 1:
No, we asked god, is this the person that you have for me, is this the person you want me to marry? And I think it's vital for all couples to take that step, like before you jump in and just, oh, I like you, I love you. Yeah, you're so amazing. I can see you as my wife, my husband and father, my children. Let's pray about it. Let's ask God God is this, what do you desire? Because God knows who you are and God knows who that person is today. He also knows who you're going to be 20 years from now, who that person is going to be, because we're not the same people. We're not 19 years later yeah that we were back in 2005.
Speaker 1:
we're very different, very different, we think very different, we value things very different, but all that has been the progress of our relationship. Yeah, but we did pray about it and one of the things we said to one another. We had a conversation. We both mutually agreed we're going to pray, we're going to ask God if this is of him, if this is what he wants for us both.
Speaker 2:
And one thing I told God. I was like, okay, if you say no, it's going to break my heart, but I'd rather go with what you have for me than to just say you know, yes, I'm gonna do this anyway. And I knew that. If he said no, I told God I know you will heal my heart because I've opened it up to this person, but if he's not the one, I'm okay, I'll be okay Eventually. It's going to be a process and I know he was going to walk me through that process. But I was okay with hearing no. And I think sometimes, when people go to God, they want to hear yes, sometimes that they they feel like they're hearing yes from God, but it's really not a yes from God, it's their own internal yes.
Speaker 1:
And so I was okay with hearing no because I wanted what God had for me more than anything yeah, and we both mutually agreed on that, because I think we had talked about this as well that if God said, no, it was over, it was that day, yeah, like if both of us prayed and God was like, no, this is not it, we were like okay from, there's no reason for us to continue right carry on exactly any further.
Speaker 1:
So once he says no to either one of us, we are done. And that was, that was the position that we took and we were both okay with that, like because we didn't, I know for you, because you said it many times you don't have time to waste and time to play no.
Speaker 2:
I had time to play you had time to play, I didn't, and I and I think we were both at a place where we wanted to please God, yeah, with our lives. Even though you were, you know, teetering with playing a little bit, I think your heart, you wanted to to do what's right I always wanted to be a husband.
Speaker 1:
I always wanted to be a father. I was going to be a family man yeah uh, that was one of my dreams, I wanted that. So, yes, I did want it. But, like I said, I think I had to just put some things in perspective on okay, you can't be this and that yeah, and so if you're going to take this step, you got to get serious about it. And so that's when we got serious and we prayed and God said yes, he said yes yes, I think he told you yes before he told me.
Speaker 1:
It took me a little while. I probably wasn't trying to. You've been trying to hear. I was trying to hear. Yes, I don't know what I was about to hear like, are you sure? But I think you didn't come and tell me though. No, I didn't tell you, you didn't tell me. I think it may have been like two weeks after God spoke to you that I came to you, said okay, god spoke to me and told me yes, yeah, you're my wife yeah and you said yeah, he told me the same thing.
Speaker 1:
And you was like yeah, he told me like two weeks ago yeah, but I didn't run until you, so right. I just kept it to myself which I think was wise, because it kept your yes from influencing what I heard from yeah, you see what I'm saying and it also allowed you to kind of test OK, this is what I heard, but what did you hear? Do you? Are you getting the same thing?
Speaker 2:
Giving you time to have your your own time to figure out what God is saying to you.
Speaker 1:
So after we pray, god told us that we went. We went to church and at that time we were. We were both in the same church and the pastor we did not tell anybody. We didn't tell anybody no we didn't tell anybody, nobody knew.
Speaker 1:
They knew we were dating, I guess hanging out like one other, but nobody knew we were talking about marriage. Right, we go to church and I remember where I was sitting. I was sitting like towards the back of the church and the pastor at that time, who operates as a prophet, he called us up and he began to minister to us and pray for us and he was like basically confirming that.
Speaker 2:
God had already said to us Yep, and the church just went. Wow. And so he was like giving a benediction, right, I think he was giving. He was giving benediction and he stopped in the middle of the benediction and called us up.
Speaker 1:
Yep, and then begin and confirm that God had put us together and, uh, and we'll bless our union. And so from there I think that kind of solidified for both of us, like OK, this is a God thing and let's do it. I think for me that brought another level of seriousness to what we were doing at that point and at that point it was I was all in like Like yeah, I'm done, no plan, I'm ready to jump into this because I know this is God's will for for my life and for us, and to do anything else would to be out Do. Do anything else would be out of his will for us. Right, exactly, Doing anything else would be less than God's best for us.
