Who's that Girl?

Check out Michelle & Pete Norman's Fun & Witty Love Story!
Divorce Worthy to Total Transformation in 18 hard earned years!

CamilleBattaglia.com
HeavenlyHookups.com
@HeavenlyHookup_s
@Camille_Battaglia
@GratefulHeirClothing
GratefulHeir.com

Transcript

0:00

I first met Michelle when she was in high school. She didn't know it yet though. I was, yeah, she didn't. I was sitting on the couch, my current girlfriend's house in the town that she grew up in. I saw Michelle on this video and I remember asking my girlfriend at the time, who is that? And that's when I first saw Michelle and we didn't actually meet until I was a senior in college. I was a freshman. Hi, my name is Camille Battaglia and I love sharing divine connections, especially love connections. I'm a fashion stylist, author, turned podcaster on each episode. You'll hear tips and strategies that you can implement in your daily life to become more effective in your singleness or married life. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's jump into your daily dose of divine connections on Heavenly Hookups and thank you to my guests, Pete and Michelle Norman for sharing their fun and transformational love story. I just wanted to thank you guys for having me and interrupting your vacation. I just want to introduce you and tell everyone that you guys are, you've been a huge impact on my life. And our relationship has been life-changing for me you're very special people. And I just thank you for that. We met at a previous former church and then Pete started to go on this wild journey. Next thing, I went to the Kingdom Quake. I didn't know you then, but I had met Tim powers actually at lunch after church with a friend. And he said, Hey, this Kingdom Quake is starting. You might be interested in going. And I remember it was a couple months away and I was like, yeah, absolutely. I want to go. And I went to that and I had no idea what I was walking into, but it was a three-day prayer at this, I think it was at the Ebenezer's coffee house and HG was there and he prophesied over me, which I had never experienced before. And it was just something about that atmosphere. I remember Carmella and Carrington being there, but I hadn't met them. And it was just a really cool, I can't even describe it. So from there you started the work is worship, and then you started the Kingdom Life Ministries. And just through all of that, I've had major growth and I know you all have as well. Yeah, but, without you guys, I wouldn't be where I am. My kids wouldn't be where they are. And not to say that we're perfect. We still have a long way to go, but just our lives on a different path than they would have been. We would have just been, probably going with the wind and the atmosphere of the world right now. But anyway, I just wanted to thank you for being such an important factor. We thank you too. I didn't even say this, we are a family and that is what church is not, just a place you go on Sundays. It's a amazing as a pastor of Kingdom Life Ministries, essentially somebody who's just, lived life the same way but for God but it's, we've got this idea. As a Pastor of a church the most holy statement anybody can ever say is that they actually learn from people like you Camille that actually take things that God's given them a word. And you talk to people. I really believe this is God and I'm going to go do it and see what God does. That's what this podcast is. And that's what your life is, that's what you're children are being transformed. The battles that you fought over the past two years are battles that your kids won't have to fight all because of your faithfulness. It's somewhat as a pastor of a Church I've learned just as much from you and have from the other pastors. Yeah. Oh, that's so nice. Cause I always, I feel like I'm always on the receiving end, so I really appreciate you saying that. No, not at all. I love like your prophetic insight and your dreams and your amazing daughter Gabby and the things that she brings is just a unique part of ministry and a unique part of the kingdom that I think we hadn't really experienced before meeting you guys and getting to know you guys. So our lives have been really touched by that in, in that way. So we love you guys. Yes. