Alyssa Bethke: Our undoing is not something to be afraid of, but it actually is an invitation from God that that’s when He can mend us back together and untangle us. And so it’s really a beautiful thing.

Living By the Grace You’ve Been Given: Alyssa Bethke & Chelsea Damon – Episode #437

Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast.  This week, we’ll hear from Alyssa Bethke, who’s a mom of three, a blogger, YouTuber, and co-host of the Real Life Podcast with her husband, Jeff. Alyssa reflects on the overwhelming pressures women face to excel in every area of life, and the need for honesty and grace toward ourselves, others, and God about our struggles.

Later in the episode, we’ll hear from author and content creator Chelsea Damon, who takes a closer look at the inner workings of marriage. She offers valuable insights into communication, conflict resolution, and seeking the power of grace for couples, with practical advice to keep their relationships thriving. 

Let’s begin with Alyssa’s story.

Alyssa Bethke: My name is Alyssa Bethke and I am thirty-six. I’m a mom of three, and we just moved from Maui—we lived there for ten years—and we just moved here to Tennessee. My husband and I, we’re authors, we do a podcast, we lead retreats for men and women, so we’re really passionate about building teams and forming men and women to be healthy and whole and I’m really grateful that we get to be in this space. 

The Pressure To Do & Be It All

I feel like women today, we have so much pressure to be it all, do it all, and all at once. And I think there’s a lot of pressure just to check all the boxes and make sure we’re doing all the things, you know, make sure that we’re nontoxic and that we’re eating organic and that we have a fulfilling career and that we dress really cute.

I love the opportunities that women have today, but I think with a lot of opportunities also can come a lot of expectations like, Oh, there’s all these opportunities, so we should do those things. So I think we’re just living with so much pressure. 

But on top of that, I think women also are wired to hold a lot of emotional weight. We carry the emotions of those in our life: our kids, our husbands, our friends. And I think the Lord made us in that way, to have that capacity to really care for others and hold things with them. But I think it can often be in an unhealthy way, where we feel responsible then to make sure that everyone’s happy or make sure everyone is pleased with us, or that we don’t step on any toes, just the pressure to please. 

How do we actually work through disappointments that we have as women? I think that’s a huge thing that we often don’t talk about a lot, and so we start to really neglect our heart. We stuff our feelings, we want to numb. And I think sometimes it can just be all too much and we can feel like we’re coming undone. We can feel like we’re all tangled up inside and not sure of how to untangle it. What is ours to do? And it’s so discouraging when we can’t have control of things because it often can make us feel really helpless. 

Why do we feel the pressure to have it all together? Instead of trying to control these situations, how do I surrender and what does that mean?  

Dealing with Disappointment

I really came to this place of feeling completely undone and that it wasn’t that I needed to find the solution or that the outcome was the answer, but it really was meeting God in those moments. How do I bring my real life to Him? How do I really work through those disappointments with God? How do I still have hope in my life that doesn’t look the way I want? 

“I came to this place of feeling completely undone. It wasn’t that I needed to find the solution or that the outcome was the answer, but it really was meeting God in those moments. How do I bring my real life to Him? How do I really work through those disappointments with God? How do I still have hope in my life that doesn’t look the way I want?” – Alyssa Bethke

We struggle to be really honest with our disappointments. I think there’s little disappointments like you are so excited to go to the coffee shop because it was your one hour break today and the barista got your coffee wrong, or you spilled it on your shirt—to really big disappointments like you thought you would be married by now and you’re not. Or your marriage ended in a way that you thought it would never would, or your kids are struggling in a way, you never thought that you would experience this much pain in your family. I think we’re too busy just getting it done and seeing what we can do, what we can Google, so we don’t take the time to really check in and be like, Man, why am I sad right now? Why is this bothering me? Why do I not want to go there?  

But then I think we also sometimes feel like or believe that we can’t actually be honest with our disappointments, that the Christian life should be full of joy and victory. And so what do you do when there’s disappointment and suffering? Maybe I’m just not trusting God enough, or maybe I’m not grateful.  

I think what God is asking us to do is to just be honest, to take time to really be curious with your heart if there are any disappointments that you are having in your life. And to be honest with yourself: Man, I’m really disappointed by this. I’m really sad. I’m really discouraged. And then to talk to God about it, to be very honest with Him. It’s really an invitation from the Lord. “Will you trust Me with this? Will you come to Me and attach yourself to Me? Will you let Me lead you and let Me guide you and give you hope and trust?”

