From Chaos to Connection – Faith, Football, and Blending Families: Devon and Asha Still

Episode Transcript

Cancer, NFL, and Family

Guests:                      Ron Deal and Devon and Asha Still

From the series:       Cancer, NFL, and Family (Day 1 of 1)

Air date:                     April 2, 2025

Dave:              Okay, I got a question for you: “When a struggle or a battle is coming into your life, how important do you think it is to hit it right head-on?”

Ann:                I am all about the head-on.

Dave:              I know.

Ann:                “Let’s talk about it,” “Let’s get into it.” But some people aren’t like that.

Dave:              That’s me. I’m not that way; I want to dodge around it. I didn’t even want to ask you that question, because I knew that’s what you’re going to say. And I’m always like, “You got to chase me around the house to even talk about hard stuff.”

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

Dave:              And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave:              How important is it, when a struggle or a battle happens, to hit it head-on?

Well, today we’re going to find out; because we get to listen to a portion of a broadcast from our Family Life Blended podcast with Ron Deal, and they’re going to sort of tackle: “How do you hit hard stuff straight-on?”

Ann:                And we’re going to hear from a couple who had to face a few battles, including one within their own home. And that’s true for many of us.

Before we introduce them, we want to remind you that Family Life’s annual Blended & Blessed live stream is coming this Saturday, April 5^th. You guys, it’s a one-day event for blended family couples that you can stream from home. And it’s not too late to register because it’s livestream.

Dave:              It’s going to be a great one: FamilyLife.com/Blended [to register].

So here’s where we’re going to go today. You may know this name if you’re a sports fan—Devon Still—played in the NFL for a few years. He actually stepped out of playing in the NFL—retired—because his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. He felt like he should go home to take care of her, and so he did. Ron sat down with the Stills—[Devon and Asha]—and had an interesting conversation about facing battles; but also, really just about: “How do you live in a blended family?” You’re going to love this conversation.

[Previous FamilyLife Blended Podcast]

Ron:                During my interview for your podcast, Real Relationships, you guys said that—“The blended family dynamic has been one of your biggest challenges,”—I think is the way you put it in your marriage. Tell us: “What did that look like for you guys?”

Asha:              I think, going into our blended family, it was kind of a whirlwind; because we were just coming off of Leah going into remission when we got married. It was a lot of mixed emotions: we were on a high because we were happy and excited that we were able to weather that storm, and get through it; and we were at that light at the end of the tunnel. But then, now, we’re forming a family. We’re trying to get through the struggles that we have, but also understand what that looks like to be a blended family. I think that’s really when our challenges started to surface in a sense, and we started to try to navigate what that looks like.

Devon:           Yeah, I agree. I think something that you said that really stuck out in our episode was: “After the marriage, everything changes”; that’s exactly what happened. During the dating phase—I wouldn’t say it was easy, because we were dealing with a lot of trauma and a lot of challenges from Leah’s battle with cancer and the other household—but it was definitely way easier before we got married. And then, when Leah actually moved with us, full-time, that’s when the challenges really started to arise.

Ron:                Yeah, there’s a big word there: full-time. I think, for a lot of people, dating is sort of part-time; it’s sort of a buildup. You’re spending time together, but it’s not full-time. And the other way we like to say it around here is: “It’s not real until it’s real.” Your podcast, Real Relationships—that’s what a lot of blended families experience—“Wow; it got real, and it got real fast. That realness brought something with it that we didn’t anticipate; we didn’t see coming.” Did you feel like, “Wow, where did this come from?”—blindsided; any of that?

Devon:           Absolutely; absolutely. We had no—not even just as far as blended

family—we had no idea what to expect from marriage period, because we both came from broken homes. We didn’t get to see what a healthy and long-lasting marriage looks like: “What was the role of a husband?” “What was the role of a spouse?”

So we just started to experiment; because wherever there’s ignorance, there’s experimentation. We were experimenting with something that’s so precious and so serious, when it comes to marriage—that we were trying to figure that out—while also trying to figure out: “What does having a healthy and successful blended family look like?” And trying to do those two things together—with the lack of resources and a lack of community that we could reach out to for support—was definitely hard.

