Dav and Bethany Beal from Girl Defined Ministries Talk Marriage, Spiritual Pride and Teen Hot Topics
Bethany Beal is head-over-heels in love with her best friend and husband, David, and is the super proud momma of Davey Jr. She is the co-founder of Girl Defined Ministries, author of several books, including Shine Bright: 60 Days to Becoming a Girl Defined by God, and is passionate about spreading the truth of biblical womanhood. To her family and close friends, she is simply a tall blonde Texan who is obsessed with iced lattes and can’t get enough of her sweet little family. Dav and Bethany have been married for 3 years and they share with us their testimonies, how they met, and more about Girl Defined Ministries.
testimonies
Dav grew up in the church, thought he came to know the Lord at age 3…and wore that as a badge of honor. “Who can even know at that age?”, he shares. Not sure about that anymore…over time growing up around Scripture and Christian friends, the environment he was in made it easy to believe that but he realizes now it took more than just being around Christian culture to actually know Christ intimately and be saved.
Bethany grew up in a very similar circumstance, having a very conservative family which is a huge blessing but realized there was so much spiritual pride there.
In her 20s she was in a relationship before Dav, and made the realization of, “Wow I chose to be in that relationship that wasn’t healthy, wasn’t God-honoring” with people telling her to get out of the relationship, yet in her pride and idolatry of wanting to be married and wanting to move into that season and wanting life to look how she wanted it to look she chose to stay in that unhealthy relationship.
After coming out of that relationship, she had a new understanding of God’s grace.
“Jesus didn’t come to die because I’m this perfect Christian, He came to die because I’m lost and broken and make stupid decisions and have idols.” — Bethany
This was a huge turning point for her. The Lord helped break the cycle of always trying to be good enough, feeling the need to measure up and work hard enough to be this perfect image of what a Christian should be. Instead, she began to really embrace God’s grace and really understand the gospel, and live it out in a new way.
“God allows us to go through things that drive us to our knees and drive us to understand His heart, and Jesus in a deeper way.”
spiritual pride
Pride can be very relevant in Christian communities, and what an abomination to God pride is. Pride completely gets in the way of intimacy and communication. Such a good reminder that we need Jesus, especially in marriage because you are always in each other’s business and can get puffed up or compare yourself one to the other, thinking what you’re doing is the right way and self-righteousness creeps in there.
the age difference
Dav is from Southern California, Bethany grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Dav and Bethany met at a church in Texas they were both going to, but there was a big age difference, 5.5 years to be exact. They got to know each other completely platonically in a friend group and it wasn’t until much later they expressed interest in each other and wasn’t until Bethany was 30 that they got married.
Bethany goes into how that was not her plan and never how she imagined her story being. Read their full love story and embracing all of life’s unexpected turns in her latest book, Not Part of the Plan.
Girl Defined
Girl Defined was a huge part of Bethany’s life before meeting Dav and they talked about what this would look like walking into marriage. What would it be like going from doing this as a single gal to now bringing a husband into this? Girl Defined started with her older sister, Kristen. Later in their high school years, they noticed a lot of girls questioning a lot of things they’d grown up in church learning, deconstructing their faith and they really wanted to reach the next generation who had questions about God and His Word. They wanted to come alongside parents with their daughters, to help these young women truly know Christ, so they don’t just have head knowledge to just ditch it all later down the road.
They have some experience speaking into girls’ lives being 2 of 5 girls (8 siblings total) and decided to start a website and blog 3x a week, which turned into a lot more. Their desire was simply getting the Word out and to disciple young women. Starting with no connections, and on a prayer, God expanded their reach when one of their blog posts went viral. They have since started a podcast, the Girl Defined Show, to take deeper dives on certain topics on sexuality, feminity, identity for example.
Dav gives us a husband’s take on jumping into a marriage with someone who has a platform and a ministry. Initially, he tried to be a “girl defined” himself, “being like that them”, even matching the way they spoke and realized that wasn’t a great thing to try and do. He’s still learning how to fit in, but bottom line: he very much appreciates what she does and supports her. He contributes with his background and job as a motion graphics designer. All the promo videos you see are Dav’s work.
teens and sexuality
Girl Defined also puts on an annual conference. They invite moms and daughters to come together and be built up, equipping them with resources and the Word of God to help them face teen battles head-on. I asked
A lot of today’s questions from teens revolve around identity. Finding their place and how they present themselves to the world is really confusing for teens today and is a really prevalent topic. Three of the most asked questions during the conference’s Q&A portion pertained to gender, sexuality, and performance. Society puts a lot of pressure on young people to know these things about themselves.
The biggest encouragement is to know whatever a teen may be going through is not permanent. It’s never too early to begin talking about these things, sexuality specifically, with them because they are already hearing it in their peer groups guaranteed. Just because they aren’t talking about it at home doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about it or aren’t hearing it and wondering about it. Topics pertaining to sexuality are coming through so many mediums today, TV shows (Netflix), social media, and online video games.
Bethany recommends another of their books, Sex Purity and The Longings of a Girl’s Heart if you have a 12 or 13-year-old. This is a perfect time to start equipping her to get ahead of the game and start to start disciplining.
Creating a space to talk about these things doesn’t mean you agreeing with them either, it just means you don’t have to destroy the relationship and it’s good to be a safe place for them to go to with questions.