Kristen Clark & Bethany Beal: When Life Throws Curveballs

This is for any of us. If God never gives you blank, right?

Fill in the blank. Could you still be happy? If God never gives you children, could you still be happy? If God never gives me this very real desire of my heart, could I still find joy and purpose and fulfillment in Christ alone?

Is God enough? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

Have you had very many nights where you just can't sleep because you're worrying or you're anxious about something? Yes. What? Oh, my goodness. Wait, what?

What do you mean? You're laying right there beside me. You hardly ever worry. I feel like you're always a... I mean, typically I sleep pretty good, but you know, I've told you like when the boys were little, how many nights? Wait, what? Come on. You know this. When I say this, you're going to go, oh, yeah, you've told me this.

How many nights did I lay in bed worrying about college tuition? Oh, yeah. That's true. I worry about relationships and you worry about money.

That's true. I mean, I mean, when they were five years old and then six, like, how are we going to pay even the mortgage? And, you know, starting a church that we didn't know if anybody would show up.

And fear, anxiety, I'd love to sit here and say, I'm such a man of God. I never worried, but I... I wish we would have talked about that more then. We did.

Did we? But I was really good with my fear and anxiety. I just kept it to myself. Is that what you're supposed to do? I felt like I was staring online.

I didn't know it was reciprocal. You're like, I thought I was the only one with the problem. That would have made us closer. I don't know what just happened, but we've got two sisters in the studio with us. Kristen and Bethy are back on Family Life Today for another program. Welcome back.

Thank you so much. What just did happen there? I know we're going to talk about your book, not part of the plan and how, you know, our plan often doesn't match up with God. But something erupted there when you talked about, well, we don't share our anxiety with others.

Have you been there? I mean, women share everything, right? Well, I feel like there are so many things where, one, you might feel like this isn't... I shouldn't be worrying about this. I shouldn't be fearful of this. And so you just feel like, I'll keep it to myself. Or it's just, it's hard to be vulnerable. You know, it's hard to be open and say, like, honestly, this is a struggle for me.

This is a problem for me. I mean, I know in the very first conversation we had here, I was sharing about that wedding dress and how it hung in the back of my closet. And I will tell you... Hey, by the way, if you missed that one, you gotta go back and hear this story.

It's pretty epic. But that dress, like, kind of started to haunt me. And I started to have a lot of worry and fear. And I remember... And shame, I'm guessing. Yeah, shame and just feeling like, you know, I remember there was a particular Valentine's Day where I was sitting on my bed with my knees pulled up to my chest.

Everyone had their fun and their man and their roses and their, you know, chocolate bear. And I was just sitting there with this dress with dust on it, like, look at you, you know. It's like staring at you from the closet.

Yeah, staring at me from the closet. And I can't tell you how much fear over the future, how much worry I had. And I just, you know, it was like a life crisis. What am I going to do with my future? What if I never get married?

What if God has a different plan for me than I thought was, you know, going to happen? And that was my reality in that moment. I was in my late 20s. I wasn't married. At this point, I, you know, had been in some relationships.

They didn't work out. And so I'm thinking, wow, I am going to be 85 years old on the front porch somewhere, rocking away my life like an old maid and everyone's going to feel sorry for me. That is my future. Cool.

Like, great, great. I'll still have this wedding dress. Isn't it crazy how we project into the future?

Now you're 85. Yeah, I know. But we do. And it's so hard. And I remember sitting on my bed and God was so faithful to bring back a verse that had been a big encouragement to me in my past. But it's Proverbs 3, 5 and 6.

And it says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your past straight. And so for me, a huge source of my worry over what was happening in my life and fear over the future, so much fear over what was going to happen again. Was I going to have to go through another heartbreak? Was I going to be that single 85-year-old on the front porch, rocking my life away? I realized, for me, it was stemming from a lack of trust in God. And I realized, I don't have to trust God for when I'm 85.

I just need to trust Him for today. Do I really believe that He is directing my path? Do I really believe that He wants what is best for me more than I want what is best for me? Do I really believe that I can serve Him and live for Him fully as a single, just as much as I could as a married?

