159: Old People Know Stuff
Jim Brangenberg: Your retirement years could be 30 years filled with meaning and purpose as long as you connect your faith and your retirement days.
Martha Brangenberg: Welcome to iRetire4Him.We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brandenburg. Check us out online at iRetire4Him.com.
Jim Brangenberg: For over 13 years we've been collecting the stories of men and women living out their faith in Jesus in their work, at home, and in retirement. We've been doing it long enough that some of our guests have moved from from the pre-retirement years into living into their retirement years, but you've guessed it. Any friend of iWork4Him isn't checking out and sitting on a sandy beach sipping margaritas and living a perpetual vacation. Friends of ours know that our retirement years are just a continuation of our life and an opportunity to live out our faith as we go.
Rhonda Stoppe has been on iWork4Him several times, even one time with her local church pastor husband, as we talked about their amazing book, The Marriage Mentor. Today, Rhonda joins us to talk about two major things. One, living out a vibrant marriage in retirement, and two, talking about her nearly new podcast, Old Ladies Know Stuff. Rhonda Stoppe, welcome to iRetire4Him.
Rhonda Stoppe: Thanks. It's so fun to be with you guys again.
Jim Brangenberg: We're glad to have you.
Martha Brangenberg: It's good to sit and hang out with you for a little bit and let the iRetire4Him crowd get to know you and your heart because I think it's so powerful. So you aren't even qualified to be on this podcast quite yet, age-wise. We won't get into too many specifics, but I know you have the Old Ladies podcast, but how old do you have to be to be an old lady? (laughter) What's so funny?
Jim Brangenberg: The podcast Old Ladies Know Stuff, but you call yourself an old lady, Rhonda. When I see you, I don't see old lady, but, all right. How old do you have to be an old lady?
Rhonda Stoppe: First of all, when you see me, it's all hair color and makeup. So it's like definitely, I was just telling you guys before we came on, I'm gonna be 65 in May. I'm just counting the days till I'm on Medicare. Steve retired, he's 71. And he's already on Medicare.
And so we're like doing one of those Christian networks to get me through till I'm on Medicare also. But yeah, it's interesting too, embracing old age. I'm from California and people don't want to be thought of as old here. And I was born and raised here. I was born in LA, raised in the San Francisco Bay area, but to be thought of as old, it's almost offensive.
And I remember speaking at a woman's retreat in California and I was saying, Old Ladies Know Stuff. Ha, I'm old, blah, blah, blah. And a woman came up to me afterward and said, I'm your age and it offends me that you say this is old. And I'm like, honestly, however old we are, we're older than someone behind us that God wants us to mentor.
Whether you are newlywed, just married and you reach back into your world of single friends that are engaged or getting married and you mentor them, Titus two calls the older to teach the younger. And I believe that's the nod to the Old Ladies Know Stuff podcast. 'cause when Steve and I got married, we got married back in the 19 hundreds, in the olden days and wore this big white hat veil thing walking down the aisle. So hate my wedding pictures now. (laughter)
Jim Brangenberg: They are to be celebrated. The eighties were wonderful years.
(laughing)
Rhonda Stoppe: They were, but man. Anyway, when we got married, I came from a long line of divorce. Like the families that I was raised in, the marriages did not survive. My parents were teenagers when they got married and my dad came to Christ when I was four years old, and it literally changed the trajectory of my family.
And I know my dad chose to stay with my mother because he gave his heart to Christ. But I watched their marriage and I thought, I don't wanna be that kind of a wife. I don't wanna give my husband the silent treatment when he lets me down. I don't want to... fill in the blank. And by the way, I led my mom to the Lord six months before she passed away. So that was a praise.
But their marriage ended in divorce after 30 years of marriage. It was very textbook. The kids are grown. Soon as my youngest brother, he was the baby, went off to the military, they separated and they got a divorce. And there's something called the gray divorce right now that's going on. And it is people that are our age. And they think, all right, I did my duty. I stayed married to my spouse, I raised our kids, and now it's quote me time. Now I'm gonna sow my wild oats, or now I'm gonna find someone to make me happy, or whatever that is.
