The Power of Looking Back

WITH BETH MOORE

I’ve known my calling since I was a teenager, but I didn't have a lot of role models or the knowledge to follow that calling. Bible teaching didn’t occur to me until I saw Beth Moore’s public ministry. I always credit her ministry for the work I get to do today.

Even when I met her in later years, she continued to encourage me to obey God. Beth has given decades of her life to Jesus, and so many of us are blessed to be able to minister to women because of the doors she opened. Her obedience paved the roads we walk on today. So, you can imagine my joy when she joined me on the ‘Made for This’ podcast.

We spoke about her memoir ‘All My Knotted-Up’ and the power of self-reflection. This is our edited conversation:

Jennie: I can't put words to how unbelievably beautiful your memoir is. I felt like I got a picture of why you love God the way you do. I was blown away by how different your life would be without the difficulties you wrote about.

Beth: If you asked 27-year-old me what I wanted more than anything in the world, I would say I want to love Jesus with everything in me. That is what ignites a fire in me. And so, I began to ask the Lord to sustain and grow that fire.

I now realize that my desperation for Him is the reason the word of God is still alive to me today. There's always something that makes me need Him. I can’t imagine my life without all of that need and the crises that went with it.

If someone asked me what the biggest favor a train wreck of abuse left me, it would be that I can't mess with gray areas. My foot would quickly slide into the hole because everything about the way I thought about myself set me up for a path of self-destruction. And so, I went all-in with Jesus. Otherwise, the enemy would’ve eaten me alive. I know that only Jesus will save my life.

It’s important to glance back at our lives. This experience looked like a train wreck with scattered pieces when I lived it. But when I got to the end of it, I realized that was not true. Something about it made sense. I realized that it's not all disjointed; it does tie. I've been to therapy a couple of times, and I very much recommend it. But writing this book and looking back on my life experiences was therapeutic.

Jennie: Everybody relates to a lot of things you shared. I thought you were insanely brave candidly sharing intimate parts of your life in the book. Was that scary?

Beth: Yes, but it was also a relief. I've waited a long time to share some of those things. For instance, abuse took place within my family, but I've had to skirt around for many years about who it was. Keith and I sat down to discuss what we wanted to do here.

My abuser was my father, and it is mind-blowing when your protector becomes your perpetrator. Since the book came out, many have whispered in my ear, “It was my father too.” Some of them are completely white-headed, and they have never told anyone. And so, it was a relief to share those things.

I wanted to go there with different things that have been challenging in my grown-up home as well. It was a relief to not have to generalize or do a dance around everything anymore. As open as it may seem I was, I still did a lot of protecting because I didn't want it to be graphic.

For the most part, writing this book was very cathartic and freeing. I wanted to go out and tell my story. I wanted the Lord to use whatever pieces of my story He wanted to. So, I withheld nothing.

Jennie: Hearing about your marriage was more of a surprise for me. Zach walked through a dark season with mental health, so I knew how lonely that was.

Beth: For Keith, the worst part of it was when he got a marine staph infection. It wreaked havoc with everything because it knocked out his entire medical protocol. Nothing in his system was working. It truly was like the hard drive in his mind completely crashed.

Because this went on for so long, the girls and I came to a point where we thought Keith as we knew and liked him was gone. The odd thing about it is that he also looked different. We look back at pictures and it gives us shivers.

I cried so hard recording the parts about Keith for the audiobook because that's my sweetheart. It is one thing to write about me, but it is another thing to let people make judgments about my husband. But I knew that if we would be willing, and he did too, that it might have been the most helpful part of it.

Jennie: This is probably your greatest work of discipleship, even though that's not how you approached it because we learn more from watching someone else live than from hearing how we should live. And we watched how you lived through all these difficult things.

Beth: It's such a roller coaster. I wasn’t sure how the people I knew would respond to this. I've told so many funny stories about Keith because the man is hilarious. I thought some of them would doubt the many wonderful things I’ve said about him.

It's been wonderful and terrible. This is what comes with bipolar, PTSD, and all the stuff I brought into it because he did not bring any more into our marriage than I did. The difference was that some of his is chemical and physiological.

Mental illness is all around us, but we're still so ashamed of it. And there are so many things we can’t define about mental illness when it's not our area of expertise.