I love the Psalms so much and I’ve always gone to them, especially when I’m sad. But what’s really interesting is for so much of my life, walking with the Lord, I would only want to read the happy Psalms, just the ones where it’s like, I’m trusting the Lord and You are good. But so many of the Psalms are actually laments. And I think that as a church, we need to know how to lament, because this is such a part of being human. The authors in the Psalms, they lament, they cry out to God, they ask questions, they doubt. And then they remember who God is. And they preach to themselves of who He is and what He’s done in the past and they trust Him. And maybe don’t feel like you trust Him. But I’ve really learned this phrase to say, like, “I will choose to trust you, God, in this. I choose to trust that You are good and that You know what’s best for my life and that You will redeem this or You will renew it.”

“I think that as a church, we need to know how to lament, because this is such a part of being human.” – Alyssa Bethke

Our walk with God, it’s so much more human than we make it. I think if we never wrestle and if we never are honest and we stay stuck in this disappointment state in our hearts, we’re doing a disservice to our hearts because they’re not coming fully alive. And we’re also not being fully intimate with the Lord in the way that He’s inviting us to. 

Presence Over Perfection 

I think a lot of times we live thinking, Oh, what’s most important is what I can do, what I can accomplish, what I can check off on my list, keeping up, what I can show on Instagram, making sure that I’m not dropping any balls. If we don’t rest and if we don’t play and if we don’t really check in with our heart, then we can really get burned out, because that’s not how we’re meant to be. 

I think a lot of us are anxious and I think a lot of us are fearful. We don’t want to experience pain. We don’t want to experience unease and suffering. And when things aren’t going well, like, that’s not comfortable. We’ve lost the art of learning to really be present in where we are. We don’t give a lot of space to check in with our heart because we value performance over our being. And so I love this quote by Dallas Willard, he says, “Your greatest gift in life is not your accomplishments, but it’s your transformed self that you give people.”

Yes, we’re made to partner with God. We’re made to do good work to bring the kingdom to earth. But first and foremost, we are not what we do. We are children of God, and we have to learn to rest and to be and to know that our value is not based on our performance, but our value is based on that we’re image bearers of God. 

“First and foremost, we are not what we do. We are children of God, and we have to learn to rest and to be and to know that our value is not based on our performance, but our value is based on that we’re image bearers of God.” – Alyssa Bethke 

Go at the pace of Jesus. Be willing to be interrupted, people are more important than tasks. Your heart is more important than your resume. We have to go against culture because culture says that we are what we do. We are what we can show. We are our resumes. But God says, “No, you are my child.” And we’re made to do good work. 

Knowing What’s Ours To Do

There was a month where I felt so stressed and I had so much to do, and my friends said, “You know, maybe every morning just ask God, ‘What are three things that you want me to do today?’” And so I would do that. It was a whole month, and I would say, “God, what are the three things that you want me to do today?” And it would immediately come and sometimes it was very simple. But it was like, Okay, at the end of the day, then if I did those three things, then I’m good. And if I didn’t, then, Okay, Lord, we’re going to work through that. But instead of feeling like, Gosh, I didn’t get the whole thing done, or, I feel like such a failure, or, I’m so behind, it’s now, What has the Lord given you for the day? Today is a gift from the Lord. He will give you the capacity by asking Him what is yours to do and what He is giving you today, on this specific day.

The Lord is so kind. He’s so compassionate. And He has this way of increasing our capacity, increasing time, helping us get the things done that we need to get done. But learning to do it out of a place of rest and peace instead of this anxious, stressful spirit. And we can do that when we invite Him into it. 

“He has this way of increasing our capacity, increasing time, helping us get the things done that we need to get done. But learning to do it out of a place of rest and peace instead of this anxious, stressful spirit. And we can do that when we invite Him into it.” – Alyssa Bethke 

And so my hope and encouragement for listeners is to spend time in the presence of God, spend time slowing down, being with Him, being honest with Him, reading His Word, worshiping Him, talking about His love. And as we do that, as we bring our true hearts to Him, our honest hearts, we will come away with faces that are radiant with His glory and light. 

Jesus Listens, April 5th:

My strong Savior, 

Help me not to grow weary or lose heart. 

Unrelieved physical tiredness can make me vulnerable to emotional exhaustion and spiritual fatigue—losing heart. Thank You for equipping me to transcend my troubles by fixing my eyes on You. I know that You paid a terrible price to be my living Savior—enduring the cross. When I contemplate Your willingness to suffer so much for me, I gain strength to endure my own hardships. 

