Ep. 145: Sitting on the Sidelines
God Hears Her Podcast
Episode 145 – Sitting on the Sidelines
Elisa Morgan & Eryn Adkins with Bethany Toney
Bethany: God never left me. He was walking through everything with me. I was mad, right? I had my hand out like this, like You can stay 10 feet from me. I do not want You anywhere near me. But He never went away. He was still there. He was still comforting me. He was still saying, I'm going to hold your hand through this. I'm not going to leave. I'm standing here with you. I'm going to go through the muck with you.
Voice: You’re listening to God Hears Her, a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you, He sees you, and He loves you because you are His. Find out how these realities free you today on God Hears Her.
Eryn: Welcome to God Hears Her. I'm Eryn Adkins.
Elisa: And I'm Elisa Morgan. When was the last time you felt jealous? Do you ever struggle with just harboring jealousy?
Eryn: We can all accidentally let the seed of jealousy take root in our hearts, especially when we don’t treat the issues allowing it to just grow in the first place. Today, we talk with Bethany Toney about how jealousy grew in her marriage and led to some big changes in her life and relationship.
Elisa: Let’s start off this God Hears Her conversation by asking Bethany how she met her husband, Tyler.
Bethany: So we met in high school on the way back from a church camp trip.
Eryn: Oh.
Bethany: So he, at the time he had super long hair, wore puka shells, like had this…
Elisa: That’s awesome.
Bethany: …kind of like surf, yeah, like surfer dude look to him, I guess, super tan.
Elisa: Oh gosh.
Bethany: I had a boyfriend at the time, so I was sitting next to him. My best friend actually noticed Tyler and was like, he’s really cute. I'm gonna go…I'm gonna go see if I can talk to him. So then she ends up sitting by him for like the 15-hour drive that we had, right?
Elisa: Gosh, yeah.
Bethany: And long story short, they started dating after that. And I was kind of the third-wheel friend. I was just the buddy that would come along and support my friend in her new relationship.
Eryn: I love it.
Bethany: And I'm a year older than Tyler. So we met in my senior year summer. So I was going off to college in August. And my friend, Carly, who he dated, was going to A&M. So their relationship fizzled. But ironically, we all stayed in touch. And we all would come home for the holidays, and we would immediately get in our cars and head straight to Prosper. So, Tyler actually grew up in the town that we live in.
Eryn: Oh, cool.
Bethany: And back then, it was back roads and super country, which was just fascinating to me because I came from the city life. Every time we were home, we were in our car driving to Tyler’s house. And it was just four-wheeling and playing in the creek and just really simple living. And so I just thought it was so fun. Tyler, as you may know, is super adventurous. And so I always kind of had a crush on him, but I never wanted to admit it; because he was kind of known for being the guy that dated all the girls. So I was like, I am not going to be one of those girls.
Eryn: I am not that girl.
Bethany: I am not that girl. So our parents had even joked about us dating, and I just always pushed it off. And so I actually dated a lot of his friends. He dated a lot of my friends. Our wedding should have been really awkward. It wasn’t, thank goodness. Cause everyone just was kind of cool about it. So in my senior year of college, so fast forward four years, we’ve been best friends, hung out all the time when I was home and he was home; I think the stars just kind of aligned at that point. And we were like, hey, I…I kind of like you. [And he] was like, yeah, I kind of like you too. And should we try this? And it was scary, because we had been best friends; and I didn’t want to ruin that relationship with him.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: But we did take the plunge, and then a year later, we were engaged.
Elisa: Wow.
Bethany: So, and then 10 months after that, we were married.
Eryn: Oh.
Bethany: So yeah, it was…it kind of all happened quickly. But I think because we had that foundation of friendship before, it could have, you know, it…
Elisa: Very natural, yeah.
Bethany: …yeah, it was very, very natural. So it’s kind of our story. And then we got married and moved to McKinney. I worked for a graphic design company.
Eryn: Okay.
