Kristen Clark & Bethany Beal: When Life Spirals Downward–Who am I?

What do I believe about God? And I think that's the biggest question is our identity starts with what we believe about God, who we believe God truly is, because when the fires come, when the valleys come, when the trials, the unfulfilled longings, the prayers that seem like they're unanswered and we're praying them year and year on end and nothing's changing, really it puts to the test, what do we actually believe about God? 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. So 30 plus years ago when we moved to Detroit to be the Detroit Lions chaplain. I remember that. You remember that. You were there. I was there. I remember, you know, being really excited, NFL team, new city, new ministry.

I just finished seminary and here's what God had for us. And I remember our buddy Pat Ritchie was just named the San Francisco 49ers chaplain, good friend of mine. And I said, dude, you're going to like the losingest team ever. I feel so bad for you, man. The 49ers are terrible. They're never going to win anything. Well, 30 plus years later, Pat Ritchie has five Super Bowl rings, and I have zero.

I have one playoff win in 33 years. And I'm just telling you, that was not part of my plan. I thought, you know, I'm going to go to a team that's going to win and it's going to be just, you know, I'm going to be a Super Bowl winning chaplain. It really bothers you, doesn't it?

You bring it up often. I just can't believe that was what God had for us. And now it's over, you know, and they're still losing and they can't blame the chaplain because they used to blame me that I wasn't a good enough chaplain. But no, the reason I thought of it is so many of us have stories where here's what my plan is.

Why isn't God matching up? And it seems different. And we have Kristen and Bethany back in the studio with us who wrote a book called Not Part of the Plan.

And it's exactly what so many of us have experienced. So anyway, welcome back. We really enjoy having you guys back at Family Life today.

Thank you so much. I'm just wondering if I look like a raccoon with all my mascara. We haven't already listened yesterday. We've kind of gotten into their stories. I got to notice, you did laugh when you heard how, you know, how many games we've lost in Detroit.

I was just thinking of all of the rewards you have in heaven for serving the Lord. They're cowboy fans and they can't relate to what you said. We are more basketball girls, you know, being from the tall family, 6'1 and all, we're kind of more the basketball.

We love the Spurs. Yeah. Well, Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal are sisters and they have a ministry together and you've written five books.

Called Girl Defined, by the way. You have a podcast. You speak around the country. You do conferences. You really are having a ministry. How would you, if you had to say it quickly, what does this ministry do? Yeah, we help girls and women all over the world discover God's design for their womanhood. Yeah, I saw one of you guys talking to one of your podcasts or YouTube and you had a sweatshirt on that I still remember. I know I'm going to get the exact phrase wrong, but it defined what I think Girl Defined is.

Tell me if I'm right. It said the one who designed you should define you or something like that. Look at you!

Our best-selling shirt! It's because he's a pastor and he wordsmiths things. Say it exactly how it is. The one who designed you gets to define you.

That is not a really popular phrase, so the girls who wear that shirt are very bold. I mean, just in our modern day, it's like, wow, you are your truth. You define you. You are your everything. You are really the God of your life.

Even Christian women, this is a very hard thing to wear on their shirt, but also to live out. Wow, the one who designed me, God, he gets to define me. My identity is found in him. His word is the truth.

It's easy when we're sitting in this room right now. We're all on the same page, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like you walk out of these doors and that is so radical.

Those truths are so radical. So we feel extremely passionate at Girl Defined not to water that down, not to be afraid, not to be ashamed, because Christ obviously is our strength. He is our boldness.

And we want other women to know, it doesn't matter if you feel so weak. Christ, He is your strength. He is strong when you are weak. And you can follow Him.

You can live for Him. And that's truly where true purpose and peace and worth and value is found. And all of us looking for that in so many different places. And, you know, striving after whatever it is because we want to have value. We want to have worth.

So our entire ministry is just focused on that. Like, there is, you know, God, He loves you so much and He has a plan for your life. But He also has so much to say in His word that is extremely clear. And we're confusing ourselves by, like, did He really say? And then we wonder why life is so confusing. Yeah, yeah, you're also saying that when you follow those ways, that's where you'll find freedom. That's where you'll find meaning. That's where you'll find hope. Yeah, let's talk about the identity piece that you just brought up a little bit.

Because as we talked yesterday, I mean, not part of the plan is all about how His plan didn't match up with your own plan. We've experienced that too. I mean, I'm making a joke about Detroit Lions. But in real life, there's hard things that we struggle, we go through the dark, we're angry. We talked yesterday about miscarriages and fertility.

