When Anger is Armor: Matt & Sarah Hammitt

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When Anger is Armor

Guest:Matt and Sarah Hammitt

From the series:Fighting Emotional Absence in Marriage (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:February 12, 2026

Matt (00:04):

For a long time in our marriage, maybe I felt her tone might have made it hard for me to hear what she was saying without me feeling—

Sarah (00:11):

I think definitely it was.

Matt (00:14):

—attacked. There was something very different in her tone and demeanor that didn’t show that secondary emotion of anger, but it actually showed her primary emotion to me, which is actual hurt.

Dave (00:33):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann (00:39):

And I’m Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

I’m excited to have Matt and Sarah Hammitt back with us today. This is going to be a great conversation that’s continued from yesterday.

Dave (00:59):

Yeah, this is powerful. This is everybody’s marriage. Their marriage is so … It’s a lot like our marriage, I know that much. And we’re going to get him to sing his Dove Award winning, number one on the charts for three months song, which is the title of the book, Lead Me. So it’s going to be a good day.

Ann (01:20):

When did you end up writing this?

Matt:

Basically, in 2008, when I came home and she had this serious conversation with me. The lyrics of this song really do paint what happened. It says in picture frames, I see my beautiful wife, but on the inside, I can hear her saying, “Lead me. ” I literally was sitting at our dining room table across from her, looking over at her wedding photo where she is just glowing with anticipation and joy of the future that’s in front of us. Seven years later, here’s my bride with red eyes, puffy face, tears rolling down her cheeks, just brokenhearted. And what was hard is obviously there were things we could point at to say, “Hey, I could do this better or that better. I did this wrong. Or maybe didn’t do this at all” or whatever it was. But there were still so many things I didn’t even know exactly how we’d gotten there.

(02:17):

And that was the hardest part. And that’s, for me, it was such a cry for help. It was her cry for me to lead her and to lead our kids. But my cry had to be, “If I’m going to lead this family God, how are you going to lead me? ” And that’s really the dual heart of the song is the family crying, “Dad, lead me” or “My husband, lead me.” And then the husband and father just saying, “Lord, give me the strength to do it because I certainly don’t have the wisdom on my own.” So I wrote the first draft and then later took it and with a friend, Chris, our guitar player and a guy named Jason Ingram and just said, “Hey, I think this song needs to be heard.” But yeah, I wrote the first draft of the song at that table.

(03:05):

I called Sarah back in and I played it for her. I think she said something like, “Oh, it’s a song you think I want.”

Sarah (03:16):

Well, and people have said, “Do you cry when you listen to that song?” I’m like—

Matt:

Not the way you think I’m crying.

Sarah:

No, it’s beautiful. I love the song.

Matt:

She does love the song.

Sarah:

It’s so redemptive to our conflict because I’ve screamed at the Lord like, “Why? Why would you put two people who have conflict like this together? It doesn’t make sense. Please use this.” And sure enough, through that song, He does. And He has in other ways as well.

Dave (03:40):

I mean, have you ever felt though that something happens in your marriage, and it becomes a ministry?

Sarah (03:46):

Oh, yeah.

Dave (03:47):

Because I know Ann’s felt that. I was like, we had this fight where you have something and I’m like, “Oh, this will help couples. Let’s tell the story.” She’s like, “No. This is our private thing.”

Ann (03:53):

I haven’t minded as much as our kids.

Sarah (03:57):

Oh, we haven’t gotten there yet with our kids.

Ann (03:59):

Don’t write any songs about how your kids were growing up bad. Your kids haven’t been bad.

Matt:

That’s funny.

Ann:

We used our kids, like things that happened with our kids as an illustration to something.

Dave (04:10):

In a sermon.

Ann (04:10):

That makes sense though.

Dave (04:11):

And then they’ll be like, feel violated. The interesting thing is, again, this isn’t about us, but in the moment, they didn’t say anything. But now as adults, “What could we say, Dad? We’re not going to say no.” So I’ve told pastors, “Don’t use your kids for stories.”

Ann (04:23):

But your comment, Sarah, is like this scratch in the record. Here’s this beautiful song and people are saying, “Did you just cry?” What were you wanting?

Sarah (04:37):

Like I said, I really think the song is beautiful. It’s been so used, but I really wanted real change. I didn’t want words.

Ann:

You wanted to see it.

Sarah:

I wanted action, not words. And these were words. And I’m like, “Okay, we’ll see.” You know what I mean?