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah. It's I don't know how to describe this for anyone listening, but it's truly a family. It's not a dysfunctional family where you have to get together. Yeah. There's some dysfunction here and there. It could be me at times. But if, most part what I'm saying about family, like true family, it feels like we all found a place where. We belong, right? There's true love there for each other. We're all going through battles. Like life is not perfect, but we can all rally around that person and whatever they're going through and pray for them and comfort them and encourage them. I've never felt that way before ever. Yeah. Except for when my earthly parents were, here, but yeah. I don't get that with, most other friendships. So it's really been a blessing. Yeah, it's been awesome just beginning. It's just beginning. So anyway, we're here to talk about a little bit about your life and your love story. Why don't we go back and we talk about how you guys met, where you met? Sure. I guess Michelle's looking at me to get started. So I guess I'll get started. I first met Michelle when she was in high school. She didn't know it yet though. I was, yeah, she didn't. I was sitting on the couch, my current girlfriend's house in the town that she grew up in. Actually, Michelle your town West Unity, Ohio. How many people live there? Oh, I don't know. A couple of thousand. Yeah, 2000. She was, and I'm not from there. We went to school up in Adrian college in Michigan. I managed to date two girls from this small town and it was my sophomore year, junior year, sophomore year, no junior college where I turned this video on, my girlfriend at the time, her brother. A year younger than me. Or prom. Yeah. I saw Michelle on this video and I remember asking my girlfriend at the time, who is that? And that's when I first saw Michelle and we didn't actually meet until I was a senior in college. I was a freshman. You were an incoming freshmen and I had to get into law school. So my advisor at the time told me I needed amping up my credits for all my extracurricular stuff. Padding your resume? Because partying wasn't a part of my extracurriculars, that law schools like to recognize and this is is pre-Jesus days. Yeah. So in order to get into law school, I had to become like a senior advisor and teach. Literally, I taught welcome to college one-on-one for all of the freshman. And I met Michelle at that incoming orientation. Remember that? Yep. These were her pre-Jesus days too. These were my pre-Jesus days. Yes. So I see her, I'm like, Hey, she talked to me and she was looking around at everybody, but me I'm like, I actually wanted to tell her, I was like, you don't realize I'm cool. I'm a big deal. Because there's only a 1000 of us, a 1,000 of your best friends. I remember in DC with a work thing. Only my college professors, history professor her daughter worked in DC. And I remember looking at my twin brother, identical twin, and she looked at me. Kinda stared at me and said, my dad tells me you were quite a presence. So that's a nice way of saying it. I wanted to tell Michelle, listen, you don't know me but you will. And you'll want to. That was it. Well in full disclosure on that, I was probably, a little sleepy and slightly hung over because I had graduated from high school the day before and went out to all the graduation parties and had to roll out of bed and hustled up to school so that my friend and I at the time were not late for this orientation. So that's where we met. That was my senior year, your freshman year. Yep. We got to know each other pretty well, but it was just friends. Yeah. And then she got a little jealous when I was talking to other girls. I know that. Sure. Yeah. So anyway, a few years went by and then I came back to college for Homecoming. Yes. We just hung out. Like now this was my senior year. You're my third year of law school. And at the time it was going to law school in DC. So I came out from DC to Michigan, Adrian college and we hung out like, we're inseparable, basically was 12 hours, two days we were there. And then we just kept talking after that. Yeah. He asked me. He could call me. Did I? Yeah. So I gave you your number did said you have to go back to DC, which I thought would impress her. I've got to go back to Washington. That be she's terribly impressed by that. And she did give me her number. You did give me your number. I did. I did. I think you called me that night when you got home, just to let you know I was safe. Yeah. Then we just kept talking until a then you moved down to DC that spring. I did. Yeah. After I graduated from Adrian and you graduated law school, I think we graduated maybe a week or so apart and yeah, I decided going to pack up all my stuff and move down and he helped me find an apartment. In Virginia. Yeah. I lived in Maryland. So then I was like since you moved down then, I guess we should probably talk about getting married, which I was totally pushing. And this is where things get a little dicey. Wait a minute. Okay. How long did you date before she moved to? Virginia? Yeah, was it the 12 hours you're together. You gave her the phone number and then you graduated. So let's see homecoming would have been sometime in October and we talked long distance, I guess we should say also that our breaks our Christmas breaks, coincided with each other. So for a couple of weeks, we were both back in Ohio. Okay. So we were able to hang out with each other and actually go on dates and stuff. And then. I, we would have moved down. I think I graduated the end of April. He graduated in May, so I would have moved down in May. Okay. That makes more sense now. Yeah, it's