Ron:                Asha, a lot of people—when they find themselves in that little space, where they’re going, “I have all kinds of questions and no answers,”—get discouraged; sometimes, start rethinking whether or not this was a good idea.

I’m curious if that happened for you. Here you were: dating the single dad, and his daughter was not well. And then, she got well. It seemed like things were just coming together; and then, all of a sudden, “Wow!”—lots of questions.

Asha:              Yes, that’s for sure. It was a lot of questions, a lot of confusion. When we initially got married, we didn’t have tough conversations that we should have. We didn’t really paint out what it would look like to have this blended family—what roles we would play; how we would parent—we didn’t have conversations and really go below the surface level conversations to really say: “Okay; well, what does this family look like?” “How do we want to build together?” I think that caused a lot of confusion—a lot of unnecessary chaos, I would say—because we didn’t have those tough conversations in the beginning.

Devon:           I would go even further, to say, “pain”—a lot of hurt—

Asha:              That as well, yes.

Devon:           —a lot of hurt.

Ron:                Oh, yeah. Say a little bit more about that, because I think a lot of people

can relate to it.

Devon:           Yeah, I think it’s easy to just say words like “frustration” or “anger”; but when you get beneath the surface, and you really start to discover what emotions you were really feeling—I think, on both ends, we were hurt—we were hurt; because we didn’t feel like the other person was protecting our heart, and our mind, and our spirit. It took for us to have really deep conversations—but from a place of empathy, and understanding, and trust—and when we were able to create that environment, we were able to course-correct our marriage and take the necessary steps.

One, even being, reading your book; it was an eyeopener for us. It’s like, “No wonder why things weren’t working. We’re doing it wrong; we’re doing it completely wrong.” And then, when we were able to develop a game plan, we’re not where we want to be; but we’re definitely not where we used to be.

Ron:                That pain of discouragement—and “I thought it was going to be this, but it turned out to be that,”—that’s really common for a lot of blended families. And honestly, a lot of people just quit right there. They never—like you guys, to your credit—go looking for answers. And the good news is: I think, when you find those answers, you get hope again. You can keep going; you make some course corrections, and things start moving in a better direction.

Do you have a sense: how long did that take for you guys? Tell us a little bit more about that journey. How long did it take; or how much work did it take for you to feel like, “Okay, we’ve made a few changes, and we’re headed in a better direction”?

Asha:              I would say maybe six years/seven years. It seems like it’s been the majority of our married life that we were trying to figure it out; because like I said, it was a lot of changes. We had to go from Leah being sick—her going through that; getting better—Devon battling his injuries in the NFL; us moving from cities, not being around family. It would just seem like everything was piling on.

Devon:           Custody battle.

Asha:              Custody battle. It was just a lot, and it was all throughout the span of the beginning of our marriage and throughout our marriage.

Adding that in with trying to make the blended family work, it was a lot that we had to—I would say like a onion that we had to peel back, and work through, and really understand: “Okay, well this is an issue. We need to address this before we can go to this,”—because it all somewhat tied together. It definitely seemed like it was majority of our marriage.

I feel like the turn of the corner that we feel just recently happened within the past—I want to say year or two—of us really diving into resources that we had, and having certain conversations, and trying to do things a lot differently than what we had to really turn that corner.

Devon:           I agree. I think two things allowed us the last six years because people probably listen like, “Y’all went through six years of this; that’s a long time. I can’t do this.” I think that we were caught up in the: “Things will get better as time goes on.” It wasn’t until we started taking intentional action to make things better, because time doesn’t heal all. It’s what you do with that time that creates healing. When we started to take accountability for the things that we were doing wrong in the relationship, and the things that we can start doing better—when we started to actually go out there and look for the resources—things really started to change for us when we stopped avoiding conversation. Because when you get married, you want it to be happy; you want it to be purposeful. And a lot of times—

Ron:                —you want it to be easy.