Dave (04:51):

How long before the action came? And Matt’s over there like, “This provided food. We got the bus.”

Matt (04:57):

What’s really funny is, I think it’s funny. I mean, I remember the first time I showed up with brownies at Sarah’s house. When I first met her, I brought her brownies and she says, “Oh, I don’t like sweets.”

Sarah:

Yeah, that’s so rude. I can’t believe I said that.

Matt:

I’ve known from the very beginning of it. I married a woman who is a truth teller. 100%. And I chose her that way.

Ann (05:17):

And you even said at the beginning of your book, when you talk about your soulmate, you feel like Sarah is your soulmate.

Matt (05:26):

Yeah. I just felt that thing. So it’s like for me, I’ve learned to find humor in it. It hurts my feelings still sometimes.

Sarah (05:33):

Oh yeah, and I am really direct.

Matt (05:35):

Yeah. I mean, my part in that is that when she’s so direct with me, sometimes it hurts my feelings still. But you learn to laugh about it. And the really funny part about that statement she made about the song was that when I speak live and I tell this story, I actually stopped telling that part because there are times where I’d tell that part where she comes back in the room and she’s like, “Oh, it’s a song you think I want. ” And some crowds would just think it’s so funny, but there were enough times where people would just look at me like—

Dave:

It’s like you’re ruining your song.

Ann:

She wrecks it.

Sarah:

She’s mean.

Matt:

Because they want it to be like she walked in the room, fell into my arms—

Ann:

“Thank you.”

Matt:

I know, “Thank you.” Yeah, I know. It’s so funny.

Sarah (06:13):

That would have been nice, but no.

Dave (06:17):

Well, there’s some listeners going, “I got to hear this song.” I don’t know how much you want to play. Play whatever you want.

Ann (06:23):

I’m so happy that you brought your guitar in.

Matt:

Yeah. Let’s see.

Dave”

Your broken guitar.

Matt:

My broken guitar that I won’t say what airline did it because I—

Sarah:

We do love the airline.

Matt:

Yeah. We do love the airline that did it.

Dave:

Did you always capele it or are you raising it?

Matt:

It’s always—

Dave:

Oh, always in D flat.

Matt:

I hope—my voice is a little scratchy today, I noticed, but hopefully we can—

Dave:

Well, they’re used to my voice, so I think you’re going to sound pretty stinking good.

Matt:

Hopefully we can do this. All right. Yeah. How about I’ll do a short version of it. I won’t do the second verse, but we’ll give you part of it here.

(07:01):

I look around and see my wonderful life

Almost perfect from the outside

In picture frames, I see my beautiful wife

Always smiling, but on the inside, I can hear her saying

Lead me with strong hands

Stand up when I can’t

Don’t leave me hungry for love, chasing dreams

But what about us

And show me you’re willing to fight

That I’m still the love of your life

I know we call this our home

But I still feel alone

So Father, give me the strength to be at everything I’m called to be

Oh, Father, show me the way to lead them

Won’t you lead me?

To lead them with strong hands

To stand up when they can’t

Don’t want to leave them hungry for love

Chasing things that I could give up

And I’ll show them I’m willing to fight

And give them the best of my life

So we can call this our home.

(09:10):

Oh, lead me, cause I can’t do this alone

Father, lead me, cause I can’t do this alone

Ann (09:31):

Well, that brought tears to my eyes because I can remember the first time I heard it.

Dave:

Really?

Ann:

I remember where I was. I was on 59 driving—

Dave (09:42):

That means it’s a powerful song.

Ann (09:44):

—driving to the office. And it was started, and sometimes you don’t catch the words of songs, but you started singing. And I remember turning it up, cranking it. And I do remember tearing up because as a woman, that’s exactly what I’m hoping.

Sarah (10:00):

Yeah.

Ann (10:01):

And as a man, I think it’s like a prayer like, “God, I can’t do it.” But man, that resonated. That’s what I wanted Dave to do.

Sarah (10:09):

Yeah.

Ann (10:09):

And I think that’s what a lot of people are feeling. And I remember saying to Dave like, “You’ve got to listen to this new song because it was playing constantly.”

Dave (10:18):

And then I was convicted. Thanks for that.

Matt (10:22):

There’s a lot of guys that have a love, hate relationship with this song. Yeah. A lot of times there are people come up to me still, they’ll be like, “Oh, I remember that song came out and I was … I just turn up the radio for my husband or sending it to him.” And I’m always looking at him. I go, “I’m sorry.” Sorry, not sorry, but sorry.