October. Yeah. At this point we're talking 2002. I guess we just hung out for a long time. I know I kept talking to her about a long time. And when we got married, like a year later, he proposed maybe six weeks after I moved down. Wow. Yeah. I think I moved down in like may, beginning of may. And then we got married almost a year to the day that you proposed, which says the answer is just the end of June. Yeah. So we got engaged. I was 22. Yeah. We were babies. We were definitely, I married the right woman. It was just the wrong time. Yeah. Yeah. We had no idea what you're doing. That's when pretty much everything went south. Our first few years of marriage were not great. Our year of engagement was not great. Cause we're just all trying to figure it out, starting a career in Washington. For both of us it's just not a good thing to do all the while we were just getting to know people. Yeah. For Washington, when you're young, you graduate college, you think you're going into adult life, but if you're living around Capitol Hill it was just like college all over. We were going out all the time. That's how it was all the time, again this is pre-Jesus for us. It was just constantly going out with everything else. It was just really quite unpleasant. Yeah. We loved each other. Yeah, a lot of it too is in us trying to figure that out. And Pete and I, not being in similar industries for work either. So that was different. And so me finding friends and him finding friends, we weren't really finding friends that intersected and then. It was like we were married and we lived together, but we were still pursuing our own interests. Separate lives. Yeah. Even though I would go out with him and with his friends it just, there wasn't that cohesiveness, at least that I feel like we have now we were still living selfish, separate ish lives and trying to figure out how to do that side by side instead of doing it together. Exactly. Yeah. You guys weren't one yet? No, not even close. And then we were hanging out with a bunch of single people too. Yeah. Yeah. We were not two peas in a pod, at all. But then that was literally the first week. Yeah, for some, again, some stupid reason we decided that let's have a child. We didn't even get along. Divorce was never discussed., but that's the one thing, neither one of us, neither one of our parents were divorced. Right. If I can be very deep. I remember getting this is I guess, I am looking at Michelle, she knows this story anyway. So I was at a distance. It's a little racy, but I remember so when Michelle was she was I don't, how do I say this politely, the older we get our bodies change. And Michelle has had three babies, three babies. So before Michelle got married, she was, she played volleyball in college. And her, she was, how do I say it? Yeah. Is that okay? What did you say? Yeah. She had good boobs. Oh, I, is that okay to stay on a Christian podcast? I don't know. I don't know how to say it. I guess. She was very attractive. She was a brick house. Yeah. Yeah. We got married. Your body changes. That's how deep I was as a human being. It's like standing at the altar, watching me walk down. If her body changes? That's literally what I thought. I think I remember thinking like, would I love you if you didn't have hair? Yeah. So that was, crazy. That's so funny, then you have your first child. And we find out we're pregnant. And I remember oh man, I have to get my act together. Let's see if she was thinking, the same thing. And we started going to church. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say it's not that we didn't try to go to church before we had kids, like during our marriage. For just a little bit of background, I grew up Methodist and Pete grew up non-denominational I would say more charismatic. So I think even the styles of church and religion that we were used to were very different from one another. When we would try and find a church, I would try and find something that was a little bit more conservative, which he didn't love. And, we would go to different churches and it just felt a little empty for both of us. Like we just never really found anything that felt like it fit. And then yeah, we just stopped really pursuing that, I think until we had Isaac. Yeah. The more I started pursuing God, the more I started pursuing Jesus. What the Holy Spirit had for us. The closer our relationship got. Yeah. And that's really that's. Listen, we were just, we just opened up talking about KLM is a family, right? The church is the Bride of Christ. The more you pursue the Bridegroom the more, you become like the Bride. The more you pursue Jesus, the more you actually realize that you are literally a part of his body, it's physical body on earth. So the more you love to pursue Jesus and recognize his love for you, the more you love yourself. Yeah. Bottom line is we didn't know how to love each other because we didn't love ourselves. Yeah. We didn't respect ourselves. Yeah. We didn't realize the