And honestly, it's the lie from the enemy and even my dad, who I adore, and my dad is still alive, he's 84 years old. He will say, he tells younger people, don't ever think leaving the wife of your youth is gonna bring you happiness somewhere else. And he mentors from his place of regret. And to me, that's where we are, the age that we're at. It's not sharing from our, all of our successes, it's sharing genuinely from our highs and our lows.
And so when I knew I wasn't the wife I meant to be and I was working in San Francisco Bay area, I was a full-time until I had a kid. And then I started staying home. And then I looked around, Steve was in youth ministry. I looked around at the marriages of our kids and our youth, their parents' marriages, and I wanted to emulate the ones that still laughed with each other, held each other's hands.
Their kids wanted their friends to come over to their house and be with them. And I just reached out to them and asked, especially one woman in particular, her name was Gail, she's still alive, she's 84 also. And I said, you're the age of my mom, which she was offended, but my mom was 17 when I was born, so she was like, oh, I guess I'm the age of your mom.
But I said, I don't know how to do this. So she invited me to a woman's Bible study and I was like no. I don't need another Bible study. I went to Christian schools. I aced those Bible finals. I just wanna be a better wife and mom. And she said, trust me. Come to this Bible study. It will help you grow in ways you never dreamed. And it was a precept, it was five hours of homework a week, and I was like, she's crazy. I have a new baby. I can't do five hours of homework a week. I'm a stay at home mom. But you couldn't talk in class unless you did your work.
Martha Brangenberg: Great format for you, wasn't that? (laughing)
Jim Brangenberg: Which would've been killer for you. Torture, absolutely killer for you. (laughing)
Rhonda Stoppe: But after being in corporate America to be a stay at home mom, it's lonely. I remember feeling so lonely and frumpy, so it's oh yeah, every Tuesday I got to get dressed up and I got to put my child in the nursery for three hours and talk to grownups without being interrupted. So I did my homework.
Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.
Rhonda Stoppe: But you know what? The word of God, which is quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, transformed me. It revealed to me the thoughts and intents of my own heart. And I was the only young woman in this whole Bible study. These women shared honestly, from what the Lord was convicting them of in that study, things they had learned from their life when they were a young bride, when they were a younger mom.
They shared genuine stories of how God refined them through trials. And I grew under the mentorship of those women. So that's my passion, why I believe "Old Ladies Know Stuff." Not that we've done it perfectly, but if you find yourself a genuine mentor who will be real with you - or we're talking to iRetire4Him, you be that genuine mentor.
Jim Brangenberg: Yes.
Rhonda Stoppe: And that doesn't mean - you have to set up boundaries. I'm sorry, I'm still just talking before you ask me another question. You have to set up boundaries.
(laughter)
Martha Brangenberg: You're doing great.
Rhonda Stoppe: As a pastor's wife, I would have women come and say, I want you to mentor me. So they would wanna meet for coffee and I would end up buying their coffee, which I was on a tight pastor's wife's budget. So it's costing me a lot to meet with you once a week. And then they would just wanna tell me how hard their life is and tell me how hard their husband is and tell me how rebellious their children are and their financial troubles.
And I found it was a wasted hour or two of them venting and me trying to get them redirected and I had to stop. And then they wouldn't even show up at church on Sunday. And it's like oh, I overslept. I'm like, okay, time out. You've got to apply yourself. You need to come to the Women's Bible Study that I'm teaching or that I'm attending. You need to attend church service because the Bible says that you are not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together. I don't care if your kid has soccer. Figure it out. Skip those soccer games. That's a whole nother, don't get me on that soapbox.
(laughter)
Martha Brangenberg: Part two.
Rhonda Stoppe: But it's easy when we say yes, I'll be someone's mentor, for them to just suck the life out of us and drain us and have it not be effective at all. So setting up some wise boundaries, inviting them - read this book with me. Let's read The Marriage Mentor together. Let's work through a chapter each week. Having them do the homework or do an assignment or show up to a study. That means they're serious and they really want to take the mentoring that you're willing to give them and apply it to their lives.
