Bethany Beal - Live Original

Remaining Faithful Through the Unexpected

by Bethany Beal | Dec 2, 2021 | Life Advice, Wisdom

I have a confession to make. What I’m about to share with you was once a triple-top-secret, pinky-promise kind of thing. I’d make you promise not to tell anyone, but the cat is out of the bag. You now have my permission to laugh or cringe. You ready? I bought my dream wedding dress when I was twenty-two years old and completely single.

No, I’m not kidding.

So, the year was 2011. Ancient, I know. My sister was engaged to her now-husband, Zack, and we were in full wedding-planning mode.

One day, we were out shopping for the perfect wedding dress for Kristen. We had hit up a few shops with nothing to show for it. Kristen was feeling discouraged. One by one the dresses went on, then off. After a few rounds, Kristen put on the most gorgeous dress I had ever laid eyes on. The top was filled with sparkles and faux diamonds. The bottom was elegant, full, and flowing with a beautiful chiffon fabric. She looked dreamy.

Unfortunately, when Kristen looked in the mirror, she didn’t quite see Cinderella. She thought the dress was lovely, but it wasn’t her. She must have seen my glowing eyes, because she commented on how this dress looked more like me than her. I nodded my head in agreement.

“You should try it on!” Kristen said with a smile.

Now hear me out. When I walked into the store that day with Kristen, I had zero intentions of buying a wedding dress for myself. That was the last thing on my radar. I was completely single. No wedding in sight.

The minute I walked out of that room to show Kristen and our mom the dress, they both erupted in small cheers. “It’s one hundred percent you!” Kristen said, shaking her head and smiling. “It’s like you times a thousand, actually.”

I had to agree with her. It was totally me. It fit perfectly too. Before I could talk any sense into myself, a wave of fear washed over me. What if this dress no longer exists when I get married someday? What if they discontinue it? What if I search for months and months and can’t find anything even close to this?

That fear drove me to make a drastic and totally weird decision. I bought the dress!

The sales clerk was completely confused when we asked her to package up this dress for me. As we walked away from that store, a thrilling sensation washed over me. Maybe my wedding day wouldn’t be too far off after all. Little did I know that my perfect dress would hang in the back of my closet for many, many years to come. That little secret would remain hidden in the shadows of my life while my dreams to get married went unfulfilled.

You can read the entire wedding dress story in my new book, Not Part of the Plan: Trusting God with the Twists and turns of Your Story.

Maybe you’re in a similar situation. You desire marriage, but it just isn’t happening for you. Maybe it’s a disappointment with your career. Maybe it’s losing a loved one too soon. Maybe it’s having to move cross country leaving behind all of your friends. Maybe it’s not getting accepted into your dream university.

Sister, I don’t know exactly what you’re going through but I do know this. We all experience disappointment, unfulfilled longings, and unmet expectations. I’ve been there and I know you’ve been there as well.

So how do we trust God and remain faithful in the midst of disappointment?

There’s a short passage found in Proverbs 3 that has become an anchor in my life. It’s literally been my life verse and rock. It’s what carried me through when my wedding dress would stare at me from the back of my closet. Let’s look at it together:

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 straight your paths. (vv. 5–6)

Let’s dig into each line a little deeper.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart.”

God doesn’t want part of our heart. He doesn’t want the part that’s easiest to give. That’s not what this verse is saying. This verse makes it crystal clear that He wants all of it. He wants the full surrender. Why is it so easy to give all our heart to other things, like guys, work, friends, or a television show, but so hard to totally give it to God? I wish it were the other way around. Don’t you? By trusting in the Lord with all your heart, you’re humbly admitting that God’s ways are better. That God is wiser. That His character is perfectly good and loving (which we know it is). That it would be foolish to rely on our own finite wisdom rather than trust our mighty Creator. Trusting in the Lord with all your heart is an act of humility. It’s acknowledging how great God is and how very small we are in comparison.

“And do not lean on your own understanding.”

That’s the contrasting piece to the verse. We are to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding. Why? Because our understanding is incredibly limited. We have a teeny-tiny view of life, of this world, and only mere speculation about the future. God sees and knows everything. He knows where we’ve been and where we’re going. Leaning on your own understanding would be like taking the paintbrush from Leonardo da Vinci and asking him to step aside. Yikes! How foolish and silly would that be? It would be crazy! Insane, in fact. And yet, that’s what we try to do with God. Not leaning on your own understanding is acknowledging that God is the Master Artist and you are not. It’s letting Him paint the portrait of your life.