damage we're doing to our own spirits when you're pursuing. Obviously then Isaac's born, we'd go through this bit of repentance. Listen, I've got to honor this kid and I've got to show him what it's like to be a dad first and foremost. How you treat your wife first and foremost, right? The raciness of describing Michelle's body when it wasn't on accident and we don't hear people in the ministry, talk to that way that often. But that's how stupid I was compared to now, when I see this, woman, of God, she's Christ's daughter. She's literally the sister of Jesus Christ. The daughter God and if I don't honor her, I am not honoring him. So that's what we ended up having a to figure out. Yeah, it's amazing. So in 2015, we're going to church by every definition. Being a good church family, we did it right. We went to church on Sunday. In 2015, we had three kids, three boys, and I, we were even tithing. Come on. Like how much of the church tithes, right? Yeah. We were tithing and we did everything except for our hearts weren't after God as much as they should have been. So then I started getting this hunger saying, all right everything works good. I have a beautiful wife, the family. But then I started getting this hunger. Why in the world was I born? What is the whole purpose of it? I hear pastors say, listen to God, do what he tells you to do. Everything will fall into place, but nobody ever teaches you how to hear from God. I wanted to hear, everybody wants to hear. Yeah. Nobody ever teaches you how to do it. So I just got this hunger inside and I just, I started fasting and I remember. Telling her, I wasn't going to eat. And I was like, you think I'm crazy don't I? She's yeah, yes I did. Yes. I'm more of an observer. I think Pete's more of a jump in with two feet when he's got something that's pulling on him, something that he's going after. And I want to sit back and wait and watch and see. So I definitely did that. This journey that he started, I just sat back and watched how this was all going to play out. What is this, what is he doing? What, where is he going? How is this, what does this look like? Is because again, just coming, I think from a more traditional back ground I didn't, believe in praying in tongues. I didn't believe in even just raising your hands and worship. Praying over people, different things like that. So for him to be having these desires to fast or to go after these things, these spiritual things, it was really new to me. And so I just I trusted him. I loved him. So I knew that he wasn't going to do anything crazy, but I didn't really know what it was. So I took a backseat to him and just watched. Yeah. Yeah. He definitely led. We go to Church on Sunday, a lady named Sally, she comes up to me. She says, are you in the ministry? I said no, but I'll do anything the Lord asks me. Sally prophesied and said, I see you in a, just like HG prophesied over you at Kingdom Quake, prophesies, and says, I see you in a conference room teaching your peers during bible study. And I said to her a well, I'm not doing that, but I'll do anything the Lord asks, a few months later, that's exactly what we were doing. Now, that was about seven months after I got that prophecy. And I started, I got a prophetic word and I started believing for that prophetic word. Never taught the Bible to anybody. I was reading it like a rabid, crazy. Just because I wanted to hear God's voice and I was really just looking at feeling for God. That's what the Bible says. And I feel for him. So what I would do is basically, I was like, I was running the race right. There was a having prize that I was being called to and I was just running as fast as I could, all right, God, I'm going to do anything you want. And a part of that was being a good husband, right? Any man who wants to live for God has to have that hunger first. So you can't convince. And there's a lot of people that I've talked to him all the time. They'll say I'm a believer. My wife is not. Or the wife will say, I'm a believer but my husband is not you're not going to convince people like that Jesus is King. Unless you can show them first, we're called to demonstrate power of the Kingdom of God, not just try to convince people the power of the Kingdom. So that's why everything I did. I didn't necessarily explain it to Michelle because I didn't know, but I wanted to show her that I was changed. Because I used to come home and I played video games as a married man. But instead, what I try to do is at least invest some time into her. Now, I don't play video games anymore, it's not exciting. It's rather be with her. And there's that transformation that happens along the way. And that's what she started to see. So I didn't pick at her so much. I tried not to too at least. Still not perfect. But it was just that once you get touched by the finger of God in your life, and this is the difference between religion and everything else, it shows up in your home. And for me, it was out of everything else. When