Bethany: So that’s what I went to school for. And Tyler, he has a degree in, oh what is it? I always joke and say that he could be a park ranger someday. It’s like wildlife and ecology. So he loved to be outside and all that stuff, so…
Eryn: That’s awesome.
Bethany: So after I graduated, I worked for this company and did graphic design for them. And then Tyler was still at A&M finishing up his senior year. And then he graduated and worked at Superscapes, which is a landscaping company. So he worked long hours. And we did that for the first couple years of our marriage. And we had a dog, and everything was really simple and easy, honestly, that first couple years. Obviously adjusting to married life was a challenge. Just living with a man is always a challenge, I guess. But…but I mean everything was really easy-peasy and simple.
Eryn: When did it take a turn where it was like, wow, life is simple, to like wow, life is not simple anymore.
Bethany: I would say probably after we had our second child. So we had our first child, Barrett, in 2017, and struggled to get pregnant with him. So I had miscarriages before…
Elisa: Ooh, oh, so sorry.
Bethany: …I had him. Yeah, it was quite a journey. That was probably the first time in my life that I questioned the goodness of God. I questioned if He was real, honestly. Because my whole life, everything had kind of worked out perfectly for me. I really hadn’t struggled with anything. I just felt like God had taken care of me because I was obedient to Him. And I…I…
Elisa: Yeah, yeah.
Bethany: …was doing all the right things, right? And I thought well, A + B should equal C when it comes to me wanting a baby.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: And it just wasn’t happening. And I really went into a dark place for the first time in a long time spiritually, emotionally, which is I think that’s probably one of the biggest parts of my story as far as my faith journey. Because I had never questioned God’s goodness and God’s love for me before.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: And all of a sudden, I had all this anger…
Elisa: Oh yeah.
Bethany: …and resentment. And I would look at other moms with babies. I would be happy for them, but then I would be so incredibly sad for myself. And it was a strange feeling that I have never had before. And I remember dem…I should have been struck by lightning the way that I prayed. Because I was praying so open to God about just my anger and how mad I was at Him. And how could You do this to me? Like I’ve been so faithful. And my family’s been faithful. Like what’s going on? Like what…and I st…immediately started to think, what sin am I being punished for? And that’s where my brain went, which is so not my theology. and that’s not what I…I don’t believe that God punishes us for our sins later in life by withholding children from us…
Elisa: Right.
Bethany: …things that we want. God wants to give us the desires of our heart. And so I…and I knew that.
Elisa: But we get so wonky when we’re suffering. We really do, yeah.
Bethany: It does. Yeah, you really do go into this dark place. I remember music has always been a huge part of my life with my dad being a music minister. And I love singing. And I…I was on our worship team at the time. And I remember being up there and singing the words but knowing and thinking in my head, God, I don’t believe this. I don’t believe. Right now, I am just putting on a show because I have to. But right now, God, I am mad. I am so fire mad at You, and I don’t believe these words right now. But I think looking back, I'm so thankful that I still sung those words out loud. Because in a weird way, I think it did kind of, I don’t know. It made me kind of still say…say the promises of God out loud. And maybe subconsciously that sunk in somewhere.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: But I was just mad.
Eryn: I want to pause right there. The truth is, even when you were having those conversations, you were having them with Him, which is still…
Bethany: Yeah.
Eryn: …a relationship. And that’s…
Bethany: Right.
Eryn: …so beautiful that you were able to give your rawest feelings about everything about Him, your circumstance, everything, and go…
Bethany: Yeah.
Eryn: …I don’t even know who You are anymore. Are You punishing me? That’s so beautiful in the midst of suffering.
Elisa: Very courageous too.
Eryn: Yes.
Elisa: And to…to admit that. And I think it’s very freeing to others listening who are experiencing that exactly right now. But yeah, now take us forward. How did things begin to become stretched in…in your marriage.
Bethany: Yeah.
Elisa: You had trouble getting pregnant. And that’s…that’s a unique suffering, and anger at God. And that’s painful suffering.
