59. Richard De La Mora: The Pastor Who Married An Ex-Porn Star

Welcome to episode #59!

In this week's episode, Richard De La Mora shares how he's been able to look past the history that his wife has in the porn industry and see her instead as a product of God's grace and transformation!

Honesty leads to intimacy...but pray about it!
Honesty and conversation leads to intimacy. Richard wanted to know everything about his wife's past because he desired for her to know that he fully loved her despite her past. You have to be ready to hear things that you don't want to hear though. If you're not ready to hear certain things about your partner's past, maybe wait and pray for God's help and guidance in having these hard and awkward conversations. If you can get to where you can be fully open with each other about everything and both have mature responses, your intimacy in marriage will be incredible.

Richard took the bullets out of the gun of the enemy
From when Richard started dating Brittni all the way up to the current day, Britt's old fans have been sending him pictures of her from her old line of work. They've put these pictures on his public Facebook page, taunted him with names and tried to make him insecure. Richard got ahead of this though, by asking Brittni to tell him everything she had ever done. It hurt in the moment, but he wanted everything out so that when others would send him things, nothing was going to catch him by surprise. He didn't want to leave any room for Satan to come and cause division and insecurity in his marriage with Brittni.

Strength and wisdom comes from daily intimacy with Jesus
For Richard to be able to see Brittni as a beautiful woman of God and a product of grace, even in the midst of receiving pictures and videos from her old fans, he has to draw on a power that only comes from intimacy with Christ. He gets up at 5am every morning to spend time with God. He meditates on God's word instead of just reading it to get it done. He dwells on the wisdom and love of the Lord as he lives his days so that he can live in the wisdom, strength, and grace of the Lord. Because of this, he's been able to withstand things would bring most men down. Now, whenever he gets reminded of her past, he thanks God for the reminder of what He brought his wife out of and for his transformative work in her life.

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Next week, Matt and Braden chat with the director of Pure Desire Ministries, Nick Stumbo, on how to live a life free of shame even after battling addiction for many years.

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BRADEN HAFNER

Braden is the Regional Director in Alberta for FamilyLife Canada. He has been married for 12 years to his wife Kristen, and they live in Edmonton, Alberta. He is passionate about seeing marriages gr