I die, I wanted to be said I was a good husband and a great dad, everything after that, it was only but for God. And that's what I tried to show her and still do every single day. And then God just goes way beyond that to touch other people. But it starts when you wake up in the morning, you seek God. I am looking at her to see if there is anything she would like to add? She likes to be nice to me and I'm nice to her. So there that's pretty much our story so far I get touched by everything I do is to please him. And we look back on things. I lied to her in the first couple of years of our marriage. You know what I do I tell her, hey, listen, I lied to you about this years ago. And it doesn't mean anything to her so much, but it does to me. That's just a constant, you live to be fully transparent and fully naked before your spouse because God, sees everything. So that's kinda how we live life together. Just trying to live as honestly as we can. And knowing that everything that we did. So when I got touched by God in 2015, One of the things that I did was I got baptized. I got baptized when I was 12, but then I went and got baptized when I was 38 years old. And some people would say which is true. You do only need to be baptized once. But I can tell you, I didn't know what I was doing when I was 12 as much as I did when I was 38. So what happened? Pete Norman, the old man was dead and buried. And then I rose up in that baptism, a completely new man, right? The old man is dead and buried is in the pit of hell with the devil, and everything I did before the devil has to deal with it, that's why he hates it so much. So he tries to remind us of all the things we did. And you too got babtized in the Jordan river, right? I did. So I got dedicated and sprinkled as a baby actually I might have as well went through confirmation classes when I was 12 or 13. I'd have to, this is my memory, trying to remember if we did that. I'm sure it was probably part of our confirmation. At the end was that we, just a little dip of the water on the head and that was it. So once, I saw him going through this transformation. It just grew the hunger inside of me of wanting to know the Lord more and wanting to know, is this stuff real? Is there more than what I know? Is there more than what I was taught and just going on that journey myself to knowing God. And they had a trip to Israel and our old church and so Pete and I were both excited, wanting to go, but knowing that we've got young children at home, we certainly couldn't leave for 10, 12 days, the two of us and leave our boys at home. We talked and we asked Pete's parents if they would watch the kids and we asked Pete's mom, if she wanted to go, he was pretty adamant that he felt like I should go on this trip and he would stay home. So his mom and I went to Israel together and his dad stayed home with him and they took care of the kids, getting them to school and all the things. And I realized that for me, when I would read things in the Bible and I would see them, if it wasn't true in my life, if it wasn't part of my life, then I wanted to take that step to do that. Water baptism is immersion baptism was something that you read that was something that Jesus did. And John even says you don't need to do this. And he was like, no, but I do. I'm obeying my father. He was showing us the way. And so when I read that, I remember that just really speaking to me that. I hadn't done that. And if Jesus did it and Jesus thought that it was important to do it, then I needed to do that too. Our old church, I think they did baptisms monthly. And I think when I had this revelation that I needed to have this done they weren't going to be having a baptism again for maybe another month, but saying that we would be going to the Jordan river and we could do it there. So I got water baptized in the Jordan river. For the first time. Oh, wow. That's really cool. That is pretty amazing. So think about that. So everything that she did before that. So think about this for the, for me, I didn't say, Hey, Michelle, believe in Jesus. If you're going to go to hell. No, no it's about the Kingdom come will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. It was on me to change the environment in my home to make that home feel like Heaven is on earth she then gets touched the seed of the Kingdom was planted in me, multiplied through her and will be for generations through our family. And she decides to get baptized in the Jordan river, even though I would've liked to have gone on that trip. I felt like the Lord told her to go. So then she gets baptized. Now, as I told you, the first couple of years of our marriage, we're really bad. They were divorce worthy in every respect, but she gets baptized in the Jordan river. Now, when we look back on it, can I blame her today for anything in the past? No, no, no. That's old Michelle was buried in the Jordan river. New Michelle here who's put on Christ. Who was also dedicated to bring the