Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.
Welcome. Links and other Bleeding Daylight episodes are at bleeding daylight.net, where you'll also find links for Facebook and Instagram. Where do we find stability if our work or life situation requires constantly relocating their life lessons for those who have a spouse who often needs to be absent from the home, Today's guest has lived such a life. Our employment choices often have real impact on marriage and family life. When a spouse is required to travel often or is involved in a
pressured work environment, it can put a strain on relationships, when that work also requires the family to move regularly. It can bring extra pressures, Beth rankles husband served in the US military for 25 years. And so she has experienced those pressures firsthand. Beth is a writer and speaker, her book, another move God 30 encouragement for embracing your life as a military wife is due out
later this year. I'm very pleased to welcome her to Bleeding Daylight. Beth, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Now I'm wondering if you could take me back to your early days of marriage those days, filled with new expectations, as you were just getting started on that part of life's journey, who would be the best that we would meet back then.
Unfortunately, I'm not very proud of who that would have been. I began my marriage, I dated my husband long distance, I really didn't know what to expect with marrying someone in the military. And actually, I'm thankful for that now, because I don't think I would have wanted to give up control as much as I really would have to. And I'm very happily married, but we moved three times our first year of
marriage. And then when we finally settled at the location that we would stay for two years, he deployed to the Middle East just soon after we unpacked our bags. And I found myself wondering what I had gotten myself into. I had previously been career oriented. And now you
know, I'd had a lot of hiccups. Just kind of wondered, wow, why have I chosen this lifestyle? And this is not really what I dreamed it would be like, you know, this isn't what I thought happily married Ever After was going to look like.
There's a big difference when you're married to someone who is serving on a bass at home to someone who's then deployed into the field. And there's extra stress that would come both for your husband and for yourself at that time, wouldn't it?
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. They are in dangers way. And you're back at home, that you also don't get to communicate as regularly as you might hope. And that really depends on what your spouse's mission is and how classified they have to stay. But it really introduces a good bit of isolation as this person that you wanted to spend your life with, you're not really getting to spend much of your life with it was a huge adjustment.
In those early days you, I guess were looking for coping mechanisms. And you perhaps would look back and say they weren't the right ones. But how did you try and cope in those early days?
Honestly, in the beginning, I think there was just a lot of pity parties, just feeling sorry for myself, looking for fulfillment and my spouse as my sole fulfillment. Ultimately, no one on this side of eternity can fulfill us or meet all of our needs, no matter how great they are, no matter if they're having to live away from home or away from home during the weeks, you know, as lots of employees have to travel nowadays. I just was looking for my fulfillment in the wrong thing.
How did that play out in life were with a really difficult times in those early years for for the marriage?
I found myself really being bitter towards my husband because of all that the military had put on our life. And we moved again, two years later. So it was just constant moving in transition. The military put a lot of difficulties in our path. You know, we had vacations that we didn't get to take because of military duty. At the time, we were living on a coast of the United States. And there were
hurricanes that came in frequently. And I got to stay home and deal with the hurricane and the flooding and the lack of electricity. Why my husband bravely flew away on his military jet. So there were just a lot of challenges. Unfortunately, There's a lot that happens outside of your control when you're serving your country and their military. I really blamed my husband for a lot of that, you know, which he couldn't
help, and it's necessary for our freedoms, and I just didn't have an appreciation for that I was pretty self consumed. But this resulted in us, you know, just really having some problems in marriage, because respect is really key for men. And my negative view and constant complaining about the military, you know, was communicated as disrespect towards my husband. And I think he really felt at a loss, you know, I
was just so discontent, and he was trying to lead me but we really weren't doing things the right way. Ultimately, we were invited to Bible
study I mentioned we moved again. And my husband ran into some people that he had known in college, and they invited us to go to a Bible study, In that Bible study, we eventually realize we did not have a relationship with Christ, and we recognized we were sinners and needed a relationship with Christ. But the biggest transformation came when we went to a marriage seminar that was offered there in that
marriage seminar, they gave us the biblical blueprint for marriage, and, you know, really outlined the roles in marriage, talked about how we are called to move towards oneness, but we will drift towards isolation, I began to understand how important respect was, and building my husband up. And we also recognize, I think, for the first time, that there was an enemy trying to destroy our marriage, but that it wasn't each other, you know, that ultimately, the enemy was Satan.
