Because He Lives, You Can Face an Uncertain Future, with Carol Anne Beck

This isn’t an ordinary week on Grounded! As we count down to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, the Grounded hosts are gathering some of their favorite guests for a special Holy Week series. In this episode, hear from Carol Anne Beck, who shares how the resurrection helps us face even the most uncertain future with hope. 

Episode Notes

• “Lighting a Candle When Life Feels Dark, with Carol Anne Beck” video 
• “You Can Trust God to Write Your Story” video  

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Portia Collins: Welcome to a special Holy Week edition of Grounded. I'm Portia Collins.

Erin Davis: And I'm Erin Davis. And this is nothing new, we're here every Monday handing out two things everybody needs hope and perspective. But this isn't your ordinary week.

Portia: That's right. We wanted to do something extra special. Grounded is every day Monday through Friday. But as we move forward towards celebrating Jesus' resurrection this weekend, we kind of wanted to change things up a little bit this week. 

Erin: Yep, a daily Grounded instead of a weekly this week in celebration of the biggest event that ever happened in human history. Our hope in doing this daily is that this will tenderize all of our hearts. I don't know how many Easters I've gotten to and sat down in church on Resurrection Sunday morning and thought, I missed Jesus this week in my life. And we don't want that to happen for you or for us. 

We hope that these episodes give all of us freshness for what Jesus has done. We hope that you show up to worship on Sunday morning ready to celebrate the good news that Jesus is alive. And so, today we're gonna focus on the theme “because He lives, we can face tomorrow.” And man, am I glad we have hope. 

Portia: Yes, absolutely. I'm super glad. Because some days, I'm a little reluctant to face tomorrow. 

Erin: Yeah, I feel ya. 

Portia: I think I'm gonna need these reminders from every day this week. Well, we're gonna kick off every episode this week with a Scripture reading taken from the events of Holy Week that are recorded specifically in the Gospels.

Erin: That's right. We hope that you'll read along with us much of what the Bible records about what happened the Monday of Holy Week centers around Jesus' authority. 

And if you're going to look to the future with hope, that's something you got to get squared in your mind, Jesus is in charge. 

So, this was the day of Holy Week when Jesus cleansed the temple. You probably know that story. And a rather mysterious passage, I think, this was the day He cursed the fig tree.

Portia: If you want to read all about all of that, you can check it out. We're gonna drop references to these passages, but you can check out Matthew 21:12–22. 

Erin: There they are up on the screen. Jot them down. 

Portia: There you go, right there on the screen, Luke 19:45–48 and Mark 11:12–19. And so, like I said, we'll drop those in the chat for you. But today I am going to read Luke 19:45–48. So, I want you to grab your Bibles and read with me. 

Erin: I got mine P, I’m ready. 

Portia: Are you ready? Let's go. It says,

He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling, and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!

Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people were looking for a way to kill him, but they could not find a way to do it, because all the people were captivated by what they heard.

Erin: Thanks, P. What a rich passage. I've often prayed, “Lord, I do not want You to turn over the tables in my heart in my life because I have wrong motives.” 

So, that's a good passage for you to park in and think through today as we move towards Resurrection Sunday. This week, we've gathered some of our Grounded favorites for these Holy Week episodes and Carol Anne Beck certainly qualifies. Dannah, let's get grounded with God's people.

Dannah Gresh: I would love to know of course; this is normally where we head into some good news. But this week, Jesus is the good news each and every day. 

Erin: Amen. 

Dannah: So, we're just gonna dive into our interview with Carol Anne Clemmins Beck. She's a wife, a mother of two and a Christian school music teacher. She was widowed at the tender age of twenty-four after only two-and-a-half years of marriage. Maybe you were with us when she shared that full story. Several weeks ago, her journey of joy through grief began and continues to this day. Carol Anne, you are a Grounded favorite. Welcome back.

Carol Anne Beck: Hi, thank you so much for having me back. This is a privilege.

Dannah: Hey, you told the story of losing your husband. You told it so beautifully, so tenderly, and with so much hope. Even though we all had out our tissues, like a whole box of them that day, we invited you back for this special holy edition week of Grounded because we're just mindful of the fact that so many are facing Resurrection Sunday with heavy hearts. 

So, I wonder in those days after you lost your husband, were the holidays especially painful and lonely?

Carol Anne: Oh, absolutely. Because holidays are a time that you gather around family and you love all those traditions that you get to have. Not having those people with you that you get to experience those big holidays with is just extra painful around those times of year, absolutely. 

Dannah: An extra reminder. Well, I wonder if you can take us to one of those hard days after you lost your sweet husband and you're thinking, what's my future look like? What do I do? And where do I go? What step do I take? Where do I plant my foot next? Can you take us maybe to one of those hard days after the funeral after the visitations after everyone was lavishing love on you and you had to start to live out everyday life? Take us there.