Bethany: That was like the jump off point I think from where everything started was the infertility issues, wanting to get pregnant, being angry at God. And then I did get pregnant, actually kind of out of nowhere. And you would think I would have been so excited and saying, God, You’re amazing. Look at the blessing that You’ve given me. But my attitude was more, well it was about time. Like I’ve been waiting. Thanks, God. Like check…
Elisa: Wow, yes.
Bethany: …yeah, I mean I'm telling you…
Eryn: I get that.
Bethany: …I should have been struck by lightning.
Eryn: No, that’s so real.
Elisa: Oh, [inaudible].
Eryn: No, that is real though.
Bethany: I was a part of this Bible study at the time and with a group of women who were walking through infertility at the same time. And I remember one girl specifically just kept saying, I just want to suffer well. I want to suffer well during this season. And I was like, I'm out. I don’t want to suffer well. I'm mad.
Elisa: I don’t want to suffer period, right, yeah.
Bethany: So no, yeah, I don’t want to suffer at all.
Elisa: Yeah.
Bethany: So I remember thinking after everything, I was like I did…I did not suffer well at all. It was not good. So that was probably the foundation of everything. And then we got pregnant with Colton. He’s our middle boy. We have three boys. And that was kind of the craziest summer of my life, gave birth to Colton in June, was in the hospital for two days like normal and then came home. And we came home to this house with boxes everywhere. And then the next day after that, Tyler left for the very first Dude Perfect tour. I went from having one kid to all of a sudden having two and feeling super isolated…
Elisa: Yeah.
Bethany: …and feeling really alone in this brand new, beautiful home that we had worked so hard on. But there’s boxes everywhere. I had a crying baby.
Elisa: It’s all up to you.
Bethany: I am sleep-deprived, all the things, right? And then my husband’s off doing this fantastic tour, meeting with celebrities, golfing every day. And I’ll tell you what, the…the seed of resentment was really deep in my heart at that time. I struggled finding joy in what he was doing. Every time he would call me, I would just be like oh, that’s so great for you. Well, I’ve been up since 3:00 am with a fussy, you know, just…I was just resentful and angry at him. Our marriage then was already kind of rocky simply because I felt like I was always put second after Dude Perfect. Dude Perfect demanded so much attention and time and effort and energy.
Eryn: Tell us what your husband does and how has that affected you in your marriage?
Bethany: Yes, so Tyler is a part of a group called Dude Perfect. It’s on YouTube. It’s with five of his closest friends from college. That’s how it started. They do trick shots. So they’re not the Harlem Globetrotters. They don’t do live trick shots. But they make these unbelievable trick shots from high places such as Reunion Tower in Dallas. Their big one was Kyle Field at A&M. Tyler throws the basketball, and it lands into the hoop. They were an overnight sensation.
Eryn: Okay.
Bethany: They uploaded their very first video. I don’t even know what year it was. It was kind of a joke. They made this video for their family and friends to see. And it was just them throwing a basketball like off the roof or over the fence and making it into the basket. Well, the next morning, they all wake up; and Good Morning America has gotten a hold of it. And the…the video has millions of views.
Elisa: Oh my gosh.
Bethany: Which at the time was just unheard of, right?
Elisa: Yeah, yeah.
Bethany: So they kind of blew up.
Eryn: Okay.
Bethany: And so Dude Perfect started before we were dating, but it wasn’t a full-time gig. It was kind of his side hustle.
Eryn: Okay.
Bethany: More like a hobby at the time really, just something fun he did with his friends. But it started to get really serious and kind of took a different turn around the time that I got pregnant with Colton. That’s kind of when things catapulted into another level…
Eryn: Okay.
Bethany: …of I guess him being a public figure, people seeing him and recognizing him. Their channel really blew up.
Elisa: So you’ve got this anger that’s been brewing in you about being infertile and struggling with miscarriages. And then you’ve got him just [chooo] going off the charts…
Bethany: Yeah.