Kingdom of God to earth, as it is in Heaven. Can I really blame her for anything she did before that? No, I can't. That's old Michelle only satan does that. So I'm not going to partner with the kingdom of darkness to put condemnation on anything from the past, but Philippians 3 says I don't mean to say that I've already achieved these things or reached perfection, but I press on. To possess the perfection for which Christ Jesus, first possessd for me. And then he says, I've not achieved it by focus on this one thing forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize, for which God through Christ Jesus, is calling us. The Heavenly prize that God's calling us to do is fulfilled in marriage. Family, everything that emanates outside of the house. And yeah, if you're going to have a strong marriage, it's forgetting the past and looking forward. Because what happened to Lot's wife. She looked back, she turned into a pillar of salt. Why, because she's frozen in time. You looked at the past you'll be frozen in that spot. The enemy can attack, not just you, your marriage and then your children's and then their children's we're fighting battles. Now that our children will not have to fight because we've won successful. And that's why to me Heavenly Hookup, it's just that you're hooking arms to do battle for future generations that God's trusted you for. It's way more intense than we give credit for, marriage. That's why God said it's a picture of Christ and the church whenever he puts it together, let no man tear apart. Why is that? It's a picture of Christ in the church and it's not church on Sundays and churches is the body of Christ called to do battle we're soldiers of the Kingdom of God. And how we do battles first and foremost is what? Love God, love your neighbor. Jesus said, if you love me, you'll obey my commands. And guess what? That command runs right through your marriage. Husband's love your wives, love your husband. Yeah. And I think you can see that. Your relationship with God is reflected in your relationship with other people. And I think our marriage has been such a picture of that, that before we had really given our lives to the Lord and made him put him as king of our lives, you could see that we didn't have a relationship with the Lord because we didn't have a good relationship with one another. And the closer as Pete said, we draw to the Lord individually. That transformation starts to happen and just organically through the kingdom, we start to change towards one another and we can, forgive one another more quickly, repent before one another, bring these things to each other. We can let go of the past. We can, do all of these things have, we don't even really fight. I would say any more. I think we have discussions, but there's a, there's just such a respect for one another that I, I can't think of something that I would say, oh, that's the hill I'm going to die on with him. There's compromise. There's deference towards one another. There's just learning. I don't have to have my way. That's not what's important, being a peacemaker and keeping peace. And for me, what's important to him. And being able to lay down what I think is important to put his, what his feelings above my own. Yeah. Yeah. And my last thought is just on this, he truly put God first. And like I said, the early years we could have gotten divorced and everybody would have said, yeah you should. But there's a thing of fighting through it. And once you, both of you have to be committed to fighting through it. Yeah, but fighting through it, not for the sake of fighting, because we could not have fixed our problem period, but it took us going after God to look back and be like, wow. It's amazing how I get baptized. Like at a conference, just like you went to a Kingdom Quake. I too went to a conference in my home church and I was like, I need to get baptized and I did it on the spot and then she gets baptized in Jordan river, we weren't even together. And it happened. That's amazing how the new Pete and the new Michelle rose up together to love Christ to actually really, truly be bonded marital partners we were intended to be, so that would be my advice, to people. That's the Kingdom of God. Peter, when he stood up to and act on the day of Pentecost, he stepped forward and then preached the kingdom and 3000 people were added to the church. You first step, there's a prophetic act in everything you do. You don't believe that you need to get baptized, go and do it again. I wouldn't say you can't right. You know what? I would do it every single day to show my wife I am better. Oh, that's so good. You're telling me a lot of things I haven't heard before. So that was a treat. Yeah. The whole thing about the baptism. I never thought of it that way, where once you've been, or even once you've given your life to Christ that the enemy keeps trying to bring back your past, but it's already gone. It's dead and buried. You rise out of the water, when you give