“In all your ways acknowledge him.”

This means acknowledging God in the little things and the big things. It’s saying, God, I’d really love for this relationship with this guy to work out. He seems so awesome, and I think we’d make an amazing couple. Even though I really want this, I’m opening my hands and surrendering this to You. Please give me wisdom. Please help me to listen. Please bring out anything in our relationship that is not honoring or would not be beneficial to him or to me. Please end this if it’s not Your plan for me. I trust You. I want Your will. Acknowledging Him is wanting what God wants long term, not just what you want in the current moment. It’s being willing to follow God down a different path than you’d imagined for your life if He makes that clear. Acknowledging God is simply living a surrendered life one day at a time.

“And he will make straight your paths.”

This is beautiful. God promises that He will direct your paths if you do the above things He’s listed. He will guide you, and He will do it one step at a time. One moment at a time. One day at a time. If you’re trusting in Him with all your heart, not leaning on your own understanding, and acknowledging Him in all your ways, you better believe that He absolutely will direct your paths. He won’t always direct them where you want Him to direct them. But He will always direct them where He knows is best. Imagine a little toddler who’s starting to walk. Toddlers need a lot of guidance and assistance for every next step. If left to themselves, they would most likely end up hurt or somewhere they really don’t want to be. We are like the toddler. We need God’s guidance for every step of the way. In those moments when you’re struggling and want to go your own way, take a deep breath and remind yourself to trust in Him with all your heart.

It’s Hard to Trust

Girl, I get it. I get how difficult it is to put this whole trust thing into practice. When life is messy, it’s hard to trust. When you thought God was doing one thing, and He closes the door and takes you in a different direction, it’s hard to trust. When something happens that’s totally outside of your control and you can’t fix it, it’s hard to trust. When you desperately want God to intervene for you in a certain way and He doesn’t, it’s hard to trust. When you buy a wedding dress and end up single for the next decade, it’s hard to trust.

You can actually read about my entire journey of learning to trust God in my new book, Not Part of the Plan: Trusting God with the Twists and Turn of Your Story. I think you would be super encouraged as you strive to fully surrender and trust God with your own life story.

I believe that God has a good work for you to do (Eph. 2:10). I believe that He has you here for a good purpose (Gal. 6:9). I’m cheering you on as you strive to trust God and thrive right where He’s planted you. I’m praying that you will choose to be faithful. Choose to obey. Choose to trust Him.

Bethany Beal is head-over-heels in love with her best friend and husband, David, and is the super proud mommy of Davey Jr. She is the cofounder of GirlDefined Ministries (www.girldefined.com) and the author of Not Part of the Plan: Trusting God with the Twists and Turns of Your Story. She is passionate about spreading the truth of biblical womanhood through writing, speaking, and mentoring young women. To her family and close friends, she is simply a tall blonde girl who is obsessed with iced lattes and can’t get enough of her sweet baby Davey Jr.

How to Know if You’re Really in Love

by Bethany Beal | Mar 2, 2021 | Life Advice, Testimonies | 3 comments

I’ll never forget the moment I first “noticed” David. I’d just spent the day with David and a bunch of other friends at a local event. The evening was coming to a close. I made my rounds and said my goodbyes to everyone…except for David. I couldn’t find him.

I headed to my car without another thought. As I was about to close the door to my car, I heard a voice call out my name. I looked back towards the parking lot and saw David running towards my car. He was coming to say goodbye to me. To me! What? Why? I looked at him through the rain and noticed him in a way I’d never noticed him before. “This guy is hot!” I thought to myself. I felt butterflies in my stomach. Something was different between us.

So let me ask you this: Were my feelings a sign that I had met my soulmate? Did cupid hit me with one of his arrows? Was I “in love?”

Well…not exactly. My feelings for David were very real, but they weren’t necessarily signs of true love.

What I was experiencing at that moment was a physical and sexual attraction to David. That attraction could lead me towards true love (and it did eventually), but in and of itself physical attraction isn’t the primary ingredient for true and lasting love. Romantic love is wonderful in the right context, but it’s not the type of love that will sustain a marriage for decades on end.

If you want a marriage that thrives beyond the honeymoon phase, you need a better vision for what true love looks like.

Thanks to Hollywood and our selfish hearts, most modern romantic relationships and marriages are built upon the belief that true love should always create happy feelings. That romance should always be at the center of every interaction. That sexual attraction should be the primary fuel for keeping your marriage alive. But if this is true, why are so many “hot celebrity marriages” fizzling out after a year or two?