Elisa: …you know, publicly. And then you’re isolated, alone while he’s out on tour, and you’re feeling completely missed and abandoned and hidden and [blah] okay. I'm starting to…
Bethany: Yes.
Elisa: …feel it with you.
Bethany: It was so hard. It’s funny when our I Am Second video came out, we kind of got a lot of backlash for me talking about how isolated I felt and how alone I felt while my husband was out being successful; because a lot of people would say, or were saying in some comments, they were like I mean but y’all are…he’s a celebrity. Like you should be happy. You should be thankful that he gets to do these things and that y’all have the lifestyle that you have. And…and I'm like, but I’m still human.
Eryn: Right.
Bethany: I'm still human. I still want to be seen. I still want to be…I still want my husband to come home and…and spend time with our family. Like I…I can see how the world could see it and say oh, boo hoo. I'm so sorry that your husband got to hang out with Justin Timberlake on the golf course, you know, while you’re at…all the things. I can see how that side the world can see it that way. But when you’re living it and you’re isolated and you feel alone, I was probably walking through a little bit of postpartum depression; and I didn’t recognize it at the time. So all the different components to it. Again, I’ve always been kind of the extroverted one, the one that loves to be on stage singing, doing pageants. So I’ve kind of always been in the limelight, right?
Elisa: Sure.
Bethany: And now all of a sudden, my husband is. I think there was also that struggle with thinking…
Eryn: Absolutely.
Bethany: …wait, hold on here. Like I'm the one that has the big boisterous personality…
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: …and was super selfish of me to think that. But I think it was this power dynamic of I'm having to sit on the sidelines while my husband is being catapulted into fame.
Elisa: Yeah.
Eryn: Yes.
Bethany: So I'm the one that’s sitting here at night at 3:00 am feeding my child while he’s out rubbing elbows with celebrities and bigwigs and all the things.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: And it just didn’t feel…it didn’t feel even. It didn’t feel balanced.
Eryn: And you probably felt hidden too.
Bethany: I did, yeah. I kind of felt like…like I was always introduced as Tyler’s wife. This is Tyler’s wife. Or this is…oh, this is Dude Perfect’s wife.
Elisa: Oh gosh.
Bethany: Like he wasn’t even a name. It was just Dude Perfect. And I didn’t have an identity, and I…and I just…I wanted an identity.
Elisa: Yeah.
Eryn: How did that resentment start building up in you, start affecting your marriage when he would come home?
Bethany: Oh, when he would come home, I would very much it turned into a roommate situation. I felt like we were just ships in the night. He would come home and would want to spend time with…he I…to his credit, he would really try. But I had so much resentment built up, I would push him away. I’d be like well I'm…I'm gonna go to bed early. Or I don’t want to watch this show. I'm…I’m gonna go in the other room and read. And I would really separate myself from him at night after the kids would go down. Or I also would just bury my head in the sand with my children. That’s such an easy distraction, cause they literally demand all of your time and energy. So it was easy for me to avoid my relationship with my husband, because I was giving everything of myself to my children. So we were both giving each other our leftovers at the end of the day. So there was…we weren’t pouring into each other. Nobody’s cup was getting filled at all. And so he started to build up some resentment with that. I start continuing to build up my resentment, and we just put up a wall between us. But to the outside world, man, we had it together. We were the picture-perfect Instagram family. We show up to church every Sunday with big smiles on our faces. I mean nobody knew. We played the game so well.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: But I would go home and just cry myself to sleep almost every night going, is this how my marriage is gonna be forever? Forever, this is what my life’s gonna be like? I'm just gonna be on the edge of the spotlight for the rest of my life? And that was really hard. So anyways, that’s…that’s probably where that wall and resentment started to go up was when I had Colton. And then, God laid a surprise. Colton was four months old, and I got pregnant again with Rhett.
Elisa: Oh my gosh.