Speaker 1:
So we decided to jump in and we still weren't boyfriend and girlfriend at that time. We just kind of seriously liking each other, we kind of felt love for one another and we had prayed about where to go from there and so we kind of jumped from friends friends to hanging out to beyonce, yeah, yeah, being engaged, yeah so it happened.
Speaker 1:
So, like I asked you to marry me in august, I remember the month yeah, it was because I went I think I went to california in j July of 2004. Came back, I decided August 1st. That's when I asked you my girlfriend, because I wanted to mark the date that when you said yes, but you actually said no, august 1st, I asked you to be my girlfriend. During that time period we made some adjustments, we prayed. God spoke to us. He confirmed it November 2004. I asked you to be my wife, right, and you said yes, so crazy.
Speaker 2:
I was like look, this is so crazy because he asked me without a ring, ladies, no ring you just have to throw that in there.
Speaker 1:
No, I did not have a ring, because I could not afford a ring.
Speaker 2:
That's how you know. It's God thing. No ring, and I'm like yes.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I was like the ring is coming.
Speaker 2:
But I didn't. It just really wasn't a big deal to me back then. I mean I probably still do the same thing.
Speaker 1:
I mean we knew God was in it and so some of that stuff just didn't matter. I mean, you knew where I worked.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
You didn't matter. I mean, you knew where I worked, yeah, you knew about how much money I made. No, you knew that it was like, yeah, we starting life and you can get a crackerjack box, but but because I want you to have that, I went and made some, I made some moves, yeah, and I was able to get you a ring right and provide that to you. And, uh, is that the same ring you still have? That's the same ring. You still have the same ring.
Speaker 2:
Yep, yeah, oh, that ring stretch me jesus he eventually got it and it was so crazy because I was telling people I'm getting married and they were like oh, let me see your ring. Oh, it's on the way that's game right, but I wasn't embarrassed about it or anything. I didn't feel any kind of way about it. It was just just like.
Speaker 1:
I know I'll get one eventually and it is what it is Well, we didn't make it about that, we didn't make it about the ring. It was really about us. We knew what we were going to do and we'll get all the stuff that comes along with it when we get it Later, when it comes, but we weren't going to let that stop us from moving forward with what God is doing.
Speaker 2:
Something I've just thought about. I never hounded you when you gonna get my ring, when you gonna get my ring I still ain't got a ring yet. Tell folks I'm gonna be married. I ain't got a ring. When you gonna get my ring, I never said anything.
Speaker 1:
No, no, you didn't. You didn't. I mean, I figured you knew it was coming, I did, and you knew I was serious. But I know you had. But but you gotta keep bringing this point up. That was almost 20 years ago. It was 20 years ago this one. No, I did not have it back, so I did not have any money. But uh, thank god for his mercy, his grace and his favor hey, it's all but but it. But we, we stepped into it and we started planning a wedding.
Speaker 2:
Right, we started planning a wedding with no money this is hilarious no money and so and we we actually was planning for what June or July we said we want a summer wedding.
Speaker 1:
summer, july of 2025. No 20 2005. July of 2005, we were planning to get married and we set the date and I was like, okay, well, we called, we said we would do it in at I'm from Alabama, so we would do it there at my home church there, and my pastor agreed at that time to allow us to do it because I've been a faithful member growing up there and he said he would do the wedding and all that, and so we had dates set for July and we started planning.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And as we're planning and going along, we're trying to pull money together and our parents jump in and they begin to help us pull the wedding plans and all that together. Uh, actually, you know what I forgot about the announcement when we announced it?
Speaker 1:
yeah to to our family. We just kind of popped it on our family and I found out shortly after that that my sister was planning to get married. Yeah, or to announce that they were going to get married, but they was like they'll wait. Yeah, because they didn or to announce that they were going to get married, but they was like they'll wait.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Because they didn't want to announce it the same time we were announcing, and so we decided to go ahead and move forward with that. But we set everything up, set the date. Parents started helping us, jumping in. They came up with some money to even help us pay for the wedding. I think your dad yeah, my mom money to even help us pay for the wedding.