Jim Brangenberg: Yeah, it's easy for 'em to take our time. Very, it seems like the next generation's not as eager to take the advice, but when you put some onus on them, eventually you wear off on 'em. But spending time together, we covered this a decade ago, a book written by a guy named Grant Skeldon, wrote the book Passion Generation.
He goes, all we want is to walk alongside you chronologically superior people to see how you're doing it. And that's, it works in marriage and really in retirement. That's why we wanted to talk to you, because you're newly retired ish in age, but you're not gonna retire anyway. But you're in this new phase of life.
And by the way, I wanna say one more other thing because I got a great line for people that wanna get divorced after 30 years because they think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. And I grew up in Minnesota, not California. We actually have water in Minnesota, but in Minnesota where I grew up, the reason the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - there's a leaky septic tank.
(laughter)
Rhonda Stoppe: I love that.
Martha Brangenberg: You need to know why it's greener. (laughing)
Jim Brangenberg: That is why. That is why. And it applies to marriage. People, they're like, oh, it's gonna be great. You're like, yep, there's a septic tank underneath there and it's gotta crack. Okay, go ahead.
Martha Brangenberg: Okay. I wanna say a couple things though for our listeners, just to get you up to speed.
So Rhonda talked about a book that she wrote called The Marriage Mentor, and she wrote that with her husband, Steve, give him credit. She's holding it up there. (shows book on video) It has got such a cute cover with the cake topper and everything, but it is a great book and for all you retirees, I am sure every year you have weddings or bridal showers, things that you're invited to, I encourage each and every one of you to put this in your gift for that young couple or middle-aged couple or remarrying couple, whatever they might be, to get them a tool that they can use together.
Jim and I are big fans of it, and we'll put a link in the show notes for a previous interview we did with Rhonda and her husband Steve, about that book. But that's what we're referring to. And that's just one simple thing that Rhonda was saying, get this book and offer to go through it with somebody, be their mentor in that way. But it's about accountability and it's about having skin in the game.
Jim Brangenberg: I really wasn't necessary today, I can see.
Martha Brangenberg: No, Rhonda and I got this. (chuckling)
Jim Brangenberg: But in The Marriage Mentor, every chapter has three quarters of the chapter written to women by Rhonda, and then there's the man snippet in the end, which is like a page going, idiot, just read this and you'll understand what I'm trying to say. Thank you, Steve. And then there's a link to a video of the two of them working through it. It's just, are the videos still out there, Rhonda?
Rhonda Stoppe: Yeah.
Jim Brangenberg: Okay, good. I didn't figure they'd go away. Martha and I say about this book is it everything we've ever said in a marriage mentoring session in 25 years, Rhonda and Steve put in a book, so we didn't have to write a book. Although we're working on one anyway but okay. But how is marriage different now that you got Steve, he's 71, he is retired, you're still living out on the ranch - how is your time different today now that Steve doesn't have the day-to-day onerous responsibilities of senior pastoring at church and you're still writing and speaking and talking and traveling? How is it different?
Rhonda Stoppe: We did have a conversation when he decided to retire. 'Cause I have a new book. I'm gonna hold it up real quick. Moms of the Bible: Life Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful. And this releases March 10th, 2026. So I'm getting ready to do a book tour with that. But as I'm approaching this book publication, I'm asking him, am I retired too? How do we wanna play this? And he said, you do you. I just know that it's this season for me.
So now, we live on a ranch, it's an 80 acre ranch, and this man has had animals and he's had other things. And we had moved his parents onto our property when his mom had Alzheimer's and we cared for her. I know you guys talked about having to care for family. That was a rough season. That was hard. His mom used to love me and all of a sudden did not know who I was. It was a rough season.