Help me understand a little bit about your background, Faith wise, because you're saying that there was this point where you realized, actually, we're not living as we should we're not living as a Christian couple. What was the faith background for you and your husband,
I grew up in a very loving home where we went to church regularly, but I did not understand a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I didn't really see myself as a sinner. I think I saw that if I wasn't an Axe Murderer, then you know, I was okay. And I was going to heaven. But that is not God's standard. And I had never read the Bible. For myself, it wasn't a part of my everyday life. I just felt
that we should try to work towards being a good person, but I didn't really see myself as a sinner in need of being saved. My husband had been raised going to church somewhat, until I think about he hit middle school years, he was more open to learning things of the faith more quickly than I was because he didn't have as much of a barrier to overcome to realize he didn't have all the answers. Unfortunately, I
did. And I had to realize that I really didn't understand true Christianity. And God had opened my eyes and my mind to see that through His Holy Spirit.
It's always a journey when we learn something new. And especially as we step into faith, as you both did it at this time, did you start to see things turn around instantly? Or was there this period where you're saying, Okay, we're trying to understand this, that we're trying to work this out before the penny finally started to drop for you.
I think it's both. When we began this Bible study we had already been seeking at this point. We had started going to church in the old location we lived but the basics of the faith were not being explained, we were still kind of checking the box to go to church. But when we began the Bible study, once we really understood the purpose of the gospel, that Jesus came to save sinners, and that, you
know, if we've only sinned, even one time we are a sinner in need of saving. We surrendered our lives to Christ, and we're all in we began to see the word of God come alive. We were studying Genesis at the time, we actually began in the story of Sarah and Abraham, we were also
going through a really hard hardship because I am an infertile woman. And of course, there are many of those in the Scriptures. And that was one of the reasons that I saw God is very personal, is that he would choose in His sovereignty, to ordain for me to start in the scriptures, you know, with the account of Sarah who was an infertile woman. And then obviously, we went on with Rachel, who had struggles with infertility.
And then Leah had some struggles of her own. Obviously, there were other women in the Old Testament as well. So that process of really surrendering to God's plan for our family was a process but we ultimately did, and came to trust the sovereignty of God so much that we were willing to trust His sovereign To even in how he would bring about our family. And as God did bring about our family, God
continued to grow our faith through that struggle, it was a very difficult thing. But in retrospect, I praise God for it even for the suffering, because of what it taught us about really being in relationship with a God who truly is alive and truly cares.
And it's interesting that that first study that you embarked on back then, as you were just coming into that new faith, of talking about Sarah, and Abraham has obviously stuck with you all these years later, because that's the basis of the book that you've written.
Yes. and that's because the word of God just really came alive to me as I began to study it. Here, I was struggling as a military wife, struggling being in my husband's shadow, struggling with re identifying my purpose, because I had been very career oriented prior to then and then struggling, not being able to have children that I so desperately wanted. God ordained for me to study Sarah, and right
away, I began to see my life being portrayed in the scriptures. Right away, I saw a military family in the picture of Sarah and Abraham. First of all, when God told Sarah and Abraham to go to a land that he would show them, you know, that was the first promise that he gave to them, you know, that he would make them into a great nation, if they followed him from or to Canaan, although they didn't even know where
they were going. I believe that's what military families go through. Often we call a permanent change of station or a PCS. And that's just the moving that we do. And I did that 14 times. During those 25 years, my husband was in the military. And then in addition to that, Abraham went off and fought when this 318 men when he went to rescue his nephew Lot from the Four Kings and all of their armies. And
so that was a combat deployment. And I believe Sarah was supporting him in prayer, while Abraham was off fighting, and just all the constant transitions that Sarah and Abraham made, you know, they went to Bethel, and then they went to the Oaks at Marham, and then they went down to
Egypt. And then they came back to Bethel. You know, there's just this constant resettling that I saw paralleling my life, it just really opened my eyes to what a personal God the Lord is, and how much he cares about us and how much the Word of God is living and active and sharper, and then a double edged sword, you know, that it could speak to the struggles that I was going through, even in the midst of my
military life that, you know, I consider it very modern compared to the Old Testament characters.
