Marriage is a journey. One that is best traveled with support and trusted advisors.
Join the Walters as they chat about all things marriage with their support couple, the Moores.
Ramel and Shirley Moore of Fortified Life Church, located in Rhode Island, discuss how to know you're ready for marriage, the importance of having God within your marriage, and what chasing your individual dreams look like within a marriage. They are dropping gems you don't want to miss!
Let's get right into todays' part one of The Walters's Couch w/The Moores!
Visit our Podcast page to listen online, Google Podcast Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Show Notes:
Get Connected with Ramel & Shirley Moore.
Get Caught Up with Episode 9: F.R.E.E.D.O.M. Method Part 3
The Walters's Couch w/The Moores - Pt1 - Transcription
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Shekinah: Hey, y'all, and welcome to our newest episode of the Truth and Promises podcast. This is another from the Walters' Couch. Of course, when you're here with us in our living room, my husband is here, say, Hey, I hope y'all can hear him. Y'all know he talks a little low. But we also invited our pastors, our marriage counselors. Our big sister and brother, virtually to our couch, they are not here in Minnesota with us, but one day, one day soon, and we'll have to do another episode of this. But, they are here virtually on the Walters' Couch, and I said I would plug this. One of the reasons we have the Walters' Couch is because of the Moores' Couch. So I will open this up for Ramel and Shirley Moore to go ahead and tell you a little about themselves, and then we'll dive into our conversation.
Shirley: Well, thank you for having us. We are so excited, first of all, to be on your couch, virtually. And then, second of all, to just spend some quality time with our little brother and sister and just celebrate their accomplishments.
We're just so proud of you guys and grateful to be a part of your lives. And so you want us to introduce ourselves? I mean, where do we start? So we are Ramel and Shirley Moore. And we've been married 12 years, that we've been married. Woo.
Justin: Yeah, these are the people that I'll talk about and said, you know, they are the key to us and helping us get to where we are. So, yeah, I don't, I'm not what, I'm sorry. I'm not good with dates. I know y'all been married a long time. More than me, so that counts.
Ramel: That's too funny. Yeah. So we've been married...
Shekinah: So happy 12th anniversary.
Ramel: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, we've been married 12 years, and for us, every year that we are married, it's a milestone, it's a... it's bigger than it's a testimony because we got married three months after we met. So we met and then three months later we got married.
Shirley: So in the most, I don't want to say illegitimate, cause that's not the right way, but the most, the most, not the conventional way.
Ramel: So every time we celebrate our anniversary, where we also are slapping in the face to haters who thought we wouldn't make it this long and the naysayers. So, haters, we are still together!
Shirley: We're both alive.
Shekinah: I love it. So what do you all do from day today? What are your occupations?
Shirley: That's a that's a that's a loaded question.
So I guess I'll start by saying that I have a Master's in Organizational Management and Leadership. And so, for the last year, I've been working as a consultant on restructuring, a nonprofit organization here in Rhode Island. And that was like, sort of like, not the beginning, but like the biggest contract that I've got for my consulting firm.
And then I've owned for the last five years in interpreting and translation firm, serving really now, or kind of international, we're kind of all over the place, but really just helping people communicate and integrate into their communities. And then we're pastors, we're senior pastors of Fortified Life Church.
Shekinah: Church, this side of heaven.
Shirley: Praise God. And What did I leave out? We're parents to an amazing ten-year-old who is a ball of energy and just a blessing to everyone he meets.
Ramel: Yep. We are parents. I have a background in...
Shirley: These are like... Is this the most loaded question you're going to ask us today? Cause this is like our struggle. Like yeah, we do everything,
Ramel: We literally do everything. I am an entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur for the last 12 years or more. I don't even remember at this point. I own a business called Coach Mel Moore, LLC, which is twofold. Right. I currently am doing training for basketball-specific. So I am a basketball coach. I coach at a prep school. But I do individual training. I've trained the whole person, which is the player as well as the person. And then I'm transitioning right now into Coach Mel Moore the, coaching life coaching portion of it, where I will be doing some Christian life coaching, teaching people how to get from where they are to where God will have them to be. So that's what I'm currently doing and transition right now. So I'm taking classes and things like that. Trying to transition my life over to the next stage. Just turned 41 not too long ago. So I'm trying to make these next 40 years look like something special. So that's what I'm doing. Yes.