Devon:           Exactly, so you avoid those tough conversations. You live in this facade that: “Hey, my marriage is perfect; everything’s going well”; but you just keep sweeping things under the rug. All it takes is just one mishap, and things may blow up. We started to notice that a lot in our marriage, and we made a decision that we were going to do the work in order to fix that.

[Studio]

Ann:                You’re listening to FamilyLife Today. We’re listening to just a portion of the FamilyLife Blended podcast with Ron Deal and guests, Devon and Asha Still.

Dave:              And you may not know this—one of Ron’s books, The Smart Stepfamily Marriage, which we’ve read as well—was a game-changer for the Stills.

And you may not even know this: our FamilyLife Blended department has the largest—did you hear me?—the largest collection of audio, video and book resources available for couples and church leaders. We really want to help you be intentional about your family, so you can find those resources at FamilyLife.com/Blended.

Okay; let’s go back and hear some more from the FamilyLife Blended podcast with Devon and Asha Still.

[Previous FamilyLife Blended Podcast]

Ron:                Devon, I want to ask you about worry. I don’t know if you worried at all; but I’m just imagining maybe putting myself in your shoes, coming in:

You’re a single dad; your daughter’s fighting cancer, and it’s serious. You have this NFL football career—and you made a decision to turn away from that to turn towards your daughter—a lot of change; a lot of transition. You meet a beautiful woman; you fall in love. You really don’t know what to expect about this whole family thing, but you want to give it a go.

You had to be worried about your daughter; you had to be mindful of your wife; you had to be thinking about your daughter’s biological mother: “How is she feeling about all this stuff going on with her daughter?” I’m just curious: “Did you worry?” and “How did you carry that, as a husband and a dad, as your family began?”

Devon:           Yeah, I had a lot of different words:

• Of course, the first worry was whether I was going to lose Leah or not: if I was going to be able to experience watching her grow up and being able to create certain moments with her.
• I was worried about the career transition I was going to have to make once I kind of realized that my football career was coming to an end.
• I was worried that I may fail at marriage, like my parents failed at marriage; and I was going to just continue this cycle of broken homes and broken marriages.

There were a lot of different worries that I had; but I decided to just focus on the controllables—the things that were in my hands—I was going to do the work to try to fix. The things that weren’t in my hands, I would just give to God and let Him do what He does. Take that off of my plate so I can be focused on the things that I had control over.

The moment that I did that—even opening up to my wife—because I think a lot of times, even as an athlete or as a man, you don’t want people to know what you’re really going through, internally. One of the major benefits of marriage to me is that you don’t have to really go through life alone; so me and my wife do a lot of pillow-talking. I open up to her about everything that I’m going through; because I know that she can—give me perspective on how I can do things better or how I can overcome a challenge—she’s like a sounding board that I can just talk to and just release all of that stress.

When I started to open up about the things that I was struggling with—and she didn’t judge me for my shortcomings or in the areas that I was feeling—it was a game-changer for me, because I knew I had somebody by my side who was just willing to go through whatever we had to go through in order to create a successful family.

Ron:                Sometimes, I find that couples—who get intentional like you guys have and start working on things—after a while, get tired of just having to keep pushing. It’s just sort of like, again, “When is this going to get back to easy?” Do you guys ever get tired, and what do you do to sort of keep yourself going if you do?

Devon:           Well, when we are trying something new, of course, you start to get tired; because it takes a lot of energy in order to create new habits. But when you persevere—you keep pushing; you keep breaking down those walls—eventually, those habits become second nature. I don’t really get tired of the things that we started implementing a few years ago; but when there’s changes that we’re making right now, it takes a lot more energy. It’s a little bit more exhausting—but understanding that we’ll soon turn that corner—and we’ll create those habits, where it doesn’t take a lot of energy to sit down and connect.

It doesn’t take a lot of energy for us to have tough conversations, because we know how to properly communicate. So right now, I’m energized. I’m not tired by anything that’s in our relationship, but that wasn’t always the case. For a couple of years, it took a lot of energy, a lot of mental focus, in order to reach this point. I don’t know if Asha got the same answer, so she’s going to have to answer that.