How long was it from that point, to the point where you decided, hey, this is good stuff, we really need to start sharing it with others, and you started working with other military couples?
At that marriage conference that I mentioned that we went to, that really transformed our view of marriage, they gave a pitch on the closing day of the conference, you know, that if you were really learning a lot from these principles, and getting a lot out of it, that they had these small group studies that you could take back to your home, and you could begin investing in marriages with
other people. My husband just thought what we were learning was just amazing. And we were very new Christians at this point. But we bought some of this small group studies, because we realized that marriages were struggling, but we think military marriages might be a
little bit harder, just to their frequent separations, the dangers you face, the constant transition. So we took these studies back to the small base that we were at, and we began leading small groups, and we would just invite other neighbors, other people working in my husband Squadron, just hey, we're gonna do this marriage study, would you like to join us, and we didn't have good biblical knowledge at this point. We
had not been believers a very long time. But my husband always says if you can read and tell time, you can actually lead a small group. So we took these guides and began doing them. And as I mentioned, we moved many more times. And what we realized was that we could make an impact on marriages around us. But in addition to that, we were also making deposits into our own marriage and reminding ourselves of
these very important principles that is so easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of life. And just how we become selfish so often, you know, we need to be reminded of how do we be a good spouse? How do we serve our spouse? How do we love them sacrificially. This also began the way that we cultivated community as we moved around, we would what we in the military called boots on the ground. That just means as soon as
you show up, we would begin inviting people. Hey, we're going to have this marriage small group study would you like to join notice. And that's really how we created our family away from home. Because obviously, with the exception of one time, we never really lived anywhere
near home. And that time was still a few hours drive. It also was a blessing for me because I went from having six months to a year of loneliness to really eliminating that time, because we were quickly engaging in and cultivating community, for ourselves, but also positively influencing those around us. And we just continue to do that the rest of my husband's career, it's just something we really
enjoyed. And one of the things that I realized that I was going to have to do in order to keep enjoying that was just lower my expectations of hospitality. I don't think I have the gift of hospitality, in a traditional sense, right? That everything would have to be perfect, and that I really entertain over the top I don't, I'm just basic, I open you into my home, because I believe that's a pathway of opening you into
my heart. On a really fancy day, you know, I might have thrown some slice and bake cookies in the oven. And on a normal day, I probably just brewed some coffee, it's just a way to have people over in your home, that it doesn't have to be perfect. And it doesn't have to be a big production. Especially when we had small children, toys still laying around the house, everything not perfect, it was totally acceptable in my
mind. In fact, I strove for that. Because I didn't want other people to think in order to have people over your home, you have to have a perfect home.
What I love about what you're describing there is you hadn't completed a journey. And then with sitting there to teach others. You were saying to people, right from the start, hey, we're on this journey. And we may or may not be one or two steps ahead of you. But will you join us in the journey? As together? We are learning? How often do you think that's missing from our communities where we feel that we need to have all the answers before we invite others on the journey?
Yeah, I think that's super common. I'm in a ministry now where I do discipleship. So one on one, I'm helping people grow in their faith. And I really started doing that very early on, I just kind of fell into it. Because of all the moving and you're not very long in the military before you are one of the older people. I believe that none of us ever feel like we are ready to spiritually invest in
someone else. Because we never all arrive right. The process of sanctification is a lifelong process, and we are all broken, we just have to start and all we have to do is find somebody that we are just one step ahead of them. And it doesn't even mean that there were
older than them. It's just maybe we've been a Christian a little bit longer than they have. And I really think one of the things that's important when you are helping someone grow spiritually, is being authentic and being willing to admit that you don't have it all together. Because realistically, none of us have it all together.
We hear the word disciple in the Bible quite often. And yet, we don't really see it so much in society of people being discipled, or even understanding what that means. And yet, we know that we're told explicitly in the scripture to go out and make disciples. Why do you think that is so missing from our Christian walk these days?