Circumstances wouldn't be different, but I do, I really believe that. And Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, really in that moment, that Valentine's Day moment, I remember this so clearly with the tears streaming down my face saying, God, I am so fearful, but I know that if I trust You, if I trust that You hold the future, that You care about my future and how I can serve You more than I do, I can wake up tomorrow and do it all over again. God, I trust You.

Direct my steps. Help me to serve You today, then do the same thing the next day. I didn't have to have all the trust for the next 80 years. All I needed was God to help me and give me strength to trust Him for that day.

And I'm telling you, that brought a lot of peace. But there were, you know, even hours later, I was where I felt, this is hard. Like, this is hard again.

I'm seeing my friend or I'm seeing Kristen have this thing that I don't have. This is difficult. I'm afraid of the future. You know, we spend so much time worrying about things that never come to pass or worrying about things that do come to pass. But in that moment, God gives us so much grace and peace to handle that. We spent years worrying about something and He's like, I can give you the strength to deal with that.

You know, live for me today. So that was probably one of the biggest seasons of my life for the longest amount of years, you know, over 10 years where I struggled to be afraid and fearful of the future. I'm thinking of a phone call that I received yesterday of a woman who just found out her husband was cheating on her. I mean, talk about worry. Talk about fear. There's so much. I'm thinking about all the incredible people that have gone through really painful divorces. And that was never their plan. But the worry, like, how am I going to take care of the kids?

And what does my future look like? Or the loss of a child? Exactly. I mean, I literally sat last week with a dad that I've coached high school football with, whose daughter was in the hallway of the Oxford High School shooting. Probably heard about it.

We live right there. My son and I actually did chapel for that football team. I knew the captain of the team got killed. He was the first one shot. And I'm talking to my buddy and you know, I'm like, how are you doing? You know, and he's like, you know, my daughter was walking down the hall. When she saw way off in the distance, kids screaming and running, and she literally turned her friend and said, shooter, and they ran out of the building. I go, how did she know? He goes, they've been so trained. She knew by she didn't hear any gunshots, because she was so far away. But she saw it and ran out of the building.

And he goes, it's been months. She can't sleep. You know, just having that in her head. So, you know, you're thinking, and he would just walk through the kind of things that all those families in Oxford are dealing with. And, you know, you've talked about your tragedies and things you've gone through. That anxiety is real. That worry is real. I mean, Christian, you talked about three miscarriages. I'm guessing the fear and worry about will I ever, what's the future look like, gripped you?

Yeah. Oh, every day, having to turn to God over and over again and through the journey of a decade of the diagnosis of unexplained infertility. You have infertility, but we don't know why.

Everything looks great. I mean, that's frustrating and hard. I want answers and then to be able to get pregnant, but then every time to only miscarry and now have this also diagnosis of recurrent miscarriage plus unexplained infertility. I mean, I just felt like the diagnosis were lining up and what is God doing?

How can any of this be good? And through that journey, and I'm still on the journey, still have not been able to conceive and bear a child and still trusting God for that. Holding that with open hands, still hopeful, still praying for that. And did you lay in bed though worrying?

Oh, yes. Worrying about what if I do get pregnant again, you know, terrified of the loss or what if I never do? And I have a sister who's very close to me who I'm looking at right now. And she asked me a question forever ago. We write about this in our book, not part of the plan, but she, this was way before you had your miscarriages and in your singleness. She said, if God never gives you children, could you still be happy? And I just remember, and she's saying this in a very loving way. This was a long time ago, but basically asking me, like, do you think if God never, and this is for any of us, if God never gives you blank, right?

Fill in the blank. Could you still be happy? And what she was asking was, if God never gives me this very real desire of my heart, could I still find joy and purpose and fulfillment in Christ alone? Is God enough? And I wanted to quickly say, well, of course, God's enough. He's everything.

And I think as Christians, that's our quick answer, right? But really, when we have to dig down to it, is God truly enough? And I remember this journey of wrestling with this fear and this anxiety and is God enough? Is he really enough?