But we have this other house on our property. So in this season, Steve is fixing up that house so that my son and his wife and four children can move into it. And my son, who's 36 years old, he's a worship pastor. He is been a worship pastor for over a decade. He wants to do a reset. He wants to do something where he's working from home, providing for his family, and then he wants to be able to work in a small church as a worship leader, volunteering, or a small part-time salary.
He said, I don't want to lead worship in big churches anymore. I wanna be part of a small church family, which that's always been our ministry, the church that Steve pastored. So we were like move into grandma and Grandpa's house, and so right now they're living with us. So yeah, life is very different. They've been with us since November.
Martha Brangenberg: So that's what retirement right now looks like - a household. (chuckling)
Rhonda Stoppe: It does.
Jim Brangenberg: Did you ever dream of being Grammy every day?
Rhonda Stoppe: Yeah. Honestly, I stay in my lane, so I don't even come outta my bedroom till 10:00 AM. I stay in my room, I do my quiet time and all the things in here. They homeschool, so they're out in the dining room. Brandon's up in the laundry room where he's working from home, doing his job. It's just been super sweet just that season of watching them parent their children. And you do have to, I don't need to use my voice every time I see something that I'm like, oh, I would've done that differently.
It's like, they're doing a great job and I need to encourage them and cheer them on and not - I just got back from Hawaii. In fact, you guys, we were texting while I was in Hawaii. My son Tony, who we adopted in our family when he was 15 years old, I tell Tony's story in my book, Moms Raising Sons to Be Men, he just retired from the Air Force. He was an F 22 fighter pilot. And yeah, so that's, usually men go, wow. Women are like, airplane. No, it was a wow airplane.
Jim Brangenberg: No, F 22 not an airplane, it's an airplane, it goes 700 plus, it's fast.
Rhonda Stoppe: So he just retired and he's, I think he's 46 years old. She's a doctor, they're gonna stay in Hawaii. He just started working for Hawaiian Airlines and I just went and spent a week with them. I said, I don't wanna go to Pearl Harbor, I don't wanna go. I just wanna be with your family and see you live your life and do your thing.
And I got to go to church with them and I got, they did a beach baptism and it just filled me with such joy to see this season of their life. And it's new, they've only been at this church for a couple months, and so Colleen, my sweet daughter-in-law, she said, I wanna learn from you now in this season. So she said, what do you observe? Anything that we need to do differently? And I'm like
Jim Brangenberg: wow. Landmine alert. Landmine alert. Do not answer that question. (laughing)
Rhonda Stoppe: But I did notice that they brought two families with them to this new church that they're attending, and they feel very responsible for the spiritual development of these two families. But I noticed after church that they immediately go visit with those two families. And I met the pastor. I met a older couple whose daughter actually is best friends with my daughter. They went to Masters University together, so I introduced them to that older couple and I'm like, i'll take care of your kids in California if you take care of my kids in Hawaii.
And then I just met a lot of people and then we went to the beach baptism, and I think they have two or three services at this church. But I told Tony, the people at this baptism, this is the core people of that church, this is the people that are, it was a football playoff Sunday, and there were people that were at this baptism.
They baptized nine adults and one child. And I said, this is the people that you want to become friends with. So we started meeting and making friends. So in the car, after we were leaving, I said, when she asked me that, I said it's nice that you're making your friends feel welcome, but these people, you need to just walk up to them and introduce yourself at this new church.
And she said, I just saw you do that and you don't - how do you? I go, they have the Holy Spirit in them. And so do you. So you're not just walking up to anybody and saying, Hey, be my friend. The spirit of the most high God indwells you and indwells them. That's your brother or sister in Christ. Reach out to them. Make them feel welcome talking to you, and you'll build fast friendships. So that's a little glimpse of a question that she asked that I was like, don't just huddle in the corner where you feel safe.
Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.
Rhonda Stoppe: Step into new relationships. And when you're retiring, sometimes you're relocating and you're going to a new church. And you're like, okay, these people already have their friends, they already have their relationships. I'll just stand back here. And what do we do? We look at our phone because it's safe. Like after church is over oh, I better check my messages. And we tell everyone around us, I'm busy, I'm important. Don't talk to me.