I think that the modern church has gotten sucked up in programs, and have forgotten the basics of the faith, and maybe even more sucked up in evangelism and forgotten that, you know, Matthew 28, when he tells us to go and make disciples and baptize them, we have to make disciples, we're not just converting them, we're making disciples. I am a part of a ministry where discipleship is stressed. But
one of the things that I have really learned is that it's just doing life with someone. It's just being authentic. For the cadets that I disciple, it's just sharing life with them, but also sharing with them my struggles. And yes, we do engage in the Word of God. I think that's an absolutely necessary component to discipleship. But I don't have to feel like you know, I have to have been a pastor, you
know, to feel equipped for that. I just have to love God, and be willing to teach others and walk alongside them. My discipleship looks a little bit different for the women that are moms that I disciple, but in that case, it's also just doing life with them. You know, in that situation, I usually get together with them with their their small children playing at our feet, because that's what works for her.
And we just work with it. My discipleship meetings, I think it's important that you create community, I think it's important you pray with them. You do engage in the word and then we also talk a little bit about hey, how's your walk, doing, you know, maybe some accountability questions, but it really is just being vulnerable enough to do live with other people and honestly, considering others and not have such a selfish perspective, right that we are only concerned about ourselves.
We seem to have turned discipleship into maybe a once a week or once a couple of weeks catch up, and just straight into the Word. And that's it. And yet, what you're describing here is this constant walking alongside and it sounds a lot closer to the discipleship that we see in scripture where, of course, there's the teaching, of course, there's the learning as part of that. But there's also that this is how I do life generally. How important is that?
I think it's super important. It's hard to do in today's society, right? Most of our churches will call their
discipleship programs, they're really just classes. And they're very beneficial. I mean, most of my spiritual formation happen, and that format, but I really think that we can challenge people a lot more when we are doing live one on one with them, because then we really get to get under the surface and address some maybe more significant issues that might be covered in a class, you know, one on one, people are
gonna be a lot more apt to open up, or to be honest about what they're struggling with. Part of what opens people up for that is, I'm intentional to be authentic with the people a disciple that I struggle with things to, and even share specifics with them, you know, hey, I'm really struggling with anger. And I really want you to ask me about how I'm doing with anger when my kids are on this summer. I think
that we open up the conversation when we admit that we do not have it all together, we're not perfect. And I also think it's super important to pray for those who are discipling, and to pray for the Holy Spirit to be very evident in their life. You know, those women that I have close discipleship relationships with, I really trust the Holy Spirit to convict them of things, perhaps, that I'm aware of. And it's so much
more effective. When the Spirit does that as a part of our relationship, then I don't come across as somebody who's judgmental and hypocritical and pretends I have it all together, you know, we're just again, doing life together. And both of us relying on the Holy Spirit, but recognizing that we are broken, imperfect people. We need Jesus every day, not just for salvation.
One of the things that I think is important with the way that you're describing discipleship and those that you've specifically discipled is that you're walking a similar life to them, especially for those military spouses that it's like, Yes, I understand the day to day that we're facing the same struggles, and we're facing the same issues. And this is how I walk in that. Is that an important facet of discipleship?
I mean, I think it can be for sure. So I've taken some seminary classes, you know, in some of my missions classes, they talk about how much more effective we are with sharing the gospel and making disciples when we take people that are of that people group, right and share the gospel with them. And then we get them to go to their tribe or area of the world, and share the gospel with them in their heart
language, in their contextualization to their culture. I think the same thing happens in my community, with the military, I mean, believe it or not, in at least the US military, we have our own language, we have all kinds of acronyms that the normal person does not understand. And we also have our own culture, the way we do things. So I think it's a lot more effective when you do have shared experiences. But at the same
time, I mean, I've discipled babysitter's who don't have anything to do with the military. And just young moms I've met, we do still have some commonalities, you know, in that we are women trying to follow Jesus Christ, the women that are going to be going and serving in the military that I disciple, and also the military spouses, you know, I'm able to share about what the military life will be like, because
I did it. I did not serve in uniform, like the women that I disciple who are going to serve in uniform, but I served alongside my man for 25 years while he did and I spent a lot of time on military bases, and therefore I speak military. It's just really helpful for them to talk to someone else who has a little bit of experience about it, especially when they come from a family that doesn't have a military
background, because it's all new for them. So I think there is some benefit to having commonality and shared experiences with people again, it just helps you to be more authentic, just to speak the same language and that person, even though Oh, you know, I'm a lot older than them. And they're a lot younger than me there's commonality and they say, Wow, I can relate to her because she went through, you know what I will be experiencing?