Bethany: So, my marriage is in shambles at the time. And I all of a sudden am pregnant again. And I just remember being so upset. Because not only because I was like, I have to do this all over again, but because the foundation of our marriage was so rocky that I was gonna have to do this by myself once again. And so that was daunting to me to be like, here we go. I mean I just got through kind of the hump with Colton and the newborn stuff, and now we’re gonna have to do it all over again. I also get extremely sick during my pregnancies. And so that can be really depressive when you’re…
Eryn: Oh yeah.
Bethany: …getting sick every day.
Eryn: What happens next?
Bethany: So Covid hit.
Eryn: Oh, that’s a big one.
Elisa: Oh my gosh.
Eryn: That’s a big one.
Bethany: Yeah, so I'm pregnant with Rhett, and Covid hit. And I am…I'm just at my wits end. And I remember laying in bed one night and thinking, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know. I don’t think I can do this. Like I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and be his wife. I just…this is miserable. But I was also with the feeling of the shame of divorce, the shame of leaving my husband who’s in the public eye and knowing that that could potentially be on the front cover of some magazine.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: Like it was terrifying, and I just…and I wrestled with that. But at the end of the day, I thought I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. I just…I'm…I'm done. I feel so lonely. I'm so isolated. I just…he’s choosing Dude Perfect over me, and I will not stand for it.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: That next day, I just kind of laid it out for him. And I just said, I don’t want to do this anymore. And I don’t know what that looks like, but I need some time. I need time away from you. I need time just to process what my next steps are. And I think he…he was shocked, but I think he saw it coming in a way. But it was still obviously really devastating. And I…it was terrifying, cause I had a newborn, and then I had a…basically another baby and then a three-year-old at the time. So it was just like, what am I…how am I gonna do this? This is…I don’t know what my next moves are.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: So then because I'm extremely open and honest, I immediately told my family. We immediately got his family involved, my friends involved. I just wanted advice. Thank goodness I did that. Because I had a friend who flew in from Houston, a friend that has (I'm gonna cry). She has been with me through so much of my struggles, through infertility, in my marriage. And she was the one that looked at me and said, “This does not honor God to leave your husband. Y’all’s story could be fantastic. God’s gonna use this. Like, please…please just try and save your marriage.” And she was the one who really coached me through it, counseled me through it. If I didn’t have her at that time, I probably wouldn’t be with Tyler right now. She was the kind of the one that held me at my hand and said, I'm gonna do this with you. We’re gonna walk through this together. We’re gonna do the hard work together. I'm…I’ll help you. and Tyler actually had a friend that did that for him as well.
Elisa: Oh wow.
Bethany: So separately these two friends, not knowing it, were being the physical Jesus to us at the time that we needed. That person that just said, I don’t think this is God’s will for your marriage. And I was still really angry, right? So it was hard to hear that. But I thought okay, I'm not gonna give Satan this win. I'm just not. I want to fight for my marriage, because I'm not gonna let him have this win over my family. But there was also…it was also scary, because I was not happy. And I…I had ev…every reason to leave. I remember going to my therapist and saying, “I a hundred percent understand why women divorce their husbands, because it’s sometimes the easier option.” Because working on your marriage is hard. It is not fun. It’s gritty. Let me say also that there are circumstances where I think divorce is the right answer, right? In my situation for me, I don’t think it was. We needed deep counseling. We needed a lot of therapy and a lot of…and it took a lot of work.
Eryn: When you went through all of that, was there something that happened within your husband…
Bethany: Yes.
Eryn: …that you needed to see in order to trust the process and the journey?
Bethany: Yes, I'm so glad you asked that, cause yes, that’s a huge part of it, right? So I asked for some separation from him for a while, and so he ended up being with his mom and dad for a little bit. And he had his friend that was pouring into him kind of speaking truth into him. And that’s when a lot of the ugliness started to kind of rear its ugly head, I guess. Cause like with anything, sin is never one layer, right? Sin…there’s always layers to sin and layers to the reasons why things are happening. So it came out that Tyler had been struggling with pornography pretty much since high school. And I did not know that. It was very much a secret. And you know, with that I think he had a lot of pride, a lot…and he admits to this, right? And he talks about this in the I Am Second video. So I think…our family was kind of put on the backburner. We weren’t the number one focus. So when it came out that he had been struggling with pornography, in a weird way I was very relieved.