Put your phone down. And you go up to those circles and you introduce yourself and say, I'm new here. It's scary, but it's also God will knit your heart together with other believers.
Jim Brangenberg: But it does seem easier to talk to complete strangers when you are older. 'Cause our parents did it and they demonstrated it well. So we can walk in a room and talk to people that sometimes our kids are like, you're doing that grandma, grandpa thing. You're just going, talking to complete strangers and asking 'em weird questions. I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm good at it and I'm getting old, so it's okay. I can do that. Just one last question about you and Steve. What are you doing now that you're in these quote unquote retirement years? What are you doing to keep your marriage vibrant?
Rhonda Stoppe: Okay, he's always wanted to be a homesteader. We have 80 acres and he's always had animals, but never really been able to just take care of animals. Oh, we have pigs and goats and peacocks and puppies and pears. He raises pears. And he's just wholeheartedly devoting himself to getting that all set up. Like he really is excited about it and I'm not. (laughter) It's you, go baby!
Jim Brangenberg: I'll come bring lemonade to you, baby.
Rhonda Stoppe: But I'm excited for him because he's never had time to just do this. And when you're a pastor, especially of a small church, his phone, he's always available to his congregation. The texts light up the phone. And it's funny, when you're a pastor's wife, 'cause there's times that you're talking and all of a sudden I'll realize he's not responding like, Uhhuh. And I'll look over and he is on his phone and I'm like, who are you talking to? And someone has pulled his mind back into whatever situation he's walking them through.
He lost his phone after he retired, for two weeks. He was on a dirt bike ride on our property and it fell out of his pocket. And for two weeks he didn't have a phone and he was in heaven. He was so excited that nobody could reach him. Yes. And so after two weeks, I'm like, dude, everyone's texting me trying to find you. Find your phone. (laughing)
Jim Brangenberg: It makes my hands sweaty thinking about being without your phone for two weeks.
Rhonda Stoppe: But he was in heaven.
Jim Brangenberg: Yeah. I'm sure.
Our retirement years can definitely be a new chapter in our life with an open agenda to work for him, if you'll seek his will for it. So be encouraged to live out your faith in retirement. So many men and women need what you have. And I'm speaking to our audience today, to be inspired to help others understand the retirement calling get a copy of iRetire4Him: Unlock God's Purpose for Your Retirement. Get a copy in our bookstore on Amazon, or on our bookstore online at iwork4him.com/bookstore.
It is written by Martha and myself alongside Martha's dad who shared his wisdom living out his faith in his retirement. It's the inspiration that launched this podcast, iRetire4Him, as the title I retire the number 4 him.com.
Martha Brangenberg: Alright, Rhonda, so speaking of podcasts, let's talk about Old Ladies Know Stuff. Why do Old Ladies Know Stuff that the rest of us don't know?
Rhonda Stoppe: And I wanna step back and tell you one other piece of advice that I gave my daughter-in-law.
Martha Brangenberg: Good.
Rhonda Stoppe: And I'll give it to all of you that are retired: daytime intimacy. Don't wait till nighttime when you're both tired to say, I guess we should do that thing we do.
Jim Brangenberg: You can say sex on this podcast.
(laughter)
Rhonda Stoppe: Okay. I wasn't sure. I don't know what we rated here, (laughter) but I guess that's alright. I guess we're retired. People don't have children listening while they're driving in the car. But daytime sex. And I told my daughter-in-law, your kids are at school. He's home. He works for Hawaiian Airlines, but he's on call, so he's home a lot. She works from home a couple days a week.
And she was asking a question about when the kids wanna come in the room and one of them wants to sleep in their room. And I'm like, you know what? And their kids are like, one's still in junior high and one's in high school. But I'm like, you know what? First of all, set up that boundary. Secondly, daytime sex in the middle of the day when the each of you are not tired and you got some time. And she's really? I'm like, it's a game changer. And so I said, promise me you're gonna do that. And she said, I will. I said, it's gonna breathe new life into your sex life. It's gonna be fun and new and exciting.