I’ve found that worshiping You is a delightful way of renewing my strength! When I take steps of faith by praising You in the midst of adversity, Your glorious Light shines upon me. I ask that this Light may reflect to others as I live close to You, aware of Your loving Presence. And I rejoice that I am being transformed into Your likeness with ever-increasing Glory! 

In Your beautiful Name, Jesus, 

Amen

Narrator: To learn more about Alyssa and her work, please visit www.jeffandalyssa.com, and be sure to check out her book, When Doing It All Is Undoing You, at your favorite retailer. 

Stay tuned to Chelsea Damon’s story after a brief message.

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Our next guest is Chelsea Damon, author and creator of the blog Living the Sweet Wife. Chelsea reflects on the joys and challenges of building a life together with her partner. She shares practical insights on communication, conflict resolution, and grace in marriage. 

Chelsea Damon: My name is Chelsea Damon, and I’ve been a wife to my husband, Josh, for eleven years now. I’ve been a mom for nine years, and I’m an author and content creator. 

From Small Talk to Soulmates

We met the first week of college orientation week at Liberty University, and we just happened to be riding the bus together after a day of classes back to where our dorms were, and we started talking about the music that we liked. We were both wearing TOMS shoes, so we were talking about that, and he invited me to go to a coffee shop that night where his friend would be playing guitar and singing. And so he had a couple friends go, and I had a couple friends go, and it was a really fun time. And after that, we were pretty much just inseparable. We hung out all the time and we got very deep very quickly. We talked about our aspirations and our struggles, and it really didn’t take long for me to see that he was the one that I wanted to marry, because I could see his desire for truth and his love of God’s Word.

We dated for about three years before we got married. Then when we got married, we realized that there was still a lot we had to figure out about each other. Six months into our marriage, we found out that we were pregnant with our son. We were living on our own for the very first time. We didn’t have any family nearby. His family was in Washington state, my family was in New Jersey, we were living in Virginia, and we were the first of any of our friends to get married. We were both twenty-one when we got married. And we really had to learn to kind of roll with the punches. 

Figuring Out What Makes a Good Marriage

Getting married young almost put this sort of chip on my shoulder because so many people didn’t think our marriage would make it. I think it was more unspoken, but you could feel it from a lot of our friends and family who were acting kind of worried or asking why we’re choosing to get married right now. 

And I was determined not to have a marriage that ended in divorce. But even further than that, I didn’t want a miserable marriage my whole life either. So I really had a passion for figuring out what makes a good marriage and practicing that in my marriage with Josh and also writing about what I was finding. 

I started my blog called Living the Sweet Wife back in 2015. I was working full time and taking care of our first baby, and I just had this devastating feeling that I had no clue who I was anymore. Within a span of a couple of years, I went from being a college student to being married, having a baby, and working full time, and it was a really overwhelming time for me. So I started my blog mainly as a creative outlet, but as I wrote, I found that it was easiest and most exciting for me to write about marriage, and I found that that was something that I was really passionate about, and I had a lot of feedback from people in my community saying that they were really enjoying and finding it helpful when I would write about marriage.  

Handling Conflict in Marriage

Josh and I both have parents who still have great marriages. They’ve both been married, I think, almost thirty years at this point.

One thing that was very new to me when Josh and I started dating and eventually got married was the idea of open conflict. My parents always hid any conflict they had from us as kids growing up, so I was convinced that my parents never fought, they never disagreed, and they basically had the perfect marriage. Josh’s parents, while they have a wonderful marriage, we’re a lot more open about conflict in their marriage. And they didn’t have as many qualms about starting a disagreement, working through it, and resolving it all in front of the kids. 

So when Josh and I started dating and we disagreed, he completely felt comfortable directly addressing the issue with me. And I was almost in shock that we were disagreeing at all. First, I didn’t even know how to keep eye contact with him when we were disagreeing. I was just so afraid of any kind of conflict, and I had that like freeze or flight rising up in my gut. And in that, Josh was actually graciously able to help me recognize that in myself. And he showed me that it was okay to disagree with him and be open and direct with him about it. And for a little while, I went probably a little too far on the other end of the spectrum, but eventually, we found ways to manage our disagreements in loving and respectful ways that gave each other the benefit of the doubt. And we couldn’t have done that without looking at how much grace we’ve been given by Jesus Christ and then learning how to mirror that same grace in our lives with each other. It was a lot of work and very intentional at first. And eventually, you just kind of grow that muscle memory where it becomes easier and more natural as you learn to get along with each other. 