Speaker 2:
I think your dad, yeah, my mom, yeah, yeah, they came through big for us to help us. But it was crazy because my parents, my side, knew you, because they were here. But your family like, who is this girl? Yeah we don't even know this girl.
Speaker 2:
I think they don't admit you twice maybe once or twice, yeah, something like they may have met me once or twice and they were kind of like what y'all doing? Like I didn't think they thought we were for real, especially when we said it. We set the date for July yeah you know, I bet you they was thinking like, oh, they ain't gonna make it to July but um, that was just really is a really difficult time. I think everything was moving kind of fast it was but it's like they don't know me, I don't know them.
Speaker 1:
This is weird, you know yeah, I think my mom was having a challenge with accepting it.
Speaker 2:
I know my little sister was having a chance accepting it yeah my little brother felt some kind of way about it everybody was feeling some kind of way because it just happened so fast you know we always say that um, we feel like God had us on a roller coaster. Yeah, it was just like a roller coaster ride and things were just moving and it was just like this is crazy.
Speaker 1:
So we're planning his wedding, so we get engaged in November, we're planning this wedding. We get to do you remember what month it was? We got to? And we was like, yeah, we didn't move this up. So we were encouraged by a pastor to move the wedding up just out the blue. He was like, why y'all waiting so long? Why y'all, if you know, this is God's will, this will God, why y'all waiting? This is probably like January. Yeah, he was like wait, I got it all the way, push all the way to like uh, july. And so I was like you know what? Why do we? Because I'm ready to put my hands on it, I'm ready to touch it, jesus. And so when he raised that question, that was just the question I needed Like, okay, well, yeah, why we?
Speaker 2:
wait, I got six more months. I think we was thinking summer, wedding summertime.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, but we wasn't thinking about needs.
Speaker 2:
No, and then I think finances. You know, we were trying to make sure we had time to get everything we needed. Yeah, that was a problem too, but I'm happy but, our family came in and you know, really helped us out, but we didn't. We didn't spend a lot of money on a wedding no, god, no, we didn't not.
Speaker 1:
Not compared to what some people spending 25, 30. I heard somebody the other day spent 90,000 on a wedding. That's a down payment on the house. Yeah, we were buying a house so, yeah, we, oh yeah, we did so. We had a middle planet wedding, we bought a home, we bought our first home yes we weren't even married yet.
Speaker 1:
yeah, you were living with your. You would actually move out of your apartment. Apartment moved in with your mother. I was in my apartment, my roommate. Yeah, we bought a house house two weeks before we got married, yep. So anyway, we got to tell you we moved the wedding date from July up to April. Yeah, moved it up because we was trying to do right. Yeah, in touching one another Exactly, and praise the Lord, I'm so glad that our past was like move it up. That was God too. That was God. That was god all day long. I was thinking about now we could have moved it on up even further.
Speaker 2:
Uh, I didn't want a cold wedding, I didn't want to be cold, okay, nothing, but it wasn't gonna be cold anyway, anyway.
Speaker 1:
Anyway, but thank god, we ended up moving it up. We actually we was looking for an apartment, yes, and we drove around to different apartments and all the apartments that we thought we wanted to live in. Once we actually went into them and looked at we was like no one lived. And then, but our pastor was preaching faith, yes, and he was. I think he just bought a home. Some members had just bought a home, buying houses, and he was like, believe god for a house? Yeah, and we left church one day like why don't we believe god for a house for a house? Yeah, we were like our credit ain't there. See, we being real with y'all, like this is the things we enjoy now. It wasn't always this way. Our credit was bad.
Speaker 2:
We had. No, we weren't making a lot of money.
Speaker 1:
We weren't making much money. We didn't have savings. It was like the beginning of life.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
But we stepped out on faith, and this is where you have to learn to trust God, because I'm a firm believer. The Bible says he that findeth the wife finds a good thing and obtains favor of the Lord. I believe that favor was working on my behalf as a man when I met her and got ready to marry her. So we stepped out on faith and belief of favor to show up, and it did. We end up finding a home. Yeah, we had to scale back a little bit because we wanted what we wanted. Well, we thought we would. We thought we would. We took the floor and we still got it.
Speaker 2:
We had a nice house, very, very nice house.
