Love & the Outcome: Two Become One

Lots of people joke that married couples end up pitching his stuff keeping her stuff and adding on new stuff. How did you merge your two lives, both in a physical, visceral sense and an emotional, spiritual one?

CHRIS: Jodi is definitely more design-oriented than I am (although I think my tastes are improving), so our first two homes had her special touch all over them and I’ve really come to appreciate her style! Our home in Nashville is nothing fancy, but she has a gift of adding a few things here and there that make it seem magazine-worthy! When we sold our home two years ago we tried to only keep what we thought was valuable to us personally; when we moved all that stuff down to Nashville we realized so much of it didn’t matter anymore considering how much time we spend on the road. It has made me really appreciate little things in life a lot more. Little moments that can only happen while sipping coffee on the porch together… The crazy thing about our life is that those moments happen on stage as well. You can’t really describe it; it’s a personal connection between us and God.

JODI: We are both pretty minimalistic people. I guess that comes from life on the road, and learning what you need in your suitcase and what you can do without.  Plus, selling everything we owned and rebuilding our home in Nashville was a great chance to gain new perspective. We realized we don’t need a lot to be happy, and we don’t have a lot to spend so it works out!  One day, if and when we have more resources in this area, we will try our best to hold on to these values. When you have space in your life, there’s more room for the Lord to speak.  We tend to live so cluttered in North America, which can make it hard to see, hear, sense the Lord when you don’t leave any room for Him to move and prompt. We’re trying to create space for Him. It’s nice to be on the same page when it comes to our core values as a couple, but we are very individual people which makes it a rich relationship. The last thing I would ever want is for Chris to lose who he is or for the two of us to merge into one personality. Unity doesn’t mean you lose your individuality!