Eryn: Sure.
Bethany: Because I felt like it was something tangible that I could fix, yeah. I was like, great. There’s programs for this. Like we’ll put covenant eyes on our computers. The tension of our marriage and the resentment felt scary and like messy and big and something that I didn’t know how to conquer. But the pornography issue, I was like, okay great. Let’s…we can do this head on. We can figure this out. Obviously, it’s not that simple. But to me I was like, oh, this is fixable.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: But that was also super hurtful to find out in the middle of already being hurt. But I just thought, okay, God. He’s being extremely vulnerable with me and open with me about a lot of stuff. So I need to be as open and vulnerable with him as well. So we basically just decided to both put in the work. And we both went to therapy separately. We never did therapy together, which I kind of wish we did. But he was being mentored by a group of friends and some ministers at our church. And it was really all about just being open and honest at that point. But he did come to me and said, I have a list of things that I want to change in our marriage to make things better and stronger. And the list was about 10 items long. And it was, you know, everything from praying together before bed, him coming home and spending intentional time with me, putting the phones down, having that carved out time away from our children together, doing date nights, like very simple things. But it made my family be on the forefront of his mind.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: Communicating more while he’s on tour or he’s traveling. It’s hard to say this is what happened to make everything fall apart. It was a bunch of little things over time, and I just broke.
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: It did take us both saying, okay, we both have to work at this. And that was another big thing that I had to realize through therapy was, cause I kept saying, well Tyler did this. And he struggled with this, and he’s the one he messed up here. And I’ve just been the perfect person over here being the mom. And I’ve done nothing wrong and all these things. It’s very easy to point the finger at the person whose sin is bigger in that situation. But I had to learn that I had to put in just as much work as he did.
Elisa: What kind of work did you have to do?
Bethany: I mean therapy for one. I love therapy. I think it’s…I think everyone needs to do it. And then just being open and honest with him about how I was feeling. Cause before, we really didn’t have great communication. So it was actually saying, hey, you did this today. And it…and it really upset me. Or I didn’t like the way you did this. Or same with me though. He would say the same things to me. Hey today, like I really needed you to pump me up in this way. Or I mean even down to like intimacy, right, like being open and honest about that. Because he did struggle with pornography. So I had a lot of questions about that.
Eryn: Well and the repair of that, repairing your marriage…
Bethany: Yeah.
Eryn: …to want to be vulnerable with somebody.
Bethany: And that was hard. That was probably one of the harder aspects was being intimate again after knowing he had struggled with it for so long and doing the comparison game. And man, I mean I remember having, I still sometimes do, have to pray before having intimacy with Tyler. Because I get in my head, and then I'm thinking about that. It’s just not good. So having to pray before being intimate with your husband is a little strange. But…
Eryn: No, it’s not.
Bethany: …it…it does kind of…
Eryn: Girl, not it’s not.
Bethany: …calm…it does…it kind of calms my brain a little bit.
Elisa: Thank you for your honesty here. There’s so much I'm hearing in you realization of what you are feeling, of what you need, of how you’ve defined what’s right and what’s wrong. Kudos for what you’re doing. And how is your relationship now?
Bethany: Our communication has improved ten-fold. We still have our days where I'm like hello, you haven’t called me. Did you…did your flight land? Like are you good? Are you alive? But I feel like now everything is just more open. And I don’t feel scared to go to him and say, hey, like let’s work this. Or hey, this is how I feel right now or him coming to me. I mean we’re vulnerable in the sense of I’ll ask…straight up ask him, have you struggled with pornography lately?
Eryn: Yeah.
Bethany: And also learning to not get upset about it if he has or if he is honest with me and appreciating the honesty over shaming him.