But I want this so bad. But God, you say you're enough. God is showing me through the pain that peace isn't the absence of pain, but it's turning to God in the midst of our pain. Every single one of us has a story of pain, whether it's something we've gone through, we're walking through, or we're going to walk through. And we can find peace in the midst of it as we turn to God. And we see that in Isaiah 26, 3, which became an anchor for me over these past few years as God redirected my story, a twist and turn that was not a part of my plan, which is directing my husband and I to international adoption, something we never saw coming. But it's Isaiah 26, 3, which says, you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. And so I memorize that verse and I would say it every single day as my heart was prone to worry.

Write the song. We are prone to worry, prone to anxiety, prone to fear. I would remind myself, God, you keep me in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, whose heart trusts in you. And I would just say that to myself and say, God, help me to trust you. Because as I keep my mind on you, as I trust you, that's where peace comes from. And whether my circumstances ever change or not, whether I can ever have children, whether I go through more miscarriages, I don't know. But I know you are going to give me grace for today.

And as I set my hope on you, you will give me peace. And I've seen God do that. Were there days that you're like, I don't even want to go there? Yeah.

Oh, for sure. I don't want to read. I don't want to think about it. I just want to be in the dump, you know? Because I've been there like, I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired, Lord. I bet you've prayed that prayer. Just give me another brownie.

Oh, trust me. We have this like hiding in the back of our closet with our bowl of ice cream and our Cheetos, just like trying to drown out our sorrows. I've been there like, bash the Cheetos, honey.

Just open the door and chuck them at me. But then you've tasted God's goodness when you've gone to him, I'm guessing. Yes, which is a deeper well than any bag of Cheetos could ever provide. I mean, that temporary thing. Why do I go to the Cheetos first though?

It's the dark chocolate ice cream. We want to soothe the painful emotions. And it might feel good in the moment, but it's not a lasting solution. And I've turned to those quick fixes more times than I can count. And God has been so patient and gracious, drawing me back to him saying, perfect peace comes to you as you come to me.

That's where you find it. It is found in your relationship with me because at the end of the day, we were created to be most satisfied in God. Our greatest purpose isn't to get the life we always wanted, but to glorify God and build his kingdom the way he sees fit for us, right? We want to build, yeah, I'm a Christian. I want to build your kingdom according to my plans. And God's saying, no, no, no. You are a vessel for my, the works I've set before you and you'll build my kingdom the way I am calling you to build it. And it's really that humble surrender of saying, like Mary, like, okay, Lord, let it be done to me. Your will be done.

Your will be done, not mine. Yeah, I found this on your Girl Defined Instagram. Oh, look at you.

I'm almost embarrassed to say, I just, I went to Girl Defined, you know, it sounds funny for a guy. But I mean, here's a paragraph. I don't know when or which one of you wrote this, but it says, the last decade has taught me that joy doesn't come from getting the life I always imagined.

But from trusting God with the life he has for me and believing that his plans truly are better because they are. I was going to read that exact quote. We're so one right now. We are one.

Look at us. But I mean, obviously, we've heard, you know, your story. And so it isn't like an empty truth. Yeah. You know, somebody that's had a life that didn't really struggle, you're like, oh, whatever, dude, you don't know. But you know, you've gone through and even still. So let me ask you this, when you look at your boys now that you've adopted, what do you think about God's plan?

Wow. I think, God, you knew this all along, but I had no idea this was coming. And a visual that always comes to mind for me is this idea as humans, it's like we're looking at our life story through a tiny straw. Like, imagine if you hold up a straw and you look through it, you can't see much, right?

You like look around the room. You can only see a tiny little bit. But God sees our story from the beginning to the end.

He sees everything. And so when He says in His word, trust me, we're not trusting a God who's also looking through a straw. We're trusting a God who sees everything. He has a good plan for us that may include suffering, that may include trials for the purpose of building endurance, drawing us closer to Him, allowing our stories to be a place of hope that other Christians can come and even unbelievers and say, wow, look at the hope you have in the midst of that. Tell me more about that. And so we're trusting a God who is sovereign, who holds all things together in His hand. And I had no idea that God had these two precious boys.