You get pregnant where you're on your third miscarriage. There's anger. There's disappointment. So talk about understanding your identity. Yeah. You know, the designer defines you in the middle of tragedy. Because it feels like if you don't know that, you're in trouble.

But if you do, you can walk through it. Because the tragedy will define you. Exactly. Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah. Well, and I think we also believe the lie that if we are following God, that life will be easy. So we think if I put my identity in Christ, then everything is going to go my way, kind of like God is a vending machine.

And you see a whole movement of people leaving the faith based off of that. Like, oh, you know, this was so damaging to me. Like, I saved sex for marriage.

I never got married. And look, now, you know, I didn't get that thing I wanted. And so we kind of view God through this lens of I put this in, he gives me this out. And life can be so disappointing when we view God through that way. And I know that was so hard for you, you know, dealing with that. Like, God, are you even good, you know?

Right, right. Because in my mind, the good life was to have children. To have biological children, to start a family with my husband, that was my dream that the Bible calls children a blessing. So I'm thinking, God, I'm praying a biblical prayer here.

Why aren't you answering? And then when you give me this desire, I get pregnant, then you just take it away. So it really tested my identity. Like, what do I believe about God? And I think that's the biggest question is our identity starts with what we believe about God, who we believe God truly is.

Because when the fires come, when the valleys come, when the trials, the unfulfilled longings, the prayers that seem like they're unanswered and we're praying them year and year on end and nothing's changing, really, it puts to the test what do we actually believe about God? And I know for me, after my third miscarriage, which I thought for sure that one was going to stick, the pregnancy was so healthy, saw the heartbeat at eight weeks. My doctor was saying, wow, everything looks great.

Hormones, everything was on track. And so for the first time in my entire marriage, it was eight years at this point, had those two early miscarriages, I started to hope. And I started to think this is the one that's going to stick. I was still a little hesitant to fully go there. I didn't want to think about names, you know, because I was too scared.

I didn't want to think about baby showers and just like taking it one day at a time. But I started to hope. And so when I opened up my heart to hope again, and then at 11 weeks, I went into my doctor's appointment and she said, I'm so sorry, there's no longer a heartbeat.

That news hit me like a gut punch to my chest like nothing ever had. And I went home and I remember my identity was shaken because what I started doing is questioning everything I knew about God. It wasn't so much about me, but God, who are you?

Why would you allow this to happen? You say you're good in scripture, but there's nothing good about this. You say you're kind.

This is cruel. And what I was doing was filtering God's character through the lens of my circumstances rather than filtering my circumstances through the lens of God's character. Right?

Did you catch that? Such a difference. And so everything I was feeling, the real loss, the real pain, the grief. Was your husband with you at the ultrasound?

Yes, he was, which I am so grateful for. I mean, we both just crumbled. I just remember laying back on the table after the ultrasound and I couldn't move. Tears were just streaming down my face.

And, you know, he came from work and so we just took the rest of the week off and went home. And even telling friends and family, I know for anyone that gets news like that, whatever it is, whatever heart you lost your job or some health diagnosis, you don't even want to tell people. You want to go into hiding. It is so painful. You just want to disappear. You want it to be a dream that you're going to wake up from. But you know you're not.

It's reality. And so I was questioning everything about God's character. And I grew up in church. I was a believer from a young age. And I just remember feeling almost scared.

Like, where am I going to land? Like, I don't even know how to process this. And who is God? And I know from my heart what I had to do to remember my identity in Christ and to remember who God was is I literally Google searched names and attributes of God. Who is God?

Because I couldn't even remember. And I found a 30-day devotional basically praying through the names and attributes of God one day at a time. And I knew, I was like, if I don't do something, I am going to just land in a pit and never get out of this. And so just one foot in front of the other, I needed truth to inform my emotions about who God was. And I would take one attribute, one name of God for one day, and I would read it. And I would meditate on it.

And I would read all of the scripture that this little devotional had listed out for where to read about that name or attribute of God. And where was your heart at that time? At first, were you just doing it because— Yes, just going through the motions, feeling almost numb. It's like I didn't even want to open my Bible because I was so angry at God that I'm like, I don't even want to give you the time of day.

How could you say you're good? This is so painful. And it really was. It was just a step of, I know in the depths of my heart that God is who He says He is. I'm going to try to lead my emotions by His truth, but I don't even know if anything's going to change.