Elisa: Okay.
Bethany: Because sin is…I mean it’s an ongoing battle. And I think people who struggle with pornography, it is forever an iss…like something that they battle kind of like alcoholism or anything like that. You’re not just cured one day from it. I think it’s a constant thing that you have to work at and check up on. Our marriage is…it’s just…it just feels seamless now. I don’t feel like there’s this tension, this anger. He’s present with our children. I feel like I spend more time with him. We’re more intentional about our date nights and intimacy time. All those things have just kind of started to fall into place. It took a lot of work. It wasn’t like it happened over night. I still have hard days where I get a little jealous of what he’s getting to do while I'm at home having a hard day with my toddlers now or whatever it is.
Eryn: That’s so freeing for anybody listening. Because I think when you start to hear testimonies of people recovering and rebuilding their marriage, there’s this fantasy that can be created when God is working through individuals that all of a sudden, everything clicks. It’s magic again. That’s not true. Like God…
Bethany: Yeah.
Eryn: …is working through us constantly to sanctify each of us as individuals…
Elisa: Yes.
Eryn: …to come together. And so I just think that’s really beautiful that you’re able to say we have good days. We have bad days. But we are working through the thick and the thing of it, and we are committed and dedicated to that first and foremost with God in our marriage. I think that’s so beautiful.
Bethany: Yeah, cause I don’t think…I mean people will say oh, y’all hit kind of like the worst part of your marriage you’ll probably ever go through. And I'm like, well who’s to say that. I don’t know.
Elisa: That’s right.
Bethany: We’ve got…we have three boys to raise here. Like who knows? You know, we’ve got a lot of ground to carry here to see in the future. I don’t know. So I think now if we do face hard times, cause we will face more hard times in the future, we’re well more equipped to handle it than we were before.
Eryn: What’s one thing that you would share with the woman listening right now that feels where you were feeling in the very beginning where you felt unseen, maybe angry at God. Is there something that you want to maybe tell her that you wish somebody told you in that season?
Bethany: I like how y’all said earlier how I was still in communication with God, even when I was angry with Him. And I didn’t at the time realize that God never left me. He was walking through everything with me. I was mad, right? I had my hand out like this, like You can stay 10 feet from me. I do not want you anywhere near me. But He never went away. He was still there. He was still comforting me. He was still saying I'm going to hold your hand through this. Like I'm not going to leave. I…I'm standing here with you. I'm gonna go through the muck with you. Even though I was so seething mad, just knowing that He never left. He never went anywhere. And I think that’s so important to remember that when you’re in a dark place, God has not forgotten you. He loves you more than anything in this entire world. And so He sees your sadness, and it upsets Him. But He’s not gonna just leave because it’s hard. Nothing’s too hard for Him. Nothing’s too heavy, too dark for God to carry. And I think I knew that at the time, but I didn’t really know that; because I was so in my own head about how I felt. Again, I did not suffer well. And I wish I would have. I wish I would have taken that time to grow closer to God than to push Him away. Because, looking back, I feel like if I had taken that time to grow closer to God, where would I be now in my relationship with Him? I k…I feel like I kind of missed out a little bit because of my anger. But I know at the same time, God has me exactly where He wanted me to be.
Eryn: God has us exactly where we need to be. Bethany was so honest and raw during this conversation.
Elisa: I'm glad to hear how her marriage has changed for the better. They really put in the work to heal together. Well, before we go, be sure to check out our website to find a link for the newest God Hears Her blog. You can also find a link to check out the Dude Perfect YouTube channel. We’ve heard it’s great for kids and families. You can find that and more on our website at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org.
Eryn: Thank you for joining us. And don’t forget, God hears you. He sees you, and He loves you because you are His.
[music]
Elisa: Today’s episode was engineered by Anne Stevens and produced by Jade Gustman and Mary Jo Clark. We also want to thank Alyssa and Steph for all of their help and support. Thanks, everyone.
Eryn: God Hears Her is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries.