And honestly, I do believe that is one of the things that retired couples, it's easy to not put time into intimacy. And I know some couples have a difficulty at the season of their life, whether it's a health issue, medications. I have a friend whose husband has MS, and they're not able, but it's, you know what? You can still enjoy each other's bodies, even if that is a glitch. So just to say, we don't do that anymore. I'm telling you, figure it out. Be playful and connect physically in the marriage bed because that's God's plan to keep you from just being roommates.
Now, I forgot what you asked me. (laughter) We were talking about sex.
Jim Brangenberg: I was gonna say.
Rhonda Stoppe: Wait. And I do have a book called A Christian Woman's Guide to Great Sex and Marriage that you can find on Amazon.
Jim Brangenberg: Alright, did you tell your daughter-in-law that they have a name for that? It's called a nooner.
(laughter)
Rhonda Stoppe: The nooner. I did not, but I should have told her that.
Jim Brangenberg: A nooner. That's right. How about a nooner today?
Martha Brangenberg: Okay, so moving on. (chuckling) Rhonda, I love this though because you do such a good job of articulating things that people just don't talk about and they need to be talked about and they need to be in the forefront because it is how God designed it. And so I thank you for taking that space and wearing that mantle. So let's talk about your new podcast. Tell us about it.
Rhonda Stoppe: Okay. Old Ladies Know Stuff. I am absolutely loving this show because I am either putting an excerpt from something that I have taught and sometimes it's an interview that I have done, and it's not always a woman that I've interviewed. I just interviewed Keith Farrin and he's the Bible coach, and he was talking to us at the beginning of the year about moving from "should" to "want" in our readings and studying and memorization of scripture.
And there are author friends that I have. My friend Cindy McMenamin, we talked about The New Loneliness that she just wrote. Because it can be a lonely season, especially when we're older and we're retired and we have to be more intentional in creating relationships. It's fun, it's honest, it's funny but I also know that it's just a way to engage myself. It's in 88 countries, it's almost got 50,000 downloads, so please follow my podcast and subscribe so I can get to that 50,000 downloads. I don't know what that means. I just think it would be fun.
(laughter)
Martha Brangenberg: That sounds good.
Rhonda Stoppe: But it's also amazing to me. When I was a 10-year-old girl, the Lord put on my heart to be a missionary. I was at camp and I was like, I'm gonna be a missionary and I had no idea what that would look like. I had no idea the Lord had planned for me to be a youth pastor's wife for 18 years.
When you're in youth ministry, you are ministering to a culture in a foreign land. And then God made me a pastor's wife for 25 years in the United States. I did not have to leave this country. But even in this season of my life, as not a pastor's wife anymore, seeing - I'm gonna cry - that my podcast was listened to in Lebanon and India and Israel and Nigeria, it's like, even some of these places where they're Muslim countries, I just imagine a woman in the dark closet in her bedroom where her husband can't hear. She's listening to this podcast and she's hearing the gospel.
I'm an evangelist at heart, so in the back of every single one of my books and as often as I can, I wanna share how to have a true relationship with Jesus. So the podcast is just really genuine, people talking about the genuine things, and most of them are older, the women that I interview, that have written a book or have their own podcast or experience that I want the younger women - my audience has been the 30 something soccer mom who is overwhelmed. She wants a better marriage, but she really doesn't know how to get there.
And then older women that are our age that see the value of this season of our life, this is where God has us and he wants us to serve him by the power of the Spirit of God serving through us. Because the Bible says it's God who works in you willing to do his good pleasure. And it's easy to just check out and say, let the young ones do it. But that's not God's plan. Titus two calls the older women to teach the younger.
Martha Brangenberg: So good.
Jim Brangenberg: So much and so good. Really fantastic. I love that.