Asha:              No, I think the season of tiredness has passed. I think for us now—just having a clearer vision of what we want for our future and a better understanding—has alleviated that because, in the beginning, we didn’t; and everything was cloudy. Being able to say, “You know what? This is the goal we’re working toward. This is the type of family that we want to have. This is the love that we want to exhibit,” we’re clear on that. So it’s not as tiring to say, “Okay, how do I get there?”; because we know how to get there. We just have to get there; so we put in the work every day, and it doesn’t feel tiring. I think now, because we’re moving through life differently, and the love that we exhibit for each other is not the way that we exhibited before.

Devon:           Yeah, we’re moving towards something rather than running in place—it gets tiring—when you’re exhausting all this energy; you’re trying to work to fix your marriage; but when you look up, it’s like you’re on the treadmill; you’re in the same place. But when you have that goal in mind—and when you look up, you’re actually closer to that goal than you were before—you don’t get tired; you get excited because you finally found that breakthrough, where you’re not running in place anymore. You’re not just wasting your time and your energy, but you’re moving to a collective goal.

Ron:                Wow. I imagine somebody listening right now is really encouraged by that. They feel like they’ve been running in place; but yet, intentionality will take you somewhere eventually. It may not be immediately; but eventually, you’re going to get there.

I can’t help but think there’s some parallels between the battles you guys faced with Leah’s cancer; and then, just the battle of becoming a family. You didn’t quit; you stuck with it. You did what you had to do. You listened to a few people, who had something to offer, and pointed in a common direction; and you did what you had to do. I’m thinking, “Yeah, wow. Good for you. Way to go!” Is there anything else you would offer anybody, who’s maybe a little discouraged right now as they’re listening to us, what would you say?

Devon:           I would say the main things that helped us through the tough times is impermanence, understanding that nothing in life is permanent; nothing in your marriage is permanent. What that does is it makes you savor the good times and hold onto them as long as possible; use them as energy to push yourself through the tough times. But it also allows you to endure those tough times, because you realize the seasons will pass—that one day, the struggles and the challenges you’re dealing with will pass—if you’re intentional about putting forth the effort and resources in order to overcome the challenges.

And the moment that we realized that was the moment that things changed—because there were times, we talked about on our podcast before—one of the things that really hurt in the beginning of our relationship or our marriage was that D-word. When things weren’t going right, that divorce word would be thrown around a lot; because we felt like we were stuck, that we weren’t going to be able to move forward. But the moment we made a commitment to each other that we’re not going to use that word anymore—that we’re not going to think about getting a divorce—but we’re going to think about ways that we can increase our relationship satisfaction and our stability was the moment that I felt like we really made a commitment.

Another thing that I think helped with that is understanding that our marriage wasn’t just a contract, but it was a covenant. We didn’t get into this marriage to see what we can get out of it from each other. We went into it understanding that we made a commitment in front of God, and that we were going to submit our marriage to Him, and understanding that the purpose of our marriage was for His glory. We take that approach every single day. When things get tough, we lean on Him; and we realize that this is for a bigger purpose.

The work that we do right now—the lives that we impact—I understand why we’re together. I understand I don’t need our marriage to be easy; I need it to be purposeful. And every day—I wake up, and I understand the purpose of this marriage—so I’m willing to do the work. I’m willing to work through whatever struggles that we have to work through, because I know that we’re here for a reason. That wasn’t always the case; I didn’t understand the purpose of marriage.

Now, I tell people this: “Even though I had the best woman that I could ever meet right in front of my face, but I didn’t understand the gift that she was until I started to go to church. The pastor said to me, ‘If you’re not going to take Asha serious, stop wasting her time.’ That was the first time that any man had held me accountable for the things that I was doing, how I was treating a woman. I realized that I had been doing things wrong this whole time, and I had made a commitment that day to do things the right way.”

I felt like God was just—He had His hand on this the whole time—because from the moment that I said, “I do,” to Asha, it’s like I understood. My life finally felt purposeful outside of football; because I realized that, regardless of how my life went when it came to career, that as long as I had Asha by my side, that we would be able to overcome anything, and really build a life, and really break generational curses that has been going on in our family for a very long time.