Shirley: And there's something you started last night that the world needs to know, especially Shekinah.
Ramel: I am, I am, I am soon to be an author of my first book. I can't, I can't give it too much information, too many details, but it will be, yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a revolutionary book. It's going to be something that you've never seen, and within a book setting, it's going to be something that's interactive. It's going to be different. And I'm super excited about it. I started a course, a writing course. That's going to help me publish and put together everything, every single part of it. So I'm excited about that. And then we also just.
Shekinah: This is the loaded part of this question. Like, they do everything. You name it, they got. Also, Ramel will sell anything. I think selling most of the stuff out of my apartment as we moved here to Minneapolis.
This is a couple of many talents and blessings.
Shirley: We're working on something else. That's kind of been paused. But yeah.
Ramel: We have something else in the works. I don't know why we just don't say it.
Shirley: You know, the interesting thing is that one of the things that have been interesting on our journey is that we've really been successful in a lot of areas, but very separate. And so God, in this season, God is bringing us together. And so we're working on a project together that was set to launch on Black Friday. And unfortunately, the platform that I built it on suspended my account. So I'm still waiting for my account to be reactivated. Yeah. So we're working on a merchandise line where we're famous for having like one-liners.
So we have shirts, hoodies, mugs, water bottles, stuff like that coming out soon. Yeah. Yeah.
Ramel: So one of the things that God is showing us in this season is that you are not fulfilling your calling. If you're, if there's no part of your calling, that is you two working together that you and your wife are working together.
So for us, it would behoove us to not work together and, and have a business together to work together, to work together. So we want to make sure that we're fulfilling our calling, our purpose. We've married; we might as well make money together.
Shirley: And it took us 12 years to learn that lesson.
Shekinah: Yeah, I was going to say, how did it take so long?
Shirley: Yeah. I'll let you share.
Ramel: Well, of, one of the reasons why it takes so long, or it took us so long to get to that part, is we've always been afraid to work together. If I'm being honest, she's completely different. She works differently. I work differently than her. So in our working styles, we've always shied away from it because of quote-unquote differences. But what we understand and what we are starting to understand is that in our different working styles, we should still be able to get a common goal accomplished. And that's what we've been trying to work on. So she's very literal and technical, technical, and detailed, and I'm very much a visionary.
Why would those two things come together and work together? And to be, if we're being completely honest, some of the ways that she was, or that she is, frustrates me, and some of the ways that I am frustrate her, to no end to no end. So we had to, we had to figure out how to; I'm so glad you asked this question.
We had to figure out how do we put our frustrations aside so that we could live in our purpose. And as we decided to do that, God has also helped us understand that what I'm frustrated about with her is her business, not mine that's between her and God. Right. I get frustrated about it as her husband, but the fact of the matter is it ain't none of my business. My job is to pray and be yield to the way she is, regardless of how she is. She's my wife. Right.
Shirley: I think, I think just to interject there, I think another thing that we've learned is that the very things that frustrated us about each other were the reasons why God brought us together and the things that we admired about each other. Right. And so it's interesting when we first got married, where Mel launched a business, and at the time, I had no business experience.
Right. But I had managed like group homes. And so I knew about like budgets and like mingling funds and doing this and doing that. And so I would like to give him feedback on stuff that was happening or like, maybe you should consider this, or maybe you should talk to so-and-so or, you know what I mean? Like I was trying to help him, and he would like to push me away. And so that made me not want to be involved. It also made me not want to be involved in his business and his staff. And it made him feel like I was trying to mother him. Right. And so I think that with time, what we're coming to realize are like, that was God trying to, like, if we would have partnered on that and we would have worked together that business would have been a million-dollar business by now, right.
12 years in that would have been a huge business, but because we never caught the vision together and we never looked at each other, like, you're the iron that sharpens my iron. Right. And like, I need you, like, you know, people believe in the ying and the yang, right? Like they make a perfect circle when you put them.
So like, I, you, he needs me to be complete in the business world, and I need him to be complete in the business world and in life. Right. And so I feel like now we realize that, you know, the strengths that we have individually are actually complimentary of each other and create a better product for the kingdom.