But we know that it's not the person's fault. I've had people ask me what they should do with this, and I always tell them, “I wrote that part as one in the trenches. I don't have miracle answers.” God’s miracle for us has been sustaining us through the roller coaster of it.

I don't have the expertise to tell someone whether or not they should stay.

That's where you get professional help and trauma-informed therapy.

When I shared this part of our marriage, I was hoping that a lot of people who have been through similar experiences would feel seen.

Jennie: There’s this idea that Christianity is this walk where we’re constantly flourishing. And that's not how it is. I think you took away some of the shame around these topics. People can see that you love God, and you know He loves you. And yet, you struggled with some of these things.

Beth: We're getting by on the grace of God each day. All I have to worry about is that the Lord is everything I need today, whatever this day holds.

The best part of getting older is the confidence you have in Christ. You have seen Him work it out so many times that you know He's going to, no matter how bad the situation seems.

You know there will be another side if you walk it out with Him in all the pain. It doesn’t feel that way when you're younger.

When you're older, you can look back over your shoulder and go, “He's always faithful.” Now I get to look at young women and men continually and tell them that God will be faithful to them.

Jennie: Public ministry is not for anyone with thin skin, and you write about this. Talk more about that internal struggle. What did you do when you said something that was vulnerable, and people lost their minds? Did you feel betrayed?

Beth: I felt all the things because if you put your heart into it and you love people, you are vulnerable to them. It bothers me when someone's mean and hateful because it hurts. With many words comes much folly. The people I have ministered with and to know my heart. They know that I'm flawed, but my heart is to serve Jesus and them. They know that if I get it wrong, it is not malevolent.

You make yourself vulnerable in public ministry because we put ourselves out there. I often share personal stories in my meetings to try to give practical examples of what is in the bible. So, in the situation you're talking about, there was definitely a sense of betrayal. It was very painful, but one of the worst parts was what it did to my staff.

Jennie: I'm gonna ask you a question you didn't fully answer in the book. Would you go back and change anything?

Beth: No. I'm not overstating when I say that it was cataclysmic. It was life- and ministry-changing. And I wouldn't trade this part of the adventure for anything on Earth. But you don't know that at that point. I didn't even think there was a world beyond the one I served in.

I was at peace with it pretty quickly, even amid all the hate and name-calling that came, because I knew that I would have had to have been a different person to have responded a different way. I couldn't have been the child that had gone through what I'd gone through. It was true to my journey with God and my calling to serve.

I had been advocating for women to be treated with dignity and as students of Scripture for nearly 40 years. There was no way I was changing that. And so, I would do it again. Live or die, that's what was true to who I am in Christ and what I've been called to do.

Jennie: What do you make of the division we see everywhere right now?

Beth: We have lost our minds. We're turned upside down. I think God is doing something wonderful with His people if we let him and submit ourselves to the discipline.

We have lost touch with Christ in the Gospels, and it's very unnerving. We have gotten so good at creating an environment that looks like the Holy Spirit that we think we don't really need the Holy Spirit. We have gotten incredibly far from the way of the cross.

God is saying He will give us the real thing, but we’ll have to get over being impressed with ourselves.

Jennie: What do you hope and pray for? What do you see for yourself and your gifts in the coming years?

Beth: I want to spend these years making sure that I've done all I know how to do to encourage the generations behind me, so they stay in the fight. I want to cheer them on and see how I can invest in them.

I also want to run the race to the end, whatever that looks like to the Lord. In Second Timothy, Paul says, “I've competed well. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” And I want that. I want the Lord to help me keep the faith and encourage people in their faith. I pray for a legacy of joy.

I have enjoyed the Lord. I have laughed, had the wildest adventure, and shed a lot of tears with Him. But I've also had the biggest blast, and I want to encourage people in their steadfastness because He is worthy.

I'm a writer to the bone. So, I will also write, whether or not I publish. If you ask me what I would want to do to the end, it’s to teach a local class like Sunday school. I love discipleship. I like to take a group from point A to B and continue to watch the Lord grow them from one point to the next. I love to grow with a group of people.

At the same time, I'll be out there messing with my garden. I surrendered to ministry because I love Jesus, and I want to make it to the end with that same motivation, so God help me.

You’ll want to read Beth’s new book titled ‘All My Knotted-Up: A Memoir.’ You can find it right here and anywhere books are sold. It is deeply raw, personal, vulnerable, and yet so full of hope. So, make sure to get a copy.