They're 11 and 7 brothers from Ukraine. And through my sister marrying a missionary in Ukraine and moving there, we got connected with the country of Ukraine. And there was a lot of fear, though, in my heart, talking about fear and anxiety and worry. I was terrified of adoption.

I had all the biblical answers for why it was good and godly and Christians should do it. But for me, I just thought, I've been through so many miscarriages. I've built up my hope only to have it come crashing down.

I don't want to go through that again on the adoption path. There's so many unknowns. There's so many unanswered questions, so many things that can go wrong, upsets.

I've heard all the stories. And I was so fearful. And it took God really digging into my heart and exposing the fear and the anxiety about adoption, Him exposing that and helping me to see that I was just covered in fear. I was not trusting God.

I was not open handed at all. And then walking a journey of surrender and really going to God's word and saying, God, what is your heart for adoption? What do you say about this? And then seeing the parallels with the gospel and our adoption as God's children and just the beauty of that and God doing a 180 in my heart, a 180 in my husband's heart, and then giving us a desire for adoption that we had never had before, a genuine desire and longing. And then walking down that path and God bringing these two precious brothers who spoke no English and we speak no Russian into our family less than a year ago, but answering the cries of my heart for motherhood in a way that I never saw coming.

Because for me, becoming a mom meant having biological kids. And God really helped me to see that His plan for bringing together families can look so many different ways. And He did answer my prayer for motherhood. And now it's one of the biggest blessings in my life.

Let me ask the two of you, and Kristen, you can start. Who would you be now had you not gone through infertility and your three miscarriages? Because we have a choice, Dave, my pastor husband, always says that- I'm not your pastor. I'm saying as a pastor, like you taught this all the time at church, that trials can make you better or bitter. And you both have obviously become better as a result of your trials as you've put your focus on Jesus. But as we go through those trials, it's almost like God shapes us like a workout if we trust Him.

We add these new muscles and we look different than we had before. What would you look like, Kristen, first? What are the things that you've gained as a result of the suffering that you've walked through? You're listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Kristen Clark and Bethany Beale on Family Life Today. We'll hear Kristen's answer in just a minute, but first, we hear from you regularly about how important it is for us to have these kinds of conversations to help all of us think wisely, biblically, and compassionately about subjects like this.

And as you can imagine, we've had to make some tough choices again this year. We're hoping that through the generosity of people just like you, we can continue to reach your home and really homes everywhere. This is an especially unique and critical time of year to donate because we've had some friends of the ministry come alongside us and offer to double your monthly gifts for 12 months, up to $300,000 when you become a monthly partner right now.

So what does that mean? It means if you give $25 a month, the impact is actually $50 a month. And on top of that, when you do give this month, as our thanks to you, we'll send you a bundle of resources, including two books. One, Not Part of the Plan by Kristen Clark and Bethany Beale, who you're hearing from today, and two, A Lifelong Love by Gary Thomas. So becoming a monthly partner, having your gift doubled for a year, impacting families for the glory of Jesus, and getting a bundle of books.

Sounds great to me. You can give right now at familylifetoday.com or by calling 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. All right, now back to what Kristen and Bethany have gained as a result of the suffering they've walked through.

Here's Kristen. I would say I've gained spiritual endurance. I have gained a deeper relationship with the Lord as a result because I've walked the valleys of questioning His character in God.

Are you really good? And what are you doing? And not necessarily getting answers, but deepening my faith and trust, anchoring my hope in God and who He says He is and believing that from a gut level, you know, not just a theological knowledge of my head, but that transforming my heart. And now I know there is no true hope outside of the Lord, and I don't think I would have that deep relationship with God had I not walked through these valleys. What about you, Bethany?