Ramel: And I think one of the things that we, we, we start to understand too, is that the kingdom trumps our differences like getting the job done, getting what we're supposed to do for the kingdom, trumps, whatever differences we have. And here's where it gets really crazy. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. So why wouldn't he plant seeds? And us to not work together? Because he wants to stop the vision. He wants to stop the progress. And I'm going to tell you straight up, my wife would tell me things before, and I would hear it completely different than what she meant it, or even what she said at times. And it's literally because he was robbing my hearing of what it was really meant to be. And I would take it wrong. I would take it. I would take it offensively. I would, you know, I would be offended by it, so forth and so on. And one day, God showed me, you're not hearing her correctly. And what I had to do was I literally had to pray and say, God, I want to hear my wife, but I don't want to hear her from my past hurt or my past pains or my past rejections or my insecurities.
I want to hear her from an open heart. I want to hear her from a place of refuge and know that you gave me this woman, and that's what I started to do. I started to hear her better and really listen to her for what she was truly saying and not for some of the information that I was getting wrong.
Sometimes when you don't, then you don't hear. It leaves room for the devil to give you a different interpretation. So sometimes you got to lean in and really fight to hear your spouse so that there's no room for different things to be said in your ear.
Shekinah: Yeah. I like that. I think about, as you say that I think about hearing, my dad often say, "don't be mad or you're mentally available for the devil." and sometimes when you're not hearing your partner, the way that they are actually what they're actually expressing, that's what happens. You end up getting really mad about being mentally available for the devil. And then you run down all these pathways fighting against your partner. This is something we've talked about in marriage counseling, quite a bit with y'all about how you have to realize you're in this together.
So was that like another level of realization for y'all in this whole pursuing business together? Pursuing purpose together? I realized we're not just in this marriage together; we're in this business together. We're in purpose together and all that good stuff.
Ramel: Yeah.
Shirley: Definitely. I think, you know, I think it's real, it's been a process of like developing, not just the, like getting the revelation, but then also building the trust and rebuilding each other's confidence. Right. Because obviously, when you can't hear, you end up breaking people or breaking trust. And so I think that we've gone on this or we're on this journey, right? Like I don't, I don't, we're not quite done yet, but we're on this journey just realizing that it takes both of us to get to where we're going, right? Like there's a reason why God put us together. And three months later, said y'all need to get married because this is it right. That wasn't by accident. And so, you know, I feel like, you know, just to reference the 40 years in the wilderness that the Israelites spent, I felt like we had our own wilderness, in search of like unity in our marriage and unity in business and in life and, and everything else. And I mean, you know, my husband always had his mom and dad. They're still married. They're still together today. But I, I come from a broken home. I was raised by a single mom, and I've never seen successful marriages. So, you know, we were just trying to figure this thing out, piece this thing out, the best we could, and we had to stumble forward. And by the grace of God, 12 years later, we're still here. Right? Like.
Justin: Yeah, I guess I want to change the subject. And I guess to harp on what Shirley said, so for people who come from similar backgrounds as you, where, you know, you haven't seen successful marriages, or you haven't seen those fruits around you, how do you suggest they go about approaching those relationships and approaching marriage? Because I think, you know, especially in, you know, minority communities, you know, it's few and far between where you see those examples, right? So how do we, you know, help other people to see that it's possible and what to look to and how to guide yourself in that direction?
Shirley: Man, a couple of things. Number one, I just want to say that my generation has broken that. I mean, I look at guys my age, so many of our friends, they're still with their spouses, they're taking care of their kids, and I don't know what their family life looks like. Right. But they're present. And like, you see, I see that in my generation. Yeah. There are still those, those few and far, you know, that are still doing their stuff. But I feel like our generation has gotten it. We experienced fatherlessness. Right. And so we've set out on this journey to break that curse, and we're, we're like, I keep saying we're, we're, we're stumbling forward through it, but we're figuring it out. And so I just want to say that, like at this point and I just prophesied that that won't be the next generation's experience, right? Like they're not going to have to do this, but I say that at this point, the greatest thing that you can do is hang on to people, find those mentors, you know we teach marriage on the rock and one of the things we taught two nights ago. And one of the things that Jimmy Evans was saying in the video, he said, you know, only in marriage is it that you don't get the experience. Like you go to work. The more experience you get, the better you get at it. Right? And like, and he's like in marriage, you don't get the same credit. Typically the statistics show that the further into it you get, the worse the marriage gets unless you work at it. And it made me realize that you need mentors, right?
