7 Years In: What Marriage Taught Me About Shepherding a Home

The Love Enthusiast

June 2026 • A Reflection by Durrell Brown

Shannel and I have a secret most people don't know: from our first date to engaged to married took less than seven months.

We laugh about it now — how fast it all moved, how little sense it probably made to anyone watching from the outside. But seven years later, that whirlwind has settled into something steadier than I could've imagined back then. And every anniversary, I find myself less interested in celebrating the day we said "I do," and more interested in what the years since have actually taught me. So this year, instead of a tribute, I wanted to write a confession. A few, actually.

Confession one: if it doesn't come out of your mouth, it wasn't said.

I'm a processor. I'll have a whole conversation in my head — work it out, resolve it, move on — and somewhere in there I convince myself I actually said it out loud. I didn't. Marriage has shown me, more than anything else, that the breakdown almost always happens right there: in the gap between what I meant to say and what I actually said. I'm learning to communicate in real time, even when it's messy, even when it means a follow-up conversation later. Saying the imperfect thing now beats saying the perfect thing never.

Confession two: I am wired to go, do, and be — marriage is teaching me to slow down.

That wiring isn't a flaw. It's served me well in ministry, in coaching, in every room I've ever had to move. But marriage doesn't run on momentum — it runs on presence. Shannel doesn't need me to do more for her nearly as often as she needs me to slow down and actually be with her. Heading into year seven, that's the pace I want to lean into more, not less: intentional, present, unhurried.

Confession three: praying together isn't optional — it's vital.

We celebrated this anniversary with a staycation in Montecito/Santa Barbara, and one evening we prayed together in bed while preparing for sleep. By the time we woke up the next morning, we had an answer. Not a coincidence — a confirmation of something I already knew but needed re-taught: praying individually keeps me close to God. Praying together keeps us close to each other and to God at the same time. There's an intimacy in shared prayer that nothing else replicates, and it's something Shannel and I have to keep choosing, on purpose, again and again.

Confession four: I am a shepherd to my family before I am a shepherd to anyone else.

It's easy to pour into people who don't know you well — there's no mirror in the room. It's much harder to be the shepherding voice and presence to the people who see you at your most unfiltered. But the order has to be God, then my wife, then my family, then everything else the world gets from me. If I can't be that man inwardly and outwardly at home, I have to ask myself honestly whether I'm truly living the calling I preach. My family doesn't get the leftovers of who I am — they get the first and best of it, before anyone else does.

To Shannel — you said yes seven years ago, and somehow, you keep saying yes. To the moves, the seasons, the late nights, the dreams I haven't fully figured out yet. You rarely say no, and I don't think you realize what a superpower that is. You make things happen. You are, without exaggeration, the glue that holds all of this together.

I love you, babe.

With love,

Durrell Brown

The Love Enthusiast