How are you different? Yeah, you know, I remember a moment where I came face to face with a lot of my, like, idolatry of what I thought I needed in order to be happy. And I know if I had done things my way, I definitely wouldn't be sitting here. I would be married to someone else. I don't know what my life would look like because I was in a very unhealthy, I would say very toxic relationship during this period of desperation, wanting to get married because I had made such an idol out of my dreams and my way. And it took a lot of work from God to help me see what an idol, you know, my desires had become. But I'm so grateful that God, He didn't give up on me. He wasn't like, all right, Bethany's a lost cause, you know, out with her. She's just, you know, she can marry that guy.

Yeah, whatever. But I see, wow, God did have a good plan for me. And over the last really 10 years for me, it was 10 years of singleness, 10 years of like, okay, trying to figure out what in the world my life was going to look like.

I think that really, one, like, learning to trust God in such a deep way has helped me to see, like, my plans aren't always going to look like His plans. And the man that I did end up marrying, 10 years ago, if you would have told me you're going to end up with this guy, I would have been like, yeah, right. For one, he's shorter than me. I am 6'1". I need a man that is, like, at least a few inches taller than me. And I would have completely, on that fact alone, would have looked over him and said literally, that was not really, I did not mean that.

Him and I are very open about our height difference. And he's younger than me, and so I know I wouldn't be married to him because I had my own, my life was going a certain way. And so just seeing now, wow, God had someone for me, so specific, and He is the most incredible man. And now we both get to serve God together, and we have our sweet son, Davey Jr. You know, I wouldn't have been doing Girl Defined because I would have demanded that things go my way. You know, I would have demanded that I have been married to somewhere else. You would have tried to define your own life.

Exactly. So it's crazy because we don't, you know, this isn't the life ultimately that I always dreamed of and wanted, but I look back and I'm like, this is better than anything I could have wanted. It doesn't mean that it didn't have the heartache and the suffering.

It doesn't mean that I'm not still grieving the loss of my own miscarriages. I don't know exactly what the future holds, but I know God holds my future. I know He's been faithful. And so for me, I just see, wow, I can look back on God's faithfulness and I can trust Him. I can trust Him. Even if life never changes, even if I only have my one little Davey Jr. and, you know, never have a healthy pregnancy again for me or, you know, whatever it is, I know that God is trustworthy.

I've seen it for myself. I've seen Him be faithful and genuinely, truthfully, I have so much gratitude and joy in my heart because of the trials. And so I think it's so important through the hardship, as difficult as both you and Kristen described, like take that one step, cry out to God, ask Him. Because one day if you do that, you'll look back and you'll say, God, thank you for taking me through that as terrible and awful, as difficult as that was. I'm actually grateful because it drew me closer to you and my life is so much richer and deeper. And, you know, the Bible says that at God's hand, there are pleasures forevermore, and it's not the earthly pleasures.

It's that deep satisfaction of knowing Him and knowing one day we're going to spend forever with Him. And it's just a taste of that sometimes when we go through those hardships. And so for me, I'm actually very grateful for what God has brought me through and grateful for my husband, even, you know, the one or two inches shorter in all. I'm sorry, husband, if you're listening today.

Yeah, Dave, if you're listening, I'm shorter too, so a lot of us are. You know, one of the things that inspires me listening to you two is I think one of the things that anxiety, especially fear, can do in a person's life is it paralyzes us. We're afraid to risk because we've risked and it didn't work or we had hopes and then it got dashed, as you've said. And so you just sort of get, you get safe. You guard your heart. And you just, you just, I'm not going to take a risk. And even adopting, I mean, that's a risk. And that's like, God, I'm going to step out again and I'm scared.

Way to go. I'm just thinking of a listener who's like living this safe, protected life, which I get it, I understand. God wants you to risk. He wants you to say, trust me.

And you know what? It may not go the way you even want, but I'm sitting here thinking, okay, you two are remarkable women. What did your parents do? What would you say to, there's so many parents listening. It's like, man, I hope my son, my daughter is walking with Jesus one day. We wrote a parenting book about that hope. You know, I don't know your parents.