Unfortunately, these days, we live in a very consumer based society. And so we're often looking for what's in it for me. And I can imagine, even some people listening, thinking, I wish I'd had someone to disciple me, in those younger years. How important is it that we actually turn that around and say, well, maybe I should be discipling, someone else,
I actually think that all of us should be discipling someone and then we should have someone older, or again, more spiritually mature than us investing in us. That's something that I am intentional to do. Even now, I reached out to a woman much older
than me at my church, and she's investing in me. And all of the places I've lived, I've had a woman investing in me, but I am the one who takes that initiative to go and say, you know, looking at Titus two for women, right, the model, I should be having an older woman teaching me and I should be teaching a younger woman. This is not modeled for us, right? In our consumer eyes, culture. Unfortunately, what is
modeled for us is that it's all about me. But at the same time, I can absolutely tell you that I have so much joy, and what I get to do as my full time ministry, now, it's an absolute blessing. I get to watch a lot of women walk from knowing about Jesus to knowing him, loving Him, and walking in freedom with him. I get to watch women in bondage to their sin and addictions, walking in freedom and having so much joy,
because Jesus has set them free. And I personally think that I have the greatest job in the world. Yeah, it takes time. Yes, I'm investing in other people. It brings me joy, but it also builds my faith. I know more and more how real Jesus is and how real his freedom is, because I get to watch it lived out. Sometimes that's lived down in people's struggles or my struggles. But God is still good, even when our
circumstances are not. And it's so rewarding to watch that be played out. And just to get to do life with someone to have a very authentic relationship with them.
We touched on your book a little earlier. But I'm interested, what was it that prompted you to write this book was it a case of, I want to distill the things that I've been sharing with others, so that I can have that wider audience so that more people can know about the sorts of encouragement that are going to help them on their journey?
Honestly, it really wasn't. So I mentioned, I've led women's Bible studies in my home on most of the bases. That was another way that I cultivated community for myself, is that if I showed up at a base, and I didn't immediately find out about a women's Bible study, I just start hosting one of my home. One of the things that I noticed throughout those 14 moves is that there could be great common shared
experiences with these other women serving in uniform in the military spouses that usually met on my living room floor. And we would always enjoy discussing the scriptures together, or perhaps a workbook that dealt with a common struggle of just the Christian life
or women. I noticed that there was never specifically any content to address some of our unique concerns as military women, the frequent separations from our spouse, the constant moving, that chaos and uncertainty, I mean, our lives are just completely out of our control all the time. Also, you know, a husband deployed in combat or you yourself to play in combat, I kind of had in the back of my mind that
it sure would be great for there to be some specific content written to address some of the military family concerns. And then actually, a
project came to me a few years ago with an idea to write some content specifically for military wise. And so it's just really the word of God using to encourage the military woman, either woman in serving uniform or wife, and just how to relate that to her life in the unique challenges that she faces and just to recognize that the word of God does have encouragement for her unique lifestyle.
Beth I'm sure there's going to be people that will want to stay in touch with you. They'll want to know once that book is released, but also to just keep in touch with you your writings on your website. Where is the easiest place for people to connect with you?
So I have a website it's bethrunkle.com. and my last name is spelled r u n k l e.com. I do blog primarily about military wife life. Also on Instagram, bethrunklewrites, I do military wife advice every single week, I'll do a topic and then I do short reels and content on that topic of the week. And the book is coming out in October, it'll be on Amazon, another move of God, it's already actually
available for pre orders. I know there's people that have to leave their home for work and are away from their spouse at times, or who are perhaps moving frequently. And I think that the book would have a lot of relevant content related to that. A lot of us now in our world live a transient out of our control lifestyle, but we can trust the sovereignty of God who maintains control above it all. Birth,
I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you easily. But I just want to say thank you again for your time. Thank you for opening up your story and sharing that with others and for many lives that you've touched. Thank you.
No, thank you so much. My pleasure.
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