If we, as Christian women, want better results for our romantic relationships, we have to get to the root of what genuine, true love is. We have to build our romances on God’s vision for true love and lasting relationships.

When we open up God’s Word, we quickly see that love defined by God is the polar opposite of most everything we see in our secular society. It also goes against every fiber of our being.

Love defined by God runs completely contrary to our self-centered hearts. In the Bible, there are actually 3 different Greek words to describe love. We can use these Greek words to help us determine which type of love we’re building our relationships on.

Eros (sexual and romantic love)

Phileo (friendship love)

Agape (unconditional, self-sacrificing love)

A lasting and vibrant marriage needs all three types of love to thrive. However, most of us place the largest amount of weight on the first one. Eros. We try to build our relationship on the foundation of romance and sexual attraction. But that doesn’t work long term.

God has a better plan. If you were able to read your Bible in Greek, you would see that the word “agape” is mentioned 259 times.

This should clue us in on how important this type of love is.

When we break down the original meaning of the word “agape,” its definition is earth-shattering. “The essence of agape love is self-sacrifice.” Did you catch that last part? The essence of agape love is self-sacrifice. This type of love isn’t built on sexual attraction, feelings, or romance—it’s built on choosing to serve someone else unconditionally.

Self-sacrifice.

God defined love isn’t built on romance alone but on a foundation of serving and sacrificing for another person. True love is an action, not an emotional feeling. Self-sacrifice is the action that best displays true biblical love.

Here’s a powerful story from my book, Love Defined: Embracing God’s Vision for Lasting Love and Satisfying Relationships that illustrates this type of agape love:

“I heard the story of a couple who had been married for over seventy years. As they entered their early nineties, the wife began to lose her sight. By the time her ninety-third birthday rolled around, she was completely blind.

Knowing how scary and hard this was for his wife, the husband stayed by her side every hour. He gently talked with her, prayed with her, sang her songs, cooked her meals, and combed her brittle hair. Wrapping his wrinkled hands around hers, he would softly whisper, ‘I love you more than life itself.’

Unable to look back at him, she would smile and say, ‘And I love you even more than that.’

Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. He stayed by her side. He served her. He loved her. His unselfish love was fueled by his deeper understanding of God’s faithful love to him.

Having experienced God’s sacrificial love for him for over ninety years, this older gentleman was compelled to love his wife in the same way.

One day the man’s grandson was visiting and asked, ‘Grandpa, don’t you get tired of just sitting with Grandma all day?’

Staring off into the distance, the grandpa paused for a moment then slowly said, ‘Son, she’s been faithfully by my side for the past seventy years, showing me the sacrificial love of Christ. Now it’s my turn to be faithfully by hers.’”

True love. That’s it. Right there.

If we, as Christian women, want to experience vibrant marriages that last until the very end, we must pursue this type of self-sacrificing love. We can’t build our relationships on eros love alone and expect it to last.

We need something more powerful.

When we look at the life of Jesus on this earth, we see a beautiful demonstration of agape love at work. His life was the ultimate example of sacrificial love and He calls us to love others in the same way.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love [agape], as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2 ESV).

Agape love is God’s solution to vibrant, lasting relationships.

That’s God’s good design for us. In my marriage with David, agape love is what has sustained us as newlyweds and new parents. I still think David is smokin’ hot (and sometimes I still get butterflies), but that’s not what keeps us going. Choosing to love and cherish one another selflessly has been the key.

If you want to discover more about God’s vision for true love and lasting relationships, grab a copy of my book, Love Defined. Inside this book, I unpack a radically better and refreshingly biblical approach to navigating your love life. Covering topics such as true love, purposeful relationships, sex, boundaries, and singleness, this book will take you on a journey to discovering God’s good and original design for romance!

Let’s chat!

First, I have a question for my single sisters out there! In what ways has our culture’s “fireworks version” of true love influenced your personal view of love?

Now I have two questions for my married sisters! In what ways have you put true (sacrificial) love into action in your marriage? What advice do you have for single girls on how they can practice showing agape love now?

Bethany Beal is head-over-heels in love with her best friend and husband, David, and is the super proud mommy of Davey Jr. She is the cofounder of GirlDefined Ministries (www.girldefined.com) and the author of Love Defined: Embracing God’s Vision for Lasting Love and Satisfying Relationships. She is passionate about spreading the truth of biblical womanhood through writing, speaking, and mentoring young women. To her family and close friends, she is simply a tall blonde girl who is obsessed with iced lattes and can’t get enough of her sweet baby Davey Jr.