Like the one thing that I praise God for, and, and I think it has, has been the thing that held us together this whole time. Is that we got married on December 3rd, but that January A Marriage on the Rock class started. And so we just jumped into it. So we were like fresh newlyweds going through this course.
Right. So that gave us a really strong foundation, but it also gave us a community, and it gave us mentors. So we had people that we went to, and we've always consistently sought people that would like to counsel us to walk us through issues. Whenever there was anything that was bad, we always called up. Not just prayed up about called up. Like, we need to meet, we need to meet now because there's going to be a homicide in this house.
And I just say, you know, just because you haven't seen it done doesn't mean it can't be done. Right. Like, you know, Peter had never seen anybody walk on water, but Jesus called him out, and he stepped out. And I think as long as we follow the voice of God, he's going to walk with us. But then also you have to be humble enough to know what you don't know and to seek the support that you're going to need to get to know those things.
Ramel: I think that's a great question, Justin. And I just want to piggyback on to what my wife said. We have to also think about it like this; just because you don't know, or you haven't seen it, does not give you an excuse to not be great at it. Right. Anyone who's ever done anything like any invention that was ever made was an invention that was never made, right? Like no one has seen it, right. No one, no one had it. Right. But they, but they put the work in to get it done. And I think that's the same exact concept for marriage. And here's the deal. Seek counsel. Right. One of the reasons why I think we started to see this change in marriage sticking it through and staying together is because the people before them didn't see it, they didn't have it, but they didn't leave that as an option. Right. That wasn't their option. They said to themselves, I don't see it. I don't have that kind of a thing in front of me. I don't see that marriage in front of me, but I'm going to seek counsel on how to do this the correct way. Right. And they didn't just leave it as, oh, marriage is just don't work. Right. They believed that they could, so they. And I just think that's so important whether you see it or not. Listen, ain't no marriage working without faith. No matter what. Cause it ain't, it ain't, it ain't working without faith. So it's going to take faith to get in it. It's going to take faith to get through it. So I just think that you know, you just got to have a level of faith that's going to push you, push you past what you didn't have.
Shirley: Yeah. It's funny. You know, one of the things that I think for us has been real from the beginning is like, we understood that we were never going to be ready to be married. Like it was just, there wasn't a that was never going to be a day when we were going to be like, yeah, it's time. I hit that point. That was never going to happen. It was never going to happen. It's like we jump in, and we figure it out. And there are certain words we're just never going to say. Like the D-word. We're just never going to say that word. It's just never going to exist in our home. You cool? I'm cool. You're gonna love me. I'm gonna love you. We're good.
Shekinah: And let me just point out that Shirley refuses to say the D-word, and for those who don't know what, that is best divorced, but she did say homicide, though.
Shirley: Yes, the other D word, death, until death do us part.
But I think, I think, you know, we spend a lot of time, or I should say folks spending a lot of time planning these weddings and these like huge events and those things, that you spend so much time focused on that. And then they come, and they go, like, they're just gone. Like now, all you have is this memory of this event. You have this whole life to live and all these things that you have to figure out together. And those are the pieces that folks are not; they're not looking into from the start. And so they get married, and they're like, oh my God, I never know these things. I can't deal with this stuff. But he looked fine in his suit that day. We had the perfect flowers.
Justin: I think that was great that you guys said that because, you know, I feel like, especially in our generation, people think that, you know, everything has to be perfect. And I feel like I, you know before I got married to Shekinah, I felt that same way. I was like, oh, I need this before, my bank account needs to be like this, you know, my life, I need to be this way in my life, et cetera.
But you know, I'm, I'm glad you guys mentioned that faith is honestly what gets you there because you're just never ready. You know, you're always growing, things, always changing, and you just really have to take the leap, you know, leap of faith and say, all right, this is a woman for me. You know, I'm a man for her, and we're gonna make this commitment, and we're going to stick to it.
And You know, I think that was awesome that you guys said that.
Ramel: I just want to say this really quickly.