But it is amazing. When God's word says that it is living and active, it changed my heart slowly, one day at a time. For 30 days, I am telling you, by the end of those 30 days, I wasn't completely over my grief or the loss. I mean, the longing, it's still there.

It was still painful, but my soul was revived. That reminds me of my best friend was my sister. And she passed away when she was 45.

Oh, wow. And she, like, we talked every single day on the phone. She led me to Christ. And the same thing happened when she passed away. Everything was rocked in my world.

I didn't even know where to go. And I remember going to church feeling so numb. I felt nothing, like nothing, because the pain was so deep.

But the thing that I did was I did the same thing, Kristen. I opened God's word, and I read it. I didn't want to read it.

I didn't feel like reading it. But there's something that happens, as you said, it never returns void, and it started just to sink deep. And it took a while. Did it take you a while for the feelings or the emotions to come back? Oh, yeah. Yeah, for like the love for God.

I would say after 30 days of just reading about who God is and his character and asking God to help me believe that. Yeah, because you had to lament and grieve. Yes, and still, and there's a healthy process of that. But I think a prayer we can pray for anyone who's in the midst of that valley is just to say, help my unbelief. I don't even want to believe this about you, but this is who you say you are. And you even say that you can turn my ashes into beauty, that you can make good out of what feels so bad. And you see all of these stories in Scripture where God has done that.

But for your story, you're like, I don't know if that's true. I don't know if God can do this. So I just remember even praying, help my unbelief.

Help me to believe that you are who you say you are. And God wants to answer those kind of prayers. And he did over many weeks, many months. It's a long journey.

It's not an instant fix. But God, he does draw near to the brokenhearted, even when we don't feel it. I know looking back now, he was never far away.

And that's where you found your identity in the midst of crisis. Well, yeah, and here's a question from a husband. Talk to us guys who are maybe watching our wife, sister, mother, but I'm thinking of our wife. Go through something like that. And again, I'm not saying we're not going through it, but we're just your partner. How do we, what can we do?

What shouldn't we do? What should we do to help a woman go through something that's dark? What do you think, Bethany?

I mean, now that I have personal experience, I wish I didn't, but I do. I think, you know, me and my husband, it hasn't been that long for us. So we are still having those conversations and there's still a lot of moments that are just very hard and raw. But we were just talking the other day and I was saying it's hard because the woman is the one who physically, with a lot of these, you know, at least pregnancy losses, that sort of thing, she's physically going through it.

And there are regular monthly reminders like, you know, your dream is not a reality. And so I think for me, it's been very important to communicate to my husband what is helpful. Because he is so loving and he wants to be there for me, but he doesn't always know exactly how. Because he, you know, might bring it up and I might just burst into tears. So he's like, should I bring it up?

Should I not bring it up? And so we've had those conversations like, hey, it's really, really helpful for me, especially when we're at home in a safe, private setting for you to ask me about my heart. How are you doing?

How are you feeling? You know, what are your thoughts? Just to really dig in and show me that he cares in that way and that he still feels, you know. Because for him, he does think about it and he does care, but he often isn't expressing it in the same way that I am. And so I wonder, I'm like, does he even care anymore?

Is he just moved on? Are we on to the next thing? Or we'll talk about, you know, with friends, what the past year looked like. And I'm like, the biggest things in my years were that we had to mis-care. Just like that was the hardest thing that happened.

That was, you know, when we're talking about like, well, it was, you know, the pandemic and an interesting year. And I'm like, yes, but we lost two babies. So it's really important for like for us to communicate about that. And for me to tell him, like, I need to hear how you feel. I need to hear what you're thinking. I need you to ask me, especially in private, how I'm feeling and to just know like one week I might be doing great. And I'm like, this is amazing. I have all these dreams and ambitions and hopes and I'm going to do all this stuff. And he's like, wow, you know, you're doing better. You're over it.

It comes crashing down. And so just explaining that to him, I know that can be hard for us as women to open up. We just want our husbands to kind of magically understand us sometimes and to know, you know, our feelings and our emotions. But for me, I've realized I really need to open up and communicate that to him because he does love me and he does care about me.

And I think that's true for so many husbands, especially those that are listening right now who are saying, I want to love my wife well. I want to love my family well. You know, I think just asking her, how can I love you through this? How can I support you through this?

When do you want me to ask you about this? How can I communicate in a way that helps you to know I do care? You know, I may not express it in the same way you do, but this impacts me, too.