Dave (10:40):

Well it is interesting that you wrote it with two other men who can really resonate with what you’re saying because it goes from Sarah’s plea to, “I can’t do this without you God. You got to lead me.” It’s beautiful though. The transition you, Chris, and Jason wrote. It’s amazing.

Ann (10:57):

I wonder even of the conversations that occurred all around the world after listening to that.

Sarah (11:04):

We’ve had people get remarried.

Ann:

Are you kidding?

Sarah:

They’ve written us and said, “It articulated my heart and I was able to share it with him. He understood it. And then we got remarried,” which we’re like, whoa, wow.

Ann (11:15):

Wow.

Sarah (11:16):

Yeah. It really has—

Matt (11:18):

We’ve had a couple where—

Sarah (11:19):

It’s divine.

Ann:

It is divine.

Matt (11:21):

—both people have heard it, and it brought them back together. I mean, just crazy. The craziest story I ever heard about this song was there was a woman who told me she was about to leave her house. She was walking out the back sliding door, she said, of her house, and she was getting ready to meet a man who she’d been having an emotional affair with for the first time at a hotel.

Ann:

Come on.

Dave:

It’s in the book. I read this, yeah.

Matt:

Yeah, and she just said that as she was walking out, Lead Me came on the radio in her house and she fell to her knees crying, repented, told the guy she never wanted to talk to him again, repented to her husband, confessed everything and restored their marriage. I mean, you hear a song like that and you’re like, by no means do I take the credit for that.

(12:06):

What I get to say is, “Thank you Lord for allowing me to carry a song that you could use in that way.”

Dave:

Yeah.

Ann (12:13):

And it comes out of your own pain.

Matt (12:15):

Yes.

Sarah (12:15):

I know. And he created purpose out of that pain. And that was my heart’s cry all the time with the conflict. Please just use this. What is this? And it feels so useless. And then for it to be used that way just feels like—

Ann (12:30):

Redemptive.

Sarah (12:30):

Yeah, so redemptive and a gift.

Ann (12:33):

Wow. And Sarah, had you not ever spoken up because that’s the thing.

Sarah (12:39):

No. I mean, I had spoken up a lot. I have always been very direct about my feelings. I love to feel close to him and anytime I feel disconnected, I’m able to say, “Hey, I feel disconnected. I’d like to reconnect.” So he knew that I had felt that way, but for some reason—well, you tell this story that I had told you that many times, but that was the time you could hear it.

Ann (12:59):

What happened that time?

Matt:

I just think Sarah is very, very direct. And I think that in the same way I’m sure I can come across in ways that I don’t think I do. She’s probably the same. And so I think for a long time in our marriage, maybe I felt her tone might have made it hard for me to hear what she was saying without me feeling—

Sarah (13:21):

I think definitely it was. Yeah.

Matt (13:23):

—attacked. I think there was something very different in her tone and demeanor that didn’t show that secondary emotion of anger, but it actually showed her primary emotion to me, which was actual hurt. And I could actually see the hurt. It wasn’t behind a shield. It wasn’t behind a sword. It was like she set all that down and let me actually see what was really happening.

Ann (13:49):

That right there—

Sarah:

Yeah, that’s so true.

Ann:

—is a great teaching point for all of us in conflict. Because so many times Dave and I had fought, but I would yell at him like, “You’re never home.”

Dave (14:00):

I remember the woman said she doesn’t yell.

Ann (14:02):

I did then, but he didn’t hear that. That’s what I’m saying. When we use our words as weapons and it’s harsh and we can make our spouse feel like the enemy, there’s something about when we can reveal our heart in a tender way that maybe opens the ears more. Because when I told you I have nothing left, that’s the first time I feel like you really heard me.

Dave (14:25):

Yeah. And she didn’t say it yelling. It was tender.

Sarah (14:28):

It’s hard to get there though sometimes.

Ann (14:30):

Or I have given up.

Sarah (14:30):

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (14:33):

Maybe sometimes you have to give up. Think about that.

Ann (14:37):

It’s another song.

Matt (14:38):

You can reach the end of yourself, and you just don’t have anything left and it’s like, “Ahh” and then you can actually exhale and go, “Oh, this is what we actually feel apart from everything we’re striving for. ” Just you can almost see that. I don’t know. There’s a picture there that’s really interesting.

Sarah (14:54):

Yeah.

Dave (14:55):

I mean, what happened then in your marriage after the song, and I mean your career takes off?