Speaker 1:
Very nice home and we, for a starter, we were able to purchase that home because God put it on the heart of our realtor to actually lower her commission.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So that we could afford to get in the home yeah so she took less money so that we could actually purchase the home it was, and that was nobody but god right, a lot of different things.
Speaker 1:
Uh favor, you know, showed up with us buying that house because we were two young kids, didn't know nothing about buying a house yes, doing this on our own our early 20s and we're just like oh my god, this is we didn't tell anybody, it was just we were just walking by faith, yeah, and and we finally bought the home on. We closed on it, like March, at the end of March, march 30th. We weren't getting married until April 16th yep, so for those two weeks I moved into the home, you stayed with your mom and then after the wedding, you came into the house. So it was I mean, it was, it was a blessing journey. It was now, oh, let's talk about that. So we go through the wedding. We'll have to do a whole nother episode on the wedding yeah, we're gonna have to call it just the wedding, the daniels wedding and what all happened
Speaker 1:
wedding yes, it was an eventful wedding I think the enemy was mad.
Speaker 2:
What you think?
Speaker 1:
oh, he was very mad I think he was being mad because we murdered there and, and who knows, he probably would have tried to do something to destroy us before getting to that july date yeah and that's why, god you know, let that happen.
Speaker 1:
Where our pastor was like move it up, move it up, you know, consider moving it up, and we did. I'm glad we did. I think it was a blessing. Yeah, everything worked out as a blessing, um to that. But after we got married, we moved into the house. We get in this house. What do we have? When we moved into the house, nothing. People think people had these grand ideas and we bought a house and we moved in. We bought this first. We know we got into the house as first time home buyers. No down payment. I think the only thing we put up is like our earnest money.
Speaker 2:
I think we got that back, yep and because we needed that.
Speaker 1:
But we get into the house and we are in the house with nothing like I think. I bought my bedroom, I bought my set over. You bought your bedroom set, so we put your bedroom set in the in our primary bedroom. We put the other one in one of the other bedrooms for Tyler and that was it. That was it. We had no kitchen table. No, no couch, no refrigerator, nothing no and so we was sitting in there.
Speaker 1:
We had tvs that we brought. We would sit on the floor, cuddle up, tell my baby I love you. This is, this is, the most amazing thing ever, and it was we didn't go on a honeymoon we did not know. Our home was our honeymoon. Our home, we came home we came, we got married and went home.
Speaker 2:
Some people get on a jet and go no to the bahamas and all that stuff. No, no, we came home.
Speaker 1:
We came home and we, we enjoyed our home. But it was a blessing and and I mean marriage was good, our marriage was going good, we was happy. Yeah, we were, we were happy. It wasn't about the stuff for us. It was about us being together and the dream and the idea of growing together, and I think that's what a lot of people miss. They feel like we got to have this, we got to have that, we got to have this, we got to have that and they miss out to enjoy growing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and building together. I think a lot of men feel like that. They got to have this much money, they got to have all this stuff lined up because they're the head of the house, right. But, sometimes you just can build together. You can grow together, and sometimes I think it's an excuse too.
Speaker 1:
Well, yeah, for some men it is, but it's real. When you get married to somebody and your children can start coming, you want to have some money in the bank because if you don't, as we experience, it gets ugly. You got no money, you got no money. It's cool at first, we in love, but when the bills start coming, love had to take a back seat. You'd be like somebody better come up with some money, and if you're not careful, you start fighting one another.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, instead of fighting for yeah the marriage and so, um, I think with that and other things, it's kind of where for us life, working, family bills, yeah, things kind of took a turn. It was, it was happy-go-lucky, oh, then it took a turn. I think we can pick up there next time and talk about how we went from this happy couple in this house with no furniture to, ah, you telling me one day I'm leaving.
Speaker 2:
I ain't say that, yes, you did.
Speaker 1:
I do. You ain't going to lie on this podcast. We done, we out of here. We'll catch y'all on the next episode where I'm gonna tell y'all about the time. Past teaser was like I'm gone right I didn't mean it.
Speaker 2:
I was just going away for a minute.
Speaker 1:
I'll come back take care, we'll talk y'all soon. Hey, thank you for joining us, for doing it with the daniels. If you want to keep up with everything going on on our channel, don't forget to like comment, subscribe and share this podcast. Absolutely. We'll see you next time.