I am sad. And just communicating about that, I feel like has drawn the two of us so much closer together. And I know that he cares and that he thinks about it and he knows now when to ask me about it. You know, if we're in like the middle of church or in the middle of a friend's house, hey, babe, how are you doing with the miscarriage?

And I'm like, please not. So communicating about that has been really helpful for us in our experience. Yeah, I mean, that was like a clinic the last couple of minutes to a guy. I'm thinking there's some guy just was handed from his wife, hey, listen to this podcast. He's like, oh, one of the things you said, Bethany, was, you know, ask me how I'm doing. Here's what I thought, because Ann said that to me in good times as well as dark times. You know, she said, if we go on a date, if you just looked across the table and said, so how are you?

She goes, I might tear up because you don't ask me enough. I'm like, I sort of don't want to know. I'm hoping you're fine, right? Like, we're good, right? Okay, good.

Let's go to a movie. You know, sometimes that's what we want to do to avoid it. But it was just like in in the darkness for sure. But even in the times that things are good, it's like, honey, how are you and how are we? Yeah.

Is that same thing you would say, Christian? Yeah, yeah. You know, so interesting. After the first miscarriage, we were two years married and still have a long way to go in our marriage. Just growing and learning and understanding each other. But we learned after that first one that the way a man grieves and the way a woman grieves is so different. And I felt a lot of the same things that Bethany just described. Like, you know, I felt like he was moving on pretty quick. And later on, as we dug deeper and I was feeling pain from his almost like he was avoiding the topic, not bringing it up. And he just honestly said, I just felt like every time I brought it up, you would cry and I didn't want to make you cry.

Right. And so just like Bethany said, that communication. And then as the wife being OK with your husband grieving in a different way than you, I started feeling a little bit bitter in my heart. I remember toward my husband because I wanted him to express his grief in the same way, because then that would communicate to me, oh, he's grieving just as deeply.

But we had many heartfelt conversations. And he just said, you know, I mean, think about a typical week like you probably cry more than me in general, thinking that's probably true. I cried 20 times, maybe 100 to your every one. You know, you cry once a year. I cry 100 times a year just for whatever is going on in life.

And so it's true. We grieve differently. And I had to learn to be OK with that, to allow him to grieve as a man, may grieve still communicating and drawing together, but being OK with how we were going to process that a little bit differently. And I know for women that can be hard because we want to see a certain thing and feel like, OK, we're on the same page. And if it looks different, we feel like we're just connected. So communication was huge for us as well. And is there a way you shared earlier about you sort of digging out by studying the attributes of God over 30 days by yourself?

Is there a way as a couple when you're going through something hard together, you can dig out together? What thoughts do you have on that? You're listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Kristin Clark and Bethany Beal on family life today. We'll hear Bethany's thoughts in just a second.

But first, as you can imagine, we've had to make some tough choices again this year, like everybody else. We're hoping that through the generosity of people like you, we can continue to reach your home and all the homes that need help and hope for the relationships that matter most. 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 three hundred thousand dollars when you become a monthly partner right now. And on top of that, when you 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 Kristin Clark and Bethany Beal, who you've heard from today, and two, A Lifelong Love by Gary Thomas. So become a monthly partner, have your gift doubled for a year, impact families for the glory of Jesus and get 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 couples can do as they go through tough times together. I mean, for the two of us, my husband is incredible at leading us in prayer, and that's something I'm really grateful for and something he's done from the beginning. So throughout this time, he's been amazing, you know, in the morning, in the evening. It doesn't have to be long drawn out, you know, our sessions of crying out to God, but just praying and trusting our future. Also just, you know, him leading us and reminding like, hey, look, we have, you know, our little son, Davey, and this is so amazing.

And, you know, there's even bringing those bright spots, like remembering there are some joyful things going on. But I would say for us personally, him leading in prayer and not being awkward about it, not being weird about it, just saying, hey, let's do this. Can I pray for us? Can I pray for you?

Do you want to pray? That's been really, really helpful. And then something else we just started that's been really helpful in connecting the two of us is we're going through just a year devotional. And it's not a huge commitment. It's, you know, shorter. We have a toddler, so our times alone for, you know, Bible time together aren't that long.