Ann (15:01):

Because people assume like it’s an overnight, bink, oh, everything’s better.

Matt (15:04):

Yeah.

Ann (15:04):

It doesn’t usually work like that.

Matt (15:07):

No, I think what I felt was spoken to me through her words that I could articulate that I felt like God was, as I asked the Lord to give me wisdom, I felt like He was telling me my good intentions were worthless until they became actions. And that journey is the one that I’m on today. That’s what I call my Lead Me journey, is my journey of moving from being a man of good intentions to a man of action, especially as the leader of my home. That’s the journey I started, but it was like the very beginning of me really pressing into that. And the craziest part about this is that the very song I wrote about being a more present husband and father comes out in 2010, goes to the top of the Christian music charts for three months and takes me away from home even more.

(15:59):

Irony of the song.

Ann:

Yeah.

Matt:

The beautiful part of that, however, is that over the course of the next five years or so, as we toured all around and doing amazing tours with amazing artists and getting to be in front of thousands and thousands of people is that her words and that prayer of that song being sung back to me by thousands of people are also the words that ended up calling my heart back home. So it’s definitely a happy story in the end in terms of what that song did even in my life.

So in 2016, I played my last show on a Love Like You Mean It® cruise with Sanctus Real. The very last show in the middle of sea.

Ann:

Yes.

Dave:

We were there. Yep. I remember.

Matt:

And passed the microphone to the new singer and he sang, closed out with their first song they’d written together.

(16:56):

So it’s a very bittersweet moment for me.

Dave (17:00):

I bet.

Ann:

What was it like for you, Sarah?

Sarah (17:01):

And you know, it was complicated because I love the band and it was my baby too. So it was hard to navigate, but it’s been wonderful. My husband’s my leader. He is leading us and it’s been amazing. The kids are—he’s so close to the kids. His relationship is unmatched really. I mean, it’s phenomenal with the kids.

Dave (17:29):

I mean, I watch it on Instagram when you post stuff.

Sarah (17:33):

Yeah.

Dave (17:33):

My question is, is it as good as it looks? Because it looks—

Sarah (17:36):

Yeah, it is.

Dave (17:37):

Because a lot of them are sort of fake.

Matt (17:39):

Yeah, yeah.

Dave (17:40):

And you know that it’s sort of made for the post, but I can sense it’s genuine and you’re saying it is.

Sarah (17:45):

Well, and I’m a truth teller.

Ann:

I was going to say Sarah would tell us.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean, is it perfect? No. I mean, there’s some conflict with the kids and we have young kids still. I mean, so we don’t have major issues. Maybe they happen over time. I don’t know. But so far, his relationship with the kids is phenomenal and they feel very loved by him. And that’s really what I wanted was I wanted them to feel, to know their dad, to feel their dad’s love and for him to be present in their daily life. And he is now. And so it’s awesome.

Dave (18:19):

I mean, you’ve been home nine years.

Sarah (18:21):

Yeah.

Matt (18:21):

Yeah.

Dave (18:22):

I mean, not home like you don’t do—

Matt (18:23):

Yeah, I still travel and speak. Even this year was what I would consider a very busy year with speaking events and some of the music stuff I’ve been doing, but it still was like half of what I did with Sanctus Real.

Ann:

Really?

Sarah (18:37):

And you’ll take a kid with you. He’ll take a kid with him.

Matt (18:38):

Yeah, I take my kids with me. Yeah. So we do—I plan special trips. So if I know I’m going to like a cool city or whatever, I’ll plan like a day on the front end and back end and do three different big days.

Sarah (18:49):

He does really special things with them.

Ann (18:50):

This Valentine’s Day, what if you skipped the roses?

Dave (18:58):

Okay, that’s fine.

Ann (18:59):

Well, maybe not, and you dove into conversations meant to draw you closer, the ones you were secretly too scared to have.

Dave (19:07):

Yeah. Marriage After Dark is FamilyLife’s newest podcast where a real married couple talks openly about healthy, God honoring intimacy. Yes, the stuff you never ask your pastor or your friends.

Ann (19:21):

And for more, go to FamilyLife.com/MarriageAfterDark because intimacy shouldn’t stay in the dark.

Dave (19:34):

Now, how hard was it the day you decided? I mean, I know it was a process, but when you walked into the band, because they probably didn’t know for sure.

Ann (19:43):

Because I’m thinking too, Dave, as you said that, because I’ve been thinking of listeners who have like, maybe they’re feeling that nudge like, “I just haven’t been home. This job is tearing me away.” Whether it’s a husband or wife, that decision is a big one.