your life, the Bible says you're a new creation in Christ, behold, all things are made new. So when you're a new creation in Christ in the Greek new Crete creature coded one that never existed. So when Camille surrenders to Jesus Christ that new creation, there's never been another human being in the history of mankind ever. Been created, like Camille never will be created. Never ever to be seen ever again. There's only one of you. And then all things are new, which means, yes, there are consequences of your actions, but guess what? All things worked out for good, for those who love him. Right? Love, your defined as Jesus says, you love me you will obey my commands. So if you live in obedience and surrender to him, all of your circumstances will work out. For your good because God uses everything. The key there being totally surrendered. I hear people all the time say no, it's God's will this, no, no, no if you surrender to him and then his will be all things are good for you. And that's we just have to live surrendered lives. As long as we're surrendered to him, everything's going to go not great. Your circumstances. Aren't gonna be great. Know what, he's in charge of, not just current circumstances, dealing with your past circumstances as he leads you into the future. That's what marriage is. I can't blame Michelle, for anything that she did in her 20's. I just can't. She did our first couple of years of marriage, because quite frankly, that's exactly what satan does, if you look at, I am not going to partner with the devil to condemn Michelle. Yeah, we have to see each other's that new creation that, not bringing up, you always do this or you never do this these statements, that we have to give each other grace and realizing that we are being transformed. So sometimes we may behave in an old manner or an old pattern that we need to lay down and we need to just surrender to the Lord. Giving each other grace, to know that we are dedicated to the Lord. We're dedicated to one another. And knowing that if I mess up, Pete's not going to accuse me. That's huge just having that trust with your spouse, that you can come to them and be able to say, and with a heart of repentance and know that you're going to be received in a good way. Like that you become to the Lord and repent before the Lord. And he is always quick to forgive and to be able to have that then with your spouse as well is really huge. Yeah. And I think for me with baptism one of the things that really helped me silence that voice of the enemy was that when Jesus died on the cross and he died for our sins. And he died for that. When you give your life to him and you're baptized, like I don't have that old Michelle is gone. So I don't have the right to grab onto that. I don't have the right to look back at all my past mistakes anymore because Jesus bought that life. He paid for that life, with his blood. And so I've got to be able to just let that go. I've got to be able to bring it and all that does when Satan tries to bring that stuff up is maybe that's a place you need to go, and pray before the Lord and repent for that past thing and bring that up to the Lord because when you bring it to the light, it loses its power and satan can't come and accuse you anymore. And you can say. No that's done. That's old. Michelle. You don't get to talk to me about that anymore. I'm a new creation and live in that place. Wow. That's so good. You guys ministered to me just right now. It's amazing. As we wrap it up here, is there anything that you would like to add for people who are married or for singles who are looking to get married? Yeah, for one is chase after God. Can't unless you learn the love of the Father, you go through a partnership with the Holy Spirit. You won't be able to love yourself until you love yourself, you won't be ready to love others. That's where I would say to anybody that is single. Talk to him like he was your dad. I told him, dad, listen, I want to get married, or, I want to love my spouse, I would say, I'd ask until you bring that person to me, fill that void, watch what he does. I think one of the scariest things that people who go to hell. Hell was not made for people. Hell was made for the devil and fallen angels and people go there because they have a choice. Why, we are made to worship and you will follow whatever you worship, if you worship Jesus Christ as your Lord, Heaven's your place. If you worship money as your Lord, Hell is where you're going to go, and you're going to be bound by that money for eternity. So that's an example. So I would say, he's not a far out being like this, he is so intimate and hell is that place where people for eternity realize, how close he is. Think about this in Genesis one, he said, light be Jesus Christ is the light of the world. We make things so difficult Camille. Light is of God. Hell is darkness. The bottomless pit of darkness. What does that tell you? Light is of God. You're surrounded by light. Paul says in him, we