Martha Brangenberg: So let's just talk to the ladies our age and all the ladies that are listening - and men, if you're listening... I wanna just hear what you would say to them as you encourage them to look at their life, look at this, 2026 whatever time they're listening to this show, what is it that God's calling them to do? How can they be seeking and being obedient?
Rhonda Stoppe: Yeah, in your marriage, I wrote out a couple of ideas. Create new rhythms. So you had a rhythm when you were working. Now you gotta figure out a new rhythm. And so mine and Steve's is morning coffee together. No phones. We hang out with each other. We watch this show about homesteading. And my grandson, who's living with us right now is like, why do you guys watch that? But my husband's like learning tons of stuff, so yeah. I watch it with 'em 'cause I'm like, yeah, you could do that. You could do that.
Jim Brangenberg: Yeah, let me know when it's done. (laughter)
Rhonda Stoppe: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then giving each other space. It's okay that you don't have to do everything together. Give each other breathing room. You wanna prioritize your grandkids, but not at the expense of your marriage. So set some boundaries and keep learning together - laugh together - and keep learning together. What book are you reading? And honestly, I have been, audio books have become a new favorite for me.
The drive to town from where we live on our ranch is 45 minutes. Our radio service is terrible. No cell service. The audio books that I'm listening to are biographies of people that have walked this path, people of the faith, and it is so inspiring because it just reminds you, this is our turn and reminding each other as a couple, this is our turn. Let's not waste this free season that God has given us to serve him.
And what is that gonna look like and how can I cheer you on and be willing to ask, hey, when I'm off, will you tell me? Like out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if anxiety's coming out of me, if fear, if being judgmental- 'cause let's be honest, when we're older, we wanna judge everybody that they don't know what we know. They don't know what we know. But having my husband be my accountability partner and then not getting my feathers ruffles when he cares enough to tell me, Hey, what you just said might reveal this in your heart.
That to me is a sweet season of trust that is built over years together. First Corinthians 13 says, "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, believes all things" means believes the best about each other. So that's not assigning wrong motives to each other's actions, not having that argument in your head with him or her before she even walks in the door and then blasting them, believing the best about them. That is a gift that you give each other. I know how I feel when I have friends that believe the best about me. I wanna spend time with them.
Martha Brangenberg: Yeah.
Rhonda Stoppe: When I have friends that are like, Hey, you didn't call me on my birthday, and hey, you haven't called me in two weeks... I walk very carefully on eggshells around them. Don't be that for your spouse.
Jim Brangenberg: And by the way, you're still the wife of a pastor. He didn't, that didn't change. Just 'cause he's not working right now full-time within the four walls of a church. I'm guessing he's still a pastor. He needs a little time to refresh, but that's gonna come out because that flowed naturally out of him.
Rhonda Stoppe, we're outta time. But I would recommend for everybody that's got a new spouse at home, another great author friend of ours wrote a book, Spouse in the House. It is a great book about what do you do when your husband invades your space at home?
Martha Brangenberg: I'm gonna put some links in the show notes, including to Rhonda's new book that's coming out. So we're very excited to see that again. Is it Moms of the Bible?
Jim Brangenberg: Moms of the Bible.
Rhonda Stoppe: Can I add real quick? I'm speaking at a Grandparenting summit. It's like we used to speak at youth camps, now we speak at Grandma and Grandpa camps. (laughing) It is in March and it is in Texas. I'm trying to find the date. It's March 19, 20th and 21st. And it's in like the Dallas area. It is massive how this has moved.
It's a 10 year anniversary of this grandparenting, it's called Legacy Coalition. And you can find their website and get all the information for the summit. If you come, please come see me. I'll have a booth there and I'm speaking at that summit, so that's in March in Dallas.
Jim Brangenberg: Rhonda Stoppe, thanks for being with us on iRetire4Him today.
Rhonda Stoppe: Thanks for having me. Anytime.
Jim Brangenberg: You've been listening to iRetire4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brandenburg. In this retirement phase of life, we all want our lives to be full of meaning and purpose, so we can say, iRetire4Him.