I've never met them. I'm thinking, man, they must have done something pretty incredible. I can name two things that you think, I'm really glad they did this. Well, I'm sure they wanted to give up over the years. Kristen and I weren't always, we have a long way to go, but we were, we were, we started out by sneaking out in the middle of the night. And eating all the ice cream in the freezer and then lying about it the next morning.

We did that for many months as children. But I will say that's not too big of a sin. You know, I'm thinking there's other kids snuck out and did worse things. That would be me. It was worse than ice cream.

Five, six, seven. But yeah, watching, you know, watching our parents faithfulness as imperfect as you know, they would say it was. There are eight of us kids and there was a ninth and he only lived for eight hours and it was full term. And we didn't find out until, you know, my parents didn't find out until he was basically about to be born that there were life altering circumstances and he wasn't going to make it.

And that was a really defining moment. I know for me of watching my parents go through literally holding their baby, having to bury him. It was such a horrible experience, but they didn't get bitter at God. And they literally, with all of us kids, we were younger at that time. They literally were the ones who were telling us like, God is still good. He is still faithful. We don't understand why he gave us this last baby and that was the last one and took him home to be with Jesus.

But we know that he's good and he has a bigger purpose. And so then through their own suffering, not pulling apart, but ultimately pulling us all together was such a defining moment. And I don't even think they realize how much of an impact they made. Just their faithfulness, not something specific they said, but them just striving to see God's goodness and to point us to him through their grief made a massive impact on me.

And that's been really defining for me. So they let you guys see it. Oh, yeah.

They didn't hide it. No. It's amazing because it's really kind of what your book's about. Yeah. Our parents also really emphasized our relationship over rules. And I know, and now being a parent myself, I find myself like, okay, I'm the black and white lady. Like, all right, kids, here's the boundaries and the rules and we're going to this, this, this and focus on behavior, right?

And they had their rules and boundaries, of course, but they were very focused on the relationship. And so they would allow us to ask questions. Okay, well, why, especially when we hit the teenagers, but dad, you know, why? And they would explain like, honey, here's why we think this is best. Here's why we're doing this because we love you.

You don't like it, but here's why we think this is the better path for you and why we're putting up these boundaries and these guardrails. And I just remember as I grew into adulthood, always feeling like I could go to my parents and talk to them about anything because I knew the relationship was more important to them than just us following the rules, just doing the right thing. And so I think for any parent listening, that's a huge thing is to continue to invest in that relationship. Get to know your child, get to know their heart.

Because in the long run, I know for me that really has continued into my adulthood to keep me connected to my parents because I feel like, wow, I have a genuine relationship with them. Yeah, I would just as I listen to you, I think, okay, it's girl defined, but your motto is boy defined as well. It's all of us defined by our designer defines us.

Way to go. I'm thinking of the men listen and women listen. If we live that out and you say many times in your book, not part of the plan that you got to know the heart of the creator to be able to trust him.

And I think that's what I've heard from you for these last three programs. It's like, man, get to know the designer, Jesus. That's his name. And when you know his name and know his heart, you can trust him. The more you know him, the more you know yourself. Yeah, exactly. Because you become defined by who he says you are.

And you can only learn that by getting to know him. See, I tried to say it and there it was. Can't say it better than that. That's good. Thanks. That's David Ann Wilson with Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal on Family Life Today. I want to remind you that you can get their book, which is called Not Part of the Plan.

Trusting God with the twists and turns of your story. You can get that when you become a monthly partner at familylifetoday.com or by calling 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. If you know anyone who needs to hear conversations like the one you heard today, we'd love it if you'd tell them about this station. You can share today's specific conversation from wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, it'd really help us out if you'd rate and review us. And tomorrow, Dave and Ann Wilson are going to be talking with John and Corey Cooper from the band Skillet. John and Corey raised their kids on the road alongside some of the most famous heavy metal bands in the world.

And found that even in the times of fear, wondering about how their kids would turn out, steering them towards Jesus was the best priority as a parent. That's tomorrow. We hope you can join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. . .