“Eventually, we found ways to manage our disagreements in loving and respectful ways that gave each other the benefit of the doubt. And we couldn’t have done that without looking at how much grace we’ve been given by Jesus Christ and then learning how to mirror that same grace in our lives with each other.” – Chelsea Damon

The Two Ways a Marriage Might Struggle

I think there’s two main ways that marriages can struggle. One of them is just obvious, outright sin like affairs, addiction, abuse, not being honest about finances or things like that. And those things put obvious strain on marriage. 

But I think the other common struggle with marriage is, honestly, just neglect. We don’t nurture it. We don’t feed into it. But that often doesn’t change our expectations that our marriage should be feeding us. We’ve all had couples say—whether in real life or in movies—“We just fell out of love. We became more like well-functioning roommates.” But I’d like to argue that to an extent, your marriage can be what you make it. And I say to an extent, because we all know that we can’t control our spouse or how much they choose to invest in our marriage. But I wholeheartedly believe that if you really want to see change in your marriage, you need to be willing to be the first one to step up and make a change. 

“I wholeheartedly believe that if you really want to see change in your marriage, you need to be willing to be the first one to step up and make a change.” – Chelsea Damon 

I say this to my kids a lot when they’re annoying each other. I say, “Okay, who’s going to be the first one to make a change? One of you has to be the first one, unless I come in and break up the fight every time.” So husbands and wives need to often choose, Okay, I’m going to be the first one to make a change. And that is going to be hard because my spouse isn’t going to change with me in sync right away. I need to be self-sacrificial first. I need to be forgiving first. And over time, hopefully, as I cover my marriage in prayer or seek counsel from people who are rooting for my marriage, it will start to change into something that is not filled with arguments, is not filled with resentment. It’s something that changes into a relationship that’s filled with grace and joy and a relationship that’s easy to be in.

Prayers to Strengthen Our Relationship Skills

For couples who are struggling, I would immediately just recommend covering your marriage in prayer. And I know that can sound like a pat answer, but I think it can be easy for us to forget to pray for those things. And it’s how we can find the strength to forgive when we need to forgive and find encouragement when we need encouragement. And so it’s a way to reset your mind and your heart on a daily basis

Even though husbands and wives bring their brokenness and sinful tendencies into every marriage, God can shower that relationship with grace. Sometimes we just have to be gentle with each other and let go of the small things, not sweat the little things, and shower that with grace as well. 

Jesus Listens, May 10th:

Faithful God, 

My relationship with You transcends all my circumstances! So I desire to praise You and enjoy Your Presence even during my times of deepest struggle. But to find You at such times, I have to make the effort to exercise my faith. 

I find it challenging to live on two planes simultaneously: the natural world, where adverse situations abound, and the supernatural world, where You reign supreme. To experience Your Presence with me even in my hardest times, I need strong trust muscles. I’m thankful that trials can both strengthen my faith and show me how much—or how little—I actually trust You. 

I realize that I have to work on strengthening my trust muscles—filling my mind and heart with Scripture, seeking Your Face continually. Please remind me to keep turning my thoughts toward You and affirming my faith in You, whether I’m feeling confident or inadequate. And help me really believe—in the depths of my being—that my adequacy rests in my relationship with You, Lord. You make me ready for anything and equal to anything by infusing me with inner strength! 

In Your trustworthy Name, Jesus, 

Amen

Narrator: To learn more about Chelsea Damon, you may visit www.chelseadamon.com, and be sure to check out her new book, I Thought This Would Make Me Happy: How to Fight Less, Forgive Faster, and Cultivate Joy in Your Marriage, at your favorite retailer.

If you’d like to hear more stories about growing healthy relationships, check out our interview with Enneagram expert Christa Hardin.

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Next week: Davey Blackburn

Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from Davey Blackburn, who vulnerably shares about the tragic, devastating murder of his young wife and unborn child, and how he waded through grief to see God’s unending support on the other side.

Davey Blackburn: I feel like on some level, God has been propelling me and all of us, really, into stories of meeting the offenses that have been done to us, the grievances that have been committed against us—meeting them with God’s heart, Jesus’s heart, the same heart that when Jesus was on the cross says, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” And when we do that, people are impacted.