Sometimes the toddler jumps on the head in the middle of it and it's fine. But it's really simple, very short commitment. We're doing one by Tim Keller through the Psalms, and it's just a great way to bring up conversation. The Psalms have so much emotion in them, so it's been amazing just to see, like, wow, emotion is good. But, you know, the Psalmist and the Psalms, they always go back, but God, but God is our strength, but God is good. He is our refuge. And so that in particular, going through a year devotional through Psalms has been so healthy and healing. It's drawing us together, reminding us, hey, we're in this together. We're on the same team. I don't think you have to make a massive commitment, like we're grieving now. All right, stop everything.

Here we go. You know, it's like you kind of want to remember there are some good things in life, too. So just having those moments where we can connect, that's been helpful for us. But I know you went through an amazing book that really helped you and Zach. Yeah, and I know there could be some wives listening who may think, well, my husband isn't an incredible leader.

Yeah, and he would never initiate. And I think, you know, you can initiate in the marriage and say, honey, I am struggling. I want to pull together, but I'm struggling to even know how to do that.

Can we do something together? And even bring it up. And I know for me, I was the one after the third miscarriage when we both felt so shattered and so broken and confused. We'd had practice grieving together. So I will say we were a lot better the third time just navigating that process as a married couple. But I remember looking over at my husband and just saying, I need to do something that's going to fuel my heart.

Like that's going to give me hope because I was doing the attributes study on my own. But together as a couple, I said, what can we do? Right now, can we get on Amazon and buy a book?

Buy a study, something that's going to help us as a couple know how to walk through this grief together. And so he literally got on, you know, some different Christian websites and started looking up resources for grief. And we ended up ordering a book on Amazon. In that moment, it came in the next day and we just started reading it together. And we would sit down and we would just read a chapter at a time. He took off work, so we had some time and we devoured that book.

I think in like a week just reading, sitting down, reading a chapter. And it was life giving because it was all about finding hope in the midst of loss, in the midst of a tragedy. And us reading this gospel hope together as a couple and then talking about it and then crying and working through the emotions. That was so healing for us.

And it really gave us tracks to run on. I know as couples sometimes we feel like we're spinning off in different directions. It brought us together and gave us a clear path of how we could move forward together as a couple. So while I was listening, don't be shy to even say, hey, honey, can we find something that we can go through together? Because I need that. I thought it was really wise that you were very vulnerable and said, I'm really needing something.

I'm really I'm really struggling here because if we approach our husbands like, hey, here's what we need to be doing. Or why aren't you leading me? She never ever did that.

I've never done that. But I think it's wise to say I need you right now. And it would help me if we could do something together. And I think as men, we love to be needed. There's something in us that wants to rescue, that wants to be there when our wife says, hey, you should do this. We're like, oh, but when she says I'm needing.

Yes. Not I need you. I need help here. I think most of us are like, OK. I want to help.

I want to help and I can help. I can meet you where you are and take us vertical. I mean, we wrote a book called Vertical Marriage, which is like take your marriage vertical.

And I think that is what you're saying. It's like, just go vertical. There's a lot of things you can do horizontally.

And they're good. We can go to a counselor. We can help one another out. But when you turn vertical and look up and say, God, we need you.

We need help. And when a man leads his wife there or even when the wife initiates it, something changes. Because now the supernatural is accessed and the Holy Spirit can say, OK, I'm going to go somewhere in your heart and your soul that you're not able to get to.

I'm going to go there. And to go there as a couple, even though it's hard and maybe it's a lament together, even an angry prayer. But if you go there together, something intimate happens. It's deeper than anything because you're going through something hard together.

But when you do it together vertically, he meets you right there. It could be prayer. I know for Ann and I, when she was going through the death of her sister, it was putting in a worship song on and listening.

And there were times she couldn't sing the words, but just cried through it. And it was like, here we go, we're going vertical and God's meeting us right there. So I would say to a man that's listening right now, maybe your wife told you to listen today. I'm speaking to you and say, man, you be the guy.

You be the man in her life that says, honey, I want to lead you and I want to meet you where you are. Let's invite Jesus into this and see what he wants to do. That's David Ann Wilson with Kristen Clark and Bethany Beale on Family Life Today. Let me remind you, you can get their book, Not Part of the Plan, Trusting God with the twists and turns of your story, when you become a monthly partner at familylifetoday.com. Or you can give us a call at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. Now tomorrow, David and Ann Wilson are going to be talking again with Kristen Clark and Bethany Beale about the importance of needing to know the heart of the creator in order to trust him.

The more you know him, the more you know yourself, really, because the biblical story is really our story. Join us for that tomorrow. On behalf of David and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.