If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, as one well-known author asserts, then two worlds collided on a sunny winter afternoon at the CCM Magazine offices in Nashville, Tennessee. Gathered around a conference room table, five couples in the Christian music industry convened to discuss life, love and what makes marriage one of God’s greatest blessings as well as one of life’s most difficult challenges. The participants were Phil and Bernadette Keaggy, David and Shelley Breen (Shelley is a member of Point of Grace), Nathan and Christy Nockels (Watermark), Andrew and Jamie Peterson and Andrea and Drew Baca (Andrea and her two sisters make up Out of Eden).

Though the couples invol

Phil recalled immediately noticing the pretty young woman in the audience. "I think there was a connection. I believe God put this relationship together in heaven.... Three months after we met, Bernadette became a Christian."

Time has only deepened their love and appreciation for each other. "Every night I go to bed, put my arm around Bernadette and just thank God for her," said Phil. "She’s the best and dearest friend I’ve ever known."

Even the strongest bonds of love can be tested by the basic differences between men and women. All those gathered around the CCM conference table agreed that men and women, no matter how much in love, communicate very differently.

"I think men tend to internalize things, and they just don’t want to talk as much," commented Shelley. "They don’t like to communicate. I think partly because they haven’t really thought about it and analyzed it like we have. It’s like they don’t even know there is something to talk about! I analyze everything, and I want to talk it out. David is really laid back, and so he probably hasn’t even thought about it like I have. It’s not that he’s being rude or doesn’t want to talk to me about it; it hasn’t occurred to him."

"We’ve been married five years now," said David, "and I would say every year we’ve been married I’ve come to realize more and more that I need to get more excited about issues." David admitted that their only big argument in five years of marriage came when Shelley had worked hard on a window treatment for the kitchen and he responded to the new shades with a rather lackluster reaction.

Shelley said David frequently has an "I don’t care" attitude that is frustrating, but he views it this way: "To me, saying, ‘I don’t care’ means, ‘Hey, I trust you and I want whatever you want.’ To her it means I just don’t care."

Shelley realizes David is not going to always share her passion for home decorating, but she laughed and said: "I figure if that’s our only fight so far, that’s pretty good."

Christy Nockels said marriage has taught her a lot about letting God move instead of trying to do things herself. "Nathan and I were on the road, and I had been feeling a lack of communication between us," she confessed. "It’s so hard to be married and in front of people all the time."

"When we are affectionate, it’s the only thing we have that is private. So sometimes I feel like we’re so businesslike in front of everybody. But instead of saying anything to Nathan, I thought, ‘I’m going to pray and let God reveal the same thing to Nathan,’ and He totally did. Two days later we were in the dressing room and Nathan came to me, and we both started crying. He told me exactly what I wanted to hear my husband say. It was a cool lesson for me to know I don’t always have to blab my mouth to him. I can pray and ask God to reveal and to work on Nathan’s heart and also mine."

In seeing Christy and Nathan together, it’s obvious that, like all couples, they have their differences, but there’s an appreciation for each other’s unique qualities. "Christy writes all of our words to all of our songs, which reflects her passion for her relationship with the Lord and for life," said Nathan, who obviously appreciates the more verbal side of Christy’s nature. "She’s a wonderful speaker between the songs."

We’ve always heard the cliché that opposites attract, and many believe it to be true, including Christy. "I think it’s so incredible how God puts people together who are opposites," she said, smiling at husband Nathan. "It’s so cool how Nathan’s strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa."

Everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are shaped by their early experiences. Andrea and Drew Baca readily admit their upbringings were very different. "My mom and dad got divorced when I was three. We never saw affection in our family," Andrea said. "Just being in a relationship, I realize that I’m not naturally a very affectionate person, but Drew comes from a family where his parents have been married for 38 years, and they’ll sit on the couch next to each other and hold hands. So it’s awesome that he brings that out in me."

Drew knows he was blessed to have grown up in a loving Christian home. "Seeing Dad loving my mom really helped me," he said. "When we were first dating, I remember Andrea having doubts and fears that the day after we got married I would become this horrible, ugly person. I told her, ‘The thing that will really show you I’m not going to change is seeing my parents together.’ I couldn’t wait for her to fly out to California with me to see how my dad treated my family. When he saw me, he gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek."

"When we were just friends," Andrea recalled of the early part of their relationship, "my sisters and I would race to hug Drew because he’s just so lovable... we’d never had an example of a guy who actually cared about you just for you."

Juggling the demands of marriage, parenthood and a music career are struggles that Andrew and Jamie Peterson can relate to immediately. "Andrew and I have been figuring it out as we go along," said Jamie. "We got married and started traveling pretty soon after that."

Andrew and Jamie share their home on the road with two guys (Gabe, Andrew’s friend and fellow musician, and a driver) and their two sons. "Their bedroom is also our dining room table in the RV," laughed Jamie. "I can certainly relate to a lack of privacy. The kids and Gabe are always there. So that’s been kind of hard as far as having private time. It’s kind of nonexistent unless we happen to have a day off and we know somebody who can baby-sit for us."

Andrew said lately they’ve become increasingly concerned about how life on the road will affect their kids. "We’ve always said we don’t know how long we’ll all travel together as a family," he said, admitting there are many challenges to raising children on the road. But by all accounts the boys are adapting well. "Everybody said, ‘Man, they do so good in restaurants!’ Well, that’s because every meal is in a restaurant!"

"They were born in a restaurant," laughed Jamie.

"Aedan’s first words were ‘Check, one, two,’" said Andrew, mimicking a sound check scenario before a concert. He added with a mischievous grin, "We actually have a tattoo with a map of the United States on his back and we’re filling it in on each state."

Despite the jokes, artists have serious concerns about how growing up on the road will affect their children. Phil and Bernadette, who have traveled this road for years, reassured their kids that it’s being together as a family that’s important. "We’ve got pictures of our kids sleeping in guitar cases when they were little," Bernadette said. "They don’t remember that stuff. They remember that you were together."

"There’ll be different chapters in their lives," Phil added. "Just love them through it and they’ll love you no matter what. A child’s love is so unconditional."

All the couples involved in this interview are well acquainted with the rigors of life on the road and the unique rewards and demands of music ministry. Shelley encouraged other couples to appreciate their lives. "Most people who will be reading this are not going to be like us," she acknowledged. "If I’ve learned anything, the advice I’d give to other couples is not to take normal things of life for granted—just the normal, everyday time you get to spend together."

As the interview closed, it was obvious that this diverse group of couples bonded in a special way. They opened up and became vulnerable. In the midst of deep, revealing moments during the afternoon, there was also laughter as each couple described the joys and challenges of marriage. Through it all, the pervasive feeling in the room was that with God’s help love does conquer all obstacles, and perhaps Mars and Venus really aren’t light years away from each other after all.