Shirley: I just want to take some credit really before you met Shekinah. The truth of the matter is when you met us, let's just be real when you met us. And I met the Moores, as I realized
Justin: Yes. Yeah. And give credit to them. They helped me get there, you know, because I had a mental block, you know, I had a real big block.
Ramel: Yeah. So, so one of them, one of the keys to us getting married, was this. We said to ourselves...
Shirley: We old...
Ramel: Yeah, we up there, there we go.
Shirley: No, we were almost 28. I was a few, few weeks short of 28. He was 29.
Ramel: Yeah. People get married way after that.
Shekinah: Wait, you're not that old. I was practically almost 28.
Justin: That's a good age.
Shekinah: But I will say though, the generation before you did get married younger, so that could also be a generational thing to think like, oh, we're old.
Ramel: Not to mention we, you know, we both been through a lot like I was 29, but I'm really like, I'm 55 in the street years. Like a lot older than you know, when we got married, but I will. And I, and I will say this, you know, we, we can say all of the things, but the fact that the matter is. We got married because we believed that God would help us in our marriage. We don't even, we don't get married. We don't last this long if we don't lean on God.
And that's just that simple. So when I say, you know, have faith, I'm saying have faith in God, like, Lord, I like this. I like her. You like her from me. We like each other, like, let's get married, and we're going to believe that you're going to carry us through. And I truly believe that you know, that's the rock you need in any situation.
Right. It's not the rock that goes on the finger. It's the rock that you stand on to keep that marriage going. And, you know, I just think that that, that part is the, is the, is the real thing, right? Yeah, we, we, we only rock, we needed the rock of Jesus.
Shekinah: So much - so how did y'all invite people to your wedding via text message?
Shirley: Yeah, and we send text messages from Blackberries at one o'clock, and we were like, Hey, we're getting married at three 30 at the church. If you want to come by, come through. The funny thing is that the church had had a funeral that morning.
So they, the pastor, and his kids decorated the church with funeral flowers. Then that's how we got married. He was in his basketball uniform, and I was in a black and some jeans and a black button-down.
Justin: Because we have fruit
Shekinah: Justin was like, we got married fast. I was like, Nah, we got married slow according to my parents and also according to Ramel and Shirley. We took a month to plan our wedding, but theirs was planning two and a half hours.
Shirley: And not even by us.
Ramel: I texted my mom about the wedding, and she didn't even live here. She wasn't even in the state,
I got married twice, and my mom hasn't been there for either one.
I married the same woman. Justin, relax.
I married the same woman twice. Let me explain it for y'all get crazy. When we got married, when we got married, the first time we said to ourselves, we're going to actually do a real wedding on our ten-year anniversary. And my wife would mention it every single year. You never proposed to me.
You never proposed to me. So I wanted to make sure that I proposed to her and I got down on one knee on 10 year anniversary. And I proposed to her and I got her a real ring with a real, with a real.
And we got married on our 10 year anniversary, again.
Shirley: We've renewed our vows on a cruise; we did the Western Caribbean with 37 of our friends and family. It was a blast.
Shekinah: Yeah. We kind of got married twice. Sorta...
Justin: Pandemic, you know, cause that, you know, could we have families in different locations, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Shekinah: You'll do it all over again. Right. Maybe on a cruise nine years from now.
Shirley: The best thing is that only the people that love you are going to come cause they got to pay. That's the best.
Shekinah: We didn't come, but I love y'all, though. Just, you know, I was a college student. I was broke.
Shirley: No, but yeah. We got married twice. I feel like our vow renewal was like a testimony, you know? There were so many people, I mean, until this day, my brother is avid. He reminds us regularly, "yo, I never thought you guys were gonna make it." I was like that they are just trying to do stuff. That's why they are getting married. Cause that's how Christians role, that's all my, my brother says, and he says year after year, he just looks at us, and he's like, I can't believe it. Like, I can't believe what you guys have done and what you've built, and it is just a testimony of who God is.
Justin: That's awesome.
Shekinah: As always I'm so happy that y'all could take a listen to today's episode of the Truths and Promises podcast. If you want to connect with me or 1140 Glory, go on over to 1140glory.com. There you can find show notes under our blog section, sign up for our email lists or join our online community.
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