Ron:                That’s beautiful: covenant commitment; stick it out; keep going; hold yourself accountable; self-discipline.

Guys, thanks for being with me today. I sure appreciate you joining us and sharing with our audience. Thank you.

Devon:           Thanks for having us.

Asha:              Thank you.

[Studio]

Dave:              Well, we’ve been listening to a portion of the FamilyLife Blended podcast with the Stills and Ron Deal. And guess what? Ron Deal is in the studio with us. Welcome in, Ron.

Ron:                Hey, guys; always good to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Dave:              One of the things that Devon and Asha said is they didn’t have any models, which we can relate to.

Ann:                Oh, we didn’t either.

Dave:              Yeah. Especially, in the blended area, is that pretty common?

Ron:                It is very common. I want to say, generationally, I think it’s increasingly common that younger generations today are having less and less role models for them to look at. When I travel—when I speak, I get in front of an audience—and then, the questions come at the end, as you guys deal with this on a regular basis, the questions seem so basic. I just want to encourage people out there: “Look, we have lots of basic training”—if I could say it that way—“materials at FamilyLife; this is what we do: The Art of Marriage; the Weekend to Remember;  Smart Stepfamily curriculum. All of those things, and more, give you those elementary principles that you need.” And of course, church leaders need to know that we have those available for people as well.

One of the reasons I love Blended & Blessed, that you guys mentioned earlier, is because it is fundamental, foundational, basic training and beyond for blended family couples. Let me just remind everybody again: Saturday, April 5^th; it’s coming up soon. The content this year is going to be based on Nan and my new book, The Mindful Marriage; but we’re doing it blended-family style—it’s going to be marriage stuff that applies to parenting, step-parenting, co-parenting—all the complications that blended families face.

Dave:              And even we’ve read your book; we endorsed your book. It’s incredible stuff. Even as you think about Devon and Asha: “How does the concepts of The Mindful Marriage, that you’ll be talking about on Saturday, how does that impact a couple like them?”

Ron:                I love their remark about being intentional—and making intentional decisions and changes that were going to improve their family—how they came together. In the beginning of their marriage and their journey, they said, “We just kind of thought that time would help; and we would figure it out, and we’d get better.”

Dave:              Don’t we all?

Ann:                Yes!

Ron:                Yeah, exactly; we sort of have this naivete about that. But they discovered what most of us have discovered; is that, “Yeah, time doesn’t necessarily make your relationship stronger.” They had to get intentional. But of course, when they did—started reading, started studying, started talking—that made all the difference. We obviously believe in that, here, at FamilyLife; that’s why we’re doing the things that we’re doing. We just want to invite those listening, and those of you who are church leaders, help people be intentional.

Ann:                Last question, Ron: “Why do some of us just assume that it’s going to be easy?” Because I think we do, like, “Oh, this is not going to be hard; because we love each other.”

Ron:                Well, you guys said you didn’t really have the role models to help you come into marriage. Some people have really good role models—they’re on the flip side of this—and they just sort of naively think, “Wow, they were happy for 50 years. I’m going to be happy. Marriage is going to be easy.” They’ve just seen the outcome; they didn’t see Mom and Dad struggle for 20 years; and then, figure it out. So life has been pretty easy for some people—it’s like Amazon: we just expect things are going to show up tomorrow—and no; that’s not really the way life works. We all have to be intentional.

Dave:              Well, that was a great conversation. I would encourage our listeners: if you want more of that, it’s at FamilyLife.com/Blended. Again, resources are there.

Hopefully, you’re signing up for Blended & Blessed on this Saturday in Franklin, Tennessee. I know it’s short notice; but if you want, you could actually go to the conference—that would be awesome—or you can watch it from your home, or host a group at your church. If you want to get more information, go online to FamilyLifeToday.com/Blended; you’ll find the link in the show notes. Or give us a call at 800-358-6329. That’s 800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word, TODAY.

Ann:                If you need more help, you can go to FamilyLife.com/MarriageHelp. We’ve put together some of our best material in one place—it’s free—you can go to FamilyLife.com/MarriageHelp, and get it.

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