Matt (19:59):

Yeah. And there was a season where I felt that I wanted to get off the road and it was a season of restlessness.

(20:11):

And I felt the Lord still speaking to my heart that He wasn’t done with me yet in that season. As bad as I kind of like wanted to amend this divide that I felt with my family when I was on the road and I hated the way that felt and I knew that I wanted to please her and love her well and same with the kids. But I always look at each season of my life, and you see the restlessness and then you feel the release. And it was like I knew that out of that restlessness that there came a definitive moment where God was releasing me to go even though it was like my heart, He was preparing my heart for it. And so it was really, really difficult. I wanted to try to find a way to keep one foot in the boat.

(20:54):

I put my tiptoes in the water to walk to Jesus but keep my one foot back in the boat and hope that was good enough for the Savior. But no, He was calling me to walk all the way out. Those were almost the words I heard; that I’m calling you out all the way out. I knew that it wasn’t a, “Hey, I can kind of be the singer of the band and kind of do a few shows and kind of do this thing.” I just knew that He was calling me to start a brand-new season of life and ministry where my family was first and didn’t know what he was going to do after that, but I wrote the book and—

Ann (21:23):

As Dave said, when you told the band members—

Matt (21:27):

Yeah. Oh, it was really, really difficult, man.

Sarah (21:32):

They were sad, very sad.

Matt (21:32):

They were obviously upset. Obviously, sad. They thought we could go another 20 years. And they’re still going with the new singer and—

Sarah (21:41):

And doing great.

Matt (21:41):

They’re doing great. Yeah.

Sarah (21:43):

God had a plan for that ministry to do what they’re doing.

Matt (21:47):

Yeah. And ultimately, they were fine. Ultimately, they understood.

Dave (21:51):

Yeah, but in that moment, their journey—

Matt (21:51):

Oh yeah.

Dave:

Their lead singer is walking out.

Matt:

Yeah, the primary songwriter. It’s like the huge part of the face of the band is just like gone and I think they felt kind of derailed like, “What do we do now? We’ve spent so much of our lives building this.”

Ann (22:07):

Probably fearful financially.

Matt (22:09):

Oh yeah, absolutely. And I remember—

Sarah (22:11):

We prayed for them that whole time.

Matt (22:12):

Yeah. I remember the weight feeling like, Lord, what is everybody going to do? All the crew, right?

Dave (22:19):

Yeah.

Matt (22:19):

You asked me to step away. We’ve got like 12 people on the bus with us. We’ve got lighting guys and sound guys and monitor guys and tour manager and bus driver and all stuff. And I remember—

Ann (22:26):

You carry the weight of all that.

Matt (22:27):

Yeah. I remember thinking like, “What are all these people going to do? ” And it’s funny, there was a point where I almost felt like if I could articulate what I felt the Lord was whispering to me, it would be, “Oh, you’re the only child of mine that I love,” as if—

Sarah (22:44):

I do remember that.

Matt (22:44):

Yeah. I remember he’s saying, “I love all my kids.”

Sarah (22:47):

I’m going to take care of them too.

Matt (22:48):

I’m going to take care of everybody. It’s not yours to worry about.

Ann (22:52):

I had this situation with a—I was leading a women’s church ministry at our church, and I felt God calling me out of that. And I remember saying to this woman like, “I don’t know what to do. I feel like God’s calling me out, but I don’t see anybody to replace me.” And this woman, a mentor, says, “Wow, you must be something.” I said, “What do you mean?” She goes, “Well, if God can’t replace you, then you must be really—” It was so good, but so convicting.

Sarah:

Oh yeah.

Ann:

Oh yeah, He can choose somebody else who will do the same thing. It might be different, but it’ll be good, but I just need to be obedient to the call.

What’d you think of Matt singing his song?

Dave (23:38):

I just so jealous, so envious. I mean, not only is it such a great truth that he wrote, but that guy can sing.

Ann (23:49):

And it’s changed thousands of marriages. That’s the thing that’s crazy to me of how in the midst of our pain, God just doesn’t let it be about only us. He wants to transform other lives and marriages through our stories of pain and brokenness.

Dave (24:05):

Yeah. So pick up Lead Me by Matt Hammitt at FamilyLifeToday.com. Click on the link in the show notes and it’s a story and a truth that’ll change your life as well.

Ann (24:15):

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Dave (24:22):

That is true.

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