Carol Anne: I know exactly the moment to go to. For those of you that did hear my full testimony, you knew that I was traveling on an evangelistic ministry team during the time that my husband passed away. They were so kind to let me and my then little infant son continue to travel. 

I remember it was our spring break time. So, it would have been a right around Easter that this happened. The whole team split up for the week to go back to their homes and places that they were going to rest for the week. 

I remember it sinking in a new and deeper way that they get to go and rest for the week. They get to spend time with family. And I don't get rest. I don't get a reprieve from the weight that I'm feeling. I'm not gonna say for the first time, because it hits like bricks in the face every morning. But that's the moment when it felt like this is mine, and it's not going away. This is going to be the rest of my life in waves. I know that God will continue to give me victory and new steps along the way. But that's when everyone walks away to go rest and I realized that my wait was not going away. 

I remember I spent so much time in Romans 8. I want to read just a little bit of it here, Romans 8 verses 18–21.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

And as that hope that each of us in Christ can have even in the darkest of days and the heaviest days where I felt like even breathing physically was difficult. There was hope; there is hope because of what Christ has accomplished. Because of what He started in me that He promises to bring to completion and me.

Dannah: How did that clinging to that Scripture change those moments when you did go off, as you say, to rest, and it looks different? It didn't feel like the rest that you would have enjoyed with your husband? How did Jesus show up on those days as you meditated on that hope from Scripture?

Carol Anne: I learned a rest that I had not known up until that time in life. When we hear rest we think okay, I'm gonna get to sleep and a little bit more, and stay up late with friends or have gatherings. I learned a spiritual rest that I had not known to that point because the physical rest wasn't there. Nights were hard; every day was hard. 

But that spiritual rest that you can have that God brought to me in those darkest moments, because of the hope that I know that a God who loves me, who has accomplished salvation, for me was working His best for me and in me every moment of every day. I clung to that for life. Because if I didn't have that, if we don't have that, we have nothing. I understood for the first time why those in grief, why those without Christ at all run to anything they can to dull the pain. I understood that, and I'm so thankful that God rescued me from so many of those vices that come with grief. 

Dannah: Yeah.

Carol Anne: Did not lift me above the pain. I still walk through it in ways, but the hope that we have grounds us because of the security that we know what's coming. We have a loving God who will only always do what is best for me.

Dannah: You mentioned something that I think is really important. Each of us in our grief, whatever our grief is from. In your case losing a husband. Other people are grieving prodigal children this Holy Week. Others are grieving broken marriages this week—broken dreams, grieving financial failure. 

You do have a craving in that grief to reach out for a medication for relief from the pain. It could be scrolling social media; it could be eating; it could be sleeping pills; it could be alcohol. I mean, it could be shopping. It could be something that's not even in and of itself sinful, except you're reaching out for something other than Jesus. 

I found that in my moments when I have been in that place, that the nap didn't refresh me the way that 10 minutes and God's Word did. A two-hour nap couldn't do in my body and my spirit what 10 minutes talking to Jesus could do. 

I had to choose to reach out for the true medicine for my soul, the Healer of my heart. Did you find that you had to make that decision on a pretty regular basis as you were walking through that?

Carol Anne: Every single moment, it was the easiest thing in the world, especially with a little kid who's constantly hung at the hip. I just wanted to sit in front of my phone and scroll. I just wanted some mindless activity to distract me from the moment by moment, mental battle it is to choose to preach truth to yourself. 

But you're absolutely right. None of those are meant to give us rest. He truly did create a joyous world for us to enjoy, but He never created any of it to give us satisfaction we are created to find in Him, which we gain through Scripture.

Dannah: Well, your story is beautiful. In fact, we're going to drop a link to the full story from our previous episode when we had you as a guest. Could you remind us how long it's been since you lost Mark, and bring us up to date on where you are today?

Carol Anne: Absolutely. It's been just a little bit over five years. I lost Matt on December 17, 2017. 

Dannah: Matt. 

Carol Anne: That's okay. It's been just a little bit over five years. God did bring me another husband who I met while traveling on an evangelistic team. We have a daughter together. So, I'm married now just a little over two-and-a-half years. Our daughter is about 19 months old now.

Dannah: Yeah, and you need to hear the full story. So, check out that link, because that daughter has a very precious name for a very precious reason. Tell us this as we close, what advice do you have for someone who's grieving through this Holy Week?

Carol Anne: Cling to the cross. I think whR a precious time of focus we have built into our calendar schedule, to focus on the cross, and to focus on the hope that Jesus brings. 

I remember leading up to the resurrection, it was always such a heavy week as you focus on what Christ went through in bearing my sin and my shame. It's so heavy, and you get to Sunday morning, and it's just this joy of celebration because of what Christ has already accomplished. Our victory is short, and it's promised to us. 