live and move and have our being that's light. Yeah. Light is God and I don't he's that close. So let's not find out. Let's not wait to desire the intimacy for Heaven. When you could have him now, ask him for that intimacy, that you so desire of a spouse. A future spouse or a current spouse, ask him to fill that intimacy with me now. So you can probably get the thing that about Michelle and me. It's not that we met each other's needs, then our needs are met first in Christ. And then out of that intimacy, we have with them out of that intimacy with the light of the Lord, we then turned to each other. So first for future spouses prepare. Be prepared with the intimacy of the light of this world. Be prepared. With the intimacy of the holy spirit now? Because guess what? God wants to touch every single person on this planet and be prepared now because that next person who could cross your path could be the one that you're destined to marry. Don't miss it by not being filled with the intimacy of the Lord. That's all. That's what, I would say. So you're saying, if you're not prepared in the Holy Spirit and the other let's say you're not prepared and the other person is prepared and God may not bring you two together because you're not where you're supposed to be. Is that what you're saying? Or no, it's a, God's all. Yeah. That or God's telling you, and you're not hearing it, God's telling you who the person is, but you're just not hearing. Huh? That's the thing. Michelle and I were going through, like I said, we're going to a really hard those first couple of years, I could have said, enough I'm done. Clearly as much as you know us we're meant to be together. Yeah. We just have to fight through it. So be prepared by having intimacy with the Lord. And at that moment, he will tell you. Does that make sense? Yup. Yep. Yeah. I think Pete's touching on kind of what I was thinking too, is just, like meeting someone is never gonna be your fulfillment. Like you're not going to be fulfilled in your spouse. There's you know, so to look for that, but I think that. It's good to have. If you have the desire to get married, that's fantastic. The Lord is probably giving you that desire and, just being close to him, you've got to be able to have value for yourself. Honor yourself. Love yourself. As Pete said to be able to come together then as a couple in marriage and as we've talked about, right? It's that individual journey that then culminates into a good marriage and you're always, even after 18 years of marriage, we're still working on ourselves and it just flows from that place into our marriage and towards one another. So you're not looking for somebody to just fulfill you if you're already married. Don't look to your spouse to change. If there's issues in your marriage, you've got to always be introspective. You've always got to be looking at yourself. First and foremost, and having relationship with the Lord and being intimate with him is huge. And it's, that's just going to strengthen your marriage if you have, if you're married and if you're not. I fully believe that, Jesus says that we are the light as he is the light. And as you are filled with the Lord that light's going to draw people to you. And it's going to, if you're following the Lord, he's gonna put you in the places that you need to be in. He's going to introduce you to the people that you need to meet and just trusting in him and trusting in his timing I think is where you need to be. Because as Pete and I have said there's. We can look back and see where our, how many times our paths could have crossed and even in college knowing one another, but never being drawn to one another and in a romantic way until it was the right time. And even with the issues within our marriage that we had there was never. A time of like really, getting divorced. It just wasn't something that was on either of our hearts. And so just knowing that, that whole time through the struggles and through everything that like the Spirit was there, like we were still being lived by the Spirit, even if we didn't know we were. And just trusting in that. Yeah. It's hard earned, man. This is a hard earned it's a hard earned hour. We just spent with you. It took 18 years to get to this point of comfort and it's not perfect. That's a good point. We don't want people to leave with like, oh, wow everything is perfect. Okay, marriage is hard work. Yeah, and it took 18 years to get there. So that is a good point. All right. Thank you guys so much. I love you. And I appreciate you spending the time with me today, and I think people are gonna really be blessed by your message. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode and thank you to my guests, Pete and Michelle Norman for sharing their fun and transformational love story, you can contact them@klmdc.org. For more episodes of a Heavenly Hookups please follow us on Instagram at Heavenlyhookup_S. I'm Camille Battaglia we'll see you next time on Heavenly Hookups.