Go to Scripture this week. You are not going to find rest in scrolling. That's a daily reminder for me. I so needed to hear that today. You're not going to find it in your family. You're not going to find it in anything outside of Scripture. So, discipline yourself and gaze into the face of God through Scripture this week.

Dannah: What a sweet invitation. Thank you, Carol, for being with us. Once again, you are a blessing. You’re precious. God bless you.

Carol Anne: Praise the Lord. 

Dannah: Well, you may be in a situation where you need rest and feel like, “I don't know how I could possibly get it given the struggles and the grief in my life.” Well, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth reminds us that we can trust God in those hard moments. Here she is with a brief teaching based on her book, You Can Trust God to Write Your Story.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: God is writing a story in and through your life. God works in unexpected ways, unexplainable ways to accomplish His purposes. He's not random. He's always working to accomplish purposes that He has in mind.

No matter what has happened to us, or no matter what we have done, or no matter the era in which we live and the circumstances of our lives, we can be objects of His grace and be a part of His redemptive story that He is writing in human history. 

God's story is about fitting us and preparing us for heaven, changing us, making us into His likeness, transformation. It's about His kingdom coming, His will being done on earth in us as it is in heaven. And that means He's got to change us. 

God is infinitely wise. There's no such thing as happenstance or an accident. There's no plot twist in your story that He's not aware of, or that He can't overcome. God sovereignly and purposefully ordains and orchestrates all the circumstances of this world and of our lives. He's creating a beautiful, compelling work of art, a masterpiece. You can trust God to write your story.

Erin: Amen, some of you are going to walk away from this broadcast thinking that is what you came for, just that thought, that you can trust God to write your story. 

I knew Carol Anne would get us to the word, and she did. That I hope is one of the hallmarks of Grounded—that every voice you hear is going to point you to the Word of God. So, we always say it sounds silly to now say we're going to get grounded in God's Word. We're going to stay grounded in God's Word. I hope you'll always have your Bible handy as you're watching or listening to Grounded. 

This morning, I want to point you to Psalm 31, verses 14 and 15. And as you're turning there, I want to remind you and remind myself that for all of us, two things are simultaneously true. And how can they be simultaneously true? Only in the providence of God? 

One of them is that all of us face uncertain futures. You don't have to bury your husband in your twenties to feel like your future is uncertain. You don't have to have a prodigal child to feel like your future is uncertain. None of us knows what tomorrow holds or the next decade or the rest of our lives. 

So, every person listening to my voice right now, this episode is for you, because we all face uncertain futures. 

But the mystery is that at the same time that we stare down the runway of our lives and don't know what's coming. For those of us who know Christ, our futures are not uncertain at all. 

Listen to what the psalmist wrote here in Psalm 31, verses 14–15.

But I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!

You can always tell when it is a Davidic Psalm because he is always seemingly being pursued by those who would want to harm him. But what is the “but therefore” in this passage there for? 

Well, if you read the first verses of this psalm, David had a lot going on as usual. People were after him again. The culture around him was turning toward worthless idols. He calls that out in this psalm again. I don't have to draw the line there. Our culture is certainly turning towards worthless idols. 

He was in distress; he was honest about it. He was grieving. He was honest about that. Maybe it felt a lot like the grief that Carol Anne experienced where she just wanted some rest. 

He described terror on every side. His heart, if you read those first verses of the psalm, his heart was essentially saying, “What is going to happen to me, God? What's going to happen to my kingdom? What's going to happen to my enemies?” 

Now, Scripture doesn't tell us the answer to those questions, at least not specifically. We do know what happened to David in his kingdom. And God apparently didn't tell David well, this is what's going to happen here, and this is what's going to happen there, and this is going to happen to that enemy, and your kingdom’s gonna win. That's not how we operate. But David did what he almost always does in the Psalms, he reached the pivot point. 

He said, essentially, if you read the whole song, I don't know what my future holds. I don't know what's gonna happen here. But I do know who holds my future. So, I will trust in You. I will keep putting my faith in You, because ultimately, verse 15, my times are in Your hand. 

The resurrection is for those of us who stare down the road of our lives and we can't figure out what comes next. But because He lives, our days are in His hands. And for everything we don't know, that's pretty much everything, there's one thing we do know. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. And so can you. Dannah.

Dannah: Erin, you make me want to sing that old song.

Erin: Me too!

Dannah: I can hear my Nanna Rose singing it right now. I her voice just lifted to the Lord. That was one of her favorite hymns to sing. It's so good. We can face tomorrow.

Portia: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, hurry back tomorrow. Joy McClain . . . listen, her name says it all. 

Erin: I love Joy McClain. 

Portia: She is another Grounded favorite. She is going to be here sharing because He lives, we can entrust our loved ones to Jesus. Let's